Noam Chomsky shows he hasn't lost his sense of perspective as he discusses events in the Middle East with Jeremy Paxman for the BBC's Newsnight programme.
Amid the boilerplate about the West's support for dictators, and the perfectly sensible suggestion that the West shouldn't get involved in Libya because it's a civil war, there are a couple of Chomskyesque gems.
At around the 2.30 mark Chomsky relates how an Egyptian labour/labor leader sent a message of solidarity to protestors in Madison, Wisconsin. "In Madison they're trying to preserve aspects of democracy that are under serious attack," he tells Paxman. "In Egypt they're trying to gain rights that have been denied them. The trajectories are crossing but they're going in opposite directions."
You heard it here first. In a few short years the workers of Egypt will be enjoying a 30-hour week and universal healthcare, and retiring on final salary pensions at 50. Meanwhile those workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere in America who are lucky enough to have a job will be eking out a living selling kebabs, collecting scrap metal or hand-crafting clay bricks, and living in constant fear of arrest should they even think about protesting against President-for-life Palin.
Chomsky then comes out (at around the five-minute mark) with an observation that conservatives can at least agree on, albeit for different reasons. Asked by Paxman if Obama has proved to be no better than Bush, Chomsky replies "In many ways he’s worse".
For some reason Paxman - who you’d think would be familiar with Chomsky’s off-the-reservation brand of leftism - is taken aback with this and asks him to elaborate. It’s predictably downhill for there: “escalating war in Afghanistan... supporting criminal acts by Israel... Nuremberg trials... yadda yadda...”
Paxman has a reputation for being a formidable interviewer, so his inability - or reluctance - to seriously challenge the worst of Chomsky's nonsense ("Turkey is a respected country" was another corker) is disappointing. There's a fuller version of the interview here, but it's probably not available outside the UK.
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Friday, March 11, 2011
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
War in the Middle East... A win-win for Hillary
With some form of conflict between Israel and a variety of foes looking increasingly likely before the year is out, I predict victory for... Hillary Clinton, regardless of the outcome for the actual combatants.
If mosque boy fails to forcefully support Israel in a conflict, especially in the event that rocket attacks by Hezbollah or Hamas cause significant civilian casualties, Hilary could resign on this point of principle before the November elections, and thus avoid being tarred as disloyally kicking Obama while he's down by resigning to launch a challenge to him in the wake of the looming mid-term meltdown.
While this would be the most promising scenario from the point of view of a potential presidential bid, the other possibilities are hardly much worse. Robust US backing for Israel,while it wouldn't hurt Obama, would do nothing to save Democrats in the mid-terms; and it would give Hilary plenty of positive exposure as a tough supporter of Israel against common terrorist enemies. A third option, a bout of high-profile shuttle diplomacy leading to an end to fighting, would also enhance her credentials. In either of the latter two cases, thus bolstered, she could then leave the administration anyway next year if Obama's prospects for 2012 continue to deteriorate.
If mosque boy fails to forcefully support Israel in a conflict, especially in the event that rocket attacks by Hezbollah or Hamas cause significant civilian casualties, Hilary could resign on this point of principle before the November elections, and thus avoid being tarred as disloyally kicking Obama while he's down by resigning to launch a challenge to him in the wake of the looming mid-term meltdown.
While this would be the most promising scenario from the point of view of a potential presidential bid, the other possibilities are hardly much worse. Robust US backing for Israel,while it wouldn't hurt Obama, would do nothing to save Democrats in the mid-terms; and it would give Hilary plenty of positive exposure as a tough supporter of Israel against common terrorist enemies. A third option, a bout of high-profile shuttle diplomacy leading to an end to fighting, would also enhance her credentials. In either of the latter two cases, thus bolstered, she could then leave the administration anyway next year if Obama's prospects for 2012 continue to deteriorate.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Hamas steps up aid thefts - where's the outrage?
Don't hold your breath waiting for celebrity-led protests in European capitals...
From the Jerusalem Post:
From the Jerusalem Post:
UNRWA informed the IDF on Friday that it is suspending its humanitarian aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip after Hamas stole supplies the United Nations organization had transferred to the Palestinian territory.
The seizure of the 200 tons of supplies took place Thursday night and in response, UNRWA officials informed the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration that it was suspending its deliveries to the Gaza Strip until further notice. The supplies confiscated included flour and other basic commodities.
The transfer of 40 truckloads of humanitarian supplies - some 800 tons - planned for Sunday has already been canceled.
It was the second time this week that Hamas stole UN supplies transferred to the Gaza Strip for impoverished Palestinians.
The first incident took place Tuesday evening when armed Hamas police broke into a Gaza warehouse packed with UN humanitarian supplies and seized thousands of blankets and food packages.
In Gaza, the ownership of aid confers power, and Hamas desperately needs to hold on to power after starting a war which wrecked the Strip, and damaged it militarily.
At least the UN locally is starting to speak out. But what about the UN bosses in New York? What about the EU, and all those politicians who are so quick to protest about suffering Palestinians when the suffering is inflicted by Israelis? And where's the media outcry?
Then again, the MSM is fond of reminding us that Hamas is a legitimate government, and a 'humanitarian organisation' - maybe they're just frustated by the UN's inefficiency.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Another unfortunate connection between Islam and the Nazis
The links between radical Islamists and the Nazis, forged when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem allied himself with Hitler during World War Two, have been well documented.
And now it's emerged that Aribert Heim, a concentration camp 'doctor' who butchered hundreds of Jewish inmates, and who was number two on the Simon Weisenthal Center's wanted list, converted to Islam and apparently spent the last 30 years of his life in Egypt.
The Telegraph reports:
It's no coincidence that Heim made his home in a country that at the time was hell-bent on destroying the state of Israel, and found a spiritual home in a religion whose more radical adherents aspire to the mass-murder of Jews, and have a predilection for cruelty, murder and mutilation. But the Times apparently doesn't want its readers jumping to any conclusions.
And now it's emerged that Aribert Heim, a concentration camp 'doctor' who butchered hundreds of Jewish inmates, and who was number two on the Simon Weisenthal Center's wanted list, converted to Islam and apparently spent the last 30 years of his life in Egypt.
The Telegraph reports:
Nazi hunters had believed Aribert Heim, who reportedly killed hundreds of inmates with poison injections to the heart and removed his victims' organs without anaesthetic, was hiding out in Chile, where he was believed to have an illegitimate daughter.The New York Times piece on Heim is here. It's a fascinating story, but the Times plays down the significance of Heim's moving to Egypt and conversion to Islam.However, the German state broadcaster ZDF announced on Wednesday that it had discovered that Heim spent nearly 30 years in the Egyptian capital before dying of bowel cancer.
In a joint investigation with the New York Times, ZDF said it had discovered that Heim became a Muslim in the early 1980s and renamed himself Tarek Fared Hussein.
After the war, he practised in West Germany as a gynaecologist but went missing in 1962 as police prepared to prosecute him.
It's no coincidence that Heim made his home in a country that at the time was hell-bent on destroying the state of Israel, and found a spiritual home in a religion whose more radical adherents aspire to the mass-murder of Jews, and have a predilection for cruelty, murder and mutilation. But the Times apparently doesn't want its readers jumping to any conclusions.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Palestinian rock thrower, channelling Wile E. Coyote, is killed by own rock
File under 'Cartoon Violence': From Israel National News, via Daniel Pipes:
A Palestinian Authority Arab who stoned cars in Samaria was killed by one of his own rocks, police have concluded. A Jewish man held in connection with the death has been released.
The Arab teenager hurled heavy stones at Israeli-owned vehicles along a Samaria highway last Tuesday evening. He managed to hit one car, which was driven by a resident of the nearby town of Emmanuel.
Fearing further attacks, the driver fired a single shot in the air to frighten away the stone-thrower. He then contacted local security officers to report both the attack and his own response.
A short time later, Israeli paramedics received a report of an Arab teen found unconscious and badly wounded next to a highway. The teen suffered a serious head injury that appeared to be a bullet wound. Medical personnel rushed to the scene but were unable to save the young Arab, who died a short time later.
Police originally believed that the resident of Emmanuel who reported firing in the air had in fact fired at his attacker, killing him. The man was arrested and questioned. However, an initial forensic report showed that the attacker had not been killed by a bullet, and the detainee was released.
A final forensic report, released over the weekend, showed that the attacker was killed when a stone he threw hit the car driven by the man from Emmanuel. The stone hit the car's tire and bounced back at high speed, hitting the attacker and leaving him with a fatal head injury.
A Palestinian Authority Arab who stoned cars in Samaria was killed by one of his own rocks, police have concluded. A Jewish man held in connection with the death has been released.
The Arab teenager hurled heavy stones at Israeli-owned vehicles along a Samaria highway last Tuesday evening. He managed to hit one car, which was driven by a resident of the nearby town of Emmanuel.
Fearing further attacks, the driver fired a single shot in the air to frighten away the stone-thrower. He then contacted local security officers to report both the attack and his own response.
A short time later, Israeli paramedics received a report of an Arab teen found unconscious and badly wounded next to a highway. The teen suffered a serious head injury that appeared to be a bullet wound. Medical personnel rushed to the scene but were unable to save the young Arab, who died a short time later.
Police originally believed that the resident of Emmanuel who reported firing in the air had in fact fired at his attacker, killing him. The man was arrested and questioned. However, an initial forensic report showed that the attacker had not been killed by a bullet, and the detainee was released.
A final forensic report, released over the weekend, showed that the attacker was killed when a stone he threw hit the car driven by the man from Emmanuel. The stone hit the car's tire and bounced back at high speed, hitting the attacker and leaving him with a fatal head injury.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Israel is right to keep the MSM out of Gaza
My latest piece for Pajamas Media. It's not like there's a news blackout - there's plenty of information coming out of Gaza, much of it in fact skewed against Israel, and the last thing Israel needs is Christiane Amanpour and the rest of the MSM all-stars providing one-sided, context-free, 'infotainment' that focuses almost exclusively on Palestinian suffering.
Make sure you read the rest of the coverage at Pajamas, particularly Victor Davis Hanson.
Make sure you read the rest of the coverage at Pajamas, particularly Victor Davis Hanson.
Media's favourite Gaza doctor is terror-loving fascist
Unbelievable. A Norwegian doctor who is all over the TV news channels pontificating about the suffering of Gazans is a terrorist sympathiser. A regular Che Guevara. And these are the sort of people the world is getting 'impartial' reports from. (Via LGF)
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Summer camp Gaza style
I have a piece up at Pajamas Media on the summer camps for youngsters in Gaza being run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, at which children are religiously indoctrinated, taught to hate the US and Israel and glorify violence, and otherwise abused.
It’s that time of year again: school’s out, the kids are under your feet, and, much as you love the little brats, you find your patience being tested. Eventually, after clearing yet another dirty plate, or tripping over a discarded sneaker, you give them a well-deserved piece of your mind: “Why don’t you get out of the house and do something useful, like memorize the Koran or learn how to fire a shoulder-launched rocket?”
You can read the whole thing here.
It’s that time of year again: school’s out, the kids are under your feet, and, much as you love the little brats, you find your patience being tested. Eventually, after clearing yet another dirty plate, or tripping over a discarded sneaker, you give them a well-deserved piece of your mind: “Why don’t you get out of the house and do something useful, like memorize the Koran or learn how to fire a shoulder-launched rocket?”
You can read the whole thing here.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
BBC plays 'Guess the Victims' over Jerusalem attack
I also have a piece up at Pajamas Media, on the - probably unintentional - symbolism of a Palestinian using a Caterpillar machine to murder Israelis. You can read it here.
The US media has long enjoyed playing the game of ‘Guess the Party’, wherein the affiliation of Republican politicians accused or convicted of wrongdoing is prominently featured in news reports, while that of misbehaving Democrats is buried in the depths of the story, if it’s mentioned at all.
The BBC appears to have developed a couple of variants on the game – Guess the Nationality of the Victim/Aggressor and Guess the Sex of the Victim – to be played when reporting on deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This morning the Beeb headlined its report on yesterday’s murders of three Israelis by Palestinian Hussam Dwayat ‘Jerusalem attacker acted alone’. The report began:
A Palestinian who went on a bulldozing rampage in west Jerusalem on Wednesday apparently acted alone, Israeli police say, despite claims by militant groups.
Hussam Dwayat was at work on a building site when he drove his front-loader vehicle into the street and started mowing down cars and ramming buses.
He killed three people and wounded dozens more before security personnel climbed on the vehicle and killed him.
The fact that people died doesn’t make it into the headline or the first two paragraphs. And you have to get all the way to paragraph 12 – after the BBC presents a couple of theories for Dwayat’s actions, which, while not exactly excusing the attacks, suggest that the behaviour of Israelis may have driven him to his wits’ end – to find out that two of the dead were women, and beyond that to realise how close Dwayat came to murdering two babies as well.
The BBC also doesn’t mention that the male victim was 68, and soon to be a grandfather. In fact its reporters fail to get so much of what’s relevant into the crucial opening lines of the story that if this was a test-piece in an exam for entry to journalism school they would probably have flunked it – and this despite the fact that BBC reporter Tim Franks watched the whole thing unfold.
Update: The BBC updated the story while I was writing this post, and the details of the victims have been pushed even farther down the report.
Contrast the story with the BBC’s reporting of incidents in which Palestinians are killed by Israeli troops or airstrikes. A quick search of the BBC’s site reveals a steady stream of headlines such as 'Four children die in Gaza strike', 'Palestinian children die in blast', 'Family killed during raid in Gaza' and 'Outrage over killing of Gaza boys'.
If children aren’t mentioned in the headline, they’re invariably mentioned in the first line of the report, and the facts that they were Palestinians, or lived in Gaza, and were killed by Israelis, are also prominent.
Again, contrast that with a February BBC story headlined ‘Gaza rockets injure two Israelis’, in which you have to get to paragraph five to learn that one of the victims was aged eight.
In the case of yesterday’s story the BBC appears more concerned with reassuring readers that Dwayat was some kind of unhinged loner, and not a terrorist. In the process of doing so they’ve essentially relegated the killings to the status of an industrial accident.
Readers’ perceptions are often framed by a quick glance at the headline, or the first paragraph of a story. Casual readers of the BBC’s website must get the impression that the Israelis deliberately target children and other Palestinian civilians on an almost daily basis, while Israelis are occasionally the victim of some mishap or criminal act.
Clearly the BBC doesn’t want its readers to know that Palestinians kill women and children. After all this would undermine the image, so carefully cultivated by the BBC and other media outlets, of Palestinian terrorists as ‘militants’ engaged in a war against an occupying army – or ‘urban guerrillas’, in the words of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, the first kidnap victim to develop Stockholm syndrome before being seized.
The tactic is subtle, but very effective, and it stinks to high heaven. But as we’ve seen, if enough people complain, they’ve been known to withdraw lies and misleading reports. You can complain here.
HonestReporting.com has a rather more scientific analysis of bias in BBC headlines and reports.
The US media has long enjoyed playing the game of ‘Guess the Party’, wherein the affiliation of Republican politicians accused or convicted of wrongdoing is prominently featured in news reports, while that of misbehaving Democrats is buried in the depths of the story, if it’s mentioned at all.
The BBC appears to have developed a couple of variants on the game – Guess the Nationality of the Victim/Aggressor and Guess the Sex of the Victim – to be played when reporting on deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This morning the Beeb headlined its report on yesterday’s murders of three Israelis by Palestinian Hussam Dwayat ‘Jerusalem attacker acted alone’. The report began:A Palestinian who went on a bulldozing rampage in west Jerusalem on Wednesday apparently acted alone, Israeli police say, despite claims by militant groups.
Hussam Dwayat was at work on a building site when he drove his front-loader vehicle into the street and started mowing down cars and ramming buses.
He killed three people and wounded dozens more before security personnel climbed on the vehicle and killed him.
The fact that people died doesn’t make it into the headline or the first two paragraphs. And you have to get all the way to paragraph 12 – after the BBC presents a couple of theories for Dwayat’s actions, which, while not exactly excusing the attacks, suggest that the behaviour of Israelis may have driven him to his wits’ end – to find out that two of the dead were women, and beyond that to realise how close Dwayat came to murdering two babies as well.
The BBC also doesn’t mention that the male victim was 68, and soon to be a grandfather. In fact its reporters fail to get so much of what’s relevant into the crucial opening lines of the story that if this was a test-piece in an exam for entry to journalism school they would probably have flunked it – and this despite the fact that BBC reporter Tim Franks watched the whole thing unfold.
Update: The BBC updated the story while I was writing this post, and the details of the victims have been pushed even farther down the report.
Contrast the story with the BBC’s reporting of incidents in which Palestinians are killed by Israeli troops or airstrikes. A quick search of the BBC’s site reveals a steady stream of headlines such as 'Four children die in Gaza strike', 'Palestinian children die in blast', 'Family killed during raid in Gaza' and 'Outrage over killing of Gaza boys'.
If children aren’t mentioned in the headline, they’re invariably mentioned in the first line of the report, and the facts that they were Palestinians, or lived in Gaza, and were killed by Israelis, are also prominent.
Again, contrast that with a February BBC story headlined ‘Gaza rockets injure two Israelis’, in which you have to get to paragraph five to learn that one of the victims was aged eight.
In the case of yesterday’s story the BBC appears more concerned with reassuring readers that Dwayat was some kind of unhinged loner, and not a terrorist. In the process of doing so they’ve essentially relegated the killings to the status of an industrial accident.
Readers’ perceptions are often framed by a quick glance at the headline, or the first paragraph of a story. Casual readers of the BBC’s website must get the impression that the Israelis deliberately target children and other Palestinian civilians on an almost daily basis, while Israelis are occasionally the victim of some mishap or criminal act.
Clearly the BBC doesn’t want its readers to know that Palestinians kill women and children. After all this would undermine the image, so carefully cultivated by the BBC and other media outlets, of Palestinian terrorists as ‘militants’ engaged in a war against an occupying army – or ‘urban guerrillas’, in the words of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, the first kidnap victim to develop Stockholm syndrome before being seized.
The tactic is subtle, but very effective, and it stinks to high heaven. But as we’ve seen, if enough people complain, they’ve been known to withdraw lies and misleading reports. You can complain here.
HonestReporting.com has a rather more scientific analysis of bias in BBC headlines and reports.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
BBC erases all traces of lies over Bush speech report; so what have we learned?
Updated: Courtesy of commenters db, Jonathan and John, here are the grabs:
Now you see it…
Now you don't…
Exhibiting a thoroughness worthy of Orwell's Ministry of Truth, the BBC has been busy erasing all traces of the corporation's blatantly dishonest reporting of President Bush's speech on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion.
I'll provide a quick recap for anyone who's new to the story (you might also want to read, in the following order, my previous three posts) before bringing things up to date. On Wednesday the BBC reported the speech under the headline 'Bush speech hails Iraq "victory"'. The headline was supported by the following sentence in the story:
He said recent troop reinforcements had brought about "a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror".
However, this isn't what Bush said. What he said was:
The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around – it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror.
'Opened the door to' is obviously very different to 'brought about' – the BBC's own words. The deceitful editing of the story, and the equally deceitful headline, were clearly designed to expose the President to the ridicule of the BBC's viewers around the world, by creating the impression that he was once again prematurely declaring victory in Iraq, as he was ridiculed for doing back in 2003.
I wrote my first post about the story on Thursday, and emailed a few of the bloggers I read on a regular basis. Charles at Little Green Footballs linked, and by Friday morning – almost certainly as a result of word of the LGF post reaching the BBC – the headline on the story had been changed to 'Bush says Iraq invasion was right'. However, the misleading sentence mentioned above was still in the story, and the 'Bush hails victory' headline still appeared on a video of the speech.
By this time the dishonestly headlined, mendaciously edited BBC story had been displayed prominently on the website for two days. With the site attracting around 13 million unique viewers per week, we can safely assume that several million people around the world saw the report of President Bush 'claiming victory' in Iraq.
As I noted in my second post (linked by Pajamas Media) the BBC's 'Have Your Say' thread on the story was filled with comments hostile to President Bush and the US, with many commenters citing and ridiculing the 'victory claim' which Bush never made. At least two commenters called for Bush and Tony Blair to be hanged, and this in a 'fully moderated' thread. Here's one of those comments:
Late on Friday night/Saturday morning I emailed the BBC, using the comments form provided on the website (here – it's not too late to let them know what you think), to point out that the deliberately misleading sentence remained in the story, and the inaccurate headline remained on the video clip; I also sent links to mine and Charles's posts. I received no reply from the BBC, but by lunchtime on Saturday the story had been corrected, and the headline on the video clip had been changed.
I stupidly didn't think to screen-grab the headline on the original story – to be honest I didn't expect the BBC to correct it – but after it was changed I did screen-grab the video player. Here's the original version, with not one but two references to Bush 'hailing victory':
And here's the 'after' version, with the first reference corrected and the second deleted:
Update: Also via db and Jonathan, here's the sentence in which Bush's words are misreported:
Before:
After:
Even as I write this post, the Middle East page of the BBC site still features a link to the Have Your Say thread (comments are now closed) which takes the form of a quote from one of the comments, accusing Bush of 'arrogance' for declaring victory:
It's inconceivable that the headline and sentence which created such a misleading impression of Bush's speech were simply 'editing errors'. I used to work as a sub-editor on a daily newspaper in the UK, and a story as important as this would one have been seen by perhaps six different journalists before the paper went to press.
I've no doubt that at least as many BBC journalists would have been involved in putting together the Bush story, and senior ones too. The BBC is fat with British taxpayers' money, and its news-gathering operation is probably the best-resourced and most over-manned in the world; they wouldn't have farmed this job out to the intern.
The journalists who edited the report knew exactly what they were doing. They had access to the full transcript of the speech, and the video. They cut-and-pasted, or typed out, Bush's 'incriminating' words. It's clear that the decision to manipulate his words, and to headline the story with a lie, was approved at a high level.
Even for a news organisation with an undisguised political bias, the manipulation of a key speech by such an important figure would be despicable behaviour. The BBC's actions are made worse by the fact that it maintains the pretence of impartiality, although anyone familiar with its reporting on issues from Israel-Palestine (see also this story) to global warming knows this isn't the case.
As I wrote in my second post, the BBC is trusted by, and influences the opinions of, millions of people around the world, and such influence demands a similar degree of responsibility. It's one thing to 'bash Bush', but the BBC's selective and biased reporting on the war on terror can only embolden the jihadists and their state sponsors (anyone who seriously doubts there's a link should read this), while simultaneously undermining the political and public support that US, British and allied troops so desperately need.
I've been calling the BBC for its biased reporting since I started blogging last year, but my beef with the corporation has now become personal – my brother is due to deploy to Afghanistan with the British Army in September. The situation there is dangerous enough without the BBC stirring the pot – I would hate to think of he, or any coalition soldier, being targeted by some previously friendly Afghan who's been enraged by the latest exaggerated, context-free BBC report about coalition forces causing civilian casualties.
But the safety of our troops appears to be a secondary consideration for the BBC after its desire to see the US defeated and humiliated, first and foremost in Iraq (although its position, like that of the US media, will no doubt change if Obama or Hillary is elected President). The majority of its journalists, like their fellow soft-left/progressive travellers, want a world in which the US has less influence, and bodies such as the UN and EU have more.
In pursuit of this goal they have no compunction about manipulating the news to suit their agenda, whether by omitting inconvenient facts, or by applying the corporation's legendary double standards (Castro, for example is always the Cuban 'leader', while Pinochet is the Chilean 'dictator') and moral equivocation (Palestinian terror attacks are no worse than Israeli actions aimed at preventing those attacks). And sometimes, if they think they can get away with it, they'll simply lie.
When they're caught, like Eliot Spitzer the fact that they have been caught is the only thing they're sorry about. They have no shame; they despise and disregard their critics (as I mentioned, I've had no reply to my email – what could they possibly say?); and they'll brazenly attempt similar chicanery again, as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
When Charles linked my post at LGF, one commentator was driven to despair by the fact that the mainstream media can apparently keep getting away with manipulating the news in this way, and suggested that bloggers who draw attention to biased reporting are only preaching to the choir.
I know how they feel, but the events of the last few days have shown that the BBC can at least be forced to remove misleading and dishonest material from its website, even if it doesn't acknowledge that it's had to do so. If the alarm is raised quickly enough the propaganda effect can be contained, and the damage to the reputations of individuals, groups or countries limited.
Conservatives, and anyone who believes people should be able to make up their own minds about an issue based on a fair presentation of the facts, are engaged in nothing less than a battle for the truth. We may never be able to win outright, but we can't afford to lose.
Update: Thanks to Charles for linking again, and for bringing what I think is hugely important story to an infinitely bigger audience than I could. I think a couple of other people have linked too, so thanks, but my sitemeter is wall-to-wall lizards so it's hard to tell.
Thanks also to Glenn, and fellow Beeb-baiter Marc at USS Neverdock, who maintains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of BBC bias on the web.
Atlas links, and also links to this story on the New York Times using US war dead for propaganda. Just like the BBC they've now backtracked. So much bias, so little time...
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Now you see it…
Now you don't…
Exhibiting a thoroughness worthy of Orwell's Ministry of Truth, the BBC has been busy erasing all traces of the corporation's blatantly dishonest reporting of President Bush's speech on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion.I'll provide a quick recap for anyone who's new to the story (you might also want to read, in the following order, my previous three posts) before bringing things up to date. On Wednesday the BBC reported the speech under the headline 'Bush speech hails Iraq "victory"'. The headline was supported by the following sentence in the story:
He said recent troop reinforcements had brought about "a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror".
However, this isn't what Bush said. What he said was:
The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around – it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror.
'Opened the door to' is obviously very different to 'brought about' – the BBC's own words. The deceitful editing of the story, and the equally deceitful headline, were clearly designed to expose the President to the ridicule of the BBC's viewers around the world, by creating the impression that he was once again prematurely declaring victory in Iraq, as he was ridiculed for doing back in 2003.
I wrote my first post about the story on Thursday, and emailed a few of the bloggers I read on a regular basis. Charles at Little Green Footballs linked, and by Friday morning – almost certainly as a result of word of the LGF post reaching the BBC – the headline on the story had been changed to 'Bush says Iraq invasion was right'. However, the misleading sentence mentioned above was still in the story, and the 'Bush hails victory' headline still appeared on a video of the speech.
By this time the dishonestly headlined, mendaciously edited BBC story had been displayed prominently on the website for two days. With the site attracting around 13 million unique viewers per week, we can safely assume that several million people around the world saw the report of President Bush 'claiming victory' in Iraq.
As I noted in my second post (linked by Pajamas Media) the BBC's 'Have Your Say' thread on the story was filled with comments hostile to President Bush and the US, with many commenters citing and ridiculing the 'victory claim' which Bush never made. At least two commenters called for Bush and Tony Blair to be hanged, and this in a 'fully moderated' thread. Here's one of those comments:
Late on Friday night/Saturday morning I emailed the BBC, using the comments form provided on the website (here – it's not too late to let them know what you think), to point out that the deliberately misleading sentence remained in the story, and the inaccurate headline remained on the video clip; I also sent links to mine and Charles's posts. I received no reply from the BBC, but by lunchtime on Saturday the story had been corrected, and the headline on the video clip had been changed.I stupidly didn't think to screen-grab the headline on the original story – to be honest I didn't expect the BBC to correct it – but after it was changed I did screen-grab the video player. Here's the original version, with not one but two references to Bush 'hailing victory':
And here's the 'after' version, with the first reference corrected and the second deleted:
Update: Also via db and Jonathan, here's the sentence in which Bush's words are misreported:
Before:
After:
Even as I write this post, the Middle East page of the BBC site still features a link to the Have Your Say thread (comments are now closed) which takes the form of a quote from one of the comments, accusing Bush of 'arrogance' for declaring victory:
It's inconceivable that the headline and sentence which created such a misleading impression of Bush's speech were simply 'editing errors'. I used to work as a sub-editor on a daily newspaper in the UK, and a story as important as this would one have been seen by perhaps six different journalists before the paper went to press.I've no doubt that at least as many BBC journalists would have been involved in putting together the Bush story, and senior ones too. The BBC is fat with British taxpayers' money, and its news-gathering operation is probably the best-resourced and most over-manned in the world; they wouldn't have farmed this job out to the intern.
The journalists who edited the report knew exactly what they were doing. They had access to the full transcript of the speech, and the video. They cut-and-pasted, or typed out, Bush's 'incriminating' words. It's clear that the decision to manipulate his words, and to headline the story with a lie, was approved at a high level.
Even for a news organisation with an undisguised political bias, the manipulation of a key speech by such an important figure would be despicable behaviour. The BBC's actions are made worse by the fact that it maintains the pretence of impartiality, although anyone familiar with its reporting on issues from Israel-Palestine (see also this story) to global warming knows this isn't the case.
As I wrote in my second post, the BBC is trusted by, and influences the opinions of, millions of people around the world, and such influence demands a similar degree of responsibility. It's one thing to 'bash Bush', but the BBC's selective and biased reporting on the war on terror can only embolden the jihadists and their state sponsors (anyone who seriously doubts there's a link should read this), while simultaneously undermining the political and public support that US, British and allied troops so desperately need.
I've been calling the BBC for its biased reporting since I started blogging last year, but my beef with the corporation has now become personal – my brother is due to deploy to Afghanistan with the British Army in September. The situation there is dangerous enough without the BBC stirring the pot – I would hate to think of he, or any coalition soldier, being targeted by some previously friendly Afghan who's been enraged by the latest exaggerated, context-free BBC report about coalition forces causing civilian casualties.
But the safety of our troops appears to be a secondary consideration for the BBC after its desire to see the US defeated and humiliated, first and foremost in Iraq (although its position, like that of the US media, will no doubt change if Obama or Hillary is elected President). The majority of its journalists, like their fellow soft-left/progressive travellers, want a world in which the US has less influence, and bodies such as the UN and EU have more.
In pursuit of this goal they have no compunction about manipulating the news to suit their agenda, whether by omitting inconvenient facts, or by applying the corporation's legendary double standards (Castro, for example is always the Cuban 'leader', while Pinochet is the Chilean 'dictator') and moral equivocation (Palestinian terror attacks are no worse than Israeli actions aimed at preventing those attacks). And sometimes, if they think they can get away with it, they'll simply lie.
When they're caught, like Eliot Spitzer the fact that they have been caught is the only thing they're sorry about. They have no shame; they despise and disregard their critics (as I mentioned, I've had no reply to my email – what could they possibly say?); and they'll brazenly attempt similar chicanery again, as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
When Charles linked my post at LGF, one commentator was driven to despair by the fact that the mainstream media can apparently keep getting away with manipulating the news in this way, and suggested that bloggers who draw attention to biased reporting are only preaching to the choir.
I know how they feel, but the events of the last few days have shown that the BBC can at least be forced to remove misleading and dishonest material from its website, even if it doesn't acknowledge that it's had to do so. If the alarm is raised quickly enough the propaganda effect can be contained, and the damage to the reputations of individuals, groups or countries limited.
Conservatives, and anyone who believes people should be able to make up their own minds about an issue based on a fair presentation of the facts, are engaged in nothing less than a battle for the truth. We may never be able to win outright, but we can't afford to lose.
Update: Thanks to Charles for linking again, and for bringing what I think is hugely important story to an infinitely bigger audience than I could. I think a couple of other people have linked too, so thanks, but my sitemeter is wall-to-wall lizards so it's hard to tell.
Thanks also to Glenn, and fellow Beeb-baiter Marc at USS Neverdock, who maintains one of the most comprehensive catalogues of BBC bias on the web.
Atlas links, and also links to this story on the New York Times using US war dead for propaganda. Just like the BBC they've now backtracked. So much bias, so little time...
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Gazans driving Caterpillars; Rachel Corrie spinning in grave
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Gazans driving Caterpillars; Rachel Corrie spinning in grave
For the past few years Palestinian sympathisers and Israel haters have been waging a campaign against US construction equipment maker Caterpillar, on the grounds that it builds the D9 earthmovers used by the Israeli Defence Forces.
Campaigners say the IDF uses the bulldozers to illegally demolish Palestinian homes. The IDF says it uses them to demolish buildings used by terrorists as firing positions, and to dismantle booby-traps and fill in weapons-smuggling tunnels.
A D9 famously ran over and killed the flag-burning US activist Rachel Corrie in Gaza in 2003, spawning an entire canon of sub-standard poetry and drama. The pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement claimed she was 'murdered' while trying to protect Palestinian homes, producing a series of contradictory and apparently faked photos to support their claims. (HT for that last link Israel Matzav.)
The IDF says its troops were clearing weapons-smuggling infrastructure, and that there was no way the driver of the D9 could have seen Corrie. Corrie's family and others have tried to sue Caterpillar but failed, and she has become a hero of the Palestinian 'resistance' movement, and its official PR arm.
Whatever the truth of that particular incident, it's fair to say that, in the eyes of the anti-Israel lobby, Caterpillar's name is Mudd – or maybe that should be Earth. In 2004 Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch said:
Caterpillar betrays its stated values when it sells bulldozers to Israel knowing that they are being used to illegally destroy Palestinian homes. Until Israel stops these practices, Caterpillar’s continued sales will make the company complicit in human rights abuses.
So it comes as something of a surprise to see Palestinians clearing up the damage caused by last week's Israeli strikes on Gaza with… a Caterpillar:
Apologies for the picture quality – it's a screen grab of a video, which is itself pretty ropey (or maybe it's my monitor…) on the BBC's website. But if you click to enlarge it you can clearly see 'CAT' on the engine cowling, and 'CATERPILLAR' along the top of the windscreen.
The BBC video is here (if that doesn't work the page is here – click the 'Watch' button below the photo). The Caterpillar appears briefly at 50 seconds, but there's no commentary. There's another version, with commentary, here (the page is here). It's edited differently, and the Caterpillar appears at 46 seconds. The branding is clearly visible in both clips.
It's what's known as a 'backhoe loader', rather than the notorious, almost larger-than-life D9, but a Caterpillar it most certainly is. This must be what they call the 'circle of earthmoving': Caterpillars knock the buildings down, Caterpillars come along and clear up the mess, and so it continues…
You've got to hand it to Caterpillar’s Mid-East sales rep. Talk about playing both sides – the guy has to be in line for 'salesman of the year' and a weekend in Vegas.
There are several websites, including Stop Caterpillar, devoted to attacking Caterpillar, and calling for boycotts of its products (I for one will certainly have pause for thought next time I'm out shopping for a 150,000lb earthmover). You can see some endearingly pathetic photos of a demo in England here.
The United Methodist Church in the US is running a disinvestment campaign against Caterpillar. The General Synod of the Church of England, under the leadership of the hapless Rowan Williams, voted to do the same in 2006, but was snubbed by its investments advisory group.
Among leftist opponents of Israel, Caterpillar has become a by-word for the perceived injustices visited on the Palestinian people. Maybe someone ought to tell the Palestinians.
Related: Business as usual at the BBC
Thanks to all who linked. In Berlin for a few days so not much time for blogging. I was at the Holocaust memorial shortly after hearing of the attack on the seminary in Jerusalem. Maybe I'll have some thoughts when I get back.
Campaigners say the IDF uses the bulldozers to illegally demolish Palestinian homes. The IDF says it uses them to demolish buildings used by terrorists as firing positions, and to dismantle booby-traps and fill in weapons-smuggling tunnels.
A D9 famously ran over and killed the flag-burning US activist Rachel Corrie in Gaza in 2003, spawning an entire canon of sub-standard poetry and drama. The pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement claimed she was 'murdered' while trying to protect Palestinian homes, producing a series of contradictory and apparently faked photos to support their claims. (HT for that last link Israel Matzav.)
The IDF says its troops were clearing weapons-smuggling infrastructure, and that there was no way the driver of the D9 could have seen Corrie. Corrie's family and others have tried to sue Caterpillar but failed, and she has become a hero of the Palestinian 'resistance' movement, and its official PR arm.
Whatever the truth of that particular incident, it's fair to say that, in the eyes of the anti-Israel lobby, Caterpillar's name is Mudd – or maybe that should be Earth. In 2004 Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch said:
Caterpillar betrays its stated values when it sells bulldozers to Israel knowing that they are being used to illegally destroy Palestinian homes. Until Israel stops these practices, Caterpillar’s continued sales will make the company complicit in human rights abuses.
So it comes as something of a surprise to see Palestinians clearing up the damage caused by last week's Israeli strikes on Gaza with… a Caterpillar:
Apologies for the picture quality – it's a screen grab of a video, which is itself pretty ropey (or maybe it's my monitor…) on the BBC's website. But if you click to enlarge it you can clearly see 'CAT' on the engine cowling, and 'CATERPILLAR' along the top of the windscreen.The BBC video is here (if that doesn't work the page is here – click the 'Watch' button below the photo). The Caterpillar appears briefly at 50 seconds, but there's no commentary. There's another version, with commentary, here (the page is here). It's edited differently, and the Caterpillar appears at 46 seconds. The branding is clearly visible in both clips.
It's what's known as a 'backhoe loader', rather than the notorious, almost larger-than-life D9, but a Caterpillar it most certainly is. This must be what they call the 'circle of earthmoving': Caterpillars knock the buildings down, Caterpillars come along and clear up the mess, and so it continues…
You've got to hand it to Caterpillar’s Mid-East sales rep. Talk about playing both sides – the guy has to be in line for 'salesman of the year' and a weekend in Vegas.
There are several websites, including Stop Caterpillar, devoted to attacking Caterpillar, and calling for boycotts of its products (I for one will certainly have pause for thought next time I'm out shopping for a 150,000lb earthmover). You can see some endearingly pathetic photos of a demo in England here.
The United Methodist Church in the US is running a disinvestment campaign against Caterpillar. The General Synod of the Church of England, under the leadership of the hapless Rowan Williams, voted to do the same in 2006, but was snubbed by its investments advisory group.
Among leftist opponents of Israel, Caterpillar has become a by-word for the perceived injustices visited on the Palestinian people. Maybe someone ought to tell the Palestinians.
Related: Business as usual at the BBC
Thanks to all who linked. In Berlin for a few days so not much time for blogging. I was at the Holocaust memorial shortly after hearing of the attack on the seminary in Jerusalem. Maybe I'll have some thoughts when I get back.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Frank Gaffney on gang rape in Annapolis
It is fitting that Condoleezza Rice chose the U.S. Naval Academy for the venue of tomorrow’s so-called Mideast peace conference. The reputation of that extraordinary institution in Annapolis has been sullied in recent years by a succession of rapes of young women. Despite official efforts to low-ball its significance, Ms. Rice’s conclave is shaping up to be a gang-rape of a nation on a scale not seen since Munich in 1938, when the British and French allowed Hitler and Mussolini to have their violent way with Czechoslovakia.
This time, the intended victim is Israel. As with the effort to appease the Nazis and Fascists nearly sixty years ago, however, the damage will not be confined to the rapee. The interests of the Free World in general and the United States in particular will suffer from what the Saudis and most of the other attendees have in mind for the Jewish State – namely, its dismemberment and ultimate destruction.
Read the whole thing.
Elsewhere, Jerusalem Post columnist Carline Glick talks to National Review's Kathryn Lopez:
It is hard to see any positive outcome from the Annapolis conference. Some have argued that the conference will make clear the distinction between states interested in peace and states uninterested in peace. But it is far from clear why this is the case. Indeed, one of the basic flaws inherent in the Annapolis conference, and indeed in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent frenetic pursuit of Palestinian statehood is the complete absence of moral distinctions between states committed to the ideals of peace, freedom, and fighting terror and those committed to jihad, tyranny, and hatred.
And here's Bernard Lewis in yesterday's WSJ on the fraud of 'the right of return':
The Poles and the Germans [refugees from Hitler's Europe], the Hindus and the Muslims [refugees created by the partition of India], the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, [during the 1947-48 fighting] all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
Let's hope.
This time, the intended victim is Israel. As with the effort to appease the Nazis and Fascists nearly sixty years ago, however, the damage will not be confined to the rapee. The interests of the Free World in general and the United States in particular will suffer from what the Saudis and most of the other attendees have in mind for the Jewish State – namely, its dismemberment and ultimate destruction.
Read the whole thing.
Elsewhere, Jerusalem Post columnist Carline Glick talks to National Review's Kathryn Lopez:
It is hard to see any positive outcome from the Annapolis conference. Some have argued that the conference will make clear the distinction between states interested in peace and states uninterested in peace. But it is far from clear why this is the case. Indeed, one of the basic flaws inherent in the Annapolis conference, and indeed in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent frenetic pursuit of Palestinian statehood is the complete absence of moral distinctions between states committed to the ideals of peace, freedom, and fighting terror and those committed to jihad, tyranny, and hatred.
And here's Bernard Lewis in yesterday's WSJ on the fraud of 'the right of return':
The Poles and the Germans [refugees from Hitler's Europe], the Hindus and the Muslims [refugees created by the partition of India], the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, [during the 1947-48 fighting] all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.
The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.
The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the "return" of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.
Let's hope.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
First aid lessons, Gaza style
From the ‘You couldn’t make it up’ files… the BBC reports that gunmen in the
The reports says:
All the Palestinian armed factions have signed up to the course, though they are being taught in individual groups.
So presumably the students include Hamas gunmen who routinely fire on, beat and torture their opponents, as well as the various factions responsible for firing rockets at civilian targets in
In fairness, Katya Adler’s report strikes a skeptical tone in parts. She describes the sight of masked men pairing up to practise using bandages, splints as “incongruous”, and acknowledges that:
Gunmen use busy streets, even private homes, as battlegrounds.
Armed Palestinian groups fire rockets at Israeli towns like Sderot, just over the
But she fails to challenge the contemptible Palestinian claims that they only target Israeli civilians because the Israelis deliberately target Palestinian civilians – presumably because, like most of the BBC, she thinks there’s some truth in the allegation.
This is a publicity stunt cooked up by Palestinian terrorists and their sympathizers in the Red Cross, and the BBC is duly giving them publicity.
The report continues:
The head of Gaza operations for the Red Cross, Anthony Dalziel, said the course was part of his organisation's worldwide effort to teach international humanitarian law to all parties in armed conflict.
So I guess the next time a barrage of rockets lands on Sderot, and in class that evening the teacher demands that whoever was responsible put his hand up, some member of the Al-Aqsa will sheepishly put his hand up, and be made to stand in the corner wearing a dunce's hat.
The Red Cross, along with the UN and other aid organizations, tend to side with the perceived victims in conflicts, more so when large numbers of staff are recruited locally (the report says the teacher of this course is a locally-recruited Red Cross staffer).
At best they allow themselves to be accomplices to propaganda, as in the notorious ‘Israeli rocket attack on ambulance’ hoax, and at worst they become involved in the conflict by allowing their vehicles to be used by terrorists (you’ll find a glowing Al Jazeera report on the Red Cross classes for terrorists on the same page).
The Red Cross also likes to lecture the Israelis on the laws of war. But while the Israelis sometimes bend the rules, and occasionally break them, members of Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups go out every day with the explicit aim of killing and maiming civilians, whether Israelis or Palestinian opponents. It’s also worth noting that Hamas, along with Hezbollah, is violating the Geneva Conventions by refusing to allow the Red Cross to visit captured Israeli soldiers.
For all the good work it does around the world, the fact that the Red Cross refuses to draw distinctions between the two sides, and continues to allow itself to be used by terrorists in Gaza and elsewhere, shames it.
Related: From the Red Cross First Aid Manual for Combatants, Gaza edition.Lesson 1: Casualty with severed head:
1. Retrieve head from celebrating mob.
2. Carefully reattach head to neck as shown.3. Remove video of beheading from internet.
4. Prop casualty up in a chair.
5. Call AP and Reuters, and get them to photograph the casualty, explaining to them that he's in excellent health, but has suffered mild whiplash in a car accident, and is having a nap.
6. When AP/Reuters have gone, remove head again.7. Wait 24 hours.
8. Call AP/Reuters and tell them casualty has been run over by Israeli bulldozer.
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Lesson 2: Casualty suffering from multiple fractures and internal injuries after being thrown from roof by rival faction:
1. If casualty's hands and feet were bound prior to his being thrown from rooftop, untie hands and feet and dispose of rope.
2. Place casualty in recovery position.3. Call BBC and explain that casualty is impoverished fruit farmer who threw himself from rooftop after being driven to despair by Israel's closure of Rafa border crossing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lesson 3: Casualty with multiple bullet wounds to abdomen after being shot by rival faction during protest/Friday prayers:
1. Check casualty for pulse and breathing.
2. If pulse and breathing are detected, administer two shots to the head from close range to finish casualty off.3. Call France 2 television, and get them to produce a fake video.
Update: Welcome all, and Happy Thanksgiving to my visitors from across the pond. Thanks to JammieWearingFool for linking, and for plugging me over at LGF, and thanks to Theo and Freeborn John for linking too.
Update 2: Thanks Ace and Kate!
Monday, October 1, 2007
Guess this is the end for pan-Arab nationalism
Apparently no one's told Iraq's Shiites that the fate of the Palestinians is supposed be a rallying cry that unites all Arabs against the Great Satan and the Little Satan. As AFP reports:
Thousands of Palestinian refugees in Iraq have been ill-treated, with many of them abducted, tortured and murdered by armed Shiite Muslim groups, Amnesty International said in a report published Monday.
The London-based human rights group issued an urgent appeal to the Shiite-led Iraqi government, US-led coalition and international community to take concrete steps to protect the Palestinians.
The report explains that Palestinians are being targeted because Shiites think they received preferential treatment under Saddam Hussein, who like most Palestinians was a Sunni, or because they're suspected of supporting Sunni insurgents.
The report adds:
Estimated at 34,000 in May 2006 by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Palestinians now number no more than 15,000 in Iraq, most of them in Baghdad but many in Mosul in the north and Basra in the south.
If anyone still needs convincing that the problems of the Middle East aren't about borders, or oil, but about ancient religious hatreds, perhaps this story will help to set them straight.
Thousands of Palestinian refugees in Iraq have been ill-treated, with many of them abducted, tortured and murdered by armed Shiite Muslim groups, Amnesty International said in a report published Monday.
The London-based human rights group issued an urgent appeal to the Shiite-led Iraqi government, US-led coalition and international community to take concrete steps to protect the Palestinians.
The report explains that Palestinians are being targeted because Shiites think they received preferential treatment under Saddam Hussein, who like most Palestinians was a Sunni, or because they're suspected of supporting Sunni insurgents.
The report adds:
Estimated at 34,000 in May 2006 by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Palestinians now number no more than 15,000 in Iraq, most of them in Baghdad but many in Mosul in the north and Basra in the south.
If anyone still needs convincing that the problems of the Middle East aren't about borders, or oil, but about ancient religious hatreds, perhaps this story will help to set them straight.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
A bad night for freedom
While a few commentators are suggesting that Ahmadinejad was put in his place by Columbia President Lee Bollinger tonight, I just can't see it. Those who think he's mad and dangerous will have heard nothing to change their minds, while those on the extreme left who see him as an ally in their war against President Bush will if anything be emboldened. As John Bolton pointed out, it’s not like we don’t know what Ahmadinejad’s positions are; the issue is whether you legitimise those positions by giving him a platform.
For Ahmadinejad to have been in any way phased by Bollinger's attack would have required that he have a conception of right and wrong that relates in some way to ours. This, after all, is a man who fantasises about one day initiating a nuclear exchange that might take hundreds of thousands of lives. It’s fair to say that even the most forgiving members of the international community are going to be pretty upset if and when he does it, and if Ahmadinejad has made his peace with suffering the consequences, assuming that he emerges from his bunker unscathed, then he’s unlikely to be troubled by an attack that was reminiscent of Frasier Crane at his eloquent, pompous best.
The fact that as many students applauded Ahmadinejad as applauded Bollinger helped to create the impression of a moral victory for the Iranian leader; how disheartening those pictures will be for the millions of Iranians who look to America to help bring about change in their county. It's a sad fact that there are a lot of disturbed young people who, to paraphrase the suicide bombers they so admire, hate Bush more than they love life – and I'm not talking about their own lives of course, but the lives of Iranian dissidents, American troops and ordinary people from Baghdad to Tel Aviv.
Ahmadinejad’s remarks are unlikely to change many minds in the US and Europe as to how we should deal with Iran. As Hugh Hewitt points out, in the best piece I've read on tonight's events, what should really be concerning those who fear Ahmadinejad is the way that his visit will be reported in Iran and the Middle East:
Meanwhile the networks catering to the jihadists will be slicing and dicing the fanatic's remarks; he will earn the admiration of radicals across the Arab world for standing up to the Americans; and the repressed people of Iran, especially the students who cannot speak out, the press that is muzzled, and the gays who don't exist will get all of Ahmadinejad and little if any of Bollinger. What will they conclude? Even a cursory examination of The Looming Tower or Inside The Jihad or any of many other serious books on the Islamist war against the West dwells on the crucial role of propaganda in pushing the extremist message, both Salafist and Shia versions. Today's fiasco has nothing to do with what Bollinger said, a name little known or long remembered anywhere outside of the upper West Side. It is about the platform Columbia provided this thug who is actively engaged in the killing of American soldiers and Marines while plotting the extermination of Israel.
The cause of freedom in the Arab World has been damaged tonight, and that may in turn have implications for the security of the West. It’s not a disaster, but it’s a setback. We can only be grateful that Ahmadinejad didn’t get to deliver his sly sermon at Ground Zero.
For Ahmadinejad to have been in any way phased by Bollinger's attack would have required that he have a conception of right and wrong that relates in some way to ours. This, after all, is a man who fantasises about one day initiating a nuclear exchange that might take hundreds of thousands of lives. It’s fair to say that even the most forgiving members of the international community are going to be pretty upset if and when he does it, and if Ahmadinejad has made his peace with suffering the consequences, assuming that he emerges from his bunker unscathed, then he’s unlikely to be troubled by an attack that was reminiscent of Frasier Crane at his eloquent, pompous best.
The fact that as many students applauded Ahmadinejad as applauded Bollinger helped to create the impression of a moral victory for the Iranian leader; how disheartening those pictures will be for the millions of Iranians who look to America to help bring about change in their county. It's a sad fact that there are a lot of disturbed young people who, to paraphrase the suicide bombers they so admire, hate Bush more than they love life – and I'm not talking about their own lives of course, but the lives of Iranian dissidents, American troops and ordinary people from Baghdad to Tel Aviv.
Ahmadinejad’s remarks are unlikely to change many minds in the US and Europe as to how we should deal with Iran. As Hugh Hewitt points out, in the best piece I've read on tonight's events, what should really be concerning those who fear Ahmadinejad is the way that his visit will be reported in Iran and the Middle East:
Meanwhile the networks catering to the jihadists will be slicing and dicing the fanatic's remarks; he will earn the admiration of radicals across the Arab world for standing up to the Americans; and the repressed people of Iran, especially the students who cannot speak out, the press that is muzzled, and the gays who don't exist will get all of Ahmadinejad and little if any of Bollinger. What will they conclude? Even a cursory examination of The Looming Tower or Inside The Jihad or any of many other serious books on the Islamist war against the West dwells on the crucial role of propaganda in pushing the extremist message, both Salafist and Shia versions. Today's fiasco has nothing to do with what Bollinger said, a name little known or long remembered anywhere outside of the upper West Side. It is about the platform Columbia provided this thug who is actively engaged in the killing of American soldiers and Marines while plotting the extermination of Israel.
The cause of freedom in the Arab World has been damaged tonight, and that may in turn have implications for the security of the West. It’s not a disaster, but it’s a setback. We can only be grateful that Ahmadinejad didn’t get to deliver his sly sermon at Ground Zero.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
BBC playing down Israel's strike on Syria
Why is the BBC playing with such a straight bat (note to US readers: the expression is cricket parlance, and is used to suggest that someone doesn’t want to take sides on an issue, or give away more information than is necessary), over Israel’s air strike on Syria?
Almost every other major news outlet has reported, some in considerable detail, that the Israeli raid targeted nuclear material that had been shipped from North Korea. While the BBC has quoted some of these accounts, its first-hand reporting continues to talk of the incident being ‘shrouded in mystery’.
Its story today, on Binyamin Netanyahu confirming that some kind of raid did in fact take place, is typical. After reporting Netanyahu’s remarks, (incidentally I think Netanyahu, who I generally have a lot of time for, is an idiot for publicly talking about the raid, and thereby dispelling the air of mystery that was working to Israel’s advantage), the story lapses into the vagueness of previous BBC accounts of the raid itself.
For example, no serious observer doubts that the Israelis got into and out of Syria with ease, or that the first the Syrians knew of the raid was when things started blowing up around them; yet the BBC persists in parroting the official Syrian response: ‘The Syrian authorities say that the aircraft were forced away, and that they fired their weaponry into a deserted area.’ As for the target of the raid, the report only notes that: ‘US officials have indicated that at least one target in northern Syria was hit.’
You would think the BBC could do a little better, given its considerable, taxpayer-funded resources, and its global network of correspondents (although it would hardly be surprising if senior military and intelligence figures in Israel were unwilling to talk to the BBC, given its barely concealed hostility to the state).
The BBC might argue nobly that it only reports the facts, and doesn’t engage in speculation. But of course it engages in speculation every day, when speculation suits it.
More likely the BBC is playing down the incident because it’s averse to reporting on completely justified and successful Israeli strikes against its enemies, and equally averse to talking about developments that might portray Syria in a negative light. As if it were needed, clear evidence of the BBC’s position with regard to Israel and Syria is provided by this paragraph towards the end of the report:
The Syrian government has insisted that peace talks can be resumed only on the basis of Israel returning the Golan Heights, which it seized in 1967.
As usual, there's no context, and no balance. The BBC might have mentioned that from 1948 to 1967 Syrian forces used the Golan Heights to shoot at and later shell Israeli kibbutzim, and that Syria allowed Yasir Arafat's Fatah terrorists to launch raids into Israel from the territory; and all this before Israel occupied an inch of Arab territory. If you didn’t know any better – and many people don’t – you might be forgiven for thinking that Israel seized the Golan Heights in an unprovoked act of aggression against a harmless, peace-loving neighbour.
Thus does the BBC rewrite the history of the Middle East, day in and day out. And if it won’t tell the truth about Israel’s past conflicts with the Arab world, it can hardly be relied upon to tell the truth about what’s going on in the region today.
Almost every other major news outlet has reported, some in considerable detail, that the Israeli raid targeted nuclear material that had been shipped from North Korea. While the BBC has quoted some of these accounts, its first-hand reporting continues to talk of the incident being ‘shrouded in mystery’.
Its story today, on Binyamin Netanyahu confirming that some kind of raid did in fact take place, is typical. After reporting Netanyahu’s remarks, (incidentally I think Netanyahu, who I generally have a lot of time for, is an idiot for publicly talking about the raid, and thereby dispelling the air of mystery that was working to Israel’s advantage), the story lapses into the vagueness of previous BBC accounts of the raid itself.
For example, no serious observer doubts that the Israelis got into and out of Syria with ease, or that the first the Syrians knew of the raid was when things started blowing up around them; yet the BBC persists in parroting the official Syrian response: ‘The Syrian authorities say that the aircraft were forced away, and that they fired their weaponry into a deserted area.’ As for the target of the raid, the report only notes that: ‘US officials have indicated that at least one target in northern Syria was hit.’
You would think the BBC could do a little better, given its considerable, taxpayer-funded resources, and its global network of correspondents (although it would hardly be surprising if senior military and intelligence figures in Israel were unwilling to talk to the BBC, given its barely concealed hostility to the state).
The BBC might argue nobly that it only reports the facts, and doesn’t engage in speculation. But of course it engages in speculation every day, when speculation suits it.
More likely the BBC is playing down the incident because it’s averse to reporting on completely justified and successful Israeli strikes against its enemies, and equally averse to talking about developments that might portray Syria in a negative light. As if it were needed, clear evidence of the BBC’s position with regard to Israel and Syria is provided by this paragraph towards the end of the report:
The Syrian government has insisted that peace talks can be resumed only on the basis of Israel returning the Golan Heights, which it seized in 1967.
As usual, there's no context, and no balance. The BBC might have mentioned that from 1948 to 1967 Syrian forces used the Golan Heights to shoot at and later shell Israeli kibbutzim, and that Syria allowed Yasir Arafat's Fatah terrorists to launch raids into Israel from the territory; and all this before Israel occupied an inch of Arab territory. If you didn’t know any better – and many people don’t – you might be forgiven for thinking that Israel seized the Golan Heights in an unprovoked act of aggression against a harmless, peace-loving neighbour.
Thus does the BBC rewrite the history of the Middle East, day in and day out. And if it won’t tell the truth about Israel’s past conflicts with the Arab world, it can hardly be relied upon to tell the truth about what’s going on in the region today.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Iran and Syria will have to put up or shut up
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's remarks about preparing for war with Iran, combined with Israel's air strike against Syria, have really put the cat among the pigeons in Tehran and Damascus.
Via The Jerusalem Post:
Six hundred Iranian Shihab-3 missiles are pointed at targets throughout Israel, and will be launched if either Iran or Syria are attacked, an Iranian website affiliated with the regime reported on Monday.
"Iran will shoot at Israel 600 missiles if it is attacked," the Iranian news website, Assar Iran, reported. "600 missiles will only be the first reaction."
According to the report, dozens of locations throughout Iraq which are being used by the United States army have also been targeted.
The Shihab missile has a range of 1,300 km, and can reach anywhere in Israel.
Hang on a tick... Syria was attacked, last week, by Israel. Where's the firestorm of Iranian retribution? Or is Tehran saying "Okay, we're going to let you have that one, but if you try it again we're really going to get mad?"
Meanwhile, Iran's state-owned IRNA news agency has responded to Kouchner's remarks by accusing Paris of pandering to the United States.
"The new occupants of the Elysee want to copy the White House," the IRNA news agency said. It also accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of taking on "an American skin", adding: "the French people will never forget the era when a non-European moved into the Elysee".
In a not-unconnected development, JPost reports that a top Israeli intelligence commander has told Israeli MPs that Israel's deterrence against Syria and Iran has been reestablished since last year's Lebanon War.
"[Israeli deterrence] is having an impact on the whole region, including on Iran and Syria," Major General Amos Yadlin said during his intelligence briefing to the legislature's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday.
Not surprisingly, the General didn't refer to the recent strike on Syria, which Israel will neither confirm nor deny (the Israeli media, incidentally, is still barred from revealing details of the operation by the military censor, which is why they're in the odd position of quoting US and European media reports that quote Israeli sources), but the implication was clear.
You don't need a master's degree in international relations to see what's going on here. Both Damascus and Tehran are very, very rattled by recent developments, and don't seem to know how to respond. The Syrians are maintaining an embarrassed silence, while Iran is making rhetorical threats on the one hand, and mocking the French for getting too close to the US on the other.
There's a lesson here for those who think the two biggest troublemakers in the Middle East can be contained by diplomacy and sanctions. While Western countries have persisted with the softly-softly approach Iran and Syria have continued to meddle in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, and have continued with their respective weapons programmes. Recent events demonstrate that only language they understand is force - and it doesn't necessarily have to lead to an uncontrollable escalation of hostilities.
Now that they've experienced real live military action, with the prospect of more to follow, they're caught between a rock and a hard place: do nothing, and lose influence and credibility; or respond, and face an overwhelming US, Israeli and perhaps even French, onslaught.
Tehran and Syria have been getting away with murder, quite literally, for too long. But in the latest round of hostilities they've yet to claim a single victim with their tanks, their aircraft or their long-rang missiles. They love all that asymmetric warfare stuff. The real thing? Not so much.
Related analysis here.
Update: Thanks to Ace of Spades and Pajamas for linking, and welcome all. While you're here do check out my latest post, on the Greenspan affair. You might like this post from yesterday, on how the inability of MoveOn and the Dems to resist a good insult caused them to shoot themselves in the foot.
Via The Jerusalem Post:
Six hundred Iranian Shihab-3 missiles are pointed at targets throughout Israel, and will be launched if either Iran or Syria are attacked, an Iranian website affiliated with the regime reported on Monday.
"Iran will shoot at Israel 600 missiles if it is attacked," the Iranian news website, Assar Iran, reported. "600 missiles will only be the first reaction."
According to the report, dozens of locations throughout Iraq which are being used by the United States army have also been targeted.
The Shihab missile has a range of 1,300 km, and can reach anywhere in Israel.
Hang on a tick... Syria was attacked, last week, by Israel. Where's the firestorm of Iranian retribution? Or is Tehran saying "Okay, we're going to let you have that one, but if you try it again we're really going to get mad?"
Meanwhile, Iran's state-owned IRNA news agency has responded to Kouchner's remarks by accusing Paris of pandering to the United States.
"The new occupants of the Elysee want to copy the White House," the IRNA news agency said. It also accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of taking on "an American skin", adding: "the French people will never forget the era when a non-European moved into the Elysee".
In a not-unconnected development, JPost reports that a top Israeli intelligence commander has told Israeli MPs that Israel's deterrence against Syria and Iran has been reestablished since last year's Lebanon War.
"[Israeli deterrence] is having an impact on the whole region, including on Iran and Syria," Major General Amos Yadlin said during his intelligence briefing to the legislature's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday.
Not surprisingly, the General didn't refer to the recent strike on Syria, which Israel will neither confirm nor deny (the Israeli media, incidentally, is still barred from revealing details of the operation by the military censor, which is why they're in the odd position of quoting US and European media reports that quote Israeli sources), but the implication was clear.
You don't need a master's degree in international relations to see what's going on here. Both Damascus and Tehran are very, very rattled by recent developments, and don't seem to know how to respond. The Syrians are maintaining an embarrassed silence, while Iran is making rhetorical threats on the one hand, and mocking the French for getting too close to the US on the other.
There's a lesson here for those who think the two biggest troublemakers in the Middle East can be contained by diplomacy and sanctions. While Western countries have persisted with the softly-softly approach Iran and Syria have continued to meddle in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, and have continued with their respective weapons programmes. Recent events demonstrate that only language they understand is force - and it doesn't necessarily have to lead to an uncontrollable escalation of hostilities.
Now that they've experienced real live military action, with the prospect of more to follow, they're caught between a rock and a hard place: do nothing, and lose influence and credibility; or respond, and face an overwhelming US, Israeli and perhaps even French, onslaught.
Tehran and Syria have been getting away with murder, quite literally, for too long. But in the latest round of hostilities they've yet to claim a single victim with their tanks, their aircraft or their long-rang missiles. They love all that asymmetric warfare stuff. The real thing? Not so much.
Related analysis here.
Update: Thanks to Ace of Spades and Pajamas for linking, and welcome all. While you're here do check out my latest post, on the Greenspan affair. You might like this post from yesterday, on how the inability of MoveOn and the Dems to resist a good insult caused them to shoot themselves in the foot.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Syria goes blah-blah over Israeli strike
A consensus seems to be emerging that the targets Israeli jets hit last week were arms supplies destined for Hezbollah, although as Scoop 86, blogging at In From The Cold, writes, there's also a lot of talk about clandestine nuclear cooperation between Syria and North Korea.
Whatever the target was, Syria is hopping mad, although of course they're pretending that no damage was done - how could there be, when there are no Hezbollah-bound weapons in Syria for Israel to hit?
Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Ja'afari got decidedly prickly when pressed on this matter: "This is blah, blah. This is nonsense, this is an unfounded statement. It is not up to the Israelis or anyone else to assess what we have in Syria."
"There was no target," he added. "They dropped their munitions. They were running away after they were confronted by our air defence."
Of course they were. Just like they ran away in 1948, 1967 and 1973. But I suppose you could be forgiven for being a little prickly if your bitterest enemy's air forces had just moonwalked through your air defences, destroyed an expensive cache of weapons destined for your terrorist buddies, and moonwalked out again.
RELATED: Jules Crittenden has a piece on the 'squeezing' of Syria and Iran at Pajamas Media. His conclusion:
Whether by happy coincidence or design, what we appear to be witnessing may be shaping operations for a long overdue curtailing of the what are now the primary destabilizing forces of the Middle East … now that Saddam’s out of the way. As the Iraq Study Group stated nearly a year ago, both Syria and Iran needed to be spoken to. The Israeli-Palestinian situation needed to be addressed.
Hamas graciously saw to the latter, isolating itself in a spasm of unbelieveably murderous bloodshed that has given Mideast peace an unexpected boost. Iran and its partner Syria, with their intransigent meddling and obtuseness on several fronts, have given the United States an open to talks of a different sort than the disingenuous negotiations in Baghdad. At this late date, even Democratic presidential candidates who want us out of Iraq immediately say they are open to the idea of attacks on Iran.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Whatever the target was, Syria is hopping mad, although of course they're pretending that no damage was done - how could there be, when there are no Hezbollah-bound weapons in Syria for Israel to hit?
Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Ja'afari got decidedly prickly when pressed on this matter: "This is blah, blah. This is nonsense, this is an unfounded statement. It is not up to the Israelis or anyone else to assess what we have in Syria."
"There was no target," he added. "They dropped their munitions. They were running away after they were confronted by our air defence."
Of course they were. Just like they ran away in 1948, 1967 and 1973. But I suppose you could be forgiven for being a little prickly if your bitterest enemy's air forces had just moonwalked through your air defences, destroyed an expensive cache of weapons destined for your terrorist buddies, and moonwalked out again.
RELATED: Jules Crittenden has a piece on the 'squeezing' of Syria and Iran at Pajamas Media. His conclusion:
Whether by happy coincidence or design, what we appear to be witnessing may be shaping operations for a long overdue curtailing of the what are now the primary destabilizing forces of the Middle East … now that Saddam’s out of the way. As the Iraq Study Group stated nearly a year ago, both Syria and Iran needed to be spoken to. The Israeli-Palestinian situation needed to be addressed.
Hamas graciously saw to the latter, isolating itself in a spasm of unbelieveably murderous bloodshed that has given Mideast peace an unexpected boost. Iran and its partner Syria, with their intransigent meddling and obtuseness on several fronts, have given the United States an open to talks of a different sort than the disingenuous negotiations in Baghdad. At this late date, even Democratic presidential candidates who want us out of Iraq immediately say they are open to the idea of attacks on Iran.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Israel playing war games?
Speculation is continuing over whether or not Israel carried out an airstrike inside Syria last week. The Jerusalem Post quotes a Kuwaiti newspaper report, which claims Israel targeted Iranian missile batteries, and that Syrian President Bashar Assad is under pressure to hit back. CNN says the strikes may have been aimed at weapons supplies destined for Hezbollah, and quotes Israeli sources as saying the attacks "left a big hole in the desert".
If it’s confirmed that Israel did carry out an airstrike, it’ll be criticised for launching an unprovoked attack. But Syria’s support for Hezbollah in last year’s war, and its continued arming of that and other terrorist groups, are acts of aggression, and Israel has every right to retaliate; and anyway, in the eyes of much of international opinion, Israel is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.
It might be that Israel is playing a clever game here, by launching an attack knowing that Syria wouldn’t want to acknowledge that Israeli aircraft had penetrated its air defences and taken out important, and supposedly secret military installations. If Syria is too embarrassed to respond, or too fearful, Israel may well carry out further hit-and-run raids.
And if Assad does bow to pressure to hit back, Syria’s attacks are likely to be as conspicuous, indiscriminate and ineffective as some analysts are saying Israel’s was discrete, precise and successful. And Israel would then have the perfect justification for launching overt and large-scale attacks on Syria, striking its air force and air defences, and going after Hezbollah’s training camps and supply lines.
If it’s confirmed that Israel did carry out an airstrike, it’ll be criticised for launching an unprovoked attack. But Syria’s support for Hezbollah in last year’s war, and its continued arming of that and other terrorist groups, are acts of aggression, and Israel has every right to retaliate; and anyway, in the eyes of much of international opinion, Israel is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.
It might be that Israel is playing a clever game here, by launching an attack knowing that Syria wouldn’t want to acknowledge that Israeli aircraft had penetrated its air defences and taken out important, and supposedly secret military installations. If Syria is too embarrassed to respond, or too fearful, Israel may well carry out further hit-and-run raids.
And if Assad does bow to pressure to hit back, Syria’s attacks are likely to be as conspicuous, indiscriminate and ineffective as some analysts are saying Israel’s was discrete, precise and successful. And Israel would then have the perfect justification for launching overt and large-scale attacks on Syria, striking its air force and air defences, and going after Hezbollah’s training camps and supply lines.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
BBC excuses rocket attacks on Israeli children
He may not be in the same league as Barbara ‘tears for Arafat’ Plett and Orla Guerin when it comes to anti-Israeli bias, but the BBC’s Martin Asser is clearly toeing the company line. His follow-up report on Monday’s rocket attack on an Israeli nursery school by Islamic Jihad is a classic hit-job on Israel, in which Asser rolls out the familiar prejudices, and wallows in moral equivalence.
Initially, Asser seems to be offering straight reporting:
Three such strikes within 10 minutes seemed precisely designed to catch children on their way to school, rendering the elaborate protective measures (a metal canopy covering the school building) useless.
But, it turns out, the terrorists had a perfectly good excuse:
To the Islamic Jihad militants who fired them, the rockets were pay-back against Israel for the deaths of a number children in Israeli air strikes in Gaza in the past week.
To the best of my knowledge, Islamic Jihad hasn’t issued a press release claiming that the attack was in retaliation for any particular incident, in which case Asser is quite simply making excuses for attempted murder on their behalf. Islamic Jihad, and groups like them, don’t need any encouragement to try and kill Israelis. And, even if this was ‘retaliation’, Asser makes no distinction between the deliberate or indiscriminate targeting of children by terrorists, and the accidental killing of children by Israeli troops.
It’s been said many times but it bears repeating: when Israeli forces kill Palestinian civilians it’s because they made a mistake; when Palestinians terrorists kill Israeli civilians it’s because they’re trying to.
For the record, the three children who were killed most recently were playing near a rocket launcher which had been placed close to their homes by terrorists. The sad reality is that the extremists value the deaths of their own children even more than the deaths of Israelis, because they know that the BBC and other sympathetic media will give disproportionate coverage to such incidents, and will report them with little or no context.
Asser’s report is headlined 'Israel town anger at school attack'. Of course, you would expect the parents of those children who narrowly escaped death to be angry – but it turns out they’re not angry at the terrorists who tried to kill their children, but at the Israeli government:
"After today we demand that the government take all our children out to a safe place outside Sderot,” one mother is quoted as saying. "I don't care if it takes one year, two years, 10 years, our children must be made safe".
And later:
The overwhelming feeling among Sderot residents – the only civilians in Israel sharing the Palestinian experience of life under siege – seems to be [that] the government has abandoned them to their fate.
It’s understandable that the people of Sderot should feel the Israeli government isn’t doing enough to protect them, and if security measures are inadequate then those responsible should be called to account. However, Asser is putting the cart before the horse here – and that’s putting it kindly – in a bid to stir discord between the Israeli people and their leaders. I find it hard to believe that out of all the residents of Sderot interviewed by Asser, not one had a bad word for the people who fired the rockets.
And let’s go back to the aside in that last quote – the claim that the residents of Sderot are “the only civilians in Israel sharing the Palestinian experience of life under siege”. If the people of Gaza are under siege it’s because they’ve thrown their lot in with murderous extremists dedicated to the destruction of Israel, who murder their opponents and crush any sign of dissent. The people of Sderot, for their part, are under siege because those extremists want to kill as many of them as they can.
This is by no means the first time that Asser has been selective with his facts or parroted Palestinian propaganda. Here he is making mischief in Iraq back in 2003 (there’s no permalink so you’ll need to scroll down about ten posts), and here he is playing fast and loose with the facts in Lebanon in 2006. He's also attracted the attention of CAMERA (the Committe for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) on several occasions.
It’s been reported that Asser, who has his own blog, is a British convert to Islam. If that’s the case then serious questions need to be asked about whether he can be employed as impartial observer of events in Israel or anywhere the Middle East. Then again, perhaps at the BBC it’s a qualification for the job.
Initially, Asser seems to be offering straight reporting:
Three such strikes within 10 minutes seemed precisely designed to catch children on their way to school, rendering the elaborate protective measures (a metal canopy covering the school building) useless.
But, it turns out, the terrorists had a perfectly good excuse:
To the Islamic Jihad militants who fired them, the rockets were pay-back against Israel for the deaths of a number children in Israeli air strikes in Gaza in the past week.
To the best of my knowledge, Islamic Jihad hasn’t issued a press release claiming that the attack was in retaliation for any particular incident, in which case Asser is quite simply making excuses for attempted murder on their behalf. Islamic Jihad, and groups like them, don’t need any encouragement to try and kill Israelis. And, even if this was ‘retaliation’, Asser makes no distinction between the deliberate or indiscriminate targeting of children by terrorists, and the accidental killing of children by Israeli troops.
It’s been said many times but it bears repeating: when Israeli forces kill Palestinian civilians it’s because they made a mistake; when Palestinians terrorists kill Israeli civilians it’s because they’re trying to.
For the record, the three children who were killed most recently were playing near a rocket launcher which had been placed close to their homes by terrorists. The sad reality is that the extremists value the deaths of their own children even more than the deaths of Israelis, because they know that the BBC and other sympathetic media will give disproportionate coverage to such incidents, and will report them with little or no context.
Asser’s report is headlined 'Israel town anger at school attack'. Of course, you would expect the parents of those children who narrowly escaped death to be angry – but it turns out they’re not angry at the terrorists who tried to kill their children, but at the Israeli government:
"After today we demand that the government take all our children out to a safe place outside Sderot,” one mother is quoted as saying. "I don't care if it takes one year, two years, 10 years, our children must be made safe".
And later:
The overwhelming feeling among Sderot residents – the only civilians in Israel sharing the Palestinian experience of life under siege – seems to be [that] the government has abandoned them to their fate.
It’s understandable that the people of Sderot should feel the Israeli government isn’t doing enough to protect them, and if security measures are inadequate then those responsible should be called to account. However, Asser is putting the cart before the horse here – and that’s putting it kindly – in a bid to stir discord between the Israeli people and their leaders. I find it hard to believe that out of all the residents of Sderot interviewed by Asser, not one had a bad word for the people who fired the rockets.
And let’s go back to the aside in that last quote – the claim that the residents of Sderot are “the only civilians in Israel sharing the Palestinian experience of life under siege”. If the people of Gaza are under siege it’s because they’ve thrown their lot in with murderous extremists dedicated to the destruction of Israel, who murder their opponents and crush any sign of dissent. The people of Sderot, for their part, are under siege because those extremists want to kill as many of them as they can.
This is by no means the first time that Asser has been selective with his facts or parroted Palestinian propaganda. Here he is making mischief in Iraq back in 2003 (there’s no permalink so you’ll need to scroll down about ten posts), and here he is playing fast and loose with the facts in Lebanon in 2006. He's also attracted the attention of CAMERA (the Committe for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) on several occasions.
It’s been reported that Asser, who has his own blog, is a British convert to Islam. If that’s the case then serious questions need to be asked about whether he can be employed as impartial observer of events in Israel or anywhere the Middle East. Then again, perhaps at the BBC it’s a qualification for the job.
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