Anti-Israel media bias

Received today:

The below is a vivid example of how our media do not accurately report events, especially in the Middle East. I have noticed the same pro-PLO and anti-Israel bias in the mainstream media.

The New York Times published a photo of an Israeli soldier standing by a bloodied young man. The caption conveyed the image that the Palestinians are innocent victims of Israeli aggression, symbolized by this bloody young man and that the photo was taken on the Temple Mount.

The truth is that the bloodied young man was not a Palestinian at all, but a Jew, an American Jew at that, who is a student in Jerusalem. He and two friends had just been dragged out of a taxi and beaten by Palestinians. The soldier in the photo arrived on the scene and saved the life of the American Jewish student. The student's father is Dr. Aaron Grossman of Chicago. Here are the letters that he and an uncle of the boy sent to the NY Times.

Subject: To the editor
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 00:15:07
From: aaronnoach <aaronnoach@21stcentury.net>
To: letters@nytimes.com

Regarding your picture on page A5 (Sept. 30) of the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian on the Temple Mount. That "Palestinian" is actually my son, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago. He and two of his friends were pulled from their taxicab while travelling in Jerusalem by a mob of Palestinian Arabs and were severely beaten and stabbed. That picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier attempting to protect my son from the mob.

Aaron Grossman, M.D.
6737 N. Richmond
Chicago, IL. 60645
(773)743-1194


Subject: (no subject)
Date Mon, 2 Oct 2000 14:54:39 EDT
From Heshygiss@aol.com
To letters@nytimes.com
CC aaronnoach@21stcentury.net, JPeditor@aol.com

Dear Editor:

Even the typically biased and slanted NY Times Middle East reporting has hit a new low. Since the TImes wishes to convey the belief that the Palestinians are all innocent lambs being tormented by an aggressive oppressor, it can not even conceive that the wounded and injured are NOT Palestinians. The current case in point is very personal to me. In the Saturday edition of the Times, the photo on A5, the picture of the "wounded Palestinian" is in fact, my nephew, Tuvia Grossman, an AMERICAN Jewish student learning in Israel. His only crime was being Jewish. He was not in "crossfire" but merely the target of Palestinian lambs who stoned his cab, dragged him from the vehicle, smashed his head with stones and stabbed him in the leg. The Israeli soldier, whom you obviously wished to portray as victimizing the poor, wounded Palestinian was actually saving my nephew's life. A casual look at the background of the picture can tell anyone that it's not the Temple Mount at all. I believe that a retraction, in a prominent position in the paper, is necessary and an apology to the parents, forthcoming.

Howard Gissinger
2809 Avenue S
Brooklyn, New York 11229
718-998-2909