Middle Est Eye, 2 May 2017

Let’s recall one prominent contemporary atrocity: the 2014 murder by Israeli air strike of four young Palestinian boys playing football on a Gaza beach - an anti-highlight of Israel’s 50-day assault that ultimately dispensed with 2,251 Palestinian lives, 551 of them children.

The corresponding New York Times headline proclaimed: “Boys Drawn to Gaza Beach, and Into Center of Mideast Strife”. This is more or less the equivalent of “US media when it insists on being subservient to the grotesque propaganda agencies of a violent, aggressive state”.Man Collides With Bullet, and With It Existential Questions” or “Pig Materialises Under Butcher Knife, Raising Age-old Issue of Food Chain Hierarchy”.

Granted, the Times headline could have been even worse had the paper adhered more closely to Israeli PR traditions – e.g. “Pig Launches Heinous Terror Attack Against Butcher Knife and Is Killed In Self-Defense”.