Jewdar is a long time subscriber to the New York Times, and not one of those to cry “foul” whenever there’s a story on the Middle East whose angle we dislike, but sometimes… In his recent story on Egyptian President-elect Morsi’s promise to secure the release of Abdel Rahman, the imam involved in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the Times‘ David Kirkpatrick had this to say:
Although it is nearly impossible to find an Egyptian who supports terrorist attacks like those on Sept. 11 or the 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Center garage, many are very skeptical of official American accounts about who was responsible.
Really? Nearly impossible to find an Egyptian who supports terrorist attacks? Far be it from Jewdar to engage in ethnic or religious profiling, but how hard did Kirkpatrick look?
He looked out of his hotel room and couldn’t find a single Egyptian carrying a sign saying that he supported terrorism.
he canvassed the entire Starbucks on the corner near his apartment in Greenwich Village and couldn’t find a single Egyptian who supported terrorism.
… and by canvassing, I mean as he was sitting there typing up his article he sat up and yelled, “Hey! Any Egyptians here that would support a terrorist attack on the world trade center?”
Nobody responded. Proof. He was actually being very conservative when he said “nearly” impossible.
Clearly he should have said, “While it is hard to find an Egyptian who will admit to a Western reporter that he supports attacks against American civilians…”
As for Israeli civilians, we all know that the foremost Egyptian religious authority (Yusuf al-Qaradawi) has already ruled that killing them is not terrorism at all, and far be it from the New York Times to make that clear.
You are far too kind to the New York Times
I imagine he canvassed the rest of the New York Times staff….
The New York Times has gotten creepier over the last few years.