New York Times Blames Israel First, As Usual

From the New York Times‘s Sabrina Tavernise and Ethan Bronner, a worthy follow-up to the thoroughly execrable and now unavailable “10 Reported Killed” story with which the New York Times began its Gaza Flotilla coverage. That one was Isabel Kershner’s handiwork, and the very end of this gem notes that she contributed here as well. Heartwarming teamwork at the Paper of Record:

The attempted takeover turned into an armed assault, with angry Israeli commandos opening fire. Within an hour, the commandos had taken control of the ship, and nine Turks, including one who also had American citizenship, were dead. Dozens of interviews in Israel and Turkey suggest that Israel’s decision to stop the flotilla at all costs collided with the intention of a small group of Islamic activists from Turkey, turning a raid on a ship of protesters in international waters into a bloodbath — and a major international event.

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It’s particularly charming how the IHH-backed jihadists are described as a “small group of Islamic activists,” the IHH being the Hamas supporting group of Turkey-acknowledged terrorists which literally sponsored the boat. Merely calling them “activists” is something that any liberal apologist could have done. But that the lynch mob was an unrepresentative “small group” among the larger “ship of protesters” is why the NYT is virtually parody-proof.

The only thing left is to explain how the jihadists “misunderstood Islam” when they broke out into genocidal Islamic war songs celebrating Mohammed’s mass murder and enslavement of Jews. Then, later in the article, there’s this:

But Israel, committed to enforcing a blockade, did not consider alternatives like searching the cargo before unloading it in Gaza — a decision that has prompted criticism that Israel was too quick to choose confrontation and fell into a trap set by the activists.

I’m honestly not sure what’s going on here. They’re obviously trying to misleadingly imply – without actually lying – that Israel opted to raid the ship instead of delivering inspected cargo to Gaza. That’s not the confusing part, even if it is obnoxiously dishonest. The idea is to maintain plausible deniability by writing only things that are not strictly false, while leading the reader to an inaccurate impression.

It’s similar to how they put the word “angry” in front of “Israeli commandos opening fire.” The fact that the commandos were angry is true and the fact that they opened fire is true. But the implied cause-and-effect is false insofar as the Israelis were in fact highly disciplined and didn’t open fire until the mob was within seconds of successfully kidnapping and killing soldiers.

AP journalist Ibrahim Barzak has been availing himself of a related trick for years, where he inserts gratuitous credibility-eroding phrases like “Israeli officials said” or “according to Israeli officials” in front of demonstrably true statements (e.g. “Israeli officials said that the Palestinians were heavily armed…” when there’s video showing they were heavily armed).

So that’s the target that Tavernise and Bronner are aiming for. Here’s the thing though: I genuinely can’t tell why think they’re being clever, or how they think they’ve avoided outright lying. The paragraph just seems flat out untrue.

Israel very much did offer to let the ships dock, at which point they would search the cargo and then transport it into Gaza. That was one of the first videos the IDF put out. The just published extended cut of that video has the flotilla passengers telling the young IDF soldier to go back to Auschwitz, which isn’t really relevant to unpacking the NYT paragraph but is just something for you to consider while you muse over the article’s snide “Israel was too quick to choose confrontation” jab.

It can’t be that they’re saying that the IDF commandos should have boarded the ship, then taken it to Gaza themselves for inspection and unloading. That interpretation does kind of mesh with the snide bit about Israel being “committed to enforcing a blockade,” but it really can’t be their point. First of all, can you imagine what would have happened if the Israelis rolled into Gaza’s port with aid? After they were met by Hamas soldiers and the human shields they hide behind, the headlines about how “Israeli commandos use aid to reinvade Gaza” would write themselves. It’s also kind of a nonsensical counterfactual, since the Israelis didn’t even have time to hit the deck before the NYT-described “activists” on board starting trying to brain them with metal pipes.

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They might be referencing one of the many utopian musings that were floated by one of the many people who were not in charge of the flotilla. So maybe someone in a meeting somewhere proposed having the cargo inspected by the mind-blowingly shameless Hamas shills who run the U.N. operations in Gaza. It could have happened. The article doesn’t specify who proposed any of the fabled “alternatives,” so technically anything could have happened. It really does matter, though, who would be doing the inspecting, because that would explain why the Israelis “too quickly” dismissed the proposal.

Someone who suspected the NYT of anti-Israel animus might be suspicious of how vague this critical reference is, given the importance of that particular detail.

Ah well. At least it’s not as obnoxious as the aww-shucks “local man/woman got interdicted while abetting genocidal lunatics” portraits that NPR and the San Francisco Chronicle have been running.

And, to be fair, it’s nice to see that the NYT has finally found an Exodus-style ship that it can cover favorably. The paper very famously excoriated the Jewish refugees of the original 1947 version. But give them a new 2010 Exodus, which isn’t so much filled with Holocaust survivors as with anti-Jewish bigots dedicated to creating another Holocaust?

That’s a campaign they can get behind.