The NY Times’ Israeli-Hating Reporter - Ari Lieberman

by Ari Lieberman

The majority of news outlets covering the story understood that the shootings were provoked by deadly attacks and did not simply emerge from a vacuum. But Diaa Hadid and her editors at the New York Times have a different agenda, one that substitutes objective reporting with yellow journalism, propaganda and obfuscation.

On April 25, the New York Times, the paper that placed second as the most dishonest reporter in 2014 and placed first the preceding year, ran the following headline, “Israeli Police Officers Kill Two Palestinian Men.” The article was authored by Diaa Hadid; more on her later. Not until one starts reading the article does one understand why the shootings occurred and under what circumstances. In both instances, Israeli security forces came under attack by knife and hatchet wielding Palestinian terrorists and in at least one of those incidents, the attacker succeeded in stabbing an Israeli, though thankfully, his injuries were non-life threatening.

Clearly Hadid has difficulty understanding (or accepting) the concept of cause and effect – terrorist attempts to stab Israeli and Israeli responds by defending himself and shooting terrorist. Consider the manner in which other news outlets covered the event. The Jerusalem Post ran the following headline in connection with precisely the same story; “Terrorist shot dead after stabbing Border Policeman in Hebron.” The left-leaning Ha’aretz ran something similar; “Palestinian tries to stab police officers in Jerusalem and is shot dead, police says.” And the Boston Herald noted the following; “Israeli police: 2 Palestinians shot dead after knife attacks.”

Hadid also used the article to remind readers of an anti-Arab terrorist attack perpetrated by an Israeli that occurred more than 21 years ago and resulted in the deaths of 29. Absent from her reportage of course is the Arab pogrom, massacre and expulsion of the peaceful Jewish community of Hebron in 1929 that resulted in the deaths of 69 civilians. Nor does she bother noting that following the Arab occupation of Hebron in 1948, Arabs embarked on a systematic campaign to eradicate all vestiges of Jewish presence in the city. The ancient Jewish cemetery of Hebron (which incidentally, contained the bodies of some of the victims of the 1929 massacre) was desecrated and synagogues were either destroyed or converted into animal pens.

The majority of news outlets covering the story understood that the shootings were provoked by deadly attacks and did not simply emerge from a vacuum. But Diaa Hadid and her editors at the New York Times have a different agenda, one that substitutes objective reporting with yellow journalism, propaganda and obfuscation. I performed an internet search for Hadid and came across some disturbing information that may shed a little light on her reporting.

Hadid had previously worked as public relations officer for Ittijah, A virulently anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian NGO. According to NGO monitor, Ittijah’s head, Amir Makhoul, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for spying for Hezbollah. The group endorses the anti-Semitic Boycott Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement, propagates the repugnant “Apartheid” calumny and supports the so-called Palestinian “Right of Return,” a common moniker used by Israel’s enemies in lieu of calls for outright destruction of the Jewish State to make the concept genocide more palatable to Western audiences. Hadid’s past high-level association with Ittijah should have at the very least, raised alarm bells at the New York Times and should have constituted sufficient cause to preclude her from coming anywhere near the Israel Desk.

But there’s more on Hadid. In an article entitled “My Israel, My Palestine” Hadid is quoted as saying “I can’t look at Israelis anymore. I can’t separate your average Israeli citizen from the occupation, I don’t want to be friends with them, I don’t want to talk to them.” She is further quoted as saying, “To this day I’d never say that I am anti-anybody. But did my objectivity get thrown out the window? Yes, because I had an Israeli gun pointing at me, not a Palestinian one.” So there you have it. Hadid unabashedly acknowledges that her objectivity has been tossed out the window and that goes a long way in explaining why the New York Times hired her.

Ari Lieberman is an attorney and former prosecutor who has authored numerous articles and publications on matters concerning the Middle East and is considered an authority on geo-political and military developments affecting the region.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/ari-lieberman/the-ny-times-israeli-hating-reporter/

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