I said/I said

When describing warfare in the Middle East, the careful accusation-and-denial trope used in standard American journalism goes out the window.

Take yesterday’s flattening of the residence of a Hamas principal in Gaza. Both the New York Times and AP stories read like Israeli army communiqués without the benefit of the otherwise essential ‘balancing’ clarification or disputation. The death of Nizar Rayyan’s four wives and ten children, which sounds a little extreme at first, is fully explained (away?) by paragraphs such as these:

‘The military said he had helped plan a deadly suicide bombing in Israel in 2004, had sent his own son on a suicide mission against Jewish settlers in Gaza in 2001 and was advocating renewed suicide missions against Israel in retaliation for the current offensive. His funeral was planned for Friday.’ (Times online version)

We also learn that the Israelis think Rayyan’s house probably was used to store bomb components and that the attackers carefully warned everyone beforehand. So let’s see, air raid sirens, bombs in the basement, guilty children. . . I guess we are to conclude that everyone who lived there pretty much deserved to die, grandma included.

In any case, we don’t have to consider any alternative viewpoints because none are given. There isn’t even the typical vox populi quotation from someone wandering through the rubble-strewn streets. No, no, the voice of the Israeli Defense Force is the one we need to hear.

It’s significant that no coherent elaboration of the attitudes and arguments of the half-million people trapped inside the 15 square miles of Gaza City is allowed to filter onto the pages of our main news sources. Even Bernie Madoff’s lawyer soon will be duly given a chance to spin away daily in the news items about that scumbag’s antics. Everyone gets equal time—except dead Gazans.