 “What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood?” asks Thomas Friedman. He’s a New York Times columnist, so he takes a while longer than most of us to work things out: Here’s my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced — I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is.
But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled “Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam,” and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America — the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by “The Narrative.”
By “The Narrative”, Friedman means the general anti-Western, anti-democratic sentiment clung to throughout the Arab-Muslim world:
This narrative suits Arab governments. It allows them to deflect onto America all of their people’s grievances over why their countries are falling behind. And it suits Al Qaeda, which doesn’t need much organization anymore — just push out The Narrative over the Web and satellite TV, let it heat up humiliated, frustrated or socially alienated Muslim males, and one or two will open fire on their own. See: Major Hasan.
So much for the “pre-traumatic shock” theory and other Islam-dodging excuses offered in the wake of Hasan’s slaughter. At the NYT, it takes nearly an entire month for a fellow’s blindingly obvious motives to become clear. Fog lifted, Friedman ends with a request that Barack Obama deliver this speech to an Islamic audience:
Why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us — and to yourselves.
The first of 688 reader responses to Friedman’s piece: “Pretty ironic that Tom Friedman would complain about The Narrative in a paper that is guilty as any other for promoting it.” Tim Blair 
 by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Israel received support from a most unlikely source Tuesday, with a harsh condemnation of the Human Rights Watch group by its own founder, Robert Bernstein. Writing for The New York Times, he charged the group with “issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.” HRW was in the forefront of accusing Israel of war crimes in the three-week Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign in Gaza, and has continually condemned Israeli retaliation for the thousands of Hamas rockets and other terrorist attacks on Israel. Bernstein emphatically stated that “Hamas and Hezbollah…go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields,” a situation that was stated as largely unproven in the recent Goldstone report for the United Nations Human Rights Council. Bernstein accused his own group’s leaders of knowing that “Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields.
They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve.” Bernstein, who was chairman of the group until he stepped aside in 1998, pointed out that HRW has condemned Israel more than any other country. Undermining the group's anti-Israeli stance, he stated that the Jewish State “is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties." “Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent.” Bernstein echoed Israeli complaints that HRW has ignored “the plight of [Arab] citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide.” “These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere,” he wrote. “This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide." In what was a virtual repetition of Israeli government statements from the past several years, he noted that “There is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally. “In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers." Source: INN
 Able to observe the Taliban close up for an extended period, a New York Times reporter discovers that they aren't actually the moderate nationalists that his own paper may have led him to believe they were. "7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity," by David Rohde in the New York Times, October 17 Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become.
Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of "Al Qaeda lite," a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan. Living side by side with the Haqqanis' followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters.
They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world. And beyond. As Beitullah Mehsud put it in 2007, "We will continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jazia (a tax in Islam for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state)." Source: JihadWatch
 The British journalist recently freed in a NATO military operation described his Taliban hostage-takers as "hopelessly inept," and praised his Afghan colleague who died in the rescue.
New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell described his four days in captivity in a blog on the newspaper's Web site, posted late Wednesday just hours after he was freed. Taliban militants kidnapped Farrell and Afghan journalist, Sultan Munadi, on Saturday. During a pre-dawn raid Wednesday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force plucked Farrell to safety, but did not retrieve the body of Munadi, who died during a fierce firefight between troops and Taliban militants.
A British commando was also killed, as were a woman and child. There has been criticism about the rescue operation as well as the initial decision to go into the region which Farrell points out in his blog, "was becoming more troubled by insurgents." International troops, including British forces, have expressed their unhappiness about having to extract a Western journalist from the area, a Western military source in Kabul told CNN.
Meanwhile, NATO has come under fire from a coalition of Afghan journalists working for foreign news outlets who called the pre-dawn raid "reckless and double-standard behavior." The Media Club of Afghanistan issued a statement Thursday saying it "holds the international forces responsible for the death of Mr. Munadi because they resorted in military action before exhausting other nonviolent means." "There is no justification for the international forces to rescue their own national, and retrieve the dead body of their own soldier killed in action, but leave behind the dead body of Sultan Munadi in the area. The MCA deems this action as inhumane." Read more here,,,, Source: CNN
 Having spent this morning catching up on my weekend reading, I came across this Page 4 article from Friday's New York Times. Here's the lead paragraph:
"BAGHDAD — At least 80 people died and 120 others were injured Thursday in three bombings, one by a female suicide bomber in Baghdad who, Iraqi officials said, held a young child’s hand as she set off her explosives among a group of women and children receiving emergency food aid." Even putting aside our baseline revulsion at terrorism, there are three especially hideous things that jump out from this: 1) A mother deliberately taking her (presumed) child with her as she immolates herself. For all the hundreds of suicide bombings that Iraq has already witnessed, this has got to be a first. 2) This was a line for food aid. Islamists have gone from attacking U.S. soldiers, to attacking Iraqi soldiers, to attacking police stations, to attacking the religious ceremonies of rival sects — on down the line of nihilism until, now, they are reduced to blowing up hungry people seeking sustenance. 3) This hideous crime was played on page four of The New York Times. And a quick scan of other media suggests it got similar B-rate treatment elsewhere. This sort of act would have been worth a worldwide banner headline a decade ago. But now, it's just another demented Islamist senselessly slaughtering fellow Muslims. With her kid. Yawn.
Says a lot about the world we live in, doesn't it? Source: National Post H/T: Gateway Pundit Female Homicide Bomber
Latest recipient of The Face of Evil Award
 "The One-State Solution" by Muammar al-Gaddafi. More ...Source: New York Times H/T: Weasel ZippersThe New York Times
Latest recipient of the Yellow Rag Award
 By Steven Emerson The "paper of record" refuses to call them terrorists, extols the groups' humanitarian efforts, and whitewashes its behavior during the now-broken ceasefire.In the past week, the Fourth Estate's Hamas cheerleaders have stripped away any pretense of being honest or neutral, with the New York Times continuing to take the side of the terrorist group in one of the most shameful journalistic episodes I have ever seen. In following the Times coverage for the past six months and checking external sources of information, one can see a clear pattern of propagandistic reporting favoring Hamas that selectively suppressed or willfully misrepresented information. Even the Times knows it has a bias problem. Readers who detected it got a chilling confirmation of their suspicions in the December 13 column by Ombudsman Clark Hoyt. Addressing a public outcry over the paper's failure to use the term "terrorist" for the attackers who executed some 170 people in Mumbai, India in late November (and mutilated the six Jews killed in the Chabad House—a fact never reported by the Times), Hoyt quoted several reporters and editors making extraordinary admissions that shed some light on the newspaper's most recent dispatches from Gaza. Read more ...Source: The Daily Beast
The Times' story is a total of 847 words. The story is about a trial where all of the defendants were found guilty of 108 counts of funding terrorism and money laundering. This was the second trial following an earlier mistrial. In other words, the story is how the first jury got confused and couldn't agree--neither on guilt nor innocence. Apparently, the second time around the prosecutors did a better job (what most observers think) and/or they got lucky with a better jury. What we found jarring when we read the Times story, though, was how laden it was with the defendants' claims of "vicitmization". What follows is a careful analysis of the Times' editorial bent: First, here is the picture (same size) that goes with the online story: 
Zolfa Elaydi, center, with her children Fidaa, left, and Jihad,
reacting to news that the leaders of a Muslim charity had been convicted on Monday in Dallas.Aside from the interesting fact that one of the defendants named his son "Jihad", the NY Times reader is confronted with a gripping pictorial presentation of "innocent victims"-- the family members -- of the criminal justice system. Read more ...Source: SANE
 August 21, 2008, 2:12 pm
By Clark Hoyt
Brigitte Gabriel is a provocative author and lecturer, a Lebanese-Christian who came to the United States after surviving the civil war that tore apart the land of her birth. She has made it her mission – one might say her crusade – to warn that radical Muslims, a term she defines as all practicing Muslims, are bent on taking over the West.
Gabriel has a new book coming out in a couple of weeks, “They Must Be Stopped.” Knowing her history, you don’t need to guess who “they” are. Gabriel believes that Muslims cannot serve loyally in the U.S. military, that interfaith dialogue is “nonsense,” and that the difference between the Arab world and Israel is “barbarism versus civilization.” The Muslim world will not be satisfied until all infidels are converted or eliminated, she has said.
Stephen Lee, the publicist at St. Martins Press for Gabriel’s new book, calls her views “extreme,” and I wouldn’t argue with that.
But more than 250 people have written to me in the past several days to protest a description of Gabriel in the Times Magazine as a “radical Islamophobe.” That description was in a brief introduction to an interview with Gabriel in Deborah Solomon’s “Questions For” column. The messages also complained about the headline over the interview – “The Crusader” – and some of the questions posed to Gabriel by Solomon.
Many, if not most, of the messages appear to be blog-inspired. Though written individually, they ask for the same things – that the headline and description be removed from The Times’s Web site and that Solomon publish an apology.
Lee, the publicist, told me, “We had no problems with the questions or the answers, as depicted in the piece.” He said it was “totally accurate” and that Solomon had gone over the edited transcript with Gabriel before it was published.
As for the terms “crusader” and “radical Islamophobe,” both strike me as fair descriptions in the context of a magazine feature that is supposed to be edgier than the news columns of the newspaper. Though much of the interview seemed comparatively mild, Gabriel showed a few of the rhetorical flashes that have made her such a controversial figure. Moderate Muslims, she said, “at this point are truly irrelevant.” Public foot baths for Muslim students at American universities are “the way they are taking over the West. They are doing it culturally, inch by inch. They don’t need to fire one bullet.”
It’s not hard to see how Gabriel’s experiences might have shaped her views. She has said that radical Muslim fighters destroyed her town in Lebanon, terrorized her family and nearly killed her. She said she was forced to live for seven years in a bomb shelter. In this country, Gabriel formed American Congress for Truth (ACT) to warn against the threat of fundamentalist Islam. If she isn’t a woman on a crusade, in the modern sense of that word, I don’t know who would be.
One person who wrote to me said that Gabriel “is not opposed to Islam in any way, just against the terrifying Islam extremism.” But that isn’t really correct. A blog on The Australian Jewish News quoted Gabriel as saying last year, “Every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.”
I’ve had my issues with Solomon in the past, but I don’t think she or her editors have done anything here requiring an apology or any other corrective action.
Source: NYT
Does a long term study of the New York Times reveal a bias against Israel?
The last HonestReporting long-term analysis of the New York Times was released in November of 2007. At the time, we found that there were several disturbing patterns in how the Times reported events in the Middle East. Our conclusion was that the treatment of Israeli and Palestinian actions was so different, that there could be no question that the reporting was favoring the Palestinians rather than remaining impartial. We highlighted specific cases where headlines dealing with Israeli or Palestinian actions were written in different styles. We also noted that the vast majority of images used by the Times appears reflectively sympathetic to the Palestinians while virtually ignoring the greater context surrounding the conflict. We have now concluded a broader survey of the Times. Specifically, we looked at 205 articles between July of 2007 and June of 2008. Using this much larger time frame, we found that our original thesis has only been strengthened. Specifically, when reviewing headlines and photographs, it is clear that there is an inherent bias in New York Times reporting about the conflict that favors the Palestinians.  THE NEW YORK TIMES: JULY 2007-JUNE 2008- SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: - 82 percent of headlines that introduced articles describing Israeli military operations were written in a direct style in which the words "Israel" or "Israeli Forces" (or a similar phrase) were the subject. In the majority of these cases, no details were given as to whether the casualties were combatants or civilians. An example of this type of headline ran in the Times on January 4, 2008: "Israeli Forces Kill 9 in Gaza."
- Only 20 percent of headlines that introduced articles describing Palestinian attacks named the group responsible. Most of these headlines were written in a passive, less direct style that removes responsibility of the attack from those who caused it. An example of this type of headline ran on May 13, 2008: "Rocket Fired from Gaza Kills Woman in Southern Israel."
- 75 percent of the photographs that could be objectively determined as drawing sympathy for one side or the other in the conflict favored the Palestinians. Palestinian casualties of Israeli military operations and pictures of civilians dealing with shortages in Gaza dominated Times coverage during the time period studied.
FINDINGS IN DEPTH I. Headlines related to Israeli military operations:  Of the 205 articles we reviewed, 22 dealt primarily with Israeli military operations. In almost all of these, the Times used a consistent style. Israel or a related term ("Israeli Military", "Israeli Forces", etc.) was used as the subject. A strong verb ("kills", "shoots") was used and the object of the sentence was usually the number of casualties listed, often without any other details. Below are a few examples: II. Headlines related to Palestinian Attacks: On the other hand, the Times style for writing headlines concerning Palestinian attacks is markedly different. We found that in only about 20 percent of the cases were those responsible for the attack mentioned in the headline. Much more common was the use of the weapon as the subject of the attack ("Rocket", Suicide Attack").  Below are a few examples of this type of style: Clearly, none of the Times headlines are untruthful. On a case by case basis, they accurately summarize the events in the accompanying articles. However, when reviewing the numerous headlines used by the Times, there is clearly a pattern that places more weight on Israeli actions than those of the Palestinians. Balanced reporting requires that a consistent style be used no matter who is the initiator of the event. Ascribing the attack to an inanimate object such as a rocket over and over again indicates bias. III. Photographs  No matter how accurately a news story is written, an accompanying photograph may destroy all objectivity as the reader is emotionally steered away from the facts by a moving image. When images that evoke sympathy for one side in a conflict are shown in far greater numbers than those which capture the anguish and suffering of the other side, it is a clear case of bias. In our review, we counted 73 images that could be described as supporting either the Israeli or Palestinian side. Three quarters of these images evoke sympathy for the Palestinians and portray a scene lacking in context. Even though these pictures are not taken by New York Times photographers, it is a Times editorial judgement as to which wire service images should run with a story. Take a look at the image below of the funeral for a Palestinian teacher killed in an Israeli attack that ran above the story on February 8, 2008.  The image and caption are rather disturbing. Relatives are crying over the death of a woman killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. Yet this image is rather misleading if its purpose was to illustrate the events described by the accompanying article. Several salient facts shed light on the scene in the photograph and put it in its proper context: - Palestinian terrorist had launched a rocket that landed near a playground and nursery the day before that wounded two Israeli children.
- Before the Israeli attack, seven Qassam rockets and four mortar shells had hit Israel wounding two more civilians.
- According to the Associated Press, the "school" where the "teacher" worked was just a series of huts that Palestinian militants had used as cover to launch attacks.
Why would the Palestinians launch attacks from civilian areas? Obviously in hopes that Israeli retaliation would result in civilian casualties and pictures such as the one above would be published by the media and turn public opinion against Israel. Times' readers are more likely to remember the emotional picture of the funeral for a dead teacher killed by Israel than the actual facts listed above. Here is another example from a Times story on February 9, 2008.  The image is one portraying the deprivation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. A boy in a crowd clutches a barbed wire fence because Israel has "limited supplies to Gaza." Yet unlike the picture, the article states that Israel had reduced electricity to Gaza by less than one percent. Does an electricity reduction of less than one percent really lead to the hardship that seems to be reflected in the picture? Or is this another case of Palestinians posing for the Palestinian photographer working as a stringer for Reuters? Below is yet another example. Before getting to the well-written, balanced article by Steve Erlanger, a reader would first see civilians clutching infants running from an Israeli attack.  The picture does a disservice to Erlanger's article which clearly puts the events in their proper context. According to the article: Medics at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said that Sami Fayyad’s wife was wounded, and that the couple’s 3-year-old daughter was clinically dead. Sami Fayyad, 30, was a fighter with Islamic Jihad’s military wing. Ahmad Fayyad, 32, was a former member of the Palestinian Authority security forces. Israeli Army spokesmen said the brothers were firing on Israeli forces from alongside and inside the house. The house was hit by at least one tank shell, and Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces, using armored bulldozers, then collapsed the rest of the house. In a statement, Israel said blame for the deaths of the women “lies with the gunmen, who operated intentionally from a civilian environment.” Yet once again, it is the image of civilians running for their lives while holding their children that most will remember. CONCLUSIONS The news is not all bad. In our last report, we noted that certain phrases ("illegally occupied territory", "the former Palestine") appeared in the Times. We did not find these same issues in our current analysis. Perhaps the new New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner is paying closer attention to these type of issues. If so, then we hope to see even better reporting in the month ahead. Nonetheless, even a well-written, objective article can end up misunderstood if the headlines and images around it distract from the story rather than complement it. Unfortunately, the issues of headline style and image selection that we highlighted last year are still a serious problem. The Times should make sure that: - All articles on the Mideast are balanced and objective and do not subjectively favor either side.
- Headlines are written in a consistent style that shows no favoritism.
- There is an even distribution of images that illustrate the most salient points of the accompanying articles.
HonestReporting subscribers can help push the New York Times to take these measures by writing to the Public Editor of the New York Times by clicking public@nytimes.com. We plan to continue publishing long term analyses of specific media to determine whether reporting is fair and consistent. You can read our previous analysis of the New York Times here. If you are interested in sponsoring one of these reports, please click here. Source: HonestReporting. com
 By Steven Emerson In his June 19 th piece titled, "Strengthening Extremists," New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof lambastes the American and Israeli policy of isolating the terror group Hamas, alleging that Hamas' international isolation and resulting pressure have only managed to empower the so-called Islamic Resistance Movement. And to "prove" his point, Kristof interviews two Gazans who, unsurprisingly, hate Israel. In Kristof's world, the siege of Gaza has only made Hamas more popular. Never mind that Hamas won the Palestinian elections before the siege began and after the Israelis had unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza. A withdrawal, by the way, which Hamas seized upon as a "victory" which, in turn, made Hamas more popular – enough to defeat rival Fatah in the elections. So the Israelis give the Palestinians land for nothing in return, and Hamas gains popularity. According to Kristof, the Israelis isolate and attack Hamas in Gaza, and Hamas gains popularity. So when does Hamas lose popularity? Kristof claims that the recently minted "truce" between Hamas and Israel will somehow do the trick. Again, never mind Hamas' history of breaking such truces. Even the deferential Reuters news service said of the arrangement, "Israel-Hamas truce begins but duration in doubt." Read more ...Source: IPT NewsNicholas Kristof
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
By Robert Spencer The New York Times, true to the New Duranty Times moniker Hugh Fitzgerald has given it, has run a gushing profile of Ali Ardekani, the young Muslim filmmaker who made "Who Hijacked Islam?," (linked in the picture above) among other shorts designed to stir up righteous indignation against the venomous Islamophobes who misrepresent Islam as anything other than a Religion of Peace. "Who Hijacked Islam?," as you can see, is a herky-jerky, hectoring, eye-rubbing affair, but it has been wildly popular -- and now the Times has anointed Ardekani as the alternative to the "bloodthirsty zealots" and defensive bowers-and-scrapers who supposedly dominate the public image of Islam in the West. (Which of those two categories do high-profile, ubiquitous Muslim spokesmen such as Ibrahim Hooper and Edina Lekovic fit into? But I digress.) Read more ...Source: Jihad Watch
 By Steven Emerson
The New York Times today became the latest tool in an aggressive lobbying campaign aimed at sabotaging a terror investigation in northern Virginia.
The campaign to free Sami Al-Arian started last year, led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim American Society (MAS), and other American Islamist groups after the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operative was held in contempt of court for refusing to comply with consecutive grand jury subpoenas. He now is defying his third subpoena to testify in a terror finance investigation involving a Virginia-based network that provided Al-Arian's organizations with tens of thousands of dollars in the 1990s.
In 2006, Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison, with credit for time served, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to provide goods and services to the PIJ. Though his prison sentence is over, Al-Arian could be held in contempt again or even face criminal contempt of court charges. That's what the New York Times reports today. But, just like Al-Arian's supporters, today's Times story grossly mischaracterizes the case, distorts what Al-Arian has admitted and incorrectly states why he remains in jeopardy Source: IPT News
Last month, The New York Times was extolling the cultural wonders of the Islamic practice of cutting off the clitorises of little (and big) girls, now they are encouraging the fusion of mosque and state. Read more ...Source: New York Times Magazine H/T: AtlasNoah Feldman
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
By Steven Emerson Neil MacFarquhar's latest paean to radical Islam appeared in Thursday's New York Times, "For Muslim Students, a Debate on Inclusion," in which he praises a known radical leader of the Muslim Students' Association as some kind of moderate. MacFarquhar begins the story with a sweet vignette about Mertaban's alleged moderate bona fides: Amir Mertaban vividly recalls sitting at his university's recruitment table for the Muslim Students Association a few years ago when an attractive undergraduate flounced up in a decidedly un-Islamic miniskirt, saying "Salamu aleykum," or "Peace be upon you," a standard Arabic greeting, and asked to sign up. Read more ...Source: IPT News
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“What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood?” asks Thomas Friedman. He’s a New York Times columnist, so he takes a while longer than most of us to work things out: 
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