During the current conflict between Israel and Hamas I’ve been watching, listening to and reading a wide variety of media. Mostly it’s been a pleasant surprise this time around. The BBC did a remarkable piece about all the false images claiming to show the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Media outlets around the world picked up the story which highlighted the lies and propaganda in places that never report on it. France 24 showed IDF footage taken from one of Israel’s planes which showed a pilot calling off an airstrike because Hamas has put children on the roof to act as human shields which, once again, got a surprising amount of coverage in places where I least expected to see it. (Shown here with English subtitles.)
Just last night on CNN’s Crossfire former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pronounced the calls for Israeli restraint in the face of relentless rocket fire from Hamas his “outrage of the day”. He pointed out: "If the United States had 1,000 rockets fired at us, would we show any restraint? Of course not. We would annihilate whoever did it." Paul Begala, the left wing commentator who normally debates Gingrich, first three words in response: “You're exactly right.” That is not what CNN viewers are used to seeing on Israel.
CBS has been as bad as the far left fringe outlets. Watching Holly Williams report on Gaza from Sderot I learned the most amazing things. For example, most Gazans were displaced from their homeland in 1948. Considering that the median age in Gaza is just 15 most Gazans have never seen Israel. They are the granchildren and great grandchildren of the actual refugees, but Ms. Williams clearly believes in inherited refugee status. Her main theme was that “Israel claims” it’s targeting terrorists but it’s really aiming for poor, innocent Palestinian women and children. Her reports show children going to hospital (some with no obvious injuries), wailing and screaming women, and rubble which supposedly was their homes. There usually is no mention of Hamas using human shields except for last night, when she had a Hamas spokesman on to claim that is a lie. No Israeli was included in any of her reports I've seen during the conflict.
If Ms. Williams does mention Hamas rockets briefly at the end of her report she makes sure to tell us that no Israelis have died and that Palestinians don’t have anything like Iron Dome to protect them. (One Israeli was killed today.) She apparently believes that rocket fire into Israel should be ignored. No mention of injuries and property damage gets into her reports. She needs to use all her time to convince us to pity the poor Palestinians.
If that Hamas spokesman had been given editorial control of the CBS News report he couldn’t have written more favorable propaganda. When I was young the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was the most respected and trusted television newscast in America. That is no longer the case. Sadly journalistic standards and fairness have been entirely abandoned by CBS. Nowadays they are combatants in a media war against Israel, even when many mainstream left-leaning media outlets have decided they cannot participate this time around.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
No Israeli Good Deed Goes Unpunished
The two week IDF rescue and medical mission to Haiti drew some absolutely amazing press. Even media outlets normally critical of Israel couldn't heap enough praise on what Israelis did in Haiti. For example, watch this brief (under two minute) report on CNN:
Here is another CNN story about Israeli rescue efforts. Even some in the Arab media covered the story. Here is what Palestinian-American journalist Ray Hanania had to say:
Despite this some have used the IDF efforts in Haiti as an excuse to bash Israel according to an article in Ha'aretz published on January 21. Those who hate Israel accuse the Jewish state of giving aid not out of concern for the suffering in that country, but rather for ulterior motives:
This sort of reaction is not surprising giving the almost daily anti-Israel diatribes found on that website. The Ha'aretz article continues:
In his book The Case For Peace, Alan Dershowitz claims that many of the supporters of the Palestinians in the West are "more Palestinian than the Palestinians" and that their hatred of and vitriol towards Israel is far greater than what is found among Palestinian Arabs. This latest round of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hatred, complete with blood libel which would make the authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion proud, is a prime example. No Israeli deed, no matter how noble, will go unpunished by those who truly hate the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
Here is another CNN story about Israeli rescue efforts. Even some in the Arab media covered the story. Here is what Palestinian-American journalist Ray Hanania had to say:
"200,000 Haitians died in an earthquake. They sent doctors and supplies to help. That is a good thing. Just because we are fighting with Israel doesn't mean we should sneer at that assistance to people in need. YES, I wish Israel could show the same compassion for Palestinians. But Israel and Haiti are not at war and Israelis and Palestinians (mainly Hamas and the settlers) are."
Despite this some have used the IDF efforts in Haiti as an excuse to bash Israel according to an article in Ha'aretz published on January 21. Those who hate Israel accuse the Jewish state of giving aid not out of concern for the suffering in that country, but rather for ulterior motives:
"...for a shocking number of others, the bottom line is simple: Israel, and Israelis, can do no right. In its most extreme there are those who have accused Israel of using the Haiti catastrophe as a new reservoir for harvesting organs.
But even many of those who shun blood libels, have seized on the Haiti mission to bash Israel, revealing in many cases a hatred - and a bigotry - that borders on the visceral.
'I guess giving Israel credit for good deeds in Haiti,' wrote reader John Smithson on the widely read Mondoweiss site, 'is like watching a serial killer or other sociopathic type mow an old woman's lawn (or some other charitable thing).'
This sort of reaction is not surprising giving the almost daily anti-Israel diatribes found on that website. The Ha'aretz article continues:
"The contention is that Israel sent aid to Haiti on purely cynical motives [...] it is nothing short of racism to maintain, in Haiti and in general, that Israelis can do no right.
In his book The Case For Peace, Alan Dershowitz claims that many of the supporters of the Palestinians in the West are "more Palestinian than the Palestinians" and that their hatred of and vitriol towards Israel is far greater than what is found among Palestinian Arabs. This latest round of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hatred, complete with blood libel which would make the authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion proud, is a prime example. No Israeli deed, no matter how noble, will go unpunished by those who truly hate the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Iran: "A Moment Of Truth", CNN Style
This article is part of this week's Jerusalem Post Submission Contest. You can rate my post and affect the outcome of the contest here.
Last Sunday Fareed Zakaria, the host of GPS on CNN, opened his program with an analysis of the Iranian nuclear crisis. He started by saying:
Up to this point Zakaria was 100% correct in his assessment. The current talks with the Iranian regime have produced no concrete results and based on comments by the Iranian government they never will. I can understand why President Obama wants to give diplomacy every reasonable chance at success. If nothing else it provides the U.S., and perhaps by extension Israel, some diplomatic cover with the rest of the West when the inevitable war with Iran comes.
Zakaria went on to describe some of the consequences of a strike by either the U.S. or Israel on Iran. Once again he was spot on:
It's all true. Indeed, the consequences to both Israel and some Sunni Arab nations, which Iran would likely attack to disrupt oil supplies, would be very high indeed. Let's also not forget the loss of innocent lives among Iranian civillians. Iran has placed it's nuclear and missile launching facilities in populated areas. Yes, the cost of a war with Iran will be terrible for all involved and many nations will get dragged in.
The rest of Zakaria's analysis is seriously flawed. Worse, it seems to reflect and reinforce the thinking of some in the Obama adminstration, which makes it downright dangerous. Zakaria continued:
I don't believe for one moment that the Islamic religious fanatics who run the Iranian regime would be deterred by Israel's weaponry or any likely retaliation.
Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, often referred to as a "moderate" in the press, called for a nuclear attack on Israel on December 14, 2001. His comments included the following:
We are all aware of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's repeated calls to destory Israel. For the Iranian leadership this is an ideological and religious imperatives. Against such imperatives conventional deterrence simply does not work.
Zakaria went on to interview three "distinguished experts", none of whom expressed the idea that Israel may have no choice but to preemptively strike Iran to avoid their own destruction. When PBS' Newshour With Jim Lehrer has a panel on issues like this they make sure to have all views represented. Even unabashedly left-wing MSNBC has had balanced panels where the idea that Israel may have absolutely no choice but to act if it is to survive has been clearly voiced. Not so on CNN. I couldn't help but remember a discussion some years ago on CNN hosted by Christiane Amanpour where her idea of differing viewpoints, left and right, meant that she had Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former Carter administration National Security Advisor, a Democrat, and Brent Scowcroft, the former National Security Advisor to President George H. W. Bush, a Republican, as her guests. Both men are notoriously anti-Israel and spent significant parts of the segment complementing each other's analysis of why everything wrong in the Middle East is Israel's fault. Zakaria's guests weren't so blatant but none disagreed with Zakaria's analysis.
In his next segment Zakaria went on to interview Judge Richard Goldstone of the infamous Goldstone report, a report widely seen as denying Israel any reasonable right of self-defense.
CNN no longer seems to be engaging in the in-your-face anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attacks like the August, 2007 two hour "Special Investigations" piece called "G-d's Jewish Warriors", also hosted by Christiane Amanpour. They have learned to be slightly more subtle. Still, there is no mistaking the purpose of a program that first presents the awful consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran and then trots out the Goldstone Report, no matter how reasonable and erudite the smiling Mr. Zakaria may seem.
CNN may be willing to gamble the lives of 7.28 million Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, on the belief that the Iranian regime is sane and can be deterred. They may be willing to gamble the lives of my family in Israel. Americans should not be. First, friends don't ask friends to die in a nuclear holocaust. Second, once Israel is gone, can some attempt to destroy "The Great Satan" be far behind? Didn't President Ahmedinejad chair a conference on the world without the United States? If deterrence doesn't work as Mr. Zakaria suggests it would what would the consequences for all of the West be?
We need to remember CNN's long history of anti-Israel bias and take all their reporting on the Iranian nuclear threat with an appropriately large grain of salt. We need to remember that the CNN agenda will undoubtedly include blaming Israel for any and all consequences of a conflict with Iran.
Last Sunday Fareed Zakaria, the host of GPS on CNN, opened his program with an analysis of the Iranian nuclear crisis. He started by saying:
A moment of truth is arriving on the Iran Issue. Western countries will have to face up to the fact that there are only really two choices with Iran: one, a military strike, effectively preventing the country from continuing to expand its nuclear capacity; or, secondly, learning to live with such a capacity."
Up to this point Zakaria was 100% correct in his assessment. The current talks with the Iranian regime have produced no concrete results and based on comments by the Iranian government they never will. I can understand why President Obama wants to give diplomacy every reasonable chance at success. If nothing else it provides the U.S., and perhaps by extension Israel, some diplomatic cover with the rest of the West when the inevitable war with Iran comes.
Zakaria went on to describe some of the consequences of a strike by either the U.S. or Israel on Iran. Once again he was spot on:
Now, I think striking Iran would have the first effect of uniting the country behind the regime. It happens in every country that is attacked from abroad. George w. Bush's approval ratings on September 10, 2001, were around 40 percent. In one month, after 9/11, they had risen to 93 percent. Iranian dissidents warn that the day after an American attack or an Israeli attack, they would all have to come out in support of the regime.
The political spillover from such an attack in Arab countries would also be large, and the military spillover in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iran still funds militias, would probably take the lives of American and European soldiers. The price of oil would skyrocket, and, at best, such a military strike would delay the Iranian program, not end it, and probably delay it by just a few years.
It's all true. Indeed, the consequences to both Israel and some Sunni Arab nations, which Iran would likely attack to disrupt oil supplies, would be very high indeed. Let's also not forget the loss of innocent lives among Iranian civillians. Iran has placed it's nuclear and missile launching facilities in populated areas. Yes, the cost of a war with Iran will be terrible for all involved and many nations will get dragged in.
The rest of Zakaria's analysis is seriously flawed. Worse, it seems to reflect and reinforce the thinking of some in the Obama adminstration, which makes it downright dangerous. Zakaria continued:
Is it possible to live with a nuclear Iran? I would argue yes. Living with it is not a passive option. Iran's behavior will make it possible to maintain, perhaps even expand, sanctions on it. It will strengthen western resolve and, more importantly, make most Arab states ally themselves far more closely with the United States and Europe than ever before. The great strategic threat in the region would no longer be Israel but Iran.
These countries, the Arab countries, would make vigorous efforts to contain Iran's influence militarily and politically, as would western nations. We could press for more sanctions, inspections of all kinds. And, finally, Israel's vast nuclear arsenal, 250 nuclear weapons by most accounts, plus that of the United States would act as a deterrent on Iran. It would not use its nuclear weapons because it would clearly trigger an overwhelming response.
This is not a perfect option. But, in the real world, it seems to me a far more sensible one than a gamble that attacking Iran would solve this problem.
I don't believe for one moment that the Islamic religious fanatics who run the Iranian regime would be deterred by Israel's weaponry or any likely retaliation.
Former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, often referred to as a "moderate" in the press, called for a nuclear attack on Israel on December 14, 2001. His comments included the following:
If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world
We are all aware of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's repeated calls to destory Israel. For the Iranian leadership this is an ideological and religious imperatives. Against such imperatives conventional deterrence simply does not work.
Zakaria went on to interview three "distinguished experts", none of whom expressed the idea that Israel may have no choice but to preemptively strike Iran to avoid their own destruction. When PBS' Newshour With Jim Lehrer has a panel on issues like this they make sure to have all views represented. Even unabashedly left-wing MSNBC has had balanced panels where the idea that Israel may have absolutely no choice but to act if it is to survive has been clearly voiced. Not so on CNN. I couldn't help but remember a discussion some years ago on CNN hosted by Christiane Amanpour where her idea of differing viewpoints, left and right, meant that she had Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former Carter administration National Security Advisor, a Democrat, and Brent Scowcroft, the former National Security Advisor to President George H. W. Bush, a Republican, as her guests. Both men are notoriously anti-Israel and spent significant parts of the segment complementing each other's analysis of why everything wrong in the Middle East is Israel's fault. Zakaria's guests weren't so blatant but none disagreed with Zakaria's analysis.
In his next segment Zakaria went on to interview Judge Richard Goldstone of the infamous Goldstone report, a report widely seen as denying Israel any reasonable right of self-defense.
CNN no longer seems to be engaging in the in-your-face anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attacks like the August, 2007 two hour "Special Investigations" piece called "G-d's Jewish Warriors", also hosted by Christiane Amanpour. They have learned to be slightly more subtle. Still, there is no mistaking the purpose of a program that first presents the awful consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran and then trots out the Goldstone Report, no matter how reasonable and erudite the smiling Mr. Zakaria may seem.
CNN may be willing to gamble the lives of 7.28 million Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, on the belief that the Iranian regime is sane and can be deterred. They may be willing to gamble the lives of my family in Israel. Americans should not be. First, friends don't ask friends to die in a nuclear holocaust. Second, once Israel is gone, can some attempt to destroy "The Great Satan" be far behind? Didn't President Ahmedinejad chair a conference on the world without the United States? If deterrence doesn't work as Mr. Zakaria suggests it would what would the consequences for all of the West be?
We need to remember CNN's long history of anti-Israel bias and take all their reporting on the Iranian nuclear threat with an appropriately large grain of salt. We need to remember that the CNN agenda will undoubtedly include blaming Israel for any and all consequences of a conflict with Iran.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
The Amazing and Twisted Right Wing Smear Campaign Against President Obama
NOTE: This has been submitted to this week's Jerusalem Post Submission Contest. You can rate it and vote on it here.
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This is from an e-mail circulating around the Internet which someone in my family received:
It sounds really sinister, doesn't it? Thankfully it's all a pack of lies designed to mislead the ignorant.
If it's a House Resolution (H.R) it passed in the House of Representatives and is not an Executive Order. It would also have to pass the Senate and be signed by the President to become law. This person is mixing apples and oranges. Whatever they are concerned about can be either an Executive Order or a bill that passed Congress, not both. For someone who knows anything about how the American legislative process works that should be the first obvious clue that something is very wrong with this e-mail.
So, let's take a look at H.R. 1388 and see what it's all about. The title of the bill is: "The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an Act to reauthorize and reform the national service laws." It's an extension and expansion of the National and Community Service Act of 1990, first signed by President George H.W. Bush. In 1993 this was expanded with the founding of AmeriCorps, created by by the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, signed by President Clinton and expanded by 50% by President George W. Bush. H.R. 1388, which was signed into law back in May, is about Americans doing national service: public service work for the country. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Middle East or Palestinians or Hamas. After repeatedly mentioning H.R. 1388 the e-mail has no specifics and completely misrepresents the bill.
OK, maybe the author got his or her numbers wrong and really wants us to look at an Executive Order. He or she was even kind enough to provide a link to the Federal Register, so naturally I followed the link to see what it's all about. I assume the author was hoping that either nobody would actually follow the link or that they simply wouldn't bother to read the details. The Presidential determination in question, which I do remember well, spent funds already allocated for refugee assistance. It is dated January, a full eight months ago, and has nothing to do with any bill currently before Congress or which passed Congress recently. Second, the idea, as I read it, was to help people flee Hamas, not help Hamas. These are refugees from Hamas, not Hamas supporters. If you followed the news at the time you know that Hamas used the conflict with Israel as cover for arrests, torture, and murder of Fatah members in Gaza and any remaining non-Muslim Palestinians (mainly Christians) in the territory. The idea of helping these people did have support from members of Congress of both parties: the same members of Congress who voted unanimously to support Israeli defensive actions in Gaza just three weeks earlier.
The author goes on to list a bunch of other horrible things that President Obama has done, from closing Guantanamo (which hasn't actually happened) to federally funding abortions (which also actually hasn't happened). It ends with the ominous line: "We are losing this country at a rapid pace." Actually, the far right and the know-nothings among the conservative movement haven't figured out that they lost the 2006 and 2008 elections. They already lost the country as the American people have rejected their agenda.
What is so galling about this is that it's all lies. Nothing new has passed Congress, President Obama hasn't signed any new laws or issued any new executive orders regarding Hamas or the Palestinians. If he had I'd be the first to write about it. If this President supported Hamas in any way, shape, or form I'd be up in arms about it. Here's reality: it never happened. It's just part of the right wing smear campaign, the hatred directed at President Obama, which goes on each and every day in this country. It absolutely disgusts me.
NOTE: This is rare cross-post from my Ever Increasing Entropy (personal) blog.
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This is from an e-mail circulating around the Internet which someone in my family received:
HB 1388 PASSED !!
You just spent $20,000,000 to move members/supporters of Hamas, a terrorist organization, to the United States ; They get housing, food, the whole enchilada.
HB 1388 PASSED
Whether you are an Obama fan, or not, EVERYONE IN THE U. S. needs to know.....
Something happened.... H.R. 1388 was passed, behind our backs. You may want to read about it.. It wasn ' t mentioned on the news... just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen.
Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA . This is the news that didn ' t make the headlines...
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza . (...including by contributions to international, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations...") The "presidential determination", which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States , was signed and appears in the Federal Register.
It sounds really sinister, doesn't it? Thankfully it's all a pack of lies designed to mislead the ignorant.
If it's a House Resolution (H.R) it passed in the House of Representatives and is not an Executive Order. It would also have to pass the Senate and be signed by the President to become law. This person is mixing apples and oranges. Whatever they are concerned about can be either an Executive Order or a bill that passed Congress, not both. For someone who knows anything about how the American legislative process works that should be the first obvious clue that something is very wrong with this e-mail.
So, let's take a look at H.R. 1388 and see what it's all about. The title of the bill is: "The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an Act to reauthorize and reform the national service laws." It's an extension and expansion of the National and Community Service Act of 1990, first signed by President George H.W. Bush. In 1993 this was expanded with the founding of AmeriCorps, created by by the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, signed by President Clinton and expanded by 50% by President George W. Bush. H.R. 1388, which was signed into law back in May, is about Americans doing national service: public service work for the country. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Middle East or Palestinians or Hamas. After repeatedly mentioning H.R. 1388 the e-mail has no specifics and completely misrepresents the bill.
OK, maybe the author got his or her numbers wrong and really wants us to look at an Executive Order. He or she was even kind enough to provide a link to the Federal Register, so naturally I followed the link to see what it's all about. I assume the author was hoping that either nobody would actually follow the link or that they simply wouldn't bother to read the details. The Presidential determination in question, which I do remember well, spent funds already allocated for refugee assistance. It is dated January, a full eight months ago, and has nothing to do with any bill currently before Congress or which passed Congress recently. Second, the idea, as I read it, was to help people flee Hamas, not help Hamas. These are refugees from Hamas, not Hamas supporters. If you followed the news at the time you know that Hamas used the conflict with Israel as cover for arrests, torture, and murder of Fatah members in Gaza and any remaining non-Muslim Palestinians (mainly Christians) in the territory. The idea of helping these people did have support from members of Congress of both parties: the same members of Congress who voted unanimously to support Israeli defensive actions in Gaza just three weeks earlier.
The author goes on to list a bunch of other horrible things that President Obama has done, from closing Guantanamo (which hasn't actually happened) to federally funding abortions (which also actually hasn't happened). It ends with the ominous line: "We are losing this country at a rapid pace." Actually, the far right and the know-nothings among the conservative movement haven't figured out that they lost the 2006 and 2008 elections. They already lost the country as the American people have rejected their agenda.
What is so galling about this is that it's all lies. Nothing new has passed Congress, President Obama hasn't signed any new laws or issued any new executive orders regarding Hamas or the Palestinians. If he had I'd be the first to write about it. If this President supported Hamas in any way, shape, or form I'd be up in arms about it. Here's reality: it never happened. It's just part of the right wing smear campaign, the hatred directed at President Obama, which goes on each and every day in this country. It absolutely disgusts me.
NOTE: This is rare cross-post from my Ever Increasing Entropy (personal) blog.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
On Gaza: It's Time The World Sees What American Leaders See So Clearly
Last July President-elect Barack Obama visited Sderot, the Israeli town which has suffered most from Hamas rocket attacks eminating from Gaza. His words then were clear and unequivocal:
President Bush has been equally clear. On Monday he spoke about the current fighting:
Democratic leaders in Congress have been almost uniformly taking exactly the same position. This is perhaps the one and only issue in American politics today where there is no partisan divide. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has been a particularly forceful voice:
There are very few, even among Israel's harshest critics, who would deny the fact that the current crisis was started by unprovoked rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas. They, however, ignore this issue, reciting tired old lines about Palestinian grievances against Israel to justify Hamas terrorism and decry "Israeli aggression". The usual suspects on the far left and in the international media highlight Palestinian deaths and show us pictures of crying Palestinian children to tug at the heartstrings and turn public opinion against Israel. Outside the United States and Canada they have largely succeeded.
Maintream American media, thankfully, has been more balanced. CNN's Anderson Cooper showed the same disturbing images from Gaza but followed them with photos of Hamas rockets and destruction in southern Israel. PBS program "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer" has, as always, shown both sides of the conflict. This seems to me to be the main reason why American public opinion is so different from that in the rest of the world. Americans have all the facts at their disposal, something those who rely on more biased media simply do not have.
The most interesting reaction has been from the Arab world. Oh, the streets and most media outlets have been denouncing Israel steadily, using extreme language and exaggeration together with graphic images to stoke passions against the Jewish state. This is to be expected. Every Israeli action is a new "genocide" or "holocaust". Those words have been so cheapened in that part of the world that they have almost lost any meaning, a tragedy in and of itself.
The reaction from Arab leaders has been far more muted for good reason. Moderate, mainly Sunni Arab leaders know that Hamas is their enemy as well and a proxy for Iran. Douglas Bloomfield, writing in the Jerusalem Post, calls these leaders "Israel's reluctant allies:"
Defeating Hamas now will certainly result in a tragic loss of life. Many innocent people, the majority of them Palestinians, will certainly die. However, it is time that the bleeding hearts on the left in both North America and Europe realize that dislodging Hamas now will prevent repeats of this war and bloodshed in the future and might, just maybe, revive some slim hope for peace in the future. In the long run letting Israel finish what it has started will save lives. My biggest fear is that world leaders, including American leaders, will allow images from Gaza and public sentiment to sway them into pressuring Israel to end the conflict prematurely.
I also ask those who only mourn Palestinian casualties to think about President-elect Obama's words. What would you want your government to do if missiles were raining down on your home and your family? Can any of you honestly say that you wouldn't want your government to do anything and everything necessary to stop the rockets and save your family?
If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.
In terms of negotiations with Hamas, it is very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, and is deeply influenced by other countries.
President Bush has been equally clear. On Monday he spoke about the current fighting:
The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas. Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to launch rockets to kill innocent Israelis. Israel's obviously decided to protect herself and her people.
Democratic leaders in Congress have been almost uniformly taking exactly the same position. This is perhaps the one and only issue in American politics today where there is no partisan divide. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has been a particularly forceful voice:
Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza. As a sovereign nation, Israel has an unequivocal right to take action to ensure the security and safety of her citizens. Indiscriminate attacks by Hamas are a serious detriment to the peace process in the region.
There are very few, even among Israel's harshest critics, who would deny the fact that the current crisis was started by unprovoked rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas. They, however, ignore this issue, reciting tired old lines about Palestinian grievances against Israel to justify Hamas terrorism and decry "Israeli aggression". The usual suspects on the far left and in the international media highlight Palestinian deaths and show us pictures of crying Palestinian children to tug at the heartstrings and turn public opinion against Israel. Outside the United States and Canada they have largely succeeded.
Maintream American media, thankfully, has been more balanced. CNN's Anderson Cooper showed the same disturbing images from Gaza but followed them with photos of Hamas rockets and destruction in southern Israel. PBS program "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer" has, as always, shown both sides of the conflict. This seems to me to be the main reason why American public opinion is so different from that in the rest of the world. Americans have all the facts at their disposal, something those who rely on more biased media simply do not have.
The most interesting reaction has been from the Arab world. Oh, the streets and most media outlets have been denouncing Israel steadily, using extreme language and exaggeration together with graphic images to stoke passions against the Jewish state. This is to be expected. Every Israeli action is a new "genocide" or "holocaust". Those words have been so cheapened in that part of the world that they have almost lost any meaning, a tragedy in and of itself.
The reaction from Arab leaders has been far more muted for good reason. Moderate, mainly Sunni Arab leaders know that Hamas is their enemy as well and a proxy for Iran. Douglas Bloomfield, writing in the Jerusalem Post, calls these leaders "Israel's reluctant allies:"
From this tendency of Arab leaders to speak out of both sides of their mouths, one might get the impression that they suffer from a collective case of schizophrenia, but it's actually fear mixed with hypocrisy.
None of these dictators is a candidate for the next edition of Profiles in Courage. They are scared of the influence of the militant Islamists and the popularity of the Palestinian cause on the Arab street. Iran and its allies have focused on creating animosity to the entrenched and repressive Sunni regimes which, in the age of satellites and the Internet, can no longer turn public emotions on and off like a water tap.
That's why they are praying so hard for an Israeli victory.
Defeating Hamas now will certainly result in a tragic loss of life. Many innocent people, the majority of them Palestinians, will certainly die. However, it is time that the bleeding hearts on the left in both North America and Europe realize that dislodging Hamas now will prevent repeats of this war and bloodshed in the future and might, just maybe, revive some slim hope for peace in the future. In the long run letting Israel finish what it has started will save lives. My biggest fear is that world leaders, including American leaders, will allow images from Gaza and public sentiment to sway them into pressuring Israel to end the conflict prematurely.
I also ask those who only mourn Palestinian casualties to think about President-elect Obama's words. What would you want your government to do if missiles were raining down on your home and your family? Can any of you honestly say that you wouldn't want your government to do anything and everything necessary to stop the rockets and save your family?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Barack Obama and Israel, Part 1
During his three years in the U.S. Senate, Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama's voting record and statements have generally been quite supportive of Israel. In an op-ed piece which appeared in the New York Times on February 11, Roger Cohen quotes Obama and seeks to reassure Jewish voters that the Illinois Senator is, indeed, a supporter of Israel.
Shortly after launching his own Presidential campaign Ralph Nader, speaking on CNN, complained that Obama was pro-Palestinian prior to entering the Illinois Senate and urged the candidate to abandon his support of Israel. He followed that up on NBC by claiming that Obama is too pro-Israel. That Nader, who is of Lebanese descent, is staunchly anti-Israel is old news. The question he raises isn't: Is Barack Obama, in his heart of hearts, more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel? Is his support for Israel a position he adopted for the purpose of running for public office rather than something he truly believes? Would an Obama administration continue the special relationship between Israel and the United States or would it condition that relationship on Israeli concessions that would seriously undermine Israel's security in the short term and its survival in the long term?
Senator Obama has precious little foreign policy experience of his own. He will undoubtedly depend heavily on his key foreign policy advisers. I think the best way to answer the questions I've posed is to take a look at the positions and records of his foreign policy and military advisers.
Robert Malley was a special assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs under President Bill Clinton. He is also the only member of President Clinton's negotiating team at Camp David in 2000 who places the blame for the failure of the Oslo preace process squarely on the backs of the Israeli government. Prime Minister Sharon, who took the oh-so-controversial step of a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was repeatedly accused by Malley of "unswerving goals [...] for the last 30 years, to vanquish Mr. Arafat, and more recently, to undo the foundations of the Oslo agreement" while presenting Arafat as a man unswervingly dedicated to peace in spite of all evidence to the contrary. He also blames Israel and American foreign policy, not Hizbullah, for the 2006 Lebanon War. Malley has repeatedly called for providing Hamas with international aid and has equated the policies of Hamas terrorists with those of the Israeli government. Malley has called for a radically different approach to the Middle East, an approach which would not be supportive of Israel.
Would you want a man with these views to have the ear of the President of the United States? Malley has been touted as a possible Secretary of State in an Obama administration. I find that prospect worrying indeed. Yet, of all of Obama's close foreign policy and military advisers, Malley is the least objectionable to supporters of Israel. In Part 2 we'll take a look at those advisers: people who will inform Obama's decisions on how to deal with what they consider to be "an apartheid state."
Shortly after launching his own Presidential campaign Ralph Nader, speaking on CNN, complained that Obama was pro-Palestinian prior to entering the Illinois Senate and urged the candidate to abandon his support of Israel. He followed that up on NBC by claiming that Obama is too pro-Israel. That Nader, who is of Lebanese descent, is staunchly anti-Israel is old news. The question he raises isn't: Is Barack Obama, in his heart of hearts, more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel? Is his support for Israel a position he adopted for the purpose of running for public office rather than something he truly believes? Would an Obama administration continue the special relationship between Israel and the United States or would it condition that relationship on Israeli concessions that would seriously undermine Israel's security in the short term and its survival in the long term?
Senator Obama has precious little foreign policy experience of his own. He will undoubtedly depend heavily on his key foreign policy advisers. I think the best way to answer the questions I've posed is to take a look at the positions and records of his foreign policy and military advisers.
Robert Malley was a special assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs under President Bill Clinton. He is also the only member of President Clinton's negotiating team at Camp David in 2000 who places the blame for the failure of the Oslo preace process squarely on the backs of the Israeli government. Prime Minister Sharon, who took the oh-so-controversial step of a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was repeatedly accused by Malley of "unswerving goals [...] for the last 30 years, to vanquish Mr. Arafat, and more recently, to undo the foundations of the Oslo agreement" while presenting Arafat as a man unswervingly dedicated to peace in spite of all evidence to the contrary. He also blames Israel and American foreign policy, not Hizbullah, for the 2006 Lebanon War. Malley has repeatedly called for providing Hamas with international aid and has equated the policies of Hamas terrorists with those of the Israeli government. Malley has called for a radically different approach to the Middle East, an approach which would not be supportive of Israel.
Would you want a man with these views to have the ear of the President of the United States? Malley has been touted as a possible Secretary of State in an Obama administration. I find that prospect worrying indeed. Yet, of all of Obama's close foreign policy and military advisers, Malley is the least objectionable to supporters of Israel. In Part 2 we'll take a look at those advisers: people who will inform Obama's decisions on how to deal with what they consider to be "an apartheid state."
Saturday, November 17, 2007
A Different Sort of UN Conference
Tomorrow, Sunday, November 18, 2007, there will be a different sort of U.N. Conference. No, it's not another conference by the U.N., but rather one about the goings on at the United Nations and it's constant discrimination and bias against Israel. I received an e-mail from Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN (excellent website, highly recommended) about tomorrow's conference taking place between 9 AM and 6 PM tomorrow at Millennium UN Plaza Hotel (44th and 1st Ave., New York City).
A couple of relevant quotes:
Yep, for the U.N. genocide in Sudan is barely worth a mention. Israel is forever condemned for occupation of the Palestinian territories while China never is condemned for human rights violations or it's ongoing occupation and colonization of Tibet. Israel is under daily rocket fire from Gaza but that's just fine with the U.N. I guess human rights don't apply to people in Sderot, do they?
It's about time a conference like this happens, but I fully expect most of the media, especially the left leaning media, to thoroughly ignore this conference. It was just two weeks ago that CNN, for example, decided to rerun of G-d's Jewish Warriors", their two hour attack on Israel and American Jews. They didn't even bother with the other religions (Islam and Christianity) this time. Don't we all know that there is a far greater threat to the world from Jewish extremists than Islamic terrorists? CNN seems to think so. Their bias and the perpetual bias at the U.N. go hand in hand.
So... it's up to us, the bloggers, to spread the word.
A couple of relevant quotes:
A first-ever conference on UN discrimination against Israel has been organized across the street from UN Headquarters to coincide with the General Assembly's annual adoption of more than 20 resolutions condemning Israel and not one critical of Sudan and its ongoing campaign of genocide in Darfur.
“The discrimination against Israel at the UN has long been an outrage and must no longer go directly unchallenged," said conference organizer Anne Bayefsky, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and Director of the Touro Human Rights Institute. "Under the banner of a UN Charter that requires the equality of men and women, as well as member states large and small, the Jewish state and Jewish non-governmental organizations are constantly subject to different treatment than all others."
Highlights will include addresses from John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) (Chairman, House Republican Policy Committee); Ambassador Max Kampelman (Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient); and Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN).
Yep, for the U.N. genocide in Sudan is barely worth a mention. Israel is forever condemned for occupation of the Palestinian territories while China never is condemned for human rights violations or it's ongoing occupation and colonization of Tibet. Israel is under daily rocket fire from Gaza but that's just fine with the U.N. I guess human rights don't apply to people in Sderot, do they?
It's about time a conference like this happens, but I fully expect most of the media, especially the left leaning media, to thoroughly ignore this conference. It was just two weeks ago that CNN, for example, decided to rerun of G-d's Jewish Warriors", their two hour attack on Israel and American Jews. They didn't even bother with the other religions (Islam and Christianity) this time. Don't we all know that there is a far greater threat to the world from Jewish extremists than Islamic terrorists? CNN seems to think so. Their bias and the perpetual bias at the U.N. go hand in hand.
So... it's up to us, the bloggers, to spread the word.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
CNN's Two Hour Attack On Israel
On Tuesday night CNN had a two hour "Special Investigations" piece called "G-d's Jewish Warriors" hosted by Christiane Amanpour. Rather than being a piece of investigative journalism it was, in fact, a smear campaign attacking Israel, American Jewish supporter of Israel, and Orthodox Judaism in general.
There is no doubt that Jewish extremism exists. It is, however, embraced by very few religious Jews and is unrepresentative of Judaism or Israel. You'd never know it from watching the piece. I would never complain about an objective or accurate report on Jewish extremists within the settler movement in Israel or anywhere else for that matter. There was nothing objective about this report.
Former President Jimmy Carter was trotted out and his now infamous book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" was touted. No mention was made of how many members of the Carter Center's Board of Directors resigned over that book was made. No other former President with different views appeared other than in old film of speeches opposing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Gaza was rarely mentioned and Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and southern Lebanon were ignored. The terrorism that followed those withdrawals, the daily rocket fire on Sderot or Hibullah's rain of thousands of missiles on northern Israel last year wasn't mentioned either. Never mind that the fear of such attacks on Israel's main population centers from Judea and Samaria was the reason Prime Minister Olmert's plans to withdraw from the West Bank was scuttled. Watching the report one rather got the impression that all Israeli governments, including the current one, intended to hold onto all of Judea and Samaria forever.
Theodore Meron was trotted out to explain his view that settlements violate international law. Israel's view that the territories are "disputed" rather than "occupied" and that Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions don't apply since no prior Palestinian state ever existed was given exactly one dismissive sentence. The fact that borders have never been agreed by anyone was ignored. For the majority of the piece the idea that Israeli settlements, including any and all construction in east Jerusalem, are illegal was taken as an indisputable fact. It clearly is not. The fact that Kfar Etzion was Jewish before 1948 was mentioned as a reason for reestablishing the community was one of the very few bright spots in this abysmal program.
John Mearsheimer explained his view of how the American Jewish lobby unduly influences American foreign policy at length. No credible opposing view was given and the long list of distinguished academics who denounced the Mearsheimer-Walt report or claimed that it failed to meet any acadamic standards were not mentioned. The fact that Christopher Hitchens, a long time critic of Israel, claims that Mearsheimer and Walt overstated the influence of the pro-Israel lobby certainly wasn't worthy of inclusion. It didn't fit CNN's agenda. American Jewish support of Israel was shown to be support of settlements, and by extension, support of extremism or Kach or terrorism.
Every time someone was shown as an avid supporter of Israel or someone was shown moving into the territories a point was made of telling the viewer that they were Orthodox. The impression the CNN report gave was that Orthodox Jews were unanimous, or at least nearly so, in support of settlement activity. One also got the impression that all settlers are religious, probably fanatically so. No mention was made of the fact that religious Jews cover the entire political spectrum. No mention was made of the fact that many who bought homes in Judea and Samaria did so because housing was inexpensive there. There was certainly no coverage of large communities in Judea and Samaria like Ariel, with it's large Russian immigrant population that is overwhelmingly secular. You certainly would never know that most settlers are absolutely horrified by rare acts of Jewish terrorism just like everyone else from watching this program. Indeed, the report gave the impression that Jewish terrorism by settlers is common, widely supported, and a serious problem. After all, CNN is giving Jewish terrorism and Islamic terrorism equal coverage, aren't they?
In the latter part of the two hour report the attack shifted to "G-d's Christian Warriors" who support Israel. Christian Zionists were painted as extremists supporting other extremists. They too, it seems, have undo influence in Washington. Never mind that evangelical Christians make up somewhere around a quarter of the American population and are a truly huge voting bloc, unlike American Jews. Certainly no mention was made of the fact that a rather large majority of Americans, religious or not, support Israel according to every poll taken on the subject this century.
The program presented those who called President Carter or Dr. Mearsheimer antisemitic in a disparaging way. Yet, with it's broad attacks and generalizations not only about Israeli settlers, but about Israel as a whole, about the American Jewish community, and about Orthodox Judaism I couldn't help but feeling that the report was, indeed, truly antisemitic. This from someone who has never called President Carter or Dr. Mearsheimer antisemites.
I talked about "G-d's Jewish Warriors" with a friend this morning. Her response: "What did you expect?" Regarding Christiane Amanpour she added: "Her views are well known." Indeed. If you want a horribly biased report send a truly biased reporter.
I know the blogosphere, expecially Jewish bloggers, are writing extensively about the CNN attack on Israel. I haven't read any of it yet. I wanted this piece to be based solely on my own impressions of the program. I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else's views before I wrote this.
I guess I have to once again add CNN to the BBC as an organization hopelessly biased against Israel. This report was something I would have expected of Al Jazeera. I had hoped CNN had learned from it's past mistakes and repeated apologies and would have tried to really have given a balanced report. Silly me.
Digg it!
There is no doubt that Jewish extremism exists. It is, however, embraced by very few religious Jews and is unrepresentative of Judaism or Israel. You'd never know it from watching the piece. I would never complain about an objective or accurate report on Jewish extremists within the settler movement in Israel or anywhere else for that matter. There was nothing objective about this report.
Former President Jimmy Carter was trotted out and his now infamous book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" was touted. No mention was made of how many members of the Carter Center's Board of Directors resigned over that book was made. No other former President with different views appeared other than in old film of speeches opposing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Gaza was rarely mentioned and Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and southern Lebanon were ignored. The terrorism that followed those withdrawals, the daily rocket fire on Sderot or Hibullah's rain of thousands of missiles on northern Israel last year wasn't mentioned either. Never mind that the fear of such attacks on Israel's main population centers from Judea and Samaria was the reason Prime Minister Olmert's plans to withdraw from the West Bank was scuttled. Watching the report one rather got the impression that all Israeli governments, including the current one, intended to hold onto all of Judea and Samaria forever.
Theodore Meron was trotted out to explain his view that settlements violate international law. Israel's view that the territories are "disputed" rather than "occupied" and that Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions don't apply since no prior Palestinian state ever existed was given exactly one dismissive sentence. The fact that borders have never been agreed by anyone was ignored. For the majority of the piece the idea that Israeli settlements, including any and all construction in east Jerusalem, are illegal was taken as an indisputable fact. It clearly is not. The fact that Kfar Etzion was Jewish before 1948 was mentioned as a reason for reestablishing the community was one of the very few bright spots in this abysmal program.
John Mearsheimer explained his view of how the American Jewish lobby unduly influences American foreign policy at length. No credible opposing view was given and the long list of distinguished academics who denounced the Mearsheimer-Walt report or claimed that it failed to meet any acadamic standards were not mentioned. The fact that Christopher Hitchens, a long time critic of Israel, claims that Mearsheimer and Walt overstated the influence of the pro-Israel lobby certainly wasn't worthy of inclusion. It didn't fit CNN's agenda. American Jewish support of Israel was shown to be support of settlements, and by extension, support of extremism or Kach or terrorism.
Every time someone was shown as an avid supporter of Israel or someone was shown moving into the territories a point was made of telling the viewer that they were Orthodox. The impression the CNN report gave was that Orthodox Jews were unanimous, or at least nearly so, in support of settlement activity. One also got the impression that all settlers are religious, probably fanatically so. No mention was made of the fact that religious Jews cover the entire political spectrum. No mention was made of the fact that many who bought homes in Judea and Samaria did so because housing was inexpensive there. There was certainly no coverage of large communities in Judea and Samaria like Ariel, with it's large Russian immigrant population that is overwhelmingly secular. You certainly would never know that most settlers are absolutely horrified by rare acts of Jewish terrorism just like everyone else from watching this program. Indeed, the report gave the impression that Jewish terrorism by settlers is common, widely supported, and a serious problem. After all, CNN is giving Jewish terrorism and Islamic terrorism equal coverage, aren't they?
In the latter part of the two hour report the attack shifted to "G-d's Christian Warriors" who support Israel. Christian Zionists were painted as extremists supporting other extremists. They too, it seems, have undo influence in Washington. Never mind that evangelical Christians make up somewhere around a quarter of the American population and are a truly huge voting bloc, unlike American Jews. Certainly no mention was made of the fact that a rather large majority of Americans, religious or not, support Israel according to every poll taken on the subject this century.
The program presented those who called President Carter or Dr. Mearsheimer antisemitic in a disparaging way. Yet, with it's broad attacks and generalizations not only about Israeli settlers, but about Israel as a whole, about the American Jewish community, and about Orthodox Judaism I couldn't help but feeling that the report was, indeed, truly antisemitic. This from someone who has never called President Carter or Dr. Mearsheimer antisemites.
I talked about "G-d's Jewish Warriors" with a friend this morning. Her response: "What did you expect?" Regarding Christiane Amanpour she added: "Her views are well known." Indeed. If you want a horribly biased report send a truly biased reporter.
I know the blogosphere, expecially Jewish bloggers, are writing extensively about the CNN attack on Israel. I haven't read any of it yet. I wanted this piece to be based solely on my own impressions of the program. I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else's views before I wrote this.
I guess I have to once again add CNN to the BBC as an organization hopelessly biased against Israel. This report was something I would have expected of Al Jazeera. I had hoped CNN had learned from it's past mistakes and repeated apologies and would have tried to really have given a balanced report. Silly me.
Digg it!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Palestinian Suffering: Putting the Blame Where It Belongs
Has anyone else noticed this? There is a real sea change in the discussion of Palestinian suffering in the wake of recent events in Lebanon and Gaza. Yes, I know the expression 'sea change' is grossly overused, but I do mean it in the way Shakespeare first used it: a truly profound change.
For years various Israeli and pro-Israel writers, myself included, have pointed out that the Palestinians could have had a prosperous, independent state years ago. We have pointed out that entirely for political reasons the Palestinian people have endured suffering and oppression not so much at Israel's hands but rather at the hands of their fellow Arabs and their own leadership. When Israeli actions have harmed the Palestinian populace they were almost always as a result of the need to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian terrorist attacks.
What is truly new is the significant number of Arab and even Palestinian writers and commentators who are suddenly seeing Palestinian suffering in the same way or perhaps are finally publicly willing to admit that it really isn't all Israel's fault. I will be making quite a number of postings featuring Arab and Palestinian voices on the subject of the exploitation of the Palestinian people in coming days.
Let me begin with someone who is well known to most people who have followed the conflict in the region in recent years. Saeb Erekat was the Palestinian negotiator during past peace talks and is a prominent Fatah member. Here is part of an interview he gave to Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Late Edition on June 17:I will tell you something, Wolf. I think -- there is a saying in my mind that this region has never missed an opportunity to exploit Palestinians without exploiting them. I really believe that we are being exploited. I really believe that is what happening in Nahr el-Bared in northern Lebanon, it is part of what is happening in Gaza, what is happening in the bigger picture in this region.
Now, Wolf, do I have evidence to refer to this country or to this group or that? No, I don't. But I know when I see the streets of Gaza, when I see these gunmen, when I see these hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when President Abbas could not pay salaries for our police forces, when our police forces did not have bullets or guns to maintain the rule of law and public order, where did these hundreds of millions of dollars, where did these guns and arms and state-of-art machine guns and heavy equipment come from?
I don't have any evidence, and without evidence, I will not name anybody. But all I can tell you, Gaza is very -- the poorest area on Earth. Gaza doesn't have the means for these hundreds of millions of dollars and these weapons and equipment.
And I believe what is happening in this region is being now played in the streets of Gaza and the streets of Nahr el-Bared in my name, in the name of the Palestinians. We are being exploited again. I'll say what Mr. Erekat was unwilling to say: Iran and Syria, plus radical jihadists and Islamists, both home grown and foreign. That's who is exploiting and oppressing the Palestinians this time. Others in the Arab world have done the same when it was convenient for them with the Palestinians as the perpetual victims for nearly 60 years.
It is easy for Israel's detractors to dismiss me as a Zionist, as the daughter of an Israeli, as a biased voice. How do you dismiss Saeb Erekat, an ardent Palestinian nationalist who has argued the Palestinian cause for years, and others like him? I don't think you can.
The question that remains is whether or not this sort of change of Arab perspective will last. If not then we're back at square one. If so then this is a true sea change in Arab thinking . It offers the real possibility of Arabs and Israelis, specifically Palestinians and Israelis, finding common ground to stand together against a common enemy that threatens us both.
Am I dreaming? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. Only time will tell.
For years various Israeli and pro-Israel writers, myself included, have pointed out that the Palestinians could have had a prosperous, independent state years ago. We have pointed out that entirely for political reasons the Palestinian people have endured suffering and oppression not so much at Israel's hands but rather at the hands of their fellow Arabs and their own leadership. When Israeli actions have harmed the Palestinian populace they were almost always as a result of the need to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian terrorist attacks.
What is truly new is the significant number of Arab and even Palestinian writers and commentators who are suddenly seeing Palestinian suffering in the same way or perhaps are finally publicly willing to admit that it really isn't all Israel's fault. I will be making quite a number of postings featuring Arab and Palestinian voices on the subject of the exploitation of the Palestinian people in coming days.
Let me begin with someone who is well known to most people who have followed the conflict in the region in recent years. Saeb Erekat was the Palestinian negotiator during past peace talks and is a prominent Fatah member. Here is part of an interview he gave to Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Late Edition on June 17:
Now, Wolf, do I have evidence to refer to this country or to this group or that? No, I don't. But I know when I see the streets of Gaza, when I see these gunmen, when I see these hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when President Abbas could not pay salaries for our police forces, when our police forces did not have bullets or guns to maintain the rule of law and public order, where did these hundreds of millions of dollars, where did these guns and arms and state-of-art machine guns and heavy equipment come from?
I don't have any evidence, and without evidence, I will not name anybody. But all I can tell you, Gaza is very -- the poorest area on Earth. Gaza doesn't have the means for these hundreds of millions of dollars and these weapons and equipment.
And I believe what is happening in this region is being now played in the streets of Gaza and the streets of Nahr el-Bared in my name, in the name of the Palestinians. We are being exploited again.
It is easy for Israel's detractors to dismiss me as a Zionist, as the daughter of an Israeli, as a biased voice. How do you dismiss Saeb Erekat, an ardent Palestinian nationalist who has argued the Palestinian cause for years, and others like him? I don't think you can.
The question that remains is whether or not this sort of change of Arab perspective will last. If not then we're back at square one. If so then this is a true sea change in Arab thinking . It offers the real possibility of Arabs and Israelis, specifically Palestinians and Israelis, finding common ground to stand together against a common enemy that threatens us both.
Am I dreaming? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. Only time will tell.
Friday, May 11, 2007
We Will Annihilate the Jews!
Last month Hamas called for the extermination of the Jewish people worldwide on their website. Now CNN has spent a great deal of time over the last two or three days discussing a children's program on Al-Aqsa Television which, of course, is run by Hamas and broadcasts to Palestinians in Gaza. It seems they have a big mouse named Farfur. He looks almost exactly like Mickey Mouse. His message, though, would horrify the people at Disney. Farfur tells young children "We will annihilate the Jews!" and adds "I will commit martyrdom." Al-Aqsa Television children's programming also shows very young children with machine guns and other weapons. The New York Daily News also expressed it's disgust.
Where is the international outcry at preaching hatred and genocide? Israelis, Jews, and American bloggers have been all over this but most of the rest of the world has been silent. Where is the condemnation of trying to convince very young children to become combatants in Hamas' terror war against Israel? Why are human rights groups almost always mute to Palestinian abuses?
When children are taught to hate and kill and taught that genocide is something to strive for what hope is there that there will ever be peace? In my view there is no such hope and that is the real tragedy of our times.
Where is the international outcry at preaching hatred and genocide? Israelis, Jews, and American bloggers have been all over this but most of the rest of the world has been silent. Where is the condemnation of trying to convince very young children to become combatants in Hamas' terror war against Israel? Why are human rights groups almost always mute to Palestinian abuses?
When children are taught to hate and kill and taught that genocide is something to strive for what hope is there that there will ever be peace? In my view there is no such hope and that is the real tragedy of our times.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Britain No Longer Teaching About the Holocaust in Schools
Yael K., writing in her Aliyah Step-by-Step blog reports that the U.K. will no longer be teaching about the Holocaust in history classes:The Holocaust is out of schools because it might offend holocaust-deniers? Sorry, I find this simply shocking. Well, take a look at what is happening in schools in the UK according to a report by the British government. She quotes the report which says, in part:Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.
It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
[...]
The report said teachers feared confronting ‘anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils’. I don't know if this is anti-Semitism among the teachers and school administrators as well or just political correctness gone mad. I suspect it's some of both. Personally, like Yael, I find this shocking. It is absolutely inexcusable. Shouldn't history be taught honestly with a full presentation of facts?
There have been numerous reports of anti-Semetic attacks in Britain as well. One on CNN some weeks back interviewd a teenage girl who was riding a public bus. She was asked if she is Jewish or English as if you can't be both. Then she was severely beaten and landed in hospital. Nobody raised a finger to help her.
Yael suggests it's time British Jewry leave en masse and make aliya. I hate to say it but I do think she is right.
It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
[...]
The report said teachers feared confronting ‘anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils’.
There have been numerous reports of anti-Semetic attacks in Britain as well. One on CNN some weeks back interviewd a teenage girl who was riding a public bus. She was asked if she is Jewish or English as if you can't be both. Then she was severely beaten and landed in hospital. Nobody raised a finger to help her.
Yael suggests it's time British Jewry leave en masse and make aliya. I hate to say it but I do think she is right.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
The Media and the Massacre That Wasn't
Yesterday it was widely reported that Israel deliberately massacred 40 innocent Lebanese civilians. Reuters, the BBC, and others falsely reported that the IAF hat targeted a funeral procession. Then it was 40 Lebanese killed in air strikes. The only place you'll still find that reported is in The Guardian. No other even vaguely reputable western media outlet still carries the story. Why? The total number of people actually killed in Lebanon by these attacks: just one. Even the BBC eventually corrected their story, with a small note at the bottom noting the previous error. Reuters published an apology. That won't undo the damage done but at least they don't maintain a blatant lie on their website the way The Guardian does.
Yael K., commenting on the BBC coverage, wrote in her blog:
The BBC is notorious for anti-Israel bias, but The Guardian wins today's "to hell with the truth" award, beating out CNN and The Washington Post for having the least regard for facts.
Yael K., commenting on the BBC coverage, wrote in her blog:
And how about those 40 people killed in a deliberate Israeli massacre yesterday, hmmm? Oh, ooops, you mean it was really only 1? And amazingly, from my own observation of the BBC yesterday to see how this would be handled since they had a screaming headline about the massacre of 40 civilians --it took them several hours after the ticker on Ha'Aretz was showing that the number had been revised to just one person for them to change it. And no, of course they didn't make it a headline: the 40 massacred headline got changed to Israel bombs...and in the text description beneath there was a little note that it was one person and not 40 as previously reported. Of course.
The BBC is notorious for anti-Israel bias, but The Guardian wins today's "to hell with the truth" award, beating out CNN and The Washington Post for having the least regard for facts.
The Latest Wild, Unsubstantiated Charge Against Israel (CNN, Washington Post)
When charges were made that Hizbullah was deliberately using civilian casualties for PR purposes at Qana the charge came from Lebanese sources and even from members of the Lebanese armed forces. That charge was backed up with lots and lots of evidence. Do mainstream media outlets like CNN and The Washington Post investigate these charges? Heck, no! They are too busy vilifying Israel to be bothered with something as petty and trivial as the truth.
Their response: make the same charge about Israel with no evidence whatsoever. First a CNN anchor claimed Israel could shoot down all of the 150-200 Katyusha rockets fired by Hizubullah each day. Now Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks, appearing on CNN, claimed Israel is deliberately leaving Hizbullah rocket launchers intact to kill Israeli civilians for PR purposes. Video is available in this article, which is definitely recommended reading.
CAMERA's outrage is something I very much share:
How can anyone believe that CNN is a reputable news sources? It seems to me that their bias is now so extreme that they do little if anything to hide it. If Mr. Ricks remains a reporter with The Washington Post that would speak volumes about their regard, or lack thereof, for the truth.
[NOTE: I've also posted this piece on Blogs of Zion.]
Their response: make the same charge about Israel with no evidence whatsoever. First a CNN anchor claimed Israel could shoot down all of the 150-200 Katyusha rockets fired by Hizubullah each day. Now Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks, appearing on CNN, claimed Israel is deliberately leaving Hizbullah rocket launchers intact to kill Israeli civilians for PR purposes. Video is available in this article, which is definitely recommended reading.
CAMERA's outrage is something I very much share:
One wonders who these "military analysts" are and why they have apparently not gone on the record. And why has Ricks so far not written the story in the Post? Can it be that his claims are too much even for the Washington Post to publish?
Whatever the reason, the fact is that a reporter who thinks that Israel would intentionally allow Hezbollah's Katyushas to rain down on Israeli civilians would believe anything about Israel, no matter how monstrous or unfounded. And any reporter who believes that reserve Israeli soldiers would follow orders to not attack rockets that are aimed at their children and wives, and that these soldiers would not immediately go to the Israeli media with the story, is an idiot. Furthermore, Israel encouraged its civilians to leave the danger zones, which is why thousands of Hezbollah rockets have killed relatively few civilians. If Israel cynically wants its civilians to die, why would Israel do all it could to get its civilians out of harm's way?
How can anyone believe that CNN is a reputable news sources? It seems to me that their bias is now so extreme that they do little if anything to hide it. If Mr. Ricks remains a reporter with The Washington Post that would speak volumes about their regard, or lack thereof, for the truth.
[NOTE: I've also posted this piece on Blogs of Zion.]
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Qassam Rocket Strikes Kindergarten Near Ashkelon
Yesterday a Qassam rocket fired from Gaza struck a kindergarten just south of Ashkelon injuring several children. Yael K., writing in her Step By Step: Making Aliyah blog comments:
CNN had no comment. They were too busy reporting on Lebanese children who were injured or killed to have time to recognize that this is a two front war and that children on both sides of the borders are victims. They also gave barely a mention to Hizbullah rockets striking a hospital in Nahariya. To their credit PBS, on The News Hour With Jim Lehrer, not only covered the story but showed video of the damage and also showed how the hospital continued to operate in an underground bunker, treating the victims of the Hizbullah attacks.
CNN, like the BBC and the Guardian in the U.K., only mourns the casualties on one side of the war. Reporting on injured or dead Israelis doesn't fit into their agenda of vilification of Israel.
[Note: This piece also appears in Blogs of Zion.]
We should be surprised? They only fire their qassams at civilian targets, never at the military installations. This was bound to happen sooner or later. After all, they've already managed to hit a college, two high schools, and a middle school over the past couple of months.
CNN had no comment. They were too busy reporting on Lebanese children who were injured or killed to have time to recognize that this is a two front war and that children on both sides of the borders are victims. They also gave barely a mention to Hizbullah rockets striking a hospital in Nahariya. To their credit PBS, on The News Hour With Jim Lehrer, not only covered the story but showed video of the damage and also showed how the hospital continued to operate in an underground bunker, treating the victims of the Hizbullah attacks.
CNN, like the BBC and the Guardian in the U.K., only mourns the casualties on one side of the war. Reporting on injured or dead Israelis doesn't fit into their agenda of vilification of Israel.
[Note: This piece also appears in Blogs of Zion.]
Thursday, July 13, 2006
On Israeli Restraint
I read editorial writers in the San Francisco Chronicle and politicians in the European Union decrying Israel's lack of restraint and "disproportionate" use of force in response to the kidnapping of soldiers and the rain of rockets landing on Israeli cities. I wonder what kind of drugs these people are taking. Tell me, if rockets rained down on Chicago, America's third largest city, as they do on Haifa, Israel's third largest city, with over one hundred injured as there are in Israel right now, what would Americans want the government to do? Act with restraint? Be proportional? Nope, they'd want the attacks to stop and want the government to do whatever it took militarily to make them stop.
You know what's really sick? Israel is showing restraint -- too much restraint, in fact, and it works against their own interests. Yael K., a leftist American-born Israeli living in Tel Aviv, wrote this piece in her blog which, in part, describes in detail the Israeli restraint that the Chronicle and CNN and the BBC aren't reporting.. and it's consequences.
Gerald A. Honigman, writing for the right-wing Arutz Sheva, puts it this way:
We all know the answer and all know that the calls for proportionality, while quoting the Geneva Convention, are rooted in hypocrisy and decades of championing the Palestinians as innocent victims and Israel as an aggressive oppressor nation. Facts no longer matter. The political agenda is all that counts.
[NOTE: One more that's crossposted in Blogs of Zion]
You know what's really sick? Israel is showing restraint -- too much restraint, in fact, and it works against their own interests. Yael K., a leftist American-born Israeli living in Tel Aviv, wrote this piece in her blog which, in part, describes in detail the Israeli restraint that the Chronicle and CNN and the BBC aren't reporting.. and it's consequences.
I'm thinking of the leaflets and flyers our forces have been dropping into the populated areas that we plan to attack --since this fiasco began -- warning civilians to please leave the area because an attack will be coming. We do this to try to avoid killing innocent civilians. We do this despite the fact that it alerts many of the terrorists we would like to target so that they also can leave beforehand. We do this despite the fact that it endangers our own troops by giving the militants a clear signal of where we will be striking and where they can thus strike our forces. I cannot think of any other country that has ever ever taken such steps to warn an opposing civilian population. Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the five million smaller terrorist groups certainly don't return the favour. No, they actively target our civilians.
I am thinking of what Hamas, led by Meshal, and Hezbollah, led by Nasrallah, and both backed by Syria and Iran have done, what suffering they have caused and are causing to Israelis, yes, but to Palestinians and Lebanese too --in theory to their own people--and I am really beyond words. They do not have the interest of their people in mind. They have power and power of a very personal nature in mind. They should be very glad that we are acting with restraint. They should be very glad that we take more precautions on behalf of "their" people than they would ever deign to.
Gerald A. Honigman, writing for the right-wing Arutz Sheva, puts it this way:
Following the European Union's current demand for "proportion" only perpetuates this conflict. And Israel has been doing just that for far too long.
Again, the recent actions of the enemy are blatant acts of war. And they are committed by those whose openly-stated goal is the utter destruction of their neighbor. No compromise that permits the long-term survival of a Jewish Israel, regardless of size, is acceptable to the Arabs Israel is now confronting.
What would the Brits do with such a neighbor? The French? America? Russia? Who would consent to self-destruction? Would any of these folks agree to a mere wrist-slapping of those aiming to destroy both themselves and their countries, as well?
We all know the answer and all know that the calls for proportionality, while quoting the Geneva Convention, are rooted in hypocrisy and decades of championing the Palestinians as innocent victims and Israel as an aggressive oppressor nation. Facts no longer matter. The political agenda is all that counts.
[NOTE: One more that's crossposted in Blogs of Zion]
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Further Poisoning The Well
Media Bias In the Wake of the Tel Aviv Bombing
Late Monday night, in the wake of the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, I tuned to first CNN then CNN International. While both CNN networks had covered the terror attack earlier in the day their news crawl at the bottom of the screen no longer mentioned it. Instead the Israeli missile attack on Gaza City was mentioned. The fact that nobody was killed or injured in Gaza was conveniently ignored. The bombing in Tel Aviv, which killed nine innocent people at a falafel stand and injured 70, wasn't there to provide context. Qassam rockets fired from Gaza that day were also deemed not newsworthy. If someone was catching the news for the first time that day and chose CNN as their primary news source they might believe that Israel, without provocation, attacked Palestinians in Gaza. By comparison Fox News, which tends to be pro-Israel, still had the suicide bombing on their news crawl 24 hours later.CNN is hardly alone in providing subtle bias to their news coverage. Reuters, the European news agency, began their story on the Tel Aviv bombing this way:
Beyond the subtle anti-Israel media bias I have illustrated there are, of course, media outlets that do nothing to mask their blatant bias and go as far as presenting propaganda as news stories and revising history to portray Israel as the root of all evil in the Middle East and beyond. As I previously reported the BBC has been caught fabricating stories and has twice been censured by it's own Board of Governors for anti-Israel bias. UK newspapers The Guardian and The Scotsman are equally bad. On business trips to Houston last year I found Pacifica Radio station KPFT broadcasting hours of anti-Israel diatribe so virulent that I might have thought I was listening to a station from Ramallah rather than Texas.
While it is true that there are some mainly conservative media outlets that tend to be biased in favor of Israel (the aforementioned Fox News and the UK newspaper The Telegraph are good examples) they are by far outnumbered and would, in any case, be dismissed or ignored by those on the political left where most of today's anti-Israel animus resides. This media bias reinforces the relentless effort to indoctrinate young people to be anti-Israel in major prestigious academic institutions I described and documented in my piece Poisoning The Well.
Is it any wonder that pro-Israel voices get shouted down in left-wing political fora? Is it any wonder that anti-Zionism and even in-your-face anti-Semitism are blossoming in the political left? How can those of us who have traditionally been on the political left and yet strongly support Israel fit in? How can it be that those who claim to stand up most strongly for tolerance and diversity are completely unwilling to accept or even listen to a Jewish or Israeli viewpoint, or worse, are willing to support or even parrot views which sound like those emanating from Germany 65 years ago? How do those of us who are now deeply concerned change opinions which have become so hardened? How do we fight back?
[NOTE: This piece also appears in Blogs of Zion in a somewhat abbreviated form, published under my Hebrew name.]
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The Straw Man
Yesterday I turned on CNN International and promptly saw British Foreign Minister Jack Straw once again equivocating the Iranian nuclear threat with the "threat" posed by Israel's nuclear weapons and saying that once Iran is dealt with Israel will have to be dealt with. I don't know if this was merely a rebroadcast of his statement last Thursday or something new since I didn't catch the story from the beginning. Last week he added: "If you want to see a nuclear-free Middle East, you've got to remove that threat from Iran, including the rhetorical threat to wipe Israel off the face of the map. Once you've done that, then we can get on to work in respect of Israel. The Israeli government, for it's part, decided not to react to Mr. Straw's comments. It was felt that it would be a bad idea to change to focus of attention from Iran to Israel. It was also noted that Prime Minister Sharon had supported the idea of a nuclear-free Middle East, but only in a future where Israel had peace agreements in place with all the countries in the region.
Is anyone else outraged by this equivocation? Modern Israel has only fought defensive wars and has never threatened its neighbors. Israel, if left alone, is a threat to nobody. Iran, on the other hand, has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Doesn't anyone see the two as just a wee bit different? I can only find one possible reasons for such a statement: to placate (appease?) Muslims at home and abroad.
Do comments like this help Britain's standing in the Arab and Muslim world? Of course not. Iranian, Palestinian, and other Muslim clerics constantly have sermons claiming Islam will eventually rule Britain and America. On Friday evening, just over a day after Mr. Straw's comments, Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called the United States, Britain, and Israel the "triad of evil". Today in Gaza the the British consulate was burned and the British cultural center was vandalized. This came after British jailers left a prison in Jericho fearing for their lives. The IDF then came in to capture the killers of the late Minister of Tourism, Rehevam Ze'evi. Palestinians claimed that Britain was part of an Israeli conspiracy, as if this was justification for the destruction and the kidnapping of British subjects in the West Bank.
Nothing Foreign Minister Straw will say or can say will ever change the fact that in many corners of the Muslim world the British, like their American counterparts, can do no right. Britain simply cannot be forgiven by the radicals and fundamentalists in the Muslim world for it's role in Iraq, for failing to be sufficiently anti-Zionist, and for simply being other than Islamic. No amount of equivocation or appeasement will ever change that.
Someday the governments in both the U.K. and the U.S. will have to figure out who their friends are and who their enemies are. They clearly haven't done it yet.
Is anyone else outraged by this equivocation? Modern Israel has only fought defensive wars and has never threatened its neighbors. Israel, if left alone, is a threat to nobody. Iran, on the other hand, has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Doesn't anyone see the two as just a wee bit different? I can only find one possible reasons for such a statement: to placate (appease?) Muslims at home and abroad.
Do comments like this help Britain's standing in the Arab and Muslim world? Of course not. Iranian, Palestinian, and other Muslim clerics constantly have sermons claiming Islam will eventually rule Britain and America. On Friday evening, just over a day after Mr. Straw's comments, Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called the United States, Britain, and Israel the "triad of evil". Today in Gaza the the British consulate was burned and the British cultural center was vandalized. This came after British jailers left a prison in Jericho fearing for their lives. The IDF then came in to capture the killers of the late Minister of Tourism, Rehevam Ze'evi. Palestinians claimed that Britain was part of an Israeli conspiracy, as if this was justification for the destruction and the kidnapping of British subjects in the West Bank.
Nothing Foreign Minister Straw will say or can say will ever change the fact that in many corners of the Muslim world the British, like their American counterparts, can do no right. Britain simply cannot be forgiven by the radicals and fundamentalists in the Muslim world for it's role in Iraq, for failing to be sufficiently anti-Zionist, and for simply being other than Islamic. No amount of equivocation or appeasement will ever change that.
Someday the governments in both the U.K. and the U.S. will have to figure out who their friends are and who their enemies are. They clearly haven't done it yet.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
The Correct Response To Hamas
One of CNN's world news headlines today reads: Israel PM rules out Hamas contacts. The implication is that this sort of Israeli action is a bad thing, a deterrent to some sort of illusive peace. Quite the contrary. Prime Minister Olmert correctly states: ...the Palestinian Authority is, in effect, becoming a terrorist authority. Israel will not agree to that. Israel will not compromise with terror and will continue to fight it with all its might. However, we have no intention of harming the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian population. Israel will not hold contacts with a government that Hamas is part of -- a small part, big part or a majority. The point he makes is that Hamas is fundamentally different than Fatah and the previous Palestinian government. I don't believe that's true. Fatah is also run by terrorists whose aim is the destruction of Israel. The difference is that Fatah pays lip service to a peace process while attacking Israel while Hamas does not.
Israel's action isn't new and the Prime Minister's statements are actually merely repeating what he has said continually since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. It's hardly news, except that it gives certain media outlets an opportunity to paint Israel in a bad light while never once mentioning the thousands of Israeli civilians, both Jewish and Arab, that Hamas terrorists have murdered or maimed. Prime Minister Olmert's statements are also not Israeli unilateral action taken in a vacuum. The United States, the European Union, and Canada have all ruled out contacts with Hamas for precisely the same reason.
The New York Times, for it's part, runs today with the headline
Israel, in Slap at Hamas, Freezes Money for Palestinians. The United States, Europe, Canada. and Israel have also been united on denying funding to the Hamas led Palestinian government. They have all clearly stated they would do so since Hamas won the election. Yet Israel stands accused of the sin of taking a "slap at Hamas". Neither the New York Times nor CNN found the fact that Israel thwarted an attempted suicide bombing in Jerusalem today newsworthy. Nowhere in their coverage of Hamas is the pledge, found on a Hamas website, to drink Jews' blood. Some of the high points (in translation) as reported by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:We will hunt you everywhere, when you wake and when you sleep. We are a blood-drinking people and we know that there is no better blood than Jewish blood.
[...]
By the life of Allah, we will destroy you. We will blow you up. We will take our revenge on you. We will purify our land of you, pigs, who have defiled our land. By the life of Allah, we will take our vengeance. We are carrying out this operation as harsh revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs. CNN, the New York Times, the BBC, and others also consistently neglect to mention is that Israel, the United States, Canada, and the European Union all leave the door to future discussions and even a new peace process open. The conditions placed on Hamas are simple: recognize Israel, renounce violence, and recognize existing agreements between the Palestinians and Israel. This isn't some new anti-Palestinian initiative. These were the same conditions placed on the PLO and Yasser Arafat prior to the Madrid conference and the subsequent Oslo peace agreement. When Arafat sort-of, kind-of indirectly recognized Israel and proclaimed a desire for peace the world stopped treating him like a terrorist and started treating him like a statesman. The same offer is effectively open to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Palestinian Prime Minister designate Ismail Haniyeh. Mashaal, for his part, repeated his pledge, "we will not recognize Israel".
If the peace process has been alive at all it has been on life support since 2000 when Yasser Arafat abandoned peace talks and started a war of terror against Israel. The Palestinian people shot what was left of the peace process in the head when they elected Hamas terrorists as their leaders. Israelis, for their part, seem poised to elect the far more dovish Ehud Olmert to a full term as Prime Minister by a landslide if polls are to believed. Prime Minister Olmert has promised a unilateral withdrawal from most of the West Bank no matter what the Palestinians do, effectively ending Israeli occupation. Why are the Palestinians still the darlings of some left leaning media outlets and Israel still the pariah? Why is their so little outcry against this blatantly biased reporting?
The response by the west to Hamas is the correct one. It's a pity that some in the media pick and choose their facts to try to get people to reach a different conclusion.
Israel's action isn't new and the Prime Minister's statements are actually merely repeating what he has said continually since the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. It's hardly news, except that it gives certain media outlets an opportunity to paint Israel in a bad light while never once mentioning the thousands of Israeli civilians, both Jewish and Arab, that Hamas terrorists have murdered or maimed. Prime Minister Olmert's statements are also not Israeli unilateral action taken in a vacuum. The United States, the European Union, and Canada have all ruled out contacts with Hamas for precisely the same reason.
The New York Times, for it's part, runs today with the headline
Israel, in Slap at Hamas, Freezes Money for Palestinians. The United States, Europe, Canada. and Israel have also been united on denying funding to the Hamas led Palestinian government. They have all clearly stated they would do so since Hamas won the election. Yet Israel stands accused of the sin of taking a "slap at Hamas". Neither the New York Times nor CNN found the fact that Israel thwarted an attempted suicide bombing in Jerusalem today newsworthy. Nowhere in their coverage of Hamas is the pledge, found on a Hamas website, to drink Jews' blood. Some of the high points (in translation) as reported by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:
[...]
By the life of Allah, we will destroy you. We will blow you up. We will take our revenge on you. We will purify our land of you, pigs, who have defiled our land. By the life of Allah, we will take our vengeance. We are carrying out this operation as harsh revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs.
If the peace process has been alive at all it has been on life support since 2000 when Yasser Arafat abandoned peace talks and started a war of terror against Israel. The Palestinian people shot what was left of the peace process in the head when they elected Hamas terrorists as their leaders. Israelis, for their part, seem poised to elect the far more dovish Ehud Olmert to a full term as Prime Minister by a landslide if polls are to believed. Prime Minister Olmert has promised a unilateral withdrawal from most of the West Bank no matter what the Palestinians do, effectively ending Israeli occupation. Why are the Palestinians still the darlings of some left leaning media outlets and Israel still the pariah? Why is their so little outcry against this blatantly biased reporting?
The response by the west to Hamas is the correct one. It's a pity that some in the media pick and choose their facts to try to get people to reach a different conclusion.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
So many lies, so little time
Every day I read the news from Israel, watch it on TV, and read the world's reaction. So much of the media has bought into the mythology and revisionist history sold by Palestinian propogandists it really does make me ill. For Americans, Europeans, and others throughout the world who have never been to Israel, who do not have any historical context on the conflict, and who do not get their news from a variety of sources tend to accept whatever their favorite media outlet says as the unvarnished truth.
Why should you believe me and not CNN, BBC, Reuters, Free Speech Radio/TV, or whomever you like this week? Well... try and decide if they have a bias and why. What is their political motivation? Do their reporters have the necessary historical context? Are they interested in sensationalism and ratings? Do they want to keep things simple so their audience understands?
What of the U.N. and European governments? Do they have political interests tied to the Arab world? Large Muslim minorities? Economic interests in the Arab world? A history of anti-Semitism?
The purpose of this blog, in part, will be to challenge perceptions and challenge you to think and do your own research. It will debunk and unspin the biased media reports I find.
A good place to start reading is Alan Dershowitz' excellent book, "The Case for Israel". He does a great job, with well referenced and researched facts, of laying out an accurate picture of the history of the region, the conflict, and the motivations behind the lies.
Am I biased? You bet! Of course I am! I still can try and be objective and try and stick to facts.
Why should you believe me and not CNN, BBC, Reuters, Free Speech Radio/TV, or whomever you like this week? Well... try and decide if they have a bias and why. What is their political motivation? Do their reporters have the necessary historical context? Are they interested in sensationalism and ratings? Do they want to keep things simple so their audience understands?
What of the U.N. and European governments? Do they have political interests tied to the Arab world? Large Muslim minorities? Economic interests in the Arab world? A history of anti-Semitism?
The purpose of this blog, in part, will be to challenge perceptions and challenge you to think and do your own research. It will debunk and unspin the biased media reports I find.
A good place to start reading is Alan Dershowitz' excellent book, "The Case for Israel". He does a great job, with well referenced and researched facts, of laying out an accurate picture of the history of the region, the conflict, and the motivations behind the lies.
Am I biased? You bet! Of course I am! I still can try and be objective and try and stick to facts.
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