Israel shelling Lebanon

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Re: Israel shelling Lebanon

Postby Et in Arcadia ego » Sun Jul 16, 2006 4:47 pm

Begin Phase II:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150886006292&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Link</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Haifa-hit rockets were Syrian made</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said on Sunday afternoon that the more advanced Fajar missiles that were fired with a barrage of other rockets at Haifa on Sunday morning, killing eight people, were made in <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Syria</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. <p>____________________<br>Oderint, dum metuant</p><i></i>
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re: feelings

Postby jc » Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:35 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Look who's been kidnapped!<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->By Arik Diamant<br>Jul 8, 2006, 13:21<br> <br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Hundreds of Palestinian 'suspects' have been kidnapped from their homes and will never stand trial<br></em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br>It's the wee hours of the morning, still dark outside. A guerrilla force comes out of nowhere to kidnap a soldier. After hours of careful movement, the force reaches its target, and the ambush is on! In seconds, the soldier finds himself looking down the barrel of a rifle.<br> <br>A smash in the face with the butt of the gun and the soldier falls to the ground, bleeding. The kidnappers pick him up, quickly tie his hands and blindfold him, and disappear into the night.<br> <br>This might be the end of the kidnapping, but the nightmare has just begun. The soldier's mother collapses, his father prays. His commanding officers promise to do everything they can to get him back, his comrades swear revenge. An entire nation is up-in-arms, writing in pain and worry.<br> <br>Nobody knows how the soldier is: Is he hurt? Do his captors give him even a minimum of human decency, or are they torturing him to death by trampling his honor? The worst sort of suffering is not knowing. Will he come home? And if so, when? And in what condition? Can anyone remain apathetic in the light of such drama?<br> <br> <br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Israeli terror<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>This description, you'll be surprised to know, has nothing to do with the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. It is the story of an arrest I carried out as an IDF soldier, in the Nablus casbah, about 10 years ago. The "soldier" was a 17-year-old boy, and we kidnapped him because he knew "someone" who had done "something."<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>We brought him tied up, with a burlap sac over his head, to a Shin Bet interrogation center known as "Scream Hill" (at the time we thought it was funny). There, the prisoner was beaten, violently shaken and sleep deprived for weeks or months. Who knows.<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br>No one wrote about it in the paper. European diplomats were not called to help him. After all, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the kidnapping of this Palestinian kid. Over the 40 years of occupation we have kidnapped thousands of people, exactly like Gilad Shalit was captured: Threatened by a gun, beaten mercilessly, with no judge or jury, or witnesses, and without providing the family with any information about the captive.<br> <br>When the Palestinians do this, we call it "terror." When we do it, we work overtime to whitewash the atrocity.<br> <br> <br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Suspects</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->?<br><br>Some people will say: The IDF doesn't "just" kidnap. These people are "suspects." There is no more perverse lie than this. In all the years I served, I reached one simple conclusion: What makes a "suspect"? Who, exactly suspects him, and of what?<br> <br>Who has the right to sentence a 17-year-old to kidnapping, torture and possible death? A 26-year-old Shin Bet interrogator? A 46-year-old one? Do these people have any higher education, apart from the ability to interrogate? What are his considerations? If all these "suspects" are so guilty, why not bring them to trial?<br> <br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Anyone who believes that despite the lack of transparency, the IDF and Shin Bet to their best to minimize violations of human rights is naïve, if not brainwashed.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> One need only read the testimonies of soldiers who have carried out administrative detentions to be convinced of the depth of the immorality of our actions in the territories.<br> <br>To this very day, there are hundreds of prisoners rotting in Shin Bet prisons and dungeons, people who have never been –and never will be – tried. And Israelis are silently resolved to this phenomenon.<br> <br> <br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Israeli responsibility<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>The day Gilad Shalit was kidnapped I rode in a taxi. The driver told me we must go into Gaza, start shooting people one-by-one, until someone breaks and returns the hostage. It isn't clear that such an operation would bring Gilad back alive.<br> <br>Instead of getting dragged into terrorist responses, as Palestinian society has done, we should release some of the soldiers and civilians we have kidnapped. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>This is appropriate, right, and could bring about an air of reconciliation in the territories.<br> <br>Hell, if this is what will bring Gilad home safe-and-sound, we have a responsibility to him to do it.<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>Arik Diamant is an IDF reservist and the head of the Courage to Refuse organization.<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_22471.shtml">www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_22471.shtml</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: feelings

Postby havanagilla » Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:44 pm

Israeli blogger <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://2jk.org/mt/archives/2006/07/post_443.html" target="top">Jonathan Klinger</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> writes (my translation, his last paragraph) -<br><br>"how are you going to feel if Tel Aviv went on fire like Beirut? how will you feel watching photographs of babies dying in hospitals ? what are you going to tell yourselves when you know there's nothing more you can do, in another day of bombing" <br><br>He brings a quote from a pop singer as well, to that extent.<br><br>---<br>Just returned from the demo...too tired to write about it now. Haaretz reports 500 participants, some old timers, but more young faces. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=havanagilla>havanagilla</A> at: 7/16/06 3:57 pm<br></i>
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Re: feelings

Postby 4911 » Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:54 pm

havanagilla, though I cant fully understand what kind of situation youre really in, Id like to say: <br><br>Thank you.<br><br>Hold your head high man. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=4911>4911</A> at: 7/16/06 3:55 pm<br></i>
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Re: feelings

Postby AlicetheCurious » Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:13 am

Blanc, believe me, I wasn't even talking about real Israelis, let alone Hava. I was referring to the 'news' coverage, which is about as racist as can be. It's the kind of thing you expect from the usual suspects, but mind-blowing and deeply frightening when you realize that it's across the board. The message is unambiguous: because we are Arabs, our lives mean nothing.<br><br>Here's the reaction of <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/">The Angry Arab</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->, a blogger who expresses a true alternative perspective, as opposed to the puppet-show "Left-Right" divide.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The American Left and the Middle East: The Case of the Nation Magazine, II. <br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>This was bound to happen. I was just waiting for this. Wake up the children, and free the pigs from the barn. The Nation magazine has spoken. Oh, ya. The Nation magazine is mouthing off on the Middle East. Let us see. First, they talk about "the spreading of violence in Lebanon and Gaza." <br><br>Spreading? Is this a disease or a flu? No, o Nation magazine. Israel is bombing and occupying in both cases. Violence is not naturally and blamelessly spreading, ok? And then it talks about Israel's doctrine of "absolute security." <br><br>Security? As soon as you invoke security in Western discourse on the Middle East, you know that the person is standing solidly behind Israeli bombings, the Nation is no exception. Notice that the word security is only exclusively reserved for the Jews, and not for the Arabs, which only underlines the fundamentally racist premise of the Western leftist attitude toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, not to mention the rest in the West. And then the Nation speaks of "disproportionate" response. <br><br>Zionist propaganda has infested both words here: "disproportionate" and "response." Who is responding to whom? Arabs claim that they have been responding to Zionist infliction of violence on Arabs which started long before the creation of Israel, and yet Israel is always perceived to be responding, even responding to Arab audacity for living in Palestine for centuries. How dare they, argues the Nation. <br><br>The second key word here is "disproportionate," which means that the Nation does not disagree with Israel over the principle of aggression and murder, but over the number. So the Nation is saying to Israel that it would not mind if Israel kills scores of Arab civilians, but that it should kill less than a certain number. So 100 Lebanese civilians, instead of 200. Is that it, Nation magazine? How many Arab children do you permit Israel to kill, o editor of the Nation magazine? Please let me know so that we know where we stand with you. <br><br>The racism of the Nation magazine and its editor then gets revealed more clearly in the following sentence: when the article speaks of "proving counterproductive to Israel's own security". This is the racism of Tikkun magazine that is embedded in many American leftist discourse on the Middle East. <br><br>So the criterion and the term of reference is always what is good for Israeli Jews; the rest are a footnote to the narrative. A sideshow, really. So the Nation would really support massive bombings and massacres of Arab civilians IF it is in Israel's interest. This is the crux of the Nation magazine's position. And notice that the editorial of an ostensibly leftist magazine expresses more concern for the right-wing governments of Lebanon and PA than for the civilians of Lebanon and Palestine. At least we know where the Nation stands: with Dahlan and Hariri Inc. <br><br>And the paragraph ends with a plea similar to that of Husni Mubarak: that Israeli murders are bad because they radicalize the sand niggers of the regions. And then the Nation sheds a tear or two over the "Cedar Revolution"--and I can't believe that they used that silly propaganda term to describe a demonstration or two that had sectarian, right-wing and racist agenda, and where demonstrators hit and killed Syrian workers on their way to "Cedar" square. Notice that the word "deplorable" first appeared to describe the Hizbullah rockets on Israel. <br><br>But I understand. These are the precious and expensive people of Israel, who belong to the superior race. At least, we really know where you stand, o nation magazine. And what a disgusting decline of the Nation magazine when it expresses concern, over the plight "of moderate Arab regimes." This only proves my theory--or one of them anyway--that deep down, the Nation magazine is as racist toward Arabs and as hostile to Muslims as the New Republic. And it also proves that the foreign policy of the Nation is motivated solely and exclusively by concern for Israel. So the Nation is now aligned with the House of Saud and Mubarak, because they are friendly with Israel. But I can't accuse the Nation of heartlessness. In one sentence, it expresses concern for rising oil prices. That is called sympathy and compassion.<br><br>(<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Very minor copy-editing by me</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->)<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: feelings

Postby AlicetheCurious » Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:22 am

By the way, for those who couldn't see the pictures, they can be found on the Angry Arab blog, linked above. If you can't access the link, try: <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/">angryarab.blogspot.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>If these had been Israeli Jewish children, killed in retaliation for the abduction of two Hizbullah fighters, would the Israelis be blamed for having "plunged the region into violence"? Would the pasty, frozen faces of the world leaders be asking the Hizbullah to "show some restraint"?<br><br>Would someone please explain to me the difference between "disproportionate retaliation" and "terrorism" and "war crimes and crimes against humanity", other than by distinguishing between perps we like and perps who are sand niggers? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: feelings

Postby havanagilla » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:09 am

lots of shells these hours in the northern region of israel (no casualies though, i read) and perhaps one israeli hellicopter down (not clear yet). I am personally feeling unable to cope with the situaion anymore...HELP !!!!!!<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :( --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/frown.gif ALT=":("><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: feelings

Postby sunny » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:25 am

A Syrian diplomat (Ambassador?) was just on C-SPAN, saying "If one considers killing civilians to be terrorism, then Israel is the biggest terrorist organization in the world."<br><br>Some of the calls were hateful toward him, but most were in agreement. I do not think US citizens are going to like it one bit if we get involved in this conflict. I just wish that would translate somehow into opposition to what Israel is doing; huge demos would say to the world that the citizens of the US are not in agreement with our neo-con gov't when it comes to support for Israel, and could make it very difficult to cry anti-semitism at anyone who opposes the atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli regime.<br><br>William Kristol is now on, but I cannot abide looking at him, much less listening. Glenn Greenwald made a point of quoting him on his blog a couple of days ago, agitating for the US to take this opportunity to widen the war into Iran. Of course he is not alone in this, just the vangaurd of a cadre of crazies who think it is perfectly ok to send other peoples' children to fight their dirty wars-for-profit. <p></p><i></i>
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isrealis

Postby blanc » Mon Jul 17, 2006 2:11 pm

thanks for the clarification Alice. I like to address ambiguities as they occur if pos, even if it does make me look like a pedantic prat, because if left, sometimes they fester and grow into something unintended. totally agree the info in mainstream media is almost always one sided - and ignores the opposition voices too. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Woolsey's world

Postby Gouda » Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:16 am

Gouda commented way back: <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Well, I was using "WW3" in the most generic, convenient way. As if it even really matters, there have been several numeric schemes applied to the wars following numero dos. For example, some have argued the cold war was WW3, and the War on Terror is WW4 (Brzezinski?)<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br>Nope, not Brzezinski. Woolsey...<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Ex-CIA director: U.S. faces 'World War IV'</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>In the address to a group of college students, Woolsey described the Cold War as the third world war and said "This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us. Hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War."<br>...<br><br>Woolsey, who served as CIA director under President Bill Clinton, was taking part in a "teach-in" at UCLA, a series of such forums at universities across the nation.<br><br>A group calling itself "Americans for Victory Over Terrorism" sponsors the teach-ins, and the Bruin Republicans, UCLA's campus Republicans organization, co-sponsored Wednesday night's event.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The group was founded by former Education Secretary William Bennett, who took part in Wednesday's event along with Paul Bremer,</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> a U.S. ambassador during the Reagan administration and the former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03/sprj.irq.woolsey.world.war/">www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03...world.war/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>***<br><br>More on Woolsey and his humble approach to this recent phase in whichever world war this is via <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/07/17/james-woolsey-calls-for-an-attack-on-syria/">Crooksandliars</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->:<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"James Woolsey calls for an attack on Syria"</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Woolsey says it’s really about Iran vs the US</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. No ceasefires or arrests. He wants air strikes on Syria immediately. Gibson asked him why the US shouldn’t just hit Iran.<br><br>Woolsey: Well, ahh, one has to take things to some degree by steps.<br><br>He’s said that we are in World War IV since ‘03 as part of a group calling itself "Americans for Victory Over Terrorism": The group was founded by former Education Secretary William Bennett, who took part in Wednesday’s event along with Paul Bremer, a U.S. ambassador during the Reagan administration and the former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Adding insult to injury

Postby AlicetheCurious » Tue Jul 18, 2006 6:51 am

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5056.shtml">Israelis are dying: it must be an escalation</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Jonathan Cook, <br>The Electronic Intifada, 17 July 2006<br><br><br>Here we go again -- another "serious escalation" has begun in the Middle East, or so BBC World was telling audiences throughout Sunday. So what prompted the BBC's judgment that the crisis was escalating once more?<br><br>You can be sure it had nothing to do with the more than 130 Lebanese dead [<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>AC - my comment: as of last night, the number had exceeded 200 -- it's hard to keep up because innocent people are being killed faster than can be reported</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->] after five days of savage aerial bombardment from at least 2,000 sorties by Israeli war planes that are making the country's south a disaster zone and turning Beirut into a crumbling ghost town. Those dead, most civilians and many of them women and children, hardly get a mention, their lives apparently empty of meaning or significance in this confrontation.<br><br>Nor is it <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>the Lebanese roads and bridges being pounded into dust, the petrol stations and oil refineries going up in smoke, the phone networks and TV stations being obliterated, the water and electricity supplies being cut off. The rapid transformation of a modern vibrant country like Lebanon into the same category of open-air prison as Gaza is not an escalation in the BBC's view.<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>No, the BBC proffered a first, hesitant "escalation" on Thursday night when Hizbullah had the audacity to fire a handful of rockets at Haifa in response to the growing Lebanese death toll. The worst damage the Katyushas inflicted was one gouging a chunk of earth out of the hillside overlooking the port.<br><br>But the BBC felt confident to declare the escalation had turned "serious" on Sunday when Hizbullah not only fired more rockets at Haifa but one killed a group of eight railway workers in a station depot.<br><br>Now that Israeli civlians as well as Lebanese civilians are dying -- even if in far smaller numbers -- the BBC's battalions of journalists in northern Israel finally have something to report on.<br><br>...If there was any mention of the suffering of Lebanese civilians -- and doubtless the BBC will tell me there was -- the reference was so fleeting that I missed it. And if I missed it, then so did most BBC World viewers.<br><br>The true nature of the "serious escalation" was soon apparent -- or at least it was if one watched Arab TV channels. ...<br><br>They cut intermittently to local hospitals filled with Lebanese children, their faces a rash of bloody pockmarks from the spray of Israeli shrapnel. More terrible images of children burnt and lying in pools of blood arrrived in my email inbox from Lebanese bloggers.<br><br>But in the BBC's lexicon, escalation has nothing to do with the enormous destruction Israel can unleash on Lebanon; only the occasional, smaller-scale blow Hizbullah scores against Israel.<br><br>Switching from the Arab channels back to the BBC for their 11:00 am broadcast in the hope of finding the same images of devastation in Tyre and Beirut, I stumbled on yet another timid interview with Israel's ubiqitious spokesman Mark Regev. It was followed by the two headlines: Nine dead in Israel after a "barrage" of attacks on Haifa; and foreign governments prepare to evacuate their nationals out of the region.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>At noon James Reynolds as good as gave the game away: the Hizbullah strike on Haifa, he said, proved that the rockets are "no longer just an irritant". Now it was clear why a "serious escalation" had begun: Israel was actually being harmed by Hizbullah's rockets rather than just irritated. Until then the harm had been mainly inflicted on Lebanese civilians, so no escalation was taking place.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>As I regularly flicked to the BBC's coverage all afternoon, I found almost no mention of those dead in Lebanon. They had become "non-beings", irrelevant in the calculations not only of our world leaders but of our major broadcasters.<br><br>It wasn't till the 7:00 pm news that I saw meaningful images from Lebanon, as Gavin Hewitt followed a fire crew trying to put out an enormous oil refinery blaze in Tyre. Although we saw some of the suffering of the Lebanese population, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>the anchor felt obliged to preface the scenes from Lebanon with the statement that they were Israeli "retaliation" for the Haifa attack, even though Israel had been launching such strikes for four days before the lethal rocket strike on Haifa</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->.<br><br>In the same broadcast, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>an Israeli cabinet minister, Shaul Mofaz, was given air time to make the claim that parts of the rockets that landed in Haifa were Syrian-made. Allegations by the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, widely shown on Arab TV that Israel had been using phosphorus incendiary bombs -- illegal under international law -- received no coverage at all.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>...<br><br>The reporting we are seeing from the BBC and the other broadcasters is racist; there is no other word to describe it. The journalists' working assumption is that Israeli lives are more precious, more valuable than Lebanese lives. A few dead Israelis justify massive retaliation; many Lebanese dead barely merit a mention. The subtext seems to be that all the Lebanese, even the tiny bleeding children I see on Arab TV, are terrorists. It is just the way Arabs are.<br><br>...<br><br>There is no excuse for this asymmetry of coverage. BBC reporters are in Lebanon just as they are in Israel. They can find spokespeople in Lebanon just as easily as they can find them in Israel. They can show the far vaster scale of devastation in Beirut as easily as the wreckage in Haifa. They can speak to the Lebanese casualties just as easily as they can those in Israel.<br><br>But they don't -- and as a fellow journalist I have to ask myself why.<br><br>My previous criticisms of British reporters over their distorted coverage of Israel's military assaults in Gaza a few weeks back appear to have struck a raw nerve. Certainly they provoked a series of emails -- some defensive, others angry -- from a few of the reporters I named. All tried to defend their own coverage, unable to accept my criticisms because they are sure that they personally do not take sides. They are not "campaigning" journalists after all, they are "professionals" doing a job.<br><br>But the problem is not with them, it is with the job they have to do -- and the nature of the professionalism they so prize. I am sure the BBC's Wyre Davies cares as much about Lebanese deaths as he does about Israeli ones. But he also knows his career at the BBC demands that he does not ask his bosses questions when told to give valuable minutes of air time to an Israeli police spokesman who offers us only platitudes.<br><br>Similarly, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>we see James Reynolds use his broadcast from Haifa at 12:00 noon to show emotive footage of him and his colleagues running for shelter as Israeli air raid sirens go off, only to tell us that in fact no rockets landed in Haifa. That non-event was shown by the BBC every hour on the hour all afternoon and evening. Was it more significant than the images of death we never saw taking place just over the border? These images from Lebanon exist because the Arab channels spent all day showing them.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Matthew Price knows too that in the BBC's view it is his job as he stands in Haifa, after we have repeatedly heard Israeli spokespeople giving their version of events, to repeat their message, dropping even the quotes marks as he passionately tells us how tough Israel must now be, how it must "retaliate" to protect its citizens, how it must "punish" Hizbullah. This is not journalism; it's reporting as a propaganda arm of a foreign power.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Can we imagine Ben Brown doing the same from Beirut, standing in front of the BBC cameras telling us how Hizbullah has no choice faced with Israel's military onslaught but to start hitting Haifa harder, blowing up its oil refineries and targeting civilian infrastructure to "pressure" Israel to negotiate?<br><br>Would the BBC bother to show pre-recorded footage of Brown fleeing for his safety in Beirut in what later turned out to be a false alarm? Of course not. Doubtless Brown and his colleagues are forced to take cover on a regular basis for fear of being hurt by Israeli air strikes, but his fear -- or more precisely, the fear of the Lebanese he stands alongside -- is not part of the story for the BBC. Only Israeli fears are newsworthy.<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>These reporters are working in a framework of news priorities laid down by faceless news executives far away from the frontline who understand only too well the institutional pressures on the BBC -- and the institutional biases that are the result.<br><br>They know that the Israel lobby is too powerful and well resourced to take on without suffering flak; that the charge of anti-semitism might be terminally damaging to the BBC's reputation; that the BBC is expected broadly to reflect the positions of the British governmment if it wants an easy ride with its regulators; that to remain credible it should not stray too far from the line of its mainly American rivals, who have their own more intense domestic pressures to side with Israel.<br><br>This distortion of news priorities has real costs that can be measured in lives -- in the days and weeks to come, hundreds, possibly thousands, of lives in both Israel and Lebanon. As long as Israel is portrayed by our major broadcasters as the one under attack, its deaths alone as significant, then the slide to a regional war -- a war of choice being waged by the Israeli government and army -- is likely to become inevitable.<br><br>So to Jeremy Bowen, James Reynolds, Ben Brown, Wyre Davies, Matthew Price and all the other BBC journalists reporting from the frontline of the Middle East, and the faceless news executives who sent them there, I say: you may be nice people with the best of intentions, but shame on you.<br><br><br>Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, is the author of Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, published by Pluto Press and available in the US from University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Adding insult to injury

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:55 am

The overall impression of the Australian ABC last night was similar to yours Alice.<br><br>Though they did interview Robert Fiske, (and Mark Regev (?) IDF spokesman).<br><br>Definitely a bias in favour of Israel, but its on the edge, there are lots of Lebanese in Australia, and they are screaming blue murder about the lack of aussie govt support. 25000 plus aussies still in lebanon last I heard.<br><br>BTW Fiske called Negev or whatever his name is, a liar on national television, well a liar or misinformed, but seeing as hes the IDF spokesman draw your own conclusions actually.<br><br>But just cos Israel is psycho, mate the Nazis will be back in less than 10 years, and the Jews and a lot of others (including the likes of me) will be in the cues for the ovens. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Bolton, BBC on the same page

Postby Gouda » Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:12 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Lebanon civilian deaths morally not same as terror victims -- Bolton</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - US Ambassador John Bolton said there was no moral equivalence between the civilian casualties from the Israeli raids in Lebanon and those killed in Israel from "malicious terrorist acts"...<br><br>"I think it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts," he added, while defending as "self-defense" Israel's military action, which has had "the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths"...<br><br>"It's simply not the same thing to say that it's the same act to deliberately target innocent civilians, to desire their deaths, to fire rockets and use explosive devices or kidnapping versus the sad and highly unfortunate consequences of self-defense," Bolton noted.<br><br>The overall civilian death toll from the Israeli onslaught in Lebanon since last Wednesday reached 195, in addition to 12 soldiers, officials said. Twenty-four Israelis have also been killed since fighting began last Wednesday, including 12 civilians in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire across the border.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060717/pl_afp/mideastconflictlebanon_060717204728">news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2006...0717204728</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><br>Well, since he frames it that way... <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Bolton, BBC on the same page

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:28 am

he should be shot and pissed on? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Bolton, BBC on the same page

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:44 am

Nah maybe not. We need the bullets for lebanese kids and Iraqi rape victims. <p></p><i></i>
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