Behind the Week's News (No, not Michael Jackson)

Rabbi Tzvi Nightingale
Aish South Florida

This week we saw yet another example of the oh so transparent double standard in the media, and in the world in general, regarding its attitude and reaction to Israel when it commits acts of violence for self defense versus when other nations do the same.

The following appeared on the left column of the front page of Tuesday July 7th's edition of the New York Times. Although it seemed to be a primary story, it warranted only one column and no picture, as it played second fiddle to the dominate stories of the President's visit to Russia and the death of Robert McNamara.

Here is the first paragraph from that article:

URUMQI, China - The Chinese government locked down this regional capital of 2.3 million people and other cities across its western desert region on Monday and early Tuesday, imposing curfews, cutting off cellphone and Internet services and sending armed police officers into neighborhoods after clashes erupted here on Sunday evening between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese. The fighting left at least 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured, according to the state news agency.

Now let's play a little game. Let's pretend the same thing happened in another part of the world and imagine if the article read as follows:

WEST BANK, Israel - The Israeli government locked down this regional capital of 2.3 million people and other cities across its region on Monday and early Tuesday, imposing curfews, cutting off cellphone and Internet services and sending armed police officers into neighborhoods after clashes erupted here on Sunday evening between Muslim Palestinians and Israelis. The fighting left at least 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured, according to the state news agency.

You think this would have been a photo-less piece stuck on the left side of the Times or would it be smack in the center of page 1? And the subsequent muted reaction by the world to this action by the Chinese military and police, how would it compare to the worldwide reaction to Israel? You really don't have to use much imagination to note the discrepancy.

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