The Arab journalist whom the New York Times has hired to report on Israel has come up with the most “terrifying” example yet of Israeli oppression: the issuing of parking tickets to Palestinians.
The reporter, Diaa Hadid, who describes herself as “an Australian of Lebanese and Egyptian descent,” previously served as public relations officer for the pro-Palestinian group “Ittijah.” Its director, Amir Makhloul, is in an Israeli prison for espionage on behalf of Hezbollah terrorists.
Hadid’s resume also includes a stint as a columnist for the anti-Israel website “Electronic Intifada.” With that kind of track record, you almost expect her articles for the Times to exhibit a pro-Palestinian bias. And she has indeed lived up to those expectations.
But one would hope that her editors back in New York would exercise a little more discretion before rushing her dispatches into print. This week’s blast from Hadid is a good example of what I mean.
In her Dec. 17 report, Hadid played the usual moral-equivalence game with the casualty statistics: “Since the uprising began in October, Palestinians have killed 18 Israelis and an American citizen. More than 115 Palestinians have been killed in the same period.”
Get it? Six times as many Palestinians “have been killed” as Israelis. This, of course, makes the Israelis the bad guys and the Palestinians the innocent victims. Anybody who knows the casualty figures for Americans and Germans in World War II will instantly understand that body counts tell you nothing about right and wrong.
Hadid later mentions that of those 115 dead Palestinians, “60 have been shot dead while attacking Israelis.” What about the other 55? Her implication is that 55 innocent, defenseless Palestinian civilians were murdered by Israelis.
Was there some horrendous Israeli massacre of 55 Palestinians that the rest of us never heard about? Not quite. Those 55 were shot dead while hurling deadly firebombs and rocks at Israeli soldiers, who fired back in self-defense. But mobs of Palestinians throwing Molotov cocktails don’t count as “attackers” in Diaa Hadid’s book. They’re “protesters.” So they were killed while “protesting.”
But the most inventive aspect of Hadid’s Dec. 17 article was the ghastly new example of Israeli persecution that she has uncovered:
“Palestinians say the Israelis are going too far, taking vindictive steps meant to remind them who is in charge. Residents of one East Jerusalem neighborhood awoke one day to find vehicles blanketed with parking tickets, in an area usually ignored by the police.”
Parking tickets on illegally parked cars! What will those dastardly Israeli oppressors come up with next?
If Diaa Hadid thinks that a parking ticket is an example of “vindictive” Israelis trying to show the Palestinians “who is in charge,” she ought to try a little experiment. On her next visit back home to her native Australia, or to her parents’ childhood homes in Lebanon or Egypt, or to meet with her bosses in midtown Manhattan, she should park her car illegally.
Then, when her car is “blanketed” with tickets, she can report on how the New York Police Department is persecuting her, an innocent Arab journalist, in order to show her “who is in charge.” Perhaps the Council on American-Islamic Relations will hold a press conference to denounce this outrageous example of “profiling,” and the American Civil Liberties Union can sue Mayor de Blasio. You think I’m kidding? Hey, crazier things have happened.
Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
By Stephen M. Flatow/JNS.org
