A16 (World Briefing), Thursday 12/18/08
By Isabel Kershner
"The truce," reports Isabel Kershner, "started to unravel in early November." By avoiding the active voice, Kershner leaves open the answer to the crucial question, Who broke the truce?
By now, after over a month of reporting, the reader would expect an answer to this question; but one is not forthcoming. This is the key to even-handedness; it is also the key to perpetuating the conflict. Constructing a tunnel to kidnap an Israeli solider, an act that has already occurred, is, to my eyes, a breach of the truce.
In Clark Hoyt's piece this past Sunday in NYT about the use of the word "terrorism" in reporting, he paraphrased a memo authored by James Bennet, former bureau chief of the Times in Jerusalem. The memo states that Bennet would use the word terrorism "to describe attacks within Israel’s 1948 borders." (For the moment, pay no mind to the misuse of the term borders here.)
Yet, here in this World Brief, Kershner refers to those who fired the rockets into Sderot, Israel proper, as "militants," not "terrorists," a subversion of the very unwritten rule Hoyt wrote of on Sunday. Can I get a witness?
Finally, Kershner allows Hamas - not Israel - to get a word in on its conditions for an extension of the truce, lending legitimacy to Hamas, which unsurprisingly suggests that Israel needs to make the terms of a truce sweeter. Lord, have mercy.
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Good post. I think you could've mentioned how flawed was Kershner's take on Hamas' pursuit of "better terms". Border crossings being open was a part of the truce, but the mortars and rockets didn't stop long enough for Israel to keep the crossings open for more than a day. It's obvious (or at least should be) that Hamas didn't want or need the Israeli crossings open (especially when they have the Egypt tunnels operating -- something Kershner could've mentioned here).
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