Headline Games

The usage of the word "storms"?

Yes. Its usage implies that Israel was in some way doing something against the will of the owners of the building. At the very least, it makes this point very ambiguous, when in reality it was very clear that this was not the case.

You have misunderstood the NY Times headline, and it is not your fault, you do not live in America and therefore do not understand the expressions here. You translated that in your head, and it did not make sense to you.

Thank you very much for your understanding. However, you have misunderstood me, and it is not your fault, you do not know me or my personal history, and therefore you do not understand that I lived in the US for the first 25 years of my life (including all of my schooling, SAT's, University), English is my native language for both reading and speaking, I know about idioms and their usages in the English language and I don't need the grammar lesson from you. You made assumptions about me in your head, and from this you drew conclusions that were incorrect. (This is not to say that I never make grammatical mistakes. However, your statement was presumptuous and rude to a certain degree, as well as incorrect).

Where do you live?

What the writer of the article said, is that Israeli troops stormed, as in, rapidly moved into a building (which happened to be the British Embassy) in order to stop the gunman, which apparently was getting out of control.

Soldiers and police officers "storming" a specific location imply attacking it by force. It does not just mean "rapidly moving into a building". A certain degree of violence is implied. According to accounts of the situation, this man climbed a fence to get into the British Embassy, pointed a gun at his own head and threatened to kill himself unless granted political asylum. Not exactly a situation that calls for "storming the embassy" in the traditional sense of the word.

The formulation of the headline leaves the point ambiguous as to whether Israel did this of their own accord, or whether it was at the request of the British (which it was). If this point had been clarified in the story, then it might be ok. But this point was not clarified. On the whole, I found that the article and headline left a big question open as to whether Israel was doing something wrong here. This is what I am complaining about.

Guys, they're soldiers, did you expect the headline to say:

"Israeli soldiers casually walk inside embassy to apprehend crazy gunman"

No, I expect the headline to avoid ambiguity on a sensitive subject and say something to the affect of "Israeli Soldiers Apprehend Gunman Inside British Embassy". Using the word "stormed" allows for the possibility that this whole action was done without the permission of the British government.

In this case, the article posted by the Jerusalem Post was much more informative in terms of describing the relavent facts and events that transpired. (In other words: yes).

You are asking people to vote based on a single incident?

No I didn't. If I were asking them to vote based on a single incident, I would have written: "Based on this single incident, does the New York Times exhibit a consistent anti-Israel bias in their reporting?". But that is not what I wrote.

Btw, why don't you take it up with the head honcho of NY Times

Because I would rather put it out on a public forum like this one. If I wrote a letter to the NY Times it would probably be ignored. If I write a piece on a place like this and it gets noticed and causes bad press, it may have more of an affect.

Arthur Sulzberger, who coincidentally happens to be a Jew. It would be interesting to find out why he lets his paper "display a consistent anti-Israel bias."

There is a rule somewhere that states that it is impossible for a Jewish person to say or sponsor statements that are anti-Israel?

Who says that your other source is any more "true?"

I do. Even though I wasn't there, I believe that in a situation like what was described in both the NY Times and the Jerusalem Post, Israeli forces would not enter the British Embassy without permission. Additionally, the Israeli papers have some easily verifiable statements like "According to embassy officials, security guards asked their commanders whether they should attempt to apprehend Injaz, but were told to wait for Israeli police teams.". These were not included in the NY Times, and were included in other papers. The NY Times used ambiguous language in their headline that could very easily lead to the opposite conclusion (as described above).

Were you there personally? If not, you don't know.

Not true. I know things with pretty good certainty about many events going on in the world today, as well as throughout history, at which I was not personally present.

Instead of getting worked up about the press, maybe you should instead be getting worked up about the situation that causes these stories in the first place

I am worked up. Check out my article and link archives. And bias against Israel in the press is most definitely something that contributes to the situation (and this is my way of devoting energy against that)