{Originally posted to the FirstOne Through website}
The New York Times published an article on June 5, 2018 about the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Regarding his murderer, the Times wrote the following:
“Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, said to be motivated by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and his hatred of Mr. Kennedy for his support of Israel, was later convicted of the murder.”
Page A10 of the June 5, 2018 New York Times
According to the NY Times, the root cause for the killing was Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. A country’s mistreatment of individuals. Might against right (presumably).
This is the narrative that the Times uses today to describe the anger of Palestinian Arabs and left wing radicals against the Jewish State.
And it stands in sharp contrast to the unvarnished truth that the Palestinian Arabs have stood against the “invasion” of Jews into the region from the time of the Balfour Declaration 100 years ago until today. Sirhan Sirhan was against the presence of Jews and the existence of Israel; he was not “motivated by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.” It was Jew-hatred and anyone supporting the Jewish State.
To illustrate the point, here are some quotes from the Palestinian Arabs themselves in the 1960’s:
From the 1968 Palestinian National Charter:
“It is a national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an Arab revolutionary manner. All means of information and education must be adopted in order to acquaint the Palestinian with his country in the most profound manner, both spiritual and material, that is possible. He must be prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland and bring about its liberation.”
“Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it .”
“Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. “
“The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.“
“The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time,”
“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood.”
“Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress.”
“The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations,”
This updated 1968 Charter was changed from the original 1964 charter which had many of the same comments. An interesting modification between the two charters is in Article 7, trying to reconcile what to do with Jews that had lived in Palestine for generations.
- 1964 charter: “Jews of Palestinian origin are considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine.”
- 1968 charter: “The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.”
By 1968, the concept of “living peacefully” with Jews was abandoned.
Beyond the Palestinians, the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sought to unite the Arab world, including the Palestinian Arabs. His May 1967 speech before the start of the 1967 War against Israel spelled out his desire to end Israel and combat its supporters including the United States and Great Britain:
“Preparations have already been made. We are now ready to confront Israel. … It is the aggression which took place in Palestine in 1948 [the establishment of the State of Israel] with the collaboration of Britain and the United States. It is the expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine, the usurpation of their rights, and the plunder of their property. It is the disavowal of all the UN resolutions in favour of the Palestinian people. … If the United States and Britain are partial to Israel, we must say that our enemy is not only Israel but also the United States and Britain and treat them as such.”
And after the June 1967 war in which the Arabs not only failed to destroy Israel but lost additional territory, the Arab states passed the Khartoum Resolution on September 1, 1967 stating:
“no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.
The conference of Arab Ministers of Finance, Economy and Oil recommended that suspension of oil pumping be used as a weapon in the battle [against western countries].”
The Arab war against Israel’s supporters – including Robert Kennedy – was about the reestablishment of the Jewish people in their homeland, nothing less.
With such a boldface lie, should we wonder why the Times did not state clearly that Sirhan Sirhan was himself a Palestinian Arab? Is the Times perhaps promoting the idea that many non-Arabs are also upset with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and might take similar actions against politicians supporting Israel?
Let’s be clear, especially since The New York Times is lying directly and explicitly to its readers: Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy because he hated the existence of Israel and all of the country’s supporters, not because of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs.
Related First.One.Through articles:
The Cancer in the Arab-Israeli Conflict
The New York Times Inverts the History of Jerusalem
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