New York Times: Making a Half-Full Glass Into a Half-Empty One

UPDATE

The print edition of the New York Times story appears on the front page of the newspaper under a different headline (“In West Bank, A Crackdown Road by Road“) to that published in the online version.

HonestReporting has ascertained that the headline in the online version was only changed to “In West Bank, Israel Imposes Pop-Up Checkpoints and Road Closings” after intervention by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, and not because the New York Times recognized its own bias.

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Is the glass half-full or half-empty? This is the question that springs to mind while reading Diaa Hadid’s latest story in the New York Times titled “In West Bank, Israel Imposes Pop-Up Checkpoints and Road Closings.”

Despite the wave of Palestinian terror attacks over recent months, the IDF’s policy has been to try to limit the impact of Israeli security measures on the wider Palestinian population.

Hadid writes:

Such pop-up checkpoints and closings lasting several days have disrupted the routines of Palestinian residents, whose ability to move through the occupied territory was already precarious. But the pinpointed strategy targeting mainly individual villages sporadically is a stark departure from the widespread closings and curfews Israel imposed on West Bank cities during the second intifada, making its effect harder for the world — and even people next door — to see and feel.

Is Hadid suggesting that there is some nefarious motivation behind the Israeli policy of implementing less blanket security? Is the IDF focusing on localized security measures in order to somehow put the blinkers on the rest of the world over supposedly malevolent treatment of Palestinians?

She continues:

Palestinian officials and their backers denounce the road closings as collective punishment. They have not, however, gained much traction for protest among their own people, because residents of one village sometimes have no inkling what is happening a few miles away, and Ramallah, the center of West Bank political and civic life, has remained largely immune.

 

The Israeli military says the closings are aimed only at apprehending suspects and preventing further attacks in a wave that is far less severe, sustained or widespread than previous uprisings. Its calibrated approach has helped contain international condemnation of Israel’s crackdown.

Why should there be an automatic assumption that Israel’s “crackdown” should bring “international condemnation?” This implies that Israeli measures to prevent Palestinian terrorism are not legitimate.

Hadid cannot take it at face value that Israel may actually be trying to limit any potential suffering to ordinary Palestinians. Her framing of the conflict cannot comprehend anything other than ulterior motives for Israeli actions. Could a lack of Palestinian protests actually be a result of properly measured Israeli security policy?

Readers are then treated to the alleged “suffering” of Palestinians under Israeli security measures. This apparently includes the inability to get married:

The most continuous closing has been imposed in an always tense area of confrontation in the Old City of Hebron, the scene of multiple attacks targeting Israeli soldiers who guard Jewish settlers living in the area.

 

Since November, the Israeli military has prevented most Palestinians beyond the few dozen families registered as living in the adjacent area, known as Tel Rumeida, from entering it.

 

“Not one girl has become engaged, and not one girl has had a wedding,” said Mufid al-Sharabati, whose five children include two single, marriage-age daughters. “Our suffering is great.”

Is Israel preventing Palestinians in Hebron from getting engaged or married? Of course not. Yet this is the quote that Hadid chooses to illustrate alleged Palestinian deprivation.

Referring to one road closure, Hadid interviews one Ali Al-Shamy:

Mr. Shamy and other residents found the closing especially baffling because the road in question is generally used only by Palestinians, leaving little risk that would-be attackers would use it to hunt Israelis.

Palestinian terrorism has not been confined to roads. Terrorists who have carried out attacks in Israel and the West Bank presumably reached the scenes of the attacks from their homes in Palestinian towns and villages… using roads. Equally, in the event that they have managed to escape, they may very well use those very same roads to return to their village.

Palestinian villagers are not experts on Israeli security and the doubt raised over the reasoning behind the closure of this road is purely speculative.

The speculation continues thanks to Hadid’s security expert – a Palestinian bus driver:

“I swear to God, they are just messing with us,” grumbled Omar Mousa, a 50-year-old bus driver, who steered his vehicle onto the main road the morning after Israeli forces suddenly lifted their closing of the area.

So Israel is just “messing” with the Palestinians. Yet again more insinuation that Israel’s agenda is something more sinister than just security.

The article concludes:

He pointed to the nearby Route 443, the Israeli-built four-lane highway that hurtles through the West Bank, lined by barriers that largely prevent access from Palestinian communities.

Hadid fails to mention that Route 443 – a major artery connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv – is actually open, albeit in a limited way, for Palestinian traffic as determined by an Israeli judicial ruling in 2009. Where the road goes through the West Bank, there are a number of checkpoints allowing Palestinian traffic on to the highway after being properly checked by Israeli security forces.

Recent fatal stabbings in the vicinity of the road in the Israeli community of Beit Horon next to 443, and a nearby gas station located on the route, are graphic illustrations as to why there are barriers on both sides of the highway.

By omitting key information, readers are left with the false impression that Route 443 may be an ‘Israeli or Jews only road.’ Issues of access on 443 are indisputably down to security.

Ultimately, Diaa Hadid found a situation where the glass is half-full. Of course ordinary Palestinians are negatively affected by the consequences of Palestinian terrorism. However, Israel has done its utmost to reduce that impact.

Hadid has, instead, finding the story to be less damning of Israeli actions than she would like, deliberately ensured that in the eyes of New York Times readers, the glass is half-empty. Concerns are once again raised that Diaa Hadid is unable or unwilling to leave her own prejudices and bias behind when reporting on Israeli-Palestinian issues.

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