The dishonest and biased journalism of Time magazine knows no bounds. That is easily demonstrated by the June 19, 2006 issue, which covered the killing of Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist who led attacks against American forces in Iraq, and Jamal Abu Samhadana, the terrorist mastermind of attacks against Israel and the firing of rockets to indiscriminately murder Israeli civilians.
Time’s report on the killing of Zarqawi had terrorist and terrorism written all over it. A headline spoke of what led U.S. forces “to the terrorist’s lair.” The box headline over the story read “War on Terror.” The article described in detail how Zarqawi slaughtered innocent civilians including three suicide attacks on hotels in Jordan, which killed 60 people.
In contrast, the attack by Israel on the well-known terrorist Samhadana is described in mild and neutral terms. Even though he was a self-proclaimed terrorist, he was not characterized as such by Time(Zarqawi was so described in an article appearing in the same issue) which chose to portray him as a member of the “military wing” of Hamas and a “militant leader.”
Time went into all kinds of verbal gyrations to sanitize, euphemize, and legitimize terror against Israelis. Not one word was used to correctly describe terrorist Samhadana; he could be just another civil servant doing his job, according to Time’s reckoning. He was described in neutral terms and supported by quotations from fellow terrorists.
For example, throughout the article Hamas and other terrorist spokesman were quoted to condemn the Israeli action without any response from Israeli spokesmen. One Hamas spokesman described the Israeli attack as a “war crime.” Another said, “Hamas cannot stand idly by while the Israeli army kills women and children.” (In contrast, the report on the killing of Zarqawi quoted no terrorists or others to explain or justify terrorism or the actions of Zarqawi.)
You will note one standard for militants (aka terrorists) who kill Israelis and Jews and another standard for terrorists who kill Americans and others in Iraq. This double standard is the classic technique of anti-Semites over the centuries – one standard for Jews and another standard for all others.
Time’s bias is so blatant it literally oozed from the report, which had Hamas simply reacting to the killing of a “militant leader” and to an Israeli shelling of a Gaza beach, which killed “eight, including five members of one family.”
To read Time, you’d think the terrorists were simply members of the Rotary Club reacting to an atrocity inflicted on them. That’s because Time went to the most dishonest and biased of journalistic extremes to omit the Israeli side of the story:
● Time omitted the fact that the Israelis assassinated Samhadana as he was planning and training with others for another terror attack.
● Timeomitted the fact that Samhadana founded the terrorist organization Popular Resistance Committee and was responsible for firing countless rockets at Israeli towns. He was behind most of the Kassam rocket attacks in the Western Negev.
● Time also neglected to mention that Samhadana was implicated in the October 15, 2003 killing of three U.S. Security officials in Gaza. He was also responsible for bombing a school bus and an assortment of other terrorist atrocities.
● Time passed over the fact that Samhadana did not even attempt to hide his terrorist intentions. As one Labor minister said, “He was involved in terror attacks, one of the few who never tried to hide it.“
● Time noted the Israeli shelling of a beach in Gaza that killed eight and claimed that this enraged the terrorists. The magazine didn’t bother to report that Israel investigated that incident, found its forces were not even in action at the time of the shelling, and further suggested that it may have been Hamas ammunition that caused the explosion.