For the 'New York Times,' #PalestinianLivesDoNotMatter
Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say a young Jewish woman dressed in Orthodox clothing was shot dead by uniformed Palestinian policemen somewhere in the West Bank. Let’s say that several eyewitnesses said the woman — we’ll call her Anna Agustovsky — had done nothing wrong except to possibly misunderstand orders that the Palestinian police had barked in Arabic. There were photos of one policeman leveling his automatic weapon at Anna, and more photos as she lay on the ground after they shot her. A few days later, Amnesty International, citing the many witnesses, called the killing “an extrajudicial execution.”
Would the New York Times continue to ignore the story? Or would there be wall-to-wall coverage?
But 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamoun was Palestinian. And five days after Israeli soldiers murdered her at an occupation checkpoint in Hebron, the New York Times continues to ignore her death.
The Times’s coverage started out to be somewhat promising. On September 22, reporter Diaa Hadid did transcribe the official Israeli justification for killing Ms. al-Hashlamoun, but also quoted two witnesses who challenged the Israeli account, including a “European activist” who “provided photographs of the episode.”
But none of these photographs appeared with that article, or in the Times at any time since — even though they are all over the internet.
And five days later, the Times has not followed up the story in any way. No reporting of the Amnesty International indictment. No effort to write about the reaction among Ms. al-Hashlamoun’s family, or to tell us who she was. The Times has at least 3 reporters in Israel/Palestine, but none of them has apparently tried to independently investigate the Israeli version of the killing. And let us repeat; the newspaper of record has still not published a single photograph of Ms. al-Hashlamoun as she lay dying.
Our hypothetical Anna Agustovsky would matter to the New York Times. Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, being a Palestinian in an occupied land, does not matter.
Source: mondoweiss.net