2006 QUOTES FROM NYT

HERE ARE A SERIES OF QUOTES FROM NYT ARTICLES IN 2006.

Always Blame Israel (TimesWatch)
"Peace is much spoken of here. But at times, as I race along the narrow moral precipice, running between a military checkpoint and a suicide bombing, I think of the old Russian proverb: 'We shall struggle for peace so hard that not a tree will be left standing.'" --Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger, writing from Jerusalem for the Times' travel section on April 16.

"Once Again, Gazans Are Displaced by Israeli Occupiers." -- Headline over a story by Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger, July 12.

"The pattern has recurred time and again for several years: Palestinians fire rockets from northern Gaza that cause damage or casualties only occasionally, yet prompt a tough Israeli response, like the offensive now under way." -- Israel-based reporter Greg Myre, July 9.

"Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements." -- Neil MacFarquhar from Damascus on July 28.

"The situation is made all the more complicated by the nature of Hezbollah. It functions as a civil aid group as well as a militia, helping with schools and in hospitals, and in many cases providing essential public services at times in the years of the war when the government was simply not able. It has a savvy media operation, with a spokesman who takes groups of journalists on tours of the devastation in southern Beirut with a truck that blares Hezbollah fighting songs from rows of speakers." -- Sabrina Tavernise, July 25.

"The asymmetry in the reported death tolls is marked and growing: some 230 Lebanese dead, most of them civilians, to 25 Israeli dead, 13 of them civilians. In Gaza, one Israel soldier has died from his own army's fire, and 103 Palestinians have been killed, 70 percent of them militants. The cold figures, combined with Israeli air attacks on civilian infrastructure like power plants, electricity transformers, airports, bridges, highways and government buildings, have led to accusations by France and the European Union, echoed by some nongovernmental organizations, that Israel is guilty of 'disproportionate use of force' in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and of 'collective punishment' of the civilian populations." -- From a July 19 story by Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger.

"But this town is also the gateway to Hezbollah country, where Hezbollah controls everything from local administration and schools to security. Hezbollah has its footprint everywhere here, from its signature yellow banners to portraits celebrating fallen martyrs." -- Hassan Fattah from Tyre, Lebanon on July 18.

"Now there is Sheik Nasrallah, a 46-year-old Lebanese militia chieftain hiding in a bunker, combining the scripted logic of a clergyman with the steely resolve of a general to completely rewrite the rules of the Arab-Israeli land feud....The name instantly reminds everyone of his personal credibility and commitment to the fight." -- Neil MacFarquhar on Hezbollah's leader, August 7.