Media watchdog HonestReporting accused The New York Times on Wednesday of being sympathetic to stone-throwing by Palestinians, after the publication reported on the incident in which an Israeli was killed when his car was pelted by rocks on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.
The New York Times headlined the article: “Jewish Man Dies as Rocks Pelt His Car in West Bank.”
The piece focuses on Alexander Levlovich, 64, who was killed on his way home from a holiday meal when his car was hit by rocks thrown by Arab youths, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yet nowhere does The Times mention this.
Instead, his death is attributed to “attackers [who] pelted the road he was driving on with rocks.” The publication noted that the car crashed after “being hit by a thrown object,” but failed to specify the nature of the attack or the assailants.
In an interview with The Algemeiner, HonestReporting Managing Editor Simon Plosker said, “The New York Times continues to act as an apologist for Palestinian stone-throwing. This latest incident is tragic proof that attacking vehicles with rocks can be deadly. Alexander Levlovitz didn’t simply ‘die,’ as The New York Times’s headline suggests. He was killed by Palestinians who deliberately targeted his car with rocks…That The New York Times prefers to attribute responsibility to the rocks rather than those who threw them is a damning indictment on the moral compass of the newspaper.”
The New York Times on Wednesday issued a correction, saying it had wrongly reported on the location of the attack, which took place in East Jerusalem, not the West Bank. The headline was then modified to include the correct site of the incident, but made no changes to the article or headline regarding the Palestinian perpetrators of the attack.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that the headline for The New York Times piece paints a false narrative about the attack. He said, “Essentially it looks like an act of God. [The rocks] just fell.”
He believes anyone reading “between the lines” will know that Levlovich’s death was the result of a terrorist attack by Palestinians. The problem is that it wasn’t written that way in the Times, Cooper said.
Cooper told The Algemeiner he’s not asking for the Times to “give Israel any breaks; just to report the facts. Just tell the truth and if you’re not sure, you can put in ‘reportedly,’ ‘allegedly’ or ‘so said police.'”
He added, “Many people don’t read through any full article…and that headline specifically does not inform you that there was a terrorist act… That’s not journalism.”
Furthermore, he said, “If that’s the kind of coverage terrorists see in the Western media — in the top-tier media — they’ll take it as an encouragement. It’s taken by those who are behind the violence that they can continue until there is any sort of push back. If there’s no push back, then why would they stop?”
