Dave observes "It must be a busy news day" when the outrageously brutal murder of a mother and her four young girls barely gets a mention in the NYT. In fact the Times simply refers to the gruesome tragedy in an offhand way. In a story about Sharon’s defeat in the Likud referendum on the Gaza pull-out, the Times makes their only mention of 4 little girls being murdered, at close range, along with their mother after their car had been immobilized. Here is the NY Times in an aside on their referendum report:

Sunday's voting was marred by violence. Palestinian gunmen killed a pregnant Gaza settler and her four daughters, ages two to 11, in an ambush on her car as she was en route from Gaza to Israel. Israel killed four Palestinian militants in the West Bank and destroyed a Hamas-affiliated radio station in Gaza in missile strikes.

Gunmen… I guess some would think that’s preferable to militant or freedom-fighter, but the message is the same.

According to the Times, Tali Hatuel was a settler, on her way to Israel. In other words we are meant to believe that SHE was an intruder. We are led to believe that the act was just a part of the general violence of the day with Israel balancing things out by killing four militants in the West Bank... Tit for Tat, the Times would have us believe… might they even want their readers to conclude that “she deserved what she got?” The reporting is disgraceful.

CNN followed a similar line, but their version is even more curious. The fact that a CNN crew was directly involved in the incident in which the Hatuel family was murdered certainly seems newsworthy.

CNN said the Palestinian terrorists opened fire on one of its film crews working near Gush Katif in Gaza.

The CNN crew said that after fleeing the terrorists, they attempted to warn and stop unsuspecting Israeli civilian vehicles leaving Gush Katif in the direction of the terrorists. They did not successfully stop the mother and four daughters who drove past the armored CNN vehicle and were subsequently gunned down by the terrorists.

But, curiously, CNN’s report makes no mention of it and instead, alludes to a similar state of moral equivalence that the Times paints for us. By telling the story as a sub-head to their “Four Militants Killed in West Bank” headline they make it seem as a retaliatory attack. Again, tying events together in one story as if they are related. They are not. The effect is as insulting as it is false.

Shooting a helpless woman and her four young children at close range is an horrific crime. It’s outrageous to make any comparison of these ghastly murders to any military operations against terrorists. Shame on you New York Times and CNN.