On Gaza — how low can the New York Times go?

OK, I get it. I’ve always known it, right? Of course the New York Times reflects the consensus of liberal imperialism and slants the news always. Yes, I still read it as the “newspaper of record” for the US even as I cringe or shout.

But Sunday’s “news” story on Israel and Gaza reached a new low. Entitled “Israel’s 3 Wars: In Lebanon and the West Bank as well as Gaza” by The Times Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley, it purports to be a roundup of all the war fronts.

But it simply reads like a current events report, for an eighth grader, which is written by Israel’s Likud party. At least, please, couldn’t we have a deeper story, one that respects the intellectual level of the reader, one that grapples with the real situation?

Here are the subheadings of this story:

· Why Israel is still fighting in Gaza

· Why Israel is raiding West Bank cities

· Why Israel is striking Lebanon

· Why Israel is fighting with Iran

· How Israel explains the use of force

In other words, a right-wing Israeli explanation of all the wars it is fomenting. And finally it has a short section,

· How critic perceive Israel’s use of force

I suppose this is the “balance” part of the story. It all sounds so mild: “opponents say that Israel displays too little concern for civilian life.” Ya think?

Of course. The Times’ capacity to shock with its cavalier approach to the slaughter of humans, its acceptance of invasion and occupation and oppression as common sense, should be nothing new. Many of us remember wrongly, vaguely, that somehow the NY Times told the truth about Vietnam, exposed war crimes, forced the US to back out. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Times was a cheerleader for the war, described the resistance as terrorists, repeated Pentagon press releases, celebrated “body counts” as evidence that “we” were winning. Only at the very end did they claim the criticism was their view all the time.

Clearly there are better papers to read, ones that are not so dumbed down (don’t get me started on the Times Book Review section). Try The Guardian, The Nation, Al Jazeera, for starters.

Some day, when the Palestinians have achieved their right to a democratic secular state in the land, The Times will claim that they were on the good side all along.