Friday, March 13, 2009

The New York Times Having Trouble With English, Again

Here's how the New York Times published an AP story on March 10th - but which is still on the NYT web site today:

The Supreme Court barred a Palestinian activist on Tuesday from traveling to Amsterdam to receive a human rights prize. The activist, Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Palestinian organization Al Haq, had hoped to travel to the Netherlands to receive the Geuzen Medal on Friday on behalf of his group. A court spokeswoman, Ayelet Filo, said the court ruled that he was involved with terrorist organizations. In 1985, Mr. Jabarin was convicted of working for a militant group and served nine months in prison. He denies the charges.


Versus this AP version:

Israel has barred Jabarin from traveling to the ceremony in the Netherlands next week on security grounds. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says Jabarin is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which Israel considers a terror group...Shawan says he briefly joined the group as a young university student years ago and has not been a member since then.


The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that he joined - militant or terrorist?

Is that a real question, one the NYT can't answer?

Let's try here:-

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (Arabic: الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين, al-Jabhah al-Sha`biyyah li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn) is a Marxist-Leninist, secular, nationalist Palestinian political and paramilitary organization, founded in 1967. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization (the largest being Fatah).

The PFLP has generally taken a hard line on Palestinian national aspirations, opposing the more moderate stance of Fatah. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.[1] It opposed the Oslo Accords and was for a long time opposed to the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but in 1999 came to an agreement with the PLO leadership regarding negotiations with Israel. The military wing of the PFLP is called the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades.


And what did they actually do?

The PFLP gained notoriety in the late 1960s and early 1970s for a series of armed attacks and aircraft hijackings, including on non-Israeli targets:

* The hijacking of an El Al flight from Rome to Lod airport in Israel on 23 July 1968.
* Gunmen opened fire on an El Al passenger jet in Athens about to take off for New York on 26 December 1968, killing one Israeli mechanic;
* An attack on El Al passengers jet at Zürich airport on 18 February 1969, killing the co-pilot and wounding the pilot;
* The bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket on 20 February 1969, killing two Israelis and wounding twenty others;
* The hijacking of a TWA flight from Los Angeles to Damascus on 29 August 1969 by a PFLP cell led by Leila Khaled, who became the PFLP's most famous recruit. Two Israeli passengers were held for 44 days;
* The bombing, with a barometric pressure device, of a Swissair flight bound for Israel, killing 47, on 21 February 1970; for details see Swissair Flight 330.
* The bombing of the synagogue of ULIF, located on rue Copernic, Paris, on October 3, 1980, during holiday services.
* The 21 October, 2001 assassination of Israeli Minister for Tourism Rehavam Zeevi by Hamdi Quran, the only Israeli politician to have been assassinated in the current intifada.
* A suicide bombing in a pizzeria in Karnei Shomron, on the West Bank on 16 February 2002, killing three Israeli settlers.
* A suicide bombing in the bus station at Geha Junction in Petah Tikva on 25 December, 2003 which killed 4 Israelis.
* A suicide bombing in the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv on 1 November, 2004 , which killed 3 Israeli civilians.
Gee, that's sound more terrorist than militant?

He did join up after they did all sorts of violent, terrorist actions against civilians.

The NYT having trouble with the English language?

9 comments:

Peter Drubetskoy said...

The hypocrisy of a man working for a center dedicated to the memory of Begin is astounding.
Let's see here:
March, 1937 2 Arabs killed on Bat-Yam beach[citation needed] -
April 12, 1938 2 Arabs and 2 British policemen were killed by a bomb in a train in Haifa.[citation needed] -
April 17, 1938 An Arab was killed by a bomb detonated in a cafe in Haifa[citation needed] -
May 17, 1938 An Arab policeman was killed in an attack on a bus in the Jerusalem-Hebron road.[citation needed] -
May 24, 1938 3 Arabs were shot and killed in Haifa.[citation needed] -
June 23, 1938 2 Arabs were killed near Tel-Aviv.[citation needed] -
June 26, 1938 7 Arabs were killed by a bomb in Jaffa.[citation needed] -
June 27, 1938 An Arab was killed in the yard of a hospital in Haifa.[citation needed] -
Late June, 1938 Unspecified number of Arabs killed by a bomb that was thrown into a crowded Arab market place in Jerusalem. [10] -
July 5, 1938 7 Arabs were killed in several shooting attacks in Tel-Aviv.[citation needed] -
On the same day 3 Arabs were killed by a bomb detonated in a bus in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
On the same day an Arab was killed in another attack in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
July 6 1938 18 Arabs and 5 Jews were killed by two simultaneous bombs in the Arab Melon market in Haifa.[citation needed] -
July 8, 1938 4 Arabs were killed by a bomb in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
July 16, 1938 10 Arabs were killed by a bomb at a marketplace in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
July 25, 1938 53 Arabs were killed by a bomb at a marketplace in Haifa.[citation needed] -
August 26, 1938 24 Arabs were killed by a bomb at a marketplace in Jaffa.[citation needed] -
February 27, 1939 33 Arabs were killed in multiple attacks, incl. 24 by bomb in Arab market in Suk Quarter of Haifa
and 4 by bomb in Arab vegetable market in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
May 29, 1939 5 Arabs were killed by a mine detonated at the Rex cinema in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
On the same day 5 Arabs were shot and killed during a raid on the village of Biyar 'Adas.[citation needed] -
June 2, 1939 5 Arabs were killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem[citation needed] -
June 12, 1939 A post office in Jerusalem was bombed, killing a British bomb expert trying to defuse the bombs.[citation needed] -
June 16, 1939 6 Arabs were killed in several attacks in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
June 19, 1939 20 Arabs were killed by explosives mounted on a donkey at a marketplace in Haifa.[citation needed] -
June 29, 1939 13 Arabs were killed in multiple shootings during one-hour period.[citation needed] -
June 30, 1939 An Arab was killed at a marketplace in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
On the same day 2 Arabs were shot and killed in Lifta.[citation needed] -
July 3, 1939 An Arab was killed by a bomb at a marketplace in Haifa.[citation needed] -
July 4, 1939 2 Arabs were killed in two attacks in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
July 20, 1939 An Arab was killed at a train station in Jaffa.[citation needed] -
On the same day 6 Arabs were killed in several attacks in Tel-Aviv.[citation needed] -
On the same day 3 Arabs were killed in Rehovot.[citation needed] -
August 27, 1939 2 British officers were killed by a mine in Jerusalem.[citation needed] -
September 27, 1944 ~150 Irgun members attacked four British police stations; unknown number of casualties [11] -
September 29, 1944 senior British police officer of the Criminal Intelligence Department assassinated in Jerusalem [11] -
July 22, 1946 King David Hotel Bombing; 91 fatalities, most civilians -- 41 Arabs, 17 Jews, and 15 British [12]

and here:
Dec 12, 1947 Irgun bombing at Damascus gate kills 20, wounds 50 (Levi, 1986, p. 432) .
Dec 29, 1947 Irgun bombing at Damascus gate kills 12 Arabs, 2 British killed, 43 wounded (Levi, 1986 p. 433) .
Dec 30, 1947 The Haifa refinery riots and massacre-Irgun threw bombs from a speeding car into a crowd of Arabs outside the Haifa oil refinery; six killed and forty-two wounded.
Jan. 7, 1948 Jaffa Gate bombing - The Irgun rolled a bomb from an armored car into the Arab crowd at the Jaffa Gate stop of the No. 3 bus (Collins & Lapierre, 1973 pp. 416 ff.). killing 14.

Gee, that's sound pretty terrorist to me. Are you having trouble with the English language?

YMedad said...

What hypocrisy? Don't be silly in addition to being wrong. Did I ever describe anywhere Irgun and Lechi operations as "militantcy"? Did I ever not deny that some operations were "terror against terror"?

g said...

"terror against terror" is still TERROR.

YMedad said...

And I never said otherwise. But we are talking about an historic period. If you try to draw parallels to today, you have to ask yourself, do the Pals. have an alternative to violence? Does their violence have to be directed exclusively at civilians?

Peter Drubetskoy said...

Glad we cleared that out. Since you agree that Irgun was a terrorist organization (next to which PFLP, by any reasonable criterion, are amateurs), and since your whole post seemed to suggest that The Supreme Court's treatment of Shawan Jabarin, a mere alleged member of the organization, was OK (otherwise why wouldn't you specifically say that it wasn't), then I'd expect you to agree, by the same token, that Begin as the head of Irgun, should have been barred from entering the US as Einstein et al protested in the NYTimes in 1948.
But, wait! I remember you being upset with Einstein about it. Hm, I guess my logic breaks somewhere?

YMedad said...

not your logic as much as your preconceived mindset.

g said...

Any logic will fail to work again double standards, Mr. Medad.

g said...

I meant against double standard

YMedad said...

and it works both ways.