On the good news-bad news theme, the good news is that the NY Times finally noticed that Palestinians' lovely custom of executing accused collaborators without trial. They killed a 17 year-old girl this time. (Think the Europeans who get so incensed when the US executes a prisoner will kick up a fuss? Nah) The bad news? Serge Schmemann actually seems to tip his sympathy towards the executioners:
Collaboration has always ranked as a heinous crime among the Palestinians. Dozens of men have been killed as collaborators, often publicly. Ms. Khouli and Ms. Ibrahim, however, had the distinction of being the first women executed in the current uprising, and their deaths attracted considerable attention.
And Mr. Schliemann continues the fine journalistic tradition of reprinting the biggest Palestinian whoppers without any corrective context:
Throughout the interview, the Aksa spokesman sought to explain that killing collaborators was not the policy of the group, that the collapse of the Palestinian Authority had imposed this task on them.
Makes it sound as if the PA used to run a regular judicial system (until the Israeli-caused destruction broke everything down), instead of having a track record of killing hundreds of collaborators itself, doesn't it? It is such a handy catch-all charge, too, that you keep hearing reports that large numbers of these alleged collaborators were really victims of extortion schemes or of a clan feud. I have seen estimates that up to half the victims were not actually collaborators at all. But it's not Mr. Schmemann's job to show any subjectivity between the killers and the killed.
For Arab Informers, Death; For the Executioners, Justice
nytimes.com |
