Why can’t New York Times reporter Diaa Hadid bring herself to acknowledge that rocks don’t just rise up and strike Israeli vehicles without someone i.e. Palestinians, deliberately picking them up and throwing them?
Perhaps because the former Electronic Intifada writer simply doesn’t see attacks on Israeli civilians as anything but an accident.
Such was the New York Times’s recent reporting after Alexander Levlovich was killed by Palestinians who threw rocks at his car. Now, with the news that Israeli police have arrested four Palestinian youths allegedly responsible, this is how Hadid covers the story in the New York Times:
Four Palestinian youths have been detained in the death of an Israeli man who drove his vehicle into a light pole in East Jerusalem two weeks ago after it was hit by rocks, the Israeli police said Saturday.
The man, Alexander Levlovich, 64, died of his injuries after the accident on the first day of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, on Sept. 13.
An accident?!!
There was nothing accidental about this incident. Rocks can kill. Period.
Perhaps the Palestinians responsible may claim in their defense that they never intended to kill anyone when they threw their rocks at a moving vehicle. That, however, is not for Diaa Hadid to speculate.
Palestinians throw rocks at Israelis with the intent of causing as much damage as possible. The only accidents that take place in these violent attacks are when the perpetrators miss their targets, not when they hit them.
Yet throughout Hadid’s report, there appears to be a conscious effort to separate the act of rock throwing from the cause of Levlovich’s death and in doing so, downplay the potential danger that rock throwing presents. She continues:
The neighborhood [where the arrested suspects live] faces the road where Mr. Levlovich had the accident.
Even the New York Times headline displays an appalling disconnect from reality:
This was a rock throwing attack that led to the murder of an innocent Israeli. The car was not simply “hit by rocks.” Alexander Levlovich did not simply die. He was killed by Palestinian rock throwers.
Levlovich’s death was not an accident. Nor, it seems, are Diaa Hadid and the New York Times’s efforts to downplay the seriousness of Palestinian rock throwing, accidental either. Their biased reporting on this incident over the past few weeks has clearly demonstrated this.
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