Diaa Hadid, Former NGO Worker, Keeps Up Advocacy Work at New York Times

Dec. 17 update: Following CAMERA’s communications with the newspaper, the language referring to the Temple Mount/al Aqsa compound only as “one of the holiest sites for Muslims” was amended. It now acknowledges that the area is also “the holiest site in Judaism.”
Years after New York Times reporter Diaa Hadid left the NGO world for journalism, she has not left behind her partisan advocacy work. 
 
While Hadid was working for the anti-Israel organization Ittijah, shortly after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., she wrote, “I can’t look at Israelis anymore. … I don’t want to be friends with them, I don’t want to talk to them.” When Ariel Sharon became prime minister, she wrote that Israelis had “elected a mass murderer,” accused the Israel Defense Forces, or what she described as the “Israeli Occupying Army” of arbitrary killing, and exclaimed that “I have no love and no hope left for the other side.” A month later, her lack of love turned into “hate,” she admitted, while also accusing Israel of being a country “founded on hate.”
 
In light of these statements and others like them, it should be no surprise that she has said her “objectivity got thrown out the window.” Was it ever retrieved?
 
Although Times editors were compelled in recent months to twice amend her reports that omitted the Temple Mount’s sacred status in Judaism (holiest site) while noting that site’s sacred status only in Islam (third holiest), Hadid nevertheless repeats the skewed formulation yet again, for the third time, today.

In her most recent article (“Jerusalem Attacks Subside, but Not Palestinian Ire, as Israel Clamps Down“), Hadid writes with Rami Nazzal that a decrease in the number of Palestinian attacks in Jerusalem “seems to be a result of actions taken by Israeli officials, who have focused on reducing tensions surrounding Al Aqsa, one of the holiest sites for Muslims. . . .”

This is all part of a narrative where it is Israelis who are guilty of encroaching on Muslim holy sites, while  Palestinians terror attacks are just part of a spontaneous uprising ignited by fears of further Israeli encroachment. Thus the article begins:

When the latest Palestinian uprising erupted in early October, set off by increasing fears that Israel was seeking to take over Al Aqsa Mosque compound, its locus was Jerusalem.

Missing from this narrative is any mention of the deliberate incitement to violence by the Palestinian leadership whose battle cry to protect Muslim holy sites is based on the cynical and false claim that Jews visiting Judaism’s holiest site are attempting to seize and take over Muslim holy sites. 

In a separate issue, Hadid and Nazzal under-report the number of  victims who were killed in  Palestinian attacks by ignoring Shadi Arafat of Hebron, who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in the same Nov. 19 attack that killed American teen Ezra Schwartz and Israeli Yaakov Don. They write: “Since the uprising began in October, Palestinians have killed 18 Israelis and an American citizen.”

Third, the reporters state that of the “more than 115” Palestinians who have been killed since the beginning of October, there were an “estimated 60 Palestinians who have been shot dead while attacking Israelis, or being suspected of doing so.”  But other sources provide much higher figures for the number of Palestinians killed while attacking Israelis, or attempting to attack Israelis.

For instance, the Associated Press reported today:

Over the last three months, Palestinians have carried out near-daily attacks on Israelis, killing 19 Israelis and an American Jewish student. At least 116 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Israel says 79 were assailants, and the rest were killed in clashes with Israeli forces. (Emphasis added.)

According to B’Tselem: “Up to 11 December 2015, 71 of the assailants were shot dead by members of the security forces or civilians.” In other words, B’Tselem’s figure is consistent with the Israelis figure, given that more attackers have been shot dead in the last few days since Dec. 11.

On what basis does The Times report as fact, and without attribution, that just 60 of the 116 Palestinians killed were attackers, when Israel and B’Tselem put the figure far higher —  closer to 80?
 
CAMERA has contacted editors for clarification of these issues. Stay tuned for an update.
 
 
This story has been updated with statements Diaa Hadid made in 2001 and 2002.

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