You know you are biased when the NY Times coverage is compared favorably to yours. But such is the case of the LA Times, the Newspaper made famous during the campaign for protecting Barack Obama’s anti-Israel feelings. Now the newspaper is protecting terrorist Nizar Rayan and the people who were killed with him at the expense of the truth.
LA Times reporter/propagandists Ashraf Khalid wrote about the targeted killing of the terrorist and neglected to mention a few salient facts, such as Israel warned people to get out of the house and the basement of the residence contained a Hamas weapons cache. Even the NY Times reported that. Read the full report below:
At LA Times, Obscured Targets CAMERA by Tamar Sternthal | |||||||||
In two recent articles, the Los Angeles Times’ Ashraf Khalil has consistently omitted key information about Gaza Strip sites targeted by the Israeli army. His selective reporting gives the false impression that Israel makes no effort to avoid harm to civilians, and in fact targets them.
Rayan Home, Doubled as Weapons Cache
Thus, despite addressing the killing of top Hamas official Nizar Rayan and at least 13 of his family members in two separate articles, Khalil does not mention in either article that the Rayans were given warning to evacuate immediately prior to the bombing or that the home was used as a weapons depot. On January 2, Khalil reported along with Ahmed Burai:
In his article the next day, Khalal again referred to Rayan’s general refusal to go into hiding, and again ignored the specific warning about the imminent attack, also known as “roof knocking.” In his Jan. 3 article co-authored with Rushi abu Alouf, he wrote:
Yet, as reported by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a source hardly friendly to Israel, the death of Rayan and his many family members was completely avoidable. The January 2 report states:
While OCHA at least mentioned the IDF statement that the house was used to store weapons, the Times made no reference to this information. The IDF statement, which was sent out to the foreign press, read:
Other major media outlets, such as the New York Times and Boston Globe, did mention the IDF statement about the weapons and tunnel in Rayan’s home. Matthew Kalman of the New York Daily News and Donald Macintyre of the Independent reported both the weapons cache and the “roof-knocking.”
Jabaliya Mosque
The Los Angeles Times’ coverage of the Jan. 2 bombing of a mosque in Jabaliya is again inferior to other major papers’. In the Jan. 3 article, Khalil and abu Alouf report:
Once again, the Los Angeles Times ignored information provided by the Israeli army that the mosque was used as a storage site. The January 2 release, which was sent to the foreign press, stated:
The New York Times, the Independent, and the Washington Post, among others, included this information in their reporting.
By ignoring all information pointing to the presence of arms at locations generally considered civilian (a home and a place of worship), the Los Angeles Times gives a false picture of an Israeli army targeting civilians. This impression is reinforced by the inclusion of details about (unintended) civilian deaths. The Jan. 3 article by Khalil and abu Alouf states:
While the boys’ tragic deaths are unquestionably newsworthy, so are reports that homes and mosques are used as weapons depots. Likewise, so are accounts that residents are given warning to evacuate their homes, which do double-duty as arms caches. Khalil’s failure to include this information gives unwarranted support to Mohammad Astal’s claim that his young nephews were deliberately targeted.
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