The NYT: Apologist for Israeli High Crimes
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
The Times is a longtime imperial mouthpiece, supporting US aggression, an apologist for Israeli high crimes against Palestinians, long-suffering Gazans harmed most.
On Friday, Israeli soldiers invited Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger to witness IDF violence on Gazans on their side of the oppressive border fence.
A pro-Israeli puff piece followed, Halbfinger saying he was given “a chance to see things the way Israeli soldiers do” - falsely called “violent riots.”
“Israel calls its military a ‘learning organization’ “ - brutalized Gazans their guinea pigs, Halbfinger failed to explain.
Gaza’s Health Ministry increased its earlier Friday death and injury toll - four peaceful Palestinian demonstrators lethally shot, another 618 injured.
The wounded included medics, journalists, women, children, and many others threatening no one - killed or injured for wanting to live free from brutalizing Israeli blockade, suffocating two million Gazans, the world community failing to intervene responsibly on their behalf.
Since March 30, 127 Gazans were killed, another 14,700 others injured, many from live fire, according to Gazan Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra.
Halbfinger’s report, others from the Times, and from other major media on Gaza omit what’s explained above, suppressing what’s most important, pretending Israel is protecting its border from Palestinian threats. None exist.
“On Friday, there were repeated attempts to inflict harm on the Israelis,” Halbfinger claimed, citing IDF sources, twisting reality, calling high crimes of war and against humanity self-defense.
“Soldiers were fired upon at least once from the northern Gaza Strip. In Nahal Oz, east of Gaza City, the commander of a company of snipers said that four bombs or grenades had been hurled at his men roughly halfway through the day,” Halbfinger reported.
Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ field workers in the Strip refuted him, PCHR saying “Israeli forces continued to use excessive force against the peaceful protesters, who posed no threat to the life of the soldiers,” adding:
“The Israeli snipers deliberately and selectively opened fire at the participants in the peaceful demonstrations which included thousands of civilians in different areas in the eastern Gaza Strip.”
They continued attacking medical personnel in white attire treating the wounded, along with journalists doing their jobs, Israel wanting their reports suppressed.
PCHR: “The demonstrations were as always fully peaceful, and PCHR’s fieldworkers did not witness weapons or armed persons even dressed in civilian clothes among the demonstrators, who were thousands of elderlies, women, children and entire families, demonstrating near the border fence and raising flags, chanting slogans and national songs, flying kites and burning tires.”
“The Israeli unjustified and fallacious incitement against the peaceful demonstrations and encampments continues, perceiving the demonstration itself as danger. This hereby violates the right to peaceful assembly codified in all International instruments.”
Thousands of Gazans protested peacefully on Friday, including entire families - chanting slogans, singing songs, flying kites, displaying Palestinian flags.
“PCHR emphasizes that continuously inflicting casualties, either killed or wounded, is unjustified and targeting and killing civilians, who exercise their right to peaceful assembly or while carrying out their humanitarian duty, using lethal force is a serious violation of the rules of intentional law and international humanitarian law.”
Israeli violence constitutes high crimes of war and against humanity, according to Fourth Geneva on protecting civilians in times of war.
Halbfinger’s report inverted reality, siding with Israel, ignoring horrendous harm inflicted on Palestinians, quoting an IDF source Big Lie, claiming soldiers are “trying to hurt as few people as we can.”
Cold hard indisputable facts prove otherwise. The world’s self-styled most moral army is one of the most vicious and lawless, committing mass murder and much more with impunity.
Reports like Halbfinger’s is why I call the self-styled newspaper of record a lying machine, a national disgrace, a mouthpiece for powerful interests at war on humanity for their own self-interest.
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