How New York Times Conceals Israeli Violence Against Palestinians!

• How New York Times conceals Israeli violence against Palestinians! 
  by Ali Abunimah, https://desertpeace.wordpress.com/ 
  Those wishing to shield themselves from such truths should continue reading The New York Times.
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  The massive upsurge of Israeli violence against Palestinians is invisible to The New York Times. 
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  Two recent stories in The New York Times involve violence against Palestinian and Israeli children. But it is striking how differently the stories are treated based on the identity of the victim.
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  The first, from today, is headlined “Israeli Girl Severely Wounded in Firebomb Attack in West Bank.” The second, from November, is headlined “Palestinian Shot by Israeli Troops at Gaza Border.” Both are by Isabel Kershner.
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  Today’s report begins:
  JERUSALEM — An 11-year-old Israeli girl was severely wounded on Thursday when a firebomb was thrown at the car in which she was traveling with her father in the West Bank, the Israeli military said.
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  Troops were searching for the assailants, believed to be Palestinians, in the area of the attack, near the Jewish settlement of El Matan.
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  The report names the girl – Ayala Shapira – and describes “third-degree burns on her face and upper torso” and says that her wounds were “life-threatening.”
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  Note how Kershner says the assailants are “believed to be” Palestinians – belief, not evidence. She also names the girl’s father and says he suffered light injuries, and quotes her mother.
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  The report then provides this, presumably as context:
  There has been an uptick in Palestinian attacks against Israelis in recent weeks, including deadly assaults in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The violence has been fanned in part by a dispute over a revered holy site in Jerusalem.
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  Nowhere does the report state that there has been relentless violence by Israeli occupation forces and settlers against Palestinians.
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  The mention of a “revered holy site” also suggests the violence is religious and irrational in nature. It also erases the fact that Palestinians are subject to systematic Israeli violence, including ongoing home demolitions, forced displacement and land theft.
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  The tension over the “revered holy site” – Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque – is the consequence of incursions by Israeli extremists, backed by the government, whose ultimate goal is to destroy it.
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  Huge surge in Israeli violence
  In fact, though you wouldn’t know it from The New York Times, there has been a huge surge in violence against Palestinians.
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  “Palestinian civilians across the [occupied Palestinian territories] continue to be subject to various threats to their life, physical safety and liberty,” says the United Nations monitoring group OCHA in a year-end summary.
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  This year “witnessed the highest Palestinian casualty toll since 1967, primarily due to hostilities in Gaza,” OCHA adds. But in the West Bank, too, there was a huge increase in Israeli violence: this year to date 49 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, almost double the number from last year, OCHA reports.
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  Ten of those killed in the West Bank were Palestinian children shot with live ammunition by Israeli occupation forces. A staggering 5,771 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces in the West Bank this year, two thousand more than last year.
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  According to OCHA, Israel carried out an average of 96 “search and arrest” raids every week during the year, up from 75 per week in 2013. These assaults often take the form of night raids on homes, terrorizing entire families and communities.
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  This huge “uptick” in Israeli violence is invisible to The New York Times.
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  Boy shot in face
  On Wednesday, a Palestinian boy aged five was shot in the face by Israeli occupation forces with a rubber-coated steel bullet, causing serious injuries.
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  The shooting occurred when Muhammad Jamal Ubeid and his fourteen-year-old sister were getting off a school bus in the eastern occupied Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiyeh.
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  This tweet by Russia Today correspondent Paula Slier shows the boy in hospital with his parents, following surgery:
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  read more!

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