Pervasive News Bias on Gaza Synagogue Desecrations

From the New York Times:

Behind him, a settlement synagogue built in the shape of a huge Star of David was smoldering, fires inside sending smoke through the edges of the star. Atop the building, in the dim smoky moment before dawn, one could see a huge green flag of Hamas, with a smaller Palestinian flag flying below it.

Israel had leveled all the other buildings in the settlements in an agreement with the Palestinians but chose, at the last minute, not to destroy the synagogues because a number of Israeli conservatives argued that it was wrong for Jews to destroy synagogues. As a result, settlement synagogues were standing and vulnerable to vandalism.

The cause of the synagogues being "vulnerable to vandalism" was Israel's "last-minute decision" to deviate from the "agreements" because of the opinion of "conservatives." This sentence makes the outrageous claim that the Israeli mainstream believes that it is not wrong for Jews to destroy synagogues. The only argument was whether, in the face of an obviously impending orgy of Arab desecration of religious sites, it would be a lesser evil to preemptively commit a single act of desecration.

A historical analogy would be Masada--the community decided to commit mass suicide not because they believed it was okay to do so, but as a lesser evil to the impending evils of torture, rape, enslavement and execution by the Romans.

Of course, there is a lot of bias to this story. One reader of this blog (anonymous) is upset by:

the use of the passive voice and the off-stage occurrence of the destruction, as if the Arabs bore no responsibility. Imagine if Jews had dismantled the Dome of the Rock and a newspaper made it sound as if it was just one of those things that happened to occur, with no one being responsible. The ultimate irony is that the Arabs are now tearing up the greenhouses that produced such a large proportion of Israel's agricultural exports. If they destroy them all the Arabs will say they live in squalor because of oppression by the Jews, but the real reason is that they have destroyed something of value while the Jews had created something of value.

The descent to barbarity is something we've seen before, and the world's lack of caring about Arab depravity will hurt the Arabs more than the Jews. First they came for the synagogues but the world didn't care because they don't worship in synagogues. By the time they went for the greenhouses it was too late to stop them.

We are certain that the New York Times is not the only news outlet that has tried to finesse this obfuscation--we would be interested in receiving other examples.

Update: Soccer Dad responded to the above request in spades, such as these jaw-droppers via Honest Reporting:

Any hopes of a better and more peaceful era for the region were dampened by...the Israeli cabinet's decision to leave intact 19 buildings that housed synagogues in the vacated settlements.

--The Scotsman

Palestinians came streaming to the settlements that caused them so much pain, to sightsee and to loot. Israel stole thirty-eight years from them; today, many were ready to take back anything they could.

--BBC TV

"I want to destroy everything here as they did the Al Aqsa mosque," said Mahmoud Malahi... It's a symbol of occupation. Destroying it is a symbol of Islam."

--Knight Ridder

Soccer Dad also sent in a vile opinion piece on the topic by former Israeli correspondent and editor of the Baltimore Sun G. Jefferson Price III.