Dear Editor:

We know why Shireen Abu Akleh got killed, and it doesn't matter where the fatal bullet came from, although The New York Times reasoning falls short in that area as well.

Abu Akleh was killed because Palestinian Arab terrorists brutally murdered nineteen innocent Israelis in less than two months, forcing Israel to go into the most active hotbed of terrorism in the Palestinian Authority, and then they fired wildly at Israeli forces going after the murderers and trying to prevent additional fatal attacks. When that happens, others - including journalists - are inevitably going to get caught in the crossfire.

In terms of where the fatal bullet originated, we'll almost never know for sure, since even if the Palestinian Authority ever said it was giving access to the forensic evidence it has so long hidden from others, one could never be confident it wasn't tampered with. However, it's pretty obvious that if the Palestinian Authority believed the accusations it has made against Israel, then it would have quickly produced the bullet. One is thus led to the logical conclusion that the Palestinian Authority either knows or has reason to believe the bullet was fired by a Palestinian Arab.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

P.S. One wonders why The New York Times has given so much more attention to the accidental death of Abu Akleh than it has to any of the hundreds of other reporters who have gotten killed recently covering conflicts, not to mention the scant coverage it has given to the nineteen innocent Israelis recently murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists and the reasoning in The New York Times editorial flying in the face of logic and common sense. One also wonders whether the third fact is connected to the first two.