Dissembling Demolitions
Why do photo services feature images of forlorn Palestinian children scampering across rubble if the structures were uninhabited?
A headline in the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune erroneously suggested that Israeli troops carelessly killed a Palestinian child when, in fact, Israeli troops destroyed the home of a Palestinian gunman who had killed an Israeli baby. Apparently, the headline writer's operating assumption was that when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a dead baby, the Israelis are culpable and the tiny victim is, of course, Palestinian. No matter what the articles themselves say.
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.