This has become a regular feature for me: documenting the bias of The New York Times on the Middle East.

The paper’s line is pro-Israeli and everything that stems from that. It’s the subtleties that matter, the Times is fanatically pro-Israeli like, say, The New Republic or the now defunct New York Sun. The Times is more casually in its bias, slipping in a few words here and there. But the paradigm is the same, and the ostensible “paper-of-record” follows a always pro-Israel world view.

Today’s example:

The Times had a story about the efforts of the Iraqi government to undermine the position of an Iranian opposition group residing in Iraq. The Iraqi goverment is simply pushing the group out of the country. The organization is the People’s Mujahedin of Iran.

The group, as the placement of the word Mujahedin would suggest, a militant Islamic organization that seeks the overthrow of the Iranian regime. Though the groups claims to want to overthrow the Iranian regime only to install a secular democracy. Regardless of its true intentions, and even though PMOI renounced violence in 2001, it has a very violent history: hijackings, pioneering car bombs, attacks against Iranian and Western targets, assassination of U.S. personal, supported the taking of American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. The group is a identified terrorist group under U.S. and EU law.

And, yet, what is the word the Times uses to describe them: “resistance group.”

“An Iranian resistance group on Monday condemned a renewed push by the Iraqi government to deport its members as a result of undue Iranian influence.”

The use of the word “resistance” is probably due to the organization becoming favorable to Israel, likely relying on some Israeli assistance to overthrow the Iranian government.

Language is important because the use of one word over another is meant to convey an image to readers. Describing a Iranian opposition group as “resistance” while a Palestinian resistance front as “terrorist” is meant to convince readers that one is noble and and other ignoble. Maybe one is and the other isn’t, but professional newspapers should let the reader decide and not seek to engage in any propaganda that suits their political preferences.

And notice the reference to “undue” Iranian influence on the Iraqi government, what about America’s influence on the Iraqi government!? Again, maybe Iranian influence is bad and American good, but “undue” conveys that message that only the former’s is problematic. The standards [or lack thereof] of American mainstream journalism.