Update: New York Times corrects — see below.
An additional update clarifies on why a correction was needed — see below.

In an April 22nd New York Times article, “In Syrian Villages, the Language of Jesus Lives“, reporter Robert Worth asserted that Jesus spoke Aramaic “in Palestine two millennia ago.” There was no such place as “Palestine” in the time of Jesus*, since the Romans didn’t rename Judea as “Palestina” until a hundred years after the death of Jesus. During the time of Jesus, Bethlehem and Jerusalem were in what was commonly called Judea and Nazareth was in what was commonly called the Galilee. The New York Times should correct their factual error of calling Judea and Galilee by a name that didn’t exist* until a hundred years later.
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When the New York Times published Ethan Bronner’s article “Carter Says Hamas and Syria Are Open to Peace” on its web site on April 21, 2008, the article stated that

“Hamas fires rockets on Israeli towns and communities in an effort to hurt and kill civilians. On Monday a 4-year-old child was injured from shrapnel after a rocket hit a home on a kibbutz and caused damage, the Israeli army announced.”

The next day, the International Herald Tribune published Mr. Bronner’s article (“Hamas and Syria are ready for peace, Carter says,” April 22). The Herald Tribune omitted the reference to Hamas intending to hurt and kill civilians, but did report that

“On Monday, a 4-year-old child was wounded by shrapnel after a rocket hit a home on a kibbutz and caused damage, the Israeli Army announced.”

However, when Mr. Bronner’s story appeared in the April 22 print edition of the New York Times, both the reference to Hamas’s intentions in firing its rockets and the report of the injury to the Israeli child had been deleted and were nowhere to be found in the published 22-paragraph article. Nor were these words still available on the nytimes.com web site.

A Google search shows that they used to be there, but when one clicks on the posted article, the words are missing.

Carter Says Hamas and Syria Are Open to Peace – New York Times… and declaring a 30-day unilateral cease-fire with Israel — Hamas fires rockets on Israeli towns and communities in an effort to hurt and kill civilians. …
www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/world/middleeast/22mideast.html?ex=1366516800&en=c712aec36630ab9d&ei=5… – Similar pages

The final published version of the New York Times article, with the words deleted, is available here.
The International Herald Tribune version is available here.

By contrast, the Associated Press prominently noted the injury to the Israeli child in its report. The AP’s Karin Laub (“Carter says Hamas willing to be Israel’s neighbor”) stated in the third paragraph of her 35-paragraph story that day:

“Actions on the ground — seven rockets were fired on Israel from Hamas-ruled Gaza Monday, including one that wounded a 4-year-old boy — contradicted the Islamic militant group’s positive words about coexistence and a truce.”

The AP report also mentioned the injury to the Israeli child in the story’s 22nd paragraph as well.

The New York Times prides itself on publishing “all the news that’s fit to print.” So why did the Times decide to not just ignore, but actively censor, a newsworthy report on the injury of an Israeli child in a Palestinian terrorist missile attack, as well as the words of the Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief explaining Hamas’s intent to “hurt and kill Israeli civilians”?

Letters can be sent to the Times at: [email protected]

Stephen A. Silver

Once again, an official with the “moderate” Palestinian Authority has made clear that Palestinian leaders still see the so-called peace process as a means to implement Yasser Arafat’s 1974 “Phased Plan” for destroying Israel, rather than as a path to achieving genuine peace.

According to a translation by MEMRI, the Palestinian Authority’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Abbas Zaki, told Lebanon’s NBN TV during an interview that aired on April 9, 2008:

The P.L.O. is the sole legitimate representative [of the Palestinian people], and it has not changed its platform even one iota. In light of the weakness of the Arab nation and the lack of values, and in light of the American control over the world, the P.L.O. proceeds through phases, without changing its strategy. Let me tell you, when the ideology of Israel collapses, and we take, at least, Jerusalem, the Israeli ideology will collapse in its entirety, and we will begin to progress with our own ideology, Allah willing, and drive them out of all of Palestine.

The story has been reported in the Jerusalem Post .

If you don’t see this quotation reported in your local paper, please contact the editorial staff and/or foreign desk of the newspaper to educate them about the issue and urge them to cover the story.

– Stephen Silver

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize-winning medical relief organization, is currently sending out packages as part of a fundraising campaign. The packages include a request for a donation and a world map. The maps show every country in the world and every national capital … except one. Israel — which is identified as “Israel & Palestinian Territories” — is the only country in the world without a capital on the map. Jerusalem is shown on the map, but is designated only as a city, not as a national capital.

By contrast, Taipei, the de facto capital of Taiwan — which mainland China adamantly insists is part of its own sovereign territory and which most countries of the world do not technically recognize as a national capital — is indicated on the map as the national capital of Taiwan.

The web site for the organization is www.doctorswithoutborders.org. Please draw attention to this organization’s hypocrisy and the double standard it is applying by refusing to recognize Israel’s capital on its maps. They can be contacted at their U.S. headquarters: 212-679-6800. Or you can submit a comment on their Web site by clicking here .

For other examples of Doctors Without Borders’ anti-Israel bias, click here and here

Authored by Stephen Silver

Among other such gems, the July 18, 2007 Christian Science Monitor editorial calls Israel’s creation an “injustice done to [Palestinians].”

No injustice was “done to the [Palestinians]” by the creation of Israel. The plight of Palestinian Arabs was “done to them” by their own active participation in a failed war of aggression, or passive collaboration in it. Had the Arabs not violently rejected the UN’s 1947 partition plan to divide Palestine into a Jewish country and an Arab country, the Palestinian Arabs would have had their own country nearly 60 years ago and would not have been political pawns of Arab extremists ever since.

Submit comments to the editor and chief editorial writer on CSM’s comment page. Click here.

Click here to read editorial or see below.
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Jim Roberts, Chairman of the Committee to End Divestment Now, has written an informative and powerful Op-ed for the Wall Street Journal about the recent policies and actions of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He notes that:

My denomination, once revered as an icon of socially progressive thinking, is now tainted by perceptions of anti-Semitism and naive support of Islamic terrorists.

He points out that the problems and suffering of the Palestinians

cannot be blamed on democracy, capitalism or even current Israeli policies. They suffer most from the excesses created by their own preachers of hate and generations of corrupt and dysfunctional leadership…This year, Presbyterian commissioners voting at General Assembly can steer the Presbyterian ship back on a prudent path, which begins with reversing the divestment course charted two years ago.

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