NYTimes Pretending Terrorists are Journalists

Once again The New York Times has attempted to paint Israel as murders of journalists, this time by falsely labeling as "journalists" two terror commanders that the Israeli Defense Force recently eliminated.

Over the weekend The Times reported on two terrorists, Mahmoud al-Kumi and Hussam Salama, that were killed last week in Gaza by an IDF missile aimed at their car, a vehicle that The Times complains "was clearly marked with the letters TV." The paper claimed that the two were merely "cameramen for Al-Aqsa TV" and were but "covering events in central Gaza" when they were killed. It would be outrageous if the IDF were targeting journalists, we all agree. But just who were these two that were killed, anyway? Were they just run-of-the-mill journalists? It turns out they were not journalists at all.

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Muhammed Shamalah, commander of Hamas forces in the southern Strip and head of the Hamas militant training programs, was targeted by an Israeli air strike while driving a car clearly labelled [sic] "TV", indicating it to be a press vehicle, abusing the protection afforded to journalists.

(The Washington Free Beacon confirmed that the names Salama and Shamalah both refer to the same person.) As to that marking of "TV" on the terrorist's car, the letters were just spray-painted on a door. All very official, of course. Further, the media outlet they were supposed to be working for, Al-Aqsa TV, is just the propaganda arm of the terror group Hamas. It must be noted that Al-Aqsa TV is classified by our own government as part of the terror organization Hamas. Unfortunately, also killed with the two terrorists was one Mohamed Abu Aisha the director of the private Al-Quds Educational Radio. But, Israel has gone out of its way to warn reporters and others to stay away from these terrorists as IDF continues its policy of surgically pinpointing known terrorists and taking them out. In fact, the IDF's methods show a major difference between Israel and Hamas and other radical Islamist terrorists. The terrorists indiscriminately kill with large bombs or rockets that fly in any and every direction. They do not target, they carpet bomb killing women and children and only occasionally striking Israeli military targets. On the other hand, the IDF finds, identifies, and surgically eliminates individually targeted terrorists instead of carpet-bombing Palestinian homes. If it must be war, the IDF's version is far more humane. On would think that The New York Times would be upset at terrorists trying to hide behind the false claim of being journalists. The Times should be condemning Hamas terror, but instead, as The Beacon notes, it has promoted the false claim by Hamas that their terror commanders are "journalists" and gone on to condemn Israel for trying to put an end to terrorism. This isn't the only time The Times has fallen for the false claim that Hamas terrorists are "journalists." We reported last week on another such incident. And this is not to even mention other media outlets such as CNN that constantly use fake video created by terrorists to condemn Israel.