Richard,
I'll get to your substantive critique in a moment, but first I'd like to say something about the aesthetics of your comment. I'll be blunt: Your condescension is unnecessary, and actually unwarranted, given your station in the intellectual world. You say to me, "You have to think when you read such coverge [sic]. You have to work at it." Thanks for the tip, Ace. I'll try to do better next time. Then you write: "Too bad you don't have more respect for people's intelligence." Actually, my respect for the average person’s intelligence is what prevents me from making the kinds of patronizing and arrogant comments you’ve made above. At this moment the only person whose intelligence I have very little respect for is yours, Richard.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff. You say to me: "Somehow, you feel that unless the media spoonfeeds a script to the audience that is explicitly Israel-friendly, they won't get it." This is a red herring. That's not at all what I feel, or what I wrote. My commentary was a narrowly-focused critique of the NYT's decision to publish a flattering picture of a mass-killer without indicating that she is such. Mentioning to readers that the woman beaming at them from the top of the story planned and helped execute a bombing that killed 15 people, 8 of them children, and wounded and maimed 130 more, is not "spoon-feeding readers an Israel-friendly script." It is practicing responsible journalism, and nothing more.

And as for your preposterous accusation that I am not willing "to link to images that portray Israel's violence against Palestinians or Lebanese," this too is a red herring. Critiquing Israeli violence had nothing to do with my commentary. Regardless, if you had done a quick Google search you would find that I wrote a lengthy article recently about a trip I did to Lebanon in which I wrote extensively about Lebanese suffering. It is available here: http://azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=373

As you might advise, when it comes to making false accusations about people, "you have to work at it."