New York Times decision to feature a morgue of dead Lebanese civilians on the front page

From my perspective as a trained social work professional who works in the media, it was both shocking and inappropriate to see how the New York Times chose to run a five column picture of a morgue of Lebanese civilians who had been accidentally killed, on the front page of the well read Sunday New York Times of July 16th, 2006.

This followed a week in which the Lebanese based Hizballah organization fired indiscriminately at more than 40 Israeli cities, towns and villages, while the Israeli army did everything in its power to avoid hitting civilian targets.

It would be instructive to see if the New York Times would now run the picture of the morgue of the people killed today in Haifa, as a result of a direct hit of a Hizbullah missile, which the Hizballah aimed at a civilian targe.

Then again, Israeli PR people do not generally provide photo-ops of morgues for the media, out of respect for the deceased.

It is obvious that the message that the New York Times wanted to convey was simple: Israelis kill civilians.

Why not say crucify?