The disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the hypocrisy of the New York Times
By
Jordan Shilton
10 October 2018
Even by the deplorable standards of America’s “newspaper of record,” the pose of moral outrage adopted by the New York Times following last week’s disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is staggering in its hypocrisy.
In a series of articles, including a comment by the war-monger Thomas Friedman entitled “Praying for Jamal Khashoggi” and an editorial under the headline “Saudi Arabia must answer for Jamal Khashoggi,” the Times feigned shock and horror at the reports of Khashoggi’s death, and demanded that Riyadh come clean about the journalist’s fate.
The 59-year-old Khashoggi, who fled Saudi Arabia for the United States last year, enjoyed close ties to the Saudi royal family throughout a journalistic career that spanned some three decades. However, he came into conflict with the agenda of the powerful Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, including with denunciations of Bin Salman’s arrest of regime critics and conduct of the brutal war in Yemen.
On Tuesday, October 2, Khashoggi visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain divorce papers and has not been seen since. The Turkish authorities, which are leading the investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance, reportedly believe that the journalist was murdered in the consulate and that his body was subsequently dismembered and removed from the country.
If true, the murder of Khashoggi will be a horrific crime, underscoring the brutality of the blood-soaked Saudi dictatorship. But it will join a long list of acts of terror and brutality carried out by the Saudi regime, very few of which have troubled the Times as much as Khashoggi’s disappearance.
The Saudi…