The unsigned New York Times infographic (“Pushing Ahead,” p. A10, May 3, 2010) accompanying William Broad and David Sanger’s story on U.S. attempts to head off a Middle Eastern nuclear race is missing a shade of darkness over the state of Israel.

Take a look:

While Iran and Syria have been blackened out completely — denoting that “construction [has] begun” on their nuclear programs — Israel curiously lacks this dark hue. Israel is well-known to have begun construction in its program and, indeed, brought this process to fruition in a nuclear weapons arsenal.

It makes little sense to place Israel in the same dark gray category as many of her neighbors, implying that Israel has nuclear “plans developed” but has not built anything.

In their story, Broad and Sanger refer to Israel’s “atomic arsenal” as a matter of fact. The graphic alongside their piece should reflect this reality.

The glaring omission must have come up at some point. If and once the question arose, how did it not go all the way up the editorial chain of command?

It’s even more troubling to think that the question was never asked — denoting, perhaps, gross incompetence or, worse yet, a culture of fear on the issue at the Times. Let’s hope the that the Times, at the very least, has the courage to issue a correction.