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.
In the critical period of late March through early April, the most striking findings concerning the Los Angeles Times coverage of Palestinian terrorist attacks and the Israeli response concerned headlines and photographs.
An April 5 Los Angeles Times editorial claims that most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza oppose terror ("Mideast's New Road Map"). In fact, a recent poll by the Beit Sahour-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion indicates that 64.3 percent of Palestinians support suicide attacks against Israelis inside Israel (March 6, 2002).
In her March 15 feature on Israeli journalist Amira Hass, Marjorie Miller does a good job defining the controversy surrounding Hass's point of view and ideology ("Voice for Israel's Enemy"). However, Miller unfortunately neglects to mention lingering questions about Hass's accuracy.
On Sunday, Feb. 17, the Los Angeles Times ran an oped by UCLA professor emerita of history Nikki Keddie entitled "Why Reward Iran's Zealots? Reformers have no choice but to join the anti-American chorus." Aside from downplaying the threat which Iran poses for the U.S. and Israel, in the third paragraph, Keddie completely dismisses Iran's role in providing the Palestinians with illegal arms by way of the Karine-A ship.
Tracy Wilkinson reports in a July 20 news story that the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist "may have set in motion the ultimate unraveling of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process" ("Clemency Decree in Rabin Case Divides Israelis").