LA Times: Settlements Provoke Baby Killing
March 15, 2011 13:48 by Simon Plosker
The inhuman act of slitting the throats of a three-month old baby, two small children and their parents defies any understanding or justification for any political cause. But not for the LA Times, which contends that the brutal murder of the Fogel family are part of an ongoing “cycle of violence”:
We’re currently witnessing the cycle in real time. On Saturday, five members of an Israeli family living in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, were killed, including an 11-year-old boy, a 4-year-old boy and an infant girl, presumably by Palestinian militants. In response to this brutal tragedy, the Israeli government announced that it would build 500 more houses in existing settlements in the West Bank. Interior Minister Eli Yishai said Sunday that 500 was not enough and that Israel should build 1,000 new homes for every Israeli who is killed there.
Which is worse — stabbing children to death or building new houses in West Bank settlements? The answer is obvious. But that’s not the point. The point is that no matter how abhorrent the murders are, it serves no purpose to aggravate the provocation that led to them in the first place.
So according to the LA Times, baby killing is a natural response to an Israeli provocation, in this case the act of building houses. Is this any different to the vicious rhetoric of Hamas, which justified the murders?
The LA Times asks:
How will building more houses for Israelis in the midst of the West Bank, in settlements that are almost universally acknowledged to violate international law, do anything other than keep the crisis going? Answer: It won’t.
Perhaps the LA Times should be asking how the butchering of babies, which is universally condemned, will do anything other than keep the crisis going? But instead, the paper cares little for placing responsibility for Palestinian actions on the Palestinians themselves let alone dealing with the very real issue of incitement in the Palestinian media and education system.
As for the claim that this brutal act is simply part of a “cycle of violence”, this is a charge that has been employed on a regular basis by lazy media that cannot differentiate between Palestinian terror, Israeli self-defense or non-violent acts of building homes. The Jerusalem Post eloquently debunked this as far back as 2008:
In truth, however, there is no cycle of violence. There is no spiral of attack and counter-attack relentlessly unfolding here.
What we have, rather, on the one hand, is a sovereign nation’s desperate effort to live in its homeland, seek peace with those of its neighbors who will partner it, and defend itself against those who seek its destruction. And, on the other, we have the forces of militant Islam, firing rockets across Israel’s sovereign borders, murdering Israelis wherever they can be found vulnerable, indoctrinating their people with a vicious intolerance of Jewish historical rights in this region, and simultaneously spreading a perverted interpretation of Islam that purports to require each and every believer to carry out personal jihad in the name of God against the infidels – be they Jews, Christians or unbelieving Muslims.
Send your considered comments to the LA Times – letters@latimes.com. Please remember to include your full name, mailing address, daytime phone number, and e-mail address. This information is seen only by the letters editors and is necessary in order to qualify for potential publication on the letters page.
UPDATE
A number of letters appeared in the March 19 edition of the LA Times, in response to the editorial critiqued above. Congratulations to HonestReporting subscriber Henry Tobias for getting his letter published.
LA Times: Settlements Provoke Baby Killing « THE BLACK KETTLE
12:22 am
Mar 16, 2011
[...] MORE [...]
Hot debate. What do you think?
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David Adams
12:58 am
Mar 16, 2011
This is the most twisted view of reality I have ever heard in my life, surely they are brain dead and have absolutely no sense of what is really going on. This is what Israel gets for doing everything they can to promote peace with a mad dog!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Alex Shilo
12:59 am
Mar 16, 2011
Even MK Ahmed Tibi, who is not known for his sympathies for the settlement movement criticized the murders in no equivocal terms. I don’t think he would have dared say that the settlement movement was ultimately responsible for the “cycle of violence”.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Naftali Spector
4:33 am
Mar 16, 2011
The only violence comes from the Moslems who were offered a state several times inclucting
the Peel commision partion plan in the late 1930s, the UN partition plan in 1947 and the offers by Ehud Barak in 2000 at Camp David and Ehud Olmert in 2008. In each case, the Moslems rejected the offer of a state of their own since their aim was the destruction of the Jewish state. Those who are shocked by the brutal murders of small children such remember the barbaric acts of the Arabs in the pogroms in Hevron in 1929
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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gunner
7:45 am
Mar 16, 2011
This is the most repugnant attempt at journalism I have ever read. Only the “Guardian” in UK could post something so callous.
Actually, it should not be referred to as journalism.It is simply gutter reporting by an inept heartless idiot.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Larry
2:35 pm
Mar 16, 2011
All I can say is that when it comes to the LA Times they are sick, sick,sick.
Only a rag like the LA Times could possibly find a warped justification for killing infants.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Michael
4:08 pm
Mar 16, 2011
I’m working on a horror movie: A man builds a house and the house, made from cement, develops a life of its own. The house prowls the night looking for innocent Arab families to butcher. With knives in the kitchen cupboard the house is well armed. With Islamic fanaticism spreading through the Arabic towns it is becoming more difficult for the house to locate innocent families. What is the house to do? renounce its evil ways? lock the cupboard? return to its relatives behind some imaginary green line? The choices are endless and the resulting confusion brings about many changes in the house. I will need a house psychiatrist to help develop the realistic challenges faced by the house as it evolves. Perhaps a love interest to help calm the beast within.
No, I don’t think the plot will work. Houses do not get up and prowl the night. They don’t wantonly knife people to death in their sleep. Houses do not think or feel; people do. And it is the Arab people that choose to act as animals and kill without cause. Houses should not be compared to Arabs that kill; it is not nice to the house!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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elwyn
4:15 pm
Mar 16, 2011
Are the LA Slimes and New York Slimes connected??
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Steven Farkas
3:49 am
Mar 21, 2011
No LA Times is part of what was formerly Times -Mirror until purchased by The Tribune Company (Chicago) although editorially they operate independently of the Chicago Group and includes the Hartford Current and the Baltimore Sun (amongst others) and 25-30 radio and TV stations. NY Times is the flagship part of a group that includes the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune
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John Modh
9:04 pm
Mar 16, 2011
A shame to blame Israel for this terror action. A SHAME!
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Sympathy For Israel? Time To Restore “Balance”! | Indisputable
9:06 pm
Mar 16, 2011
[...] of babies—as if that’s even a chain of logic that we should ever accept! Simon Plosker of HonestReporting.com analyzes it nicely: The inhuman act of slitting the throats of a three-month old baby, two small [...]
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Annique Dveirin
9:26 pm
Mar 16, 2011
The Arabs have rejected numerous offers of a country in exchange for peace, and have
rejected each offer. Killing babies appears to be more to their liking. They have
adopted a Nazi philosophy. The Los Angeles Times should not become a Nazi supporter.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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daniel
12:35 am
Mar 17, 2011
It is interesting to take note of how everyone gives lip service to the so-called peace process while pursuing their true agenda:
* The so-called Palestinians just want a homeland. Who really only want to destroy Israel so they can go back to being Syrians, Jordanians, and Egyptians.
* The U.N. who wants a two state solution. Who really only wants promote its own power.
* The Europeans who want Middle East peace. Who really only want cheap Arab oil.
* The U.S. gov’t who wants a two state solution. Who really only wants cheap Arab oil and corporate profits.
* The U.S. News Media who claim to represent fair balanced reporting. Who really want to whip up anti-Israeli hysteria at every opportunity.
* The Israelis who do not what to rule the so-called Palestinians and are willing to give land for peace. Who really only want to live and their children be safe.
Ignore the lip service. Choose which side you are really on.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Harold Eisemann
1:35 am
Mar 17, 2011
Journalists can be a tremendous force for the good, or devastating enablers of evil. I urge you to please approach your profession with the requisite level of responsibility.
Thank you.
Harold Eisemann
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R_not
7:34 am
Mar 17, 2011
And why is it that moslems DEMAND to live in our countries and in our areas and expect absolutely no one bothering them but when they have made enclaves and compounds in our lands we take our lives in our hands when entering their areas. The same goes for their countries. Why is it they cannot tolerate living next to a non-moslem when we live next to moslems?
This insane idea that Israel can keep taking them into their lands, and israel has at least several hundred thousand moslems living in their lands, but the moslems are given a complete pass on their intolerance! They persecute and kill not only Jews – but Christians, Hindus and Buddhists and other non-moslems, or moslems that are ‘not moslem enough’.
And that is in areas that those non-moslems have lived for generations. All of a sudden the number of moslems rise to a certain number and they turn on the non-moslems.
This is why we should forbid sharia inour lands, demand they adopt to our laws and stop this catering to them. For example, a woman in California is now suing because she cannot wear her hijab. She is in prison – she could hide anything in a scarf and she should be required to sit down and shut up. She is the perp and NOT being abused by taking off her scarf. I just hope that she still had to bend over and cough for the guards!
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Abie
4:46 pm
Mar 17, 2011
A proper “cycle of violence” would be some Jew from LA walking in to the LA Times offices with an Uzi and killing 50 people, just out of sheer hurt from this biased, unintelligent and insensitive article.
Then let the LA Times publish a very killer-sensitive editorial understanding the killer’s pain…
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compare and contrast, this is the difference between good and evil. fogel family update?: «
5:49 pm
Mar 17, 2011
[...] wonder if we’ll see this story in the LA Times? Isn’t it telling that settlements provoke Palestinians to kill innocents, yet, even in the [...]
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ARLINE MATHEWS
8:58 pm
Mar 18, 2011
Repeatedly I have sent letters to the L.A.Times as regards their double standard when it comes to Israel. Talk of Civil Rights and fair housing for Israelis/ Jews does no good because the foreign desk at the Times has been prejudiced for many years. It is as if they want to again put Jews in Ghettos where they can no longer contaminate the community at large. Essentially, we must get to the managing editors and publishers with not only letters, although we must continue doing so, we need to conduct peaceful and legal,( with police permits), demonstrations outside of their own building.
We need to conduct press conferences that they will have to carry if they are held right at their own headquarters, making sure that other media are notified of the peaceful protests. We could ask all people sympathetic to Israel’s plight and against the grossly unfair position of the Times to switch for a given time to the N.Y.Times or other newspapers. Loss of revenue is what is meaningful to them and I am quite sure would finally get the attention of those in charge.
The L.A. Times is in very complex bånkruptcy negotiations, although the owner, I believe is still Sam Zell a Chicago Investor.
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Viiit
9:55 pm
Mar 18, 2011
“We could ask all people sympathetic to Israel’s plight and against the grossly unfair position of the Times to switch for a given time to the N.Y.Times or other newspapers. ”
NYT is every bit as bad as the LA Times.
This is the problem, there is nothing to switch to.
All major media is antisemitic.
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Boris Blansky
11:06 pm
Mar 18, 2011
Living in Soviet Union I’ve read many inti-Israeli bias and lies written by Jewish “journalists”. At least they have some excuse to be punished by regime. But, I was in a real shock when I start reading the same Lie in LA Times and rest of liberal media. I call them to cancel my subscription and give my explanation: “I’ve found your publications extremely anti-Israeli”. In respond clerk call me “brain wash communist”. I have 6 nephews living now in Israel, all served with honor in IDF, all well educated and all of them are “brain wash” Patriots of Israel. About LA times ‘writes’ I can only say like my Grand Mom use to say: “Yddishe poths”.
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Griska
11:08 pm
Mar 21, 2011
“All major media is antisemitic.”
You confuse (conveniently, I suspect) criticism of Israeli actions with anti-semitism.
The criticism was of building houses in a Palestinian area. Not the fact that the houses were for Jews.
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Yoni
9:20 pm
Mar 23, 2011
Simple fact of the matter is, they put their children in harms way. Same as Hamasniks and Jihadis do and we scream human shield rightfully. There is an expanse of land in the Negev waiting for us. Why would a person choose to settle instead in an area surrounded by people you hate and who hate you? They chose to live this way and put their fate in the hands of the big tooth fairy in the sky. Let’s not paint a perfect picture of settlers. Especially the ones who are zealots and just as violent and crazy as anyone. I am Israeli American and was always disturbed by the flat out bigotry on BOTH sides in a percentage that is clearly too high to allow for peace for those who want it.
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