War News

New York Times coverage of Israeli aggression has always been as slanted as the Star of David. It’s Zionist propaganda –the more subtle, the more powerful.

I enter into evidence the week that was. Israel began bombing Iran on June 13. A banner headline in the Times the next day announced “Missiles Fly Across the Middle East.”

This false image of parity was repeated in a June 14 story about Putin contacting Trump, offering to mediate. “The call came,” the Times reported “as Israel and Iran continued to pummel each other with intense airstrikes for a second day.” The implication of “pummel each other” is that some kind of fair fight was going on. Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier pummeled each other. Israel is a nuclear power, fortified by the world’s most sophisticated anti-missile network (the “Iron Dome”). They attacked a country that could not defend itself and can barely strike back.

The implication of a fair fight was repeated in a June 14 “news analysis” hedded “How the Israel-Iran Conflict Could Spiral Into More Turmoil.”

To call what’s happening a “conflict” and “turmoil” is accurate in some technical, literal sense, but both words hide the reality –it’s a one-sided onslaught. Same thing next day on the Times webpage: “Israel and Iran exchanged a new wave of attacks, striking one another with missiles and drones.”

A companion piece played up the human side of the tragedy, as Iran reported 406 deaths and Israel 13:

Meanwhile on the editorial page:

Noam Chomsky used to point out that the Times contained nuggets of significant news, but you had to dig for them. June 15 there was a revealing story with a very misleading headline on the front page in the print edition: “A Miscalculation by Iran Led to Israeli Strikes’ Extensive Toll, Officials Say.”’

According to reporter Farnaz Fassihi, “Iran’s senior leaders had been planning for more than a week for an Israeli attack should nuclear talks with the United States fail. But they made one enormous miscalculation. They never expected Israel to strike before another round of talks that had been scheduled for this coming Sunday in Oman, officials close to Iran’s leadership said on Friday. They dismissed reports that an attack was imminent as Israeli propaganda meant o pressure Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program in those talks.”

An accurate headline would have read “Israel Struck While US Lulled Iran by Negotiating.” The Iranians, desperate for a glimmer of hope, fell for a good cop/bad cop act. The ploy bought the US time to move military “assets” into position to protect “our” many bases in the Middle East.

June 16, “Israel and Iran Trade Blasts” was the print edition banner headline. Online it was “Trade Attacks.” Again the implication of a tit-for-tat struggle. Zionist propaganda: the more subtle, the more powerful.

June 17, A “News Analysis” asserted: “Israel and Iran both have little incentive to stop and no obvious route to outright victory. Much depends on President Trump.” The first sentence reprises the false image of parity. The second conveys a false impression that Trump was still making up his mind.

June 18, “Trump Seeks Surrender By Iran as He Considers Attack on Nuclear Site

The accompanying story by David Sanger, whose beat has been the CIA for many years, quoted Trump: “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” Trump’s “increasingly martial tone” according to Sanger, was “a sharp reversal from his announced confidence two weeks ago that a nuclear deal with Iran was easily within reach.” Maybe Trump’s egomania will lead him to take credit for suckering the Ayatollah. David Sanger ain’t gonna do it.

June 19 the headline said “Trump Buys Himself Time, and Opens Up Some New Options

Sanger and Tyler Pager wrote, “President Trump’s sudden announcement that he could take up to two weeks to decide whether to plunge the United States into the heart of the Israel-Iran conflict is being advertised by the White House as giving diplomacy one more chance to work.” Are the Iranians still falling for it?

Apparently they were. After the US bombed Iran’s nuclear research facilities, Fassihi of the Times reported, “Two senior Iranian officials said in text messages that, before the strikes, there had been hope in Tehran that Mr. Trump could be dissuaded by those around him who opposed another American war in the Middle East. Mr. Araghchi had been in Turkey for meetings, and his diplomatic outreach to European counterparts, to Arab leaders in the region, and to Turkey, was part of an effort to rally support, according to the two Iranian officials.

“But it failed. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran confirmed the U.S. strikes in a statement, saying that around dawn on Sunday Iran’s three nuclear sites, Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, ‘were attacked in a violent act against international laws, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty, by the enemies of Islamic Iran’.”

The attack also violated the US Constitution, which gives Congress – not the President – the right to declare war.