Sex, Lies and the New York Times (Again)

Having made plagiarism and invention a journalistic art in the past few years (Maureen Dowd, Jayson Blair), it should come as no surprise that the staff at the Grey Lady is either incapable of telling the truth or incapable of professional journalism, or both.

I always believed that integrity meant speaking Truth to Power....even if the Power in question was your peer group and political fellow travelers.

The Times fails that test spectacularly.

I am lifting this wholesale from Elder of Ziyon so he gets full faith and credit for calling it in.

The Grey Lady quotes (apparently without checking, or more likely, without caring) an Egyptian journalist who claims "The US President emphasized the historical relationship binding the US & Israel, and condemned the “violence” of Palestinians “who fire rockets at sleeping children” and the “bombing of buses full of innocent civilians and elderly passengers.” It must be remembered that the last Palestinian suicide bombing took place in November 2004, and that their primitive home-made rockets usually don’t kill Israelis. "

2004? Guess again.

As Elder so succinctly put it: "Well, he's only off by four years and 12 suicide bombings."

Since November 2004 we have:

Jan 18, 2005 - An ISA officer was killed, an IDF officer seriously wounded, and 4 IDF soldiers and 3 members of the ISA were lightly wounded in a suicide bombing attack at the Gush Katif junction in the central Gaza Strip. While search procedures were being carried out, the suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body detonated himself. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. (ed--But Hamas also keeps insisting we open these borders so that their "martyrs" can detonate inside Israel in large, crowded forums of civilians instead of only at border crossings.)


Feb 25, 2005 - Five people were killed and 50 wounded Friday night, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Stage Club on the Tel Aviv promenade at around 11:20 P.M., on the corner of Herbert Samuel and Yonah Hanavi streets. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

July 12, 2005 - Five people were killed and about 90 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside Hasharon Mall in Netanya. The bomber was identified as Ahmed Abu Khalil, 18, from the West Bank village of Atil. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Aug 28, 2005 - A suicide bomber detonated himself outside the Beersheba Central Bus Station. Two security guards who stopped the bomber were severely wounded and about 50 people were lightly wounded or treated for shock. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. (ed--Oh, yeah, a bus terminal!! Now there's a "military target," huh?)

Oct 26, 2005 - Six people were killed and 55 wounded, six seriously, in a suicide bombing at the Hadera open-air market. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. (ed--This should prove interesting since a number of the dead were Hadera-area Arabs who swore blood feud after their family members were butchered.)

Dec 5, 2005 - Five people were killed and over 50 wounded in a suicide bombing at the entrance to the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya. The terrorist detonated the bomb when he was stopped by security guards, one of whom was killed. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 29, 2005 - Lt. Ori Binamo, 21, of Nesher was killed when a terrorist en route to carry out an attack in Israel detonated himself at roadblock set up near Tulkarm following an intelligence tip. A second intended suicide terrorist was also killed in the blast as well as the taxi driver and a third passenger. Three soldiers and seven Palestinians were wounded.

Jan 19, 2006 - Thirty-one people were wounded in a suicide bombing in a shawarma restaurant near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv. The Jerusalem Battalions of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mar 30, 2006 - Four people were killed when a suicide bomber hitchhiker disguised as an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student detonated his explosive device in a private vehicle near the entrance to Kedumim. (Ed--left unsaid is that the four unfortunate people picked him up because they thought he was a young guy hitchhiking home.)

Apr 17, 2006 - Eleven people were killed and over 60 wounded in a suicide bombing during the Passover holiday near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv, at the Rosh Ha'ir shawarma restaurant, site of the Jan 19 bombing. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Jan 29, 2007 - Three employees of a bakery in the southern city of Eilat were killed in a suicide bombing. The Islamic Jihad and the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

Feb 4, 2008 - Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73, of Dimona was killed and 38 wounded - Razdolskaya's husband critically - in a terror attack carried out by a suicide bomber at a shopping center in Dimona. A police officer shot and killed a second terrorist before he detonated his explosive belt. A Hamas statement from Gaza praised the attack, calling it an "heroic act".

Then there's the "primitive home-made rockets" lie that the Palestine Pimps keep circulating.

The technical difference between a "rocket" and a "missile" is that the former doesn't have a guidance system and the latter does. And don't think for a minute that Hamas and their sub-contractors aren't working on a way to put guidance systems into their Kassams.

So a lot of the missiles now are Grads and Katyushas. Both are fairly advanced, modern weaponry by anyone's standards. The fact that we in Israel don't have more fatalities says more about our dedication to bomb shelters, classrooms in bomb shelters, 'safe rooms' in individual homes and 'safe shelters' for children to play in.

Second, the Kassam has advanced beyond the "primitive home-made rocket" stage and now is a sophisticated, albeit sans GPS (for the moment,bli neder) rocket that is a killer. Ask the families of the dead.

And the NYT's blithely accepts the Egyptian journalist's claims without ever investigating them or even noting that 4,548 rockets, even if they're near misses instead of fatalities, is a form of lethal terrorism which makes normal life impossible. This is no different from the London Blitz, except that it's rockets instead of bombs. The Brits learned to sleep in the Tube at night; we've learned in the South to live underground as much as possible. We each deal with murderous fascism as best we can, and go on fighting for our survival.

And the Palestinians complain about checkpoints?!!