In his Feb. 20 Los Angeles Times article entitled "Syria Works to Polish Its Image," correspondent John Daniszewski appears to have joined the official Syrian public relations campaign. The reporter obscures Syrian involvement in chemical and biological weapons, covers up the government's support for Hizballah and other terrorist groups, and distorts Syria's position vis-í -vis peace with Israel.
In his March 21 column, Rami Khouri, executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star, misrepresents the facts concerning
Iraq, Israel and United Nations resolutions. He states that the Arab
world is aggrieved by "an Anglo-American armada to enforce U.N.
resolutions in Iraq, while applying no comparable political, economic or
military clout to implement 50-year-old U.N. resolutions on the Israeli
Palestinian conflict. . . ." ("For Arabs, a Cruel Echo of History").
In a striking display of tunnel vision, Los Angeles Times Jerusalem correspondent Laura King missed the plainly clear evidence that many Palestinian residents of Gaza resent Hamas for endangering their neighborhoods by launching attacks against Israel from the area.
On Dec. 24, 2002, then Los Angeles Times Jerusalem bureau chief Tracy Wilkinson repeated a common error among journalists reporting from Israel and the Palestinian areas. The inaccuracy dragged CAMERA and Times editors down a long road of correspondences, which did not, unfortunately, lead to a published correction. The saga says something about the Times' unwillingness in the face of evidence to set the record straight.
Los Angeles Times headlines continues to obscure Palestinian responsibility for anti-Israel violence. Recent headlines provided a stark example.
In a lengthy feature article today entitled "Mideast Violence Moves to the Home Front; For Israelis and Palestinians alike, conflict spills over into other circles of life," correspondent Tracy Wilkinson makes absurd equivalences between the expression of violence in Palestinian and Israeli societies.
The hypocrisy of Bouthanina Shaaban's Dec. 3 op-ed concerning what she calls the "occupation and colonization" of the Arab people would be laughable were it not so tragic. The director of foreign media for the Syrian Foreign Ministy, Shaaban blames Israel and American complicity for the "humiliation" of the occupied Arab people.
The Nov. 7 Los Angeles Times news story by Barbara Demick about settler violence against Palestinians harvesting olives virtually ignores the fact that Palestinians have been using the olive groves as cover from which to launch violence against Israelis.