At least, that's what it felt like reading a couple of articles in Connecticut newspapers yesterday.

The first is an op-ed appearing in the New London paper, The Day, by San Antonio Express columnist, Susan Ives. It's a real tear-jerker of tale of whoa of the residents of Gaza. Like all of its type, Arab suffering is shucked of its context -- in the Ives world, Jews are violent land-hungry conquerers intent on causing suffering. Their activities -- as a reaction to Arab terror -- are not described in any other way. Further, Arab poverty is clearly framed as Israel's doing -- Arab societal dysfunction and closures and joblessness resulting from terror don't enter the frame.

Low Expectations In Gaza

And who started that intifada? Who kept it going?

If the Israelis come back, it will be because they have to, because the Arabs could not keep their own murderers in check. That will hardly be Israel's fault -- and there will certainly be no "settlers" to blame -- but don't expect Ives or The Day to tell you that.

This provides me a good opportunity to convey another recent example of The Day's shilling for Jew haters.

Let me walk you through this. I'll provide the info, and you can draw the conclusions.

I have posted previously on The Day's, printing of op-ed pieces by an activist of Al-Awda, the Right to Return Coalition -- a radical group who's purpose is the destruction of the State of Israel, and which has been reported as distributing anti-Semitic literature at their events. Hassan Fouda is Chair of the Connecticut chapter.

Here's the thing. When The Day prints Dr. Fouda's pieces, they don't identify his political affiliation. Instead, they merely identify him by the rather truncated tag-line -- "Hassan Fouda lives in Groton."

It is a clear violation of journalistic ethics for a paper to print an opinion piece by an interested party, but not name that interest. Someone at The Day is clearly so embarrassed that they're giving print space to an Al Awda activist that they'll violate ethical standards to keep from admitting it. Sadly, they're not so embarrassed that they don't print his pieces altogether. Let's be clear: Hassan Fouda isn't being published because he lives in Groton. He's being published because he's an official of a radical group...but the paper doesn't think you need to know that.

My previous post on this is here: Journalistic Irresponsibility -- Pipes strikes back...again. I noted some of this then, on the occasion of the publication of an attack piece by Fouda on Daniel Pipes, and my reprinting of Pipes' response to Fouda's distortions. The original op-ed piece is no longer available on The Day's web site, but the entire sequence -- including the original op-ed, Pipes' response and Fouda's reply -- is available here, at the web site of Mazin Qumsiyeh, another Al Awda activist (who, according to Palestinian Arab, now anti-terror activist Walid Shoebat, was himself involved in terrorist activity as a youth as reported at Frontpage).

Interestingly, the radicals are more forthcoming than The Day itself. While Qumsiyeh reprints the entirety of Pipes' reply, The Day itself only posted a highly truncated version. And then, in what appears at this point to be bowing to the radicals' complaints, they removed even that from their site. Here is a snip of a screenshot from The Day's corrections page as it appeared with the edited Pipes response early Sunday morning according to the Google cache of the page. The screenshot is necessary because the page changed and even the cache no longer shows the Pipes response. Here's a shot of the page as it appeared at the time I composed this section of this post, sans Pipes.

Got that? I know it's confusing. Here's the sequence in bullet form:

• The Day publishes Al Awda op-ed slandering Pipes.
• Pipes responds with letter
• Newspaper shows letter to Fouda for response, but goes ahead and publishes part of Pipes letter on corrections page anyway
• Newspaper for some reason bows and removes correction

Now did the Pipes response just time out and fall off the page, or did they remove it? Why doesn't The Day think that Hassam Fouda's affiliation is relevant? I have sent an email to the paper asking for clarification of these points, but received only silence, so right now I assume the worst -- they print the radical view without identifying the radical, then fail to give the object of the smear the space to rebut.

Why does this matter so much? What do I care about journalistic ethics at a Connecticut newspaper? I couldn't care less about The Day. I do care about what's considered a mainstream idea, however, and that's bigger than The Day. Printing pieces written by unidentified Al Awda activists like Fouda, or the hiring by two Chicago NPR affiliates of an Islamist like [6/25/08: name removed by special request] or the carrying of pieces by fellow-travelers like Susan Ives, takes the mainstream line of thinking of a place like Saudi Arabia and begins to transpose it here. The Day and NPR are giving mainstream cover to far out ideas rooted in hatred and fertilized in dysfunction.

Due to length, I've decided to split "Palestine Day in Connecticut" into two parts. I'll have part 2 (much shorter, I expect) up in a bit.

Posted by Solomon at 10:49 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
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