Share
-
Heaven On Earth
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Some Observations on the Russian Invasion of Georgia
Though it seems Georgia did initiate military force in an operation against South Ossetia, not coincidentally during the Olympics, the Russian “reaction” is premeditated and is anything but an attempt to protect Russians or minority rights. Georgia miscalculated, but that does not excuse Putin’s actions since then.
A small, actively pro-Western democracy is in peril of becoming a eunuch state (to use Fred Barnes’ term) in increasingly aggressive Russia’s sphere of control. Russia’s behaviour toward Ukraine is based on that same Russian intention of reclaiming control over the former Soviet Union by creating puppet states that will defer to Russian demands.
Random House’s Fear of Muslim Violence Trumps Free Speech
In an egregious example of Americans curbing their own freedom of expression because of the potential threat of Muslim anger and violence, Random House has decided not to publish The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, a fiction novel about A’isha, Muhammad’s youngest bride. What makes the case especially aggravating is that the movement to ensure that the book does not reach the shelves was initiated by an American academic.
NPR’s Talk of the Nation dealt with the issue in a segment today, and the program’s blog has statements from the publisher and author.
From Random House:
After sending out advance editions of the novel The Jewel of Medina, we received in response, from credible and unrelated sources, unsolicited cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment. We felt an obligation to take these concerns very seriously. We consulted with security experts as well as with scholars of Islam, whom we asked to review the book and offer their assessments of potential reactions. We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some. However, a publisher must weigh that responsibility against others that it also bears, and in this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, Inc., booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the book. The author and Ballantine subsequently agreed to terminate the agreement, with the understanding that the author would be free to publish elsewhere, if she so chose.
Edwards, the MSM and the Sounds of Silence: More Poop on the Augean MSM
Among the elements of MSM control, perhaps the most important is their role as gateway to the public sphere: one of their most important functions is deciding what gets “published” and what doesn’t. Unlike some critics of the MSM, I think this is a perfectly legitimate function: not only does the MSM have the right to do this; it has the obligation. Indeed, the mainstream media is precisely there to make sure that it filters out the wild and crazy and often terribly destructive “information” that circulates freely in less presitigious arenas.
But like all such matters, this power — and it is an enormous one — comes with an accordingly heavy responsibility. Abusing this power to keep legitimate news out, or by letting illegitimate news in, or by refusing to correct the inevitable errors that any MSM will commit over time, constitutes one of the worst abuses of journalistic privilege on record. In the Al Durah Affair, for example, we see all three errors/felonies: 1) allowing/pushing in a story that should have received a great deal more vetting before running it; 2) keeping any effort to correct the record out, thus perpetuating the original error; and 3) refusing to even cover newsworthy events like the decision of the court in Paris which would have served to correct the record (e.g., the NYT), or at least to make the public aware that there’s a disagreement about something the MSM was — and still is, tacitly — in consensus about — i.e., that Muhammad al Durah was killed by Israelis on September 30, 2000.
Of course just because the MSM is egregiously misbehaved where Israel is concerned, doesn’t mean it doesn’t misbehave elsewhere. As Lord Acton so memorably noted, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And until the advent of the blogosphere in the 21st century, the MSM was not only a “fourth estate” without any checks and balances, but, with pictures and video, an increasingly powerful player in the cultural scene. As far as the MSM seems to be concerned, if a major event happens and no one hears it, it didn’t happen. “We will decide what is important and not important.”
The most recent and glaring example of MSM misbehavior comes in its treatment of the Edwards Affair (pardon the pun). I personally don’t pay much attention to these matters, and found Republican behavior around the Lewinsky Affair to be appalling. But I am interested in how the MSM handles these issues which are clearly important to the larger public (for a variety of reasons, good and bad). The following post at Contentions by Jennifer Rubin offers some valuable insights into the process.
The MSM’s Latest Embarrassment
JENNIFER RUBIN – 08.10.2008 – 10:05 AMTim Rutten, taking to task his own Los Angeles Times and other MSM outlets, writes:
When John Edwards admitted Friday that he lied about his affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, a former employee of his campaign, he may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism. From the start, the Edwards scandal has belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer has done all the significant reporting on it — reporting that turns out to be largely correct — and bloggers and online commentators have refused to let the story sputter into oblivion. . . It’s interesting that what finally forced Edwards into telling the truth was a mainstream media organization. ABC News began investigating the Edwards affair in October, but really began to push after the Beverly Hilton allegations. When ABC confronted Edwards with its story (which confirmed “95% to 96%” of the tabloid’s reporting, according to the network), he admitted his deception. With that admission, the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana.
We also have the obligatory column from Clark Hoyt admitting that the New York Times was wrong, but denying that their reticence to cover the Edward story was the result of liberal bias. Yes, who could imagine such a thing of the paper which ran a front-page, uncorroborated story of the Republican nominee’s alleged relationship with a lobbyist some nine years ago?
The Edwards mess is the most recent and visible, but hardly unique, example of the mainstream media’s hear no evil/see no evil approach to newsgathering. How many other stories has the MSM missed, denied or avoided? From Rathergate to Reverend Wright to the success of the surge, the pattern is the same: MSM stalls, shuffles its collective feet, and doggedly ignores information for as long as possible until they can no longer do so with a straight face. The fact that these stories without exception work to the detriment of Democrats is apparently a grand coincidence.
My father — in the days before computer driven restaurant bills — would always do the addition himself. “Amazing,” he commented to us, “the mistakes are almost always in favor of the house.”
And the notion that they are upholding some “journalistic standard” is rendered absurd. Edwards’ story wasn’t important on Thursday, but it was on Friday because he confessed? No, the level of proof changed, but the story’s relevance did not. If it wasn’t worthy of investigation before the ABC interview then it was unworthy of mention afterwards. Their explanation for their editorial decision-making is no more credible than . . . well than Edwards himself.
I’m not sure I follow this reasoning. If I understand the MSM’s excuse was that they needed more proof before going ahead. So the confession does change matters. But the hollowness of that argument appears as soon as one sets it side-by-side with their treatment of McCain (see below).
There is a reason why the news media’s trustworthiness is rated so low. MSM news reporting by and large has not improved or become more rigorous with the advent of so many alternative news outlets. (To the contrary, the 24-hour landscape of cable news has sent them scurrying for their niche audience, wary of any mildly opposing views that might offend their target audience.)
However, because of this and other similar episodes, the public now fully appreciates just how deficient most of the MSM outlets are. That’s generally a good thing (the public should know what they’re reading and watching is a pale and shaded immitation of reality), but it would be even better if the MSM engaged in some real introspection and cleaned up their act.
I think Rubin may be jumping the gun here. My general sense of the public’s attitude towards the MSM is something like that of children towards parents, or maybe towards an uncle — they don’t want to believe that they’re being systematically manipulated, that they are really on their own in a world of information affluence, looking for reliable — accurate and relevant — information. On the contrary, just as in the case of the Al Durah affair, when every new blow to the credibility of Enderlin was greeted with a “now we’ve reached a dramatic conclusion,” an obvious slam-dunk doesn’t necessarily mean 2, much less 3 points. My sense is, that like children or spouses with abusive parents, it takes a great deal of time and many bitter disappointments before people will declare themselves “free.”
On the contrary, unless we want to spend a life of websurfing looking for reliable information, we desperately want to believe that the MSM is reliable, and like someone drugged who briefly wakes up, we rapidly fall back asleep at the first occasion. Like people who hear about the HSJP and glimpse, briefly, that the seemingly pacific PCP not only won’t work but will backfire, the immediate response to being told that the MSM doesn’t do its job… and that on a massive scale, is to say, “so what’s your solution.” And when the solution, in the case of getting reliable news means active participation in news consumption, the hair in the ears closes up, the eyelids drop, and it’s back to same old, same old.
So I think this process of the demise of the MSM (as currently operating — i.e., the Augean MSM), will take much more time. And we should not get too discouraged when the process takes longer than we’d like.
The two things we can do best in the meantime are:
1) document carefully the extent of MSM misbehavior
2) provide the most accurate and relevant information possible.
In an age of information affluence, the future belongs to those who provide the most reliable information.
The Nouvel Obs Petition Signers: Study #1 – Jon Randal
Updated with additional material.
In my initial responses to the Nouvel Obs petition supporting Enderlin, I noted that in the future, PhD theses on the dysfunctions of the media in the late 20th early 21st century will begin by exploring the identity and journalistic record of those who signed. Ivan Rioufol already identified a number of signers as having behaved like Enderlin, guilty of the same journalistic offenses. And John Rosenthal identified a number of people who had not business signing so partisan a petition. I’d like to begin a series here on some of the signers and I welcome anyone who wants to prepare a dossier.
Jon Randal.
Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, in her devastating discussion of the petition signers, has this to say about Jon Randal of the Washington Post:
There was the noted Paris-based former Washington Post foreign correspondent, 75-year-old Jon Randal, a Middle East expert I’d looked up to for years as a cub reporter, who trenchantly explained that he was seeing in all this a dangerous American trend of “vindictive pressure groups interfering with news organizations,” now unfortunately crossing the Atlantic. (Having lived in Paris for over 40 years, Jon had become alarmingly French.)
“Americans have been under the gun of such people for some time, but France used to be free of this kind of thing. [These groups] are paranoid, they’re persistent, they never give up, they sap the energy of good reporters.
He’s speaking here of the Zionist zealots who have the nerve to criticize the media for their fast and loose accounts. (See below.)
I can’t imagine how much money France 2 has spent defending this case. Charles Enderlin is an excellent journalist! I don’t care if it’s the Virgin Birth affair, I would tend to believe him. Someone like Charles simply doesn’t make a story up.”
This is a common error that Enderlin supporters make, assuming that Enderlin is the object of the legal attack, intended to suck money from France2. In fact, Enderlin attacked, using France2′s deep pockets to harrass individuals who were far more seriously threatened financially. As for the credulity Randal expresses, one could hardly ask for a better articulation of the guild mentality.
But, I tried to interject, the absence of the boy’s “agony” from the tape?-
“Nonsense! Televisions don’t show extreme violence. You know that. Look, I don’t know what side you’re on in this?”
Another key revelation of the guild mentality. Bring up evidence and you reveal “what side you’re on.”
“I’m trying to make sense of it all.”
“I want you to call my friend at NPR, Loren Jenkins; call David Greenway at the Boston Globe; they’ll tell you about pressure groups.”
What he means by pressure groups are the Zionists who critique the gross inaccuracies of a media that seems incapable of getting a story straight. Actually Chafets has some remarks to make about Loren Jenkins, then a correspondent for the WaPo, that show exceptional continuity from 1982 to 2008:
Jenkins… published an article in Rolling Stone that made several comparisons between the Israelis and the Nazis and elegantly argued the Arab version of history — that Zionism is illegitimate because the Jews stole their land. Jenkins was expecially indignant about the Holocaust: “[The Israelis] think they’re owed something because of what happened [in World War II],” he fumed in an interview with the Aspen Times. (p. 306)
In other words, just as expressed by the indignant Nouvel Obs petition, to allow Zionist zealots to challenge their advocacy journalism was an impediment on the “freedom” [read: license] of the press.
I ran into similar sentiments at a conference in Budapest when I presented the al Durah case as a blood libel that had helped drive Global Jihad from the margins to the center of Muslim culture in the 21st century. One of the conference’s organizers responded:
-
It’s not blood libel; it’s just simple murder of children, which we know for a fact Israelis are doing every day. And although the Jewish lobby has prevented the American press from reporting these things, we can be thankful that the European press, which is more objective, has remained independent.
So the fact that the European press, unpressured by Israeli advocacy groups with scrupulously acquired documentation — CAMERA is nothing if not extremely careful to document everything it claims — can report “freely” on what goes on in the Middle East on a regular basis… and that’s a preferable situation.
But let’s take a look at some of Randal’s earlier experiences and reporting from the Middle East to have a sense of what’s going on behind the curtain. Recently, in preparing my response to “David,” I took another look at Ze’ev Chafets’ Double Vision: How the Press Distorts America’s View of the Middle East, a fundamental text I recommend to everyone. (It is, by the way, in response to the same distorted coverage of the war in Lebanon that Chafets chronicles, that CAMERA was first formed in 1982, just as, in response to the stunningly inaccurate coverage of the second Intifada, Honest Reporting was founded.)
Illustrating the Problem: Thoughts on a comment by “David”
In response to my post on what we can learn from the barbarity in Gaza and the silence of the media/NGOs/progressive left, I got a particularly sharp rebuke from a certain “David.” A number of commenters at the blog responded equally sharply, with perhaps a bit more invective than I would have, but still, I think, within the parameters of a reasonably civil dialogue (e.g., speculating on the man’s sanity or drug consumption). I’d like to discuss his post and incorporate both the answers of commenters already posted here and others I solicited from various people who know more about Sabra and Shatilla than I do. I have asked David to provide the links or references to his comments, and have posted his answer below.
Let me begin by reposting “David”‘s comment.
A truly pathetic attempt to be funny through gross misrepresentation of history and demeaning the well documented suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israel, a state that has been repeatedly accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tsellem (Israel’s human rights group) as well as the United Nations and other groups. I could go on and on. Suffice, however, to point out that it was Ariel Sharon (then defence minister) who ordered the IDF to surround the Sabra and Shatila Palestinians refugee camps in Lebanon in Sept. 1982. As per his instructions, the Phalange were then permitted to enter the camps, where for three days they slaughtered Palestinians, mainly women, children and old men. Not only did the Israelis not permit the Palestinians to leave, they watched the horrors from observation towers around the camps, supplied the Phalange with night time illumination (to see better as they murdered the defenceless Palestinians) as well as bulldozers to get rid of the bodies. The Israelis also suppled the Phalange with cokes during their “breaks” from their butchering. At least 2,000 Palestinians were murdered with Israel’s complicity.
Also, during their unprovoked invasion of Lebanon in 1982 (the PLO had adhered scrupulously to the cease-fire negotiated at the behest of Pres. Reagan), the Israeli invaders murdered over 18,000 Lebanese and other Palestinian civilians – as determined by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. All of this is well documented and common knowledge to those who actually know the history of region.
Now part of what I find so fascinating about this response is the ways that it illustrates precisely the problems I tried to discuss in my post — the unshakeable attachment to a narrative of “the well documented suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israel,” the dependence for that narrative on the documentation provided by NGOs and media who are themselves major consumers and amplifiers of that narrative, the obsessive focus on the details of Israeli misdeeds with no attention to the behavior of their alleged “victims,” and the eagerness to present these “victims” in the most honorable light — evidence be damned.
So let’s go back over this text and fisk it systematically, all the while considering what the meta-message of such a comment conveys.
Former Obama Muslim Outreach Director Asbahi: Moderate or Fundamentalist?
This week, Chicago lawyer Mazen Azbahi resigned from his post as Muslim outreach advisor for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
In 2000, Mr. Asbahi briefly served on the board of Allied Assets Advisors Fund, a Delaware-registered trust. Its other board members at the time included Jamal Said, the imam at a fundamentalist-controlled mosque in Illinois.
“I served on that board for only a few weeks before resigning as soon as I became aware of public allegations against another member of the board,” Mr. Asbahi said in his resignation letter. “Since concerns have been raised about that brief time, I am stepping down…to avoid distracting from Barack Obama’s message of change.”…The Justice Department named Mr. Said an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering trial last year of several alleged Hamas fund-raisers, which ended in a mistrial. He has also been identified as a leading member of the group in news reports going back to 1993.
Mr. Said is the imam at the Bridgeview Mosque in Bridge-view, Ill., outside Chicago. He left the board of the Islamic fund in 2005, Securities and Exchange Commission filings state. A message left for Mr. Said at the mosque was not returned.
Allied Asset Advisors is a subsidiary of the North American Islamic Trust. The trust, which is supported financially by the government of Saudi Arabia, holds title to many mosques in the U.S. and promotes a conservative brand of Islam compatible with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and also akin to the fundamentalist style predominant in Saudi Arabia. Allied executives did not respond to inquiries.
Many websites and blogs have been trying to determine whether Mr. Azbahi’s association with Said is a small blip on an otherwise clean record, or whether Mr. Azbahi has significant connection with fundamentalist Muslim groups in America.
Azbahi is listed on the Islamic Society of North America’s speaker’s bureau. The ISNA is a controversial group, its defenders claiming that it has shed past associations with extremists, and today condemns Hamas and Hizbullah terrorism and supports interfaith dialogue.
From the Archives: Dr. Jacobs’ Argument on MSM Coverage of Human Rights Abuses
Two recent posts on The Augean Stables have referred to Dr. Charles Jacobs’ hypothesis on why the Western human-rights community focuses on “crimes” committed by Israel against the Palestinians, while saying little, and doing even less, about serious non-Western human rights violators. Global Jihad Warming in China and NYTimes Strangely Uninterested by Palestinians Killing Palestinians highlight cases in which this dynamic comes into play. The Uighurs of China have been oppressed by the Han majority and have had little religious freedom, yet the media rarely reports on their plight. It is also no secret that the MSM gives far less attention to the many Palestinians killed by their own people, but if Israel is suspected, headlines trumpet the story on the front page.
Dr. Jacobs’ article is from 2002, but it is still a useful paradigm for considering modern coverage of human rights abuses.
Why Israel and not Sudan, is Singled Out
by Charles Jacobs Boston Globe, October 5, 2002
Harvard President Lawrence Summers recently criticized those on his campus who speak in the name of human rights but selectively censure Israel while ignoring much greater problems in the Middle East. He described the divestment campaign against Israel on his campus as anti-Semitic “in effect if not intent.” But human rights (and media) attention is often disproportionate to the severity or urgency of human conflicts. What determines their focus is not mainly anti-Semitism. Nor is it the level of horror. It is the racial, religious, and cultural character of the perpetrators, not the victims, that determines the response of Westerners.
Al-Jazeera Blinks First, Apologizes for Kuntar Celebration
Director of the Israeli Government Press Office, Danny Seaman, stared down Al-Jazeera to win a major victory this week.
Seaman had threatened to boycott Al-Jazeera and to cease cooperating with their efforts to secure visas and interviews in Israel, unless Al-Jazeera provided a satisfactory reason for their production and coverage of a birthday party celebration for child-killing terrorist Samir Kuntar, recently released by Israel. Seaman’s threat was covered in an earlier Augean Stables post.
Global Jihad Warming in China: Uighur Terrorists Wanted to Create “Year of Mourning”
On August 5th, The Guardian ran an article about the Jihadist attack in China. Two terrorists attacked Chinese paramilitary police on August 4th, killing sixteen and wounding many more. The attackers were Uighurs, part of the East Turkestan freedom movement. Uighurs are a Turkic Sunni ethnic group in China, central Asia, and scattered diaspora communitoes. Chinese authorities said the group plans to make 2008 into “a year of mourning” for the Chinese, to coincide with the increased publicity that comes with the Olympic games.
There is an interesting subtext to the article as well.
Pitfalls of Redemptive Fallacies: Nidra Poller on EurObamania
I first met Nidra Poller in the summer of 2003 in Paris where she lives. She introduced me to the al Durah material and guided me through the tangled thorns of the French intellectual scene al Durah has done so much to corrupt. She writes for the Wall Street Journal, and as I read this I thought, this is unusually bold (and long), “even” for the WSJ. Then I realized this was a post at Atlas Shrugged. Few things illustrate the value of the blogosphere than this laser-sharp analysis.
If European Obamaniacs had their way, they’d steal every American’s right to vote and elect BHO president of the USA, the world, and the heavens above.
Nidra Poller
Paris, July 28 2008The flames of French Obamania leaped skyward last week when the once and future president, glowing from his mass rally in Berlin, stopped in Paris on his way to London. Pushing past the statistics—a recent poll showed over 80% of the French would vote for him if only they could—what does this wishful thinking reveal about the expectations aroused by the charismatic candidate? While Obama worshippers the world over clamor for a right to vote in the November elections, their enthusiasm should reciprocally help Americans understand what is at stake. Two interlocking redemptive fallacies, focused on Obama’s enhanced racial value and the international dividends this will incur, are clarified in the light of European incandescence.
I just want to draw attention to the value of this expression “redemptive fallacy.” I’ve googled it and Nidra’s is the only place I find it used. It’s an enormously important concept to keep in mind. People motivate themselves to superhuman efforts because they think they’ve found the way to salvation by an analysis of what’s fundamentally wrong, and how striving to eliminate that “evil” can redeem us/them/the world/the universe. I spoke of one of the redemptive fantasies in my previous post about the Human Rights activists who believe that if Israel goes, it will be a great blow for human rights in the Middle East.
The Zionist notion that if only the Jews had their own state and were therefore “normal”, then anti-semitism would vanish was an remarkably fruitful redemptive fallacy. (Palestine is the only territory to go from the bottom of the third world in the early 20th century to the top of the first world by century’s end). The communist notion that if only we eliminate private property then the natural “comrade” will emerge and participate in a perfect society, was an enormously destructive redemptive fallacy that led to the death of tens of millions and the mental bondage of hundreds of millions.
Transposed to France, where 99.99% of the media are rooting for the “first black American president,” the Obama look-alike would not be a slim trim sexy Antillean intellectual. He would be a Muslim, a real Muslim, not a Christian convert. Modern, of course, with no ostentatious religious symbols that could disturb resolutely secular French voters, but Muslim in heart and soul, arisen from the beleaguered immigrant class and placed on high to prove that France, too, has atoned for its sins of racism and colonialism. Only a Muslim could fulfill this role. No other minorities—Chinese, Jewish, Brazilian, etc. —need apply.
You wouldn’t know it but France already has a dashing young diversity president. Nicolas Sarkozy’s father is Hungarian, his maternal grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from Salonika (who converted to Catholicism in 1917 to marry his French sweetheart), and his son Jean is reportedly converting to Judaism before his marriage with a Jewish girl. But Sarkozy gets no credit for his origins, and no applause for including three Muslim women— Fadela Amara, Rachida Dati, and Rama Yade–in his government. The French president has been ground to mincemeat by the media though his government is rapidly implementing the major reforms promised during the campaign. He was trashed for a three-day post-election jaunt on a rich man’s yacht, bashed for vacationing in Kennebunkport and eating barbecued hot dogs chez the arch-criminal Bush, and run through the wringer for having too much personal life.
Mocked as an over-excited omni-president who leaps from photo-ops to grandstanding interventions, Sarkozy is dismissed as a shallow show off one-man government, an elected monarch, a versatile back slapper… Along comes Barack Obama and the adjectives are shined up and pinned on his chest like medals. Oh la la le rock star! Cameras caress his private jet. His toothy smile is an expression of political brilliance, his glad hand is evidence of extraordinary diplomatic skill, his outstretched arm at Berlin’s Victory Tower promises miracles. The screeches of his international groupies were relayed with exceptional indulgence and his deliberate snubbing of Socialist politicians (presumably to avoid guilt by association) did not raise an eyebrow.
That last point is interesting. It’s as if the French understand what the American Muslims who complained bitterly that Obama’s staff dissed them by keeping them off the platform don’t — keep a low profile while he aligns himself in the center. Your day will come later. It’ suggests that for the French left, Obama is an enormously important object of redemptive desire.
The Demopath Convention: Iran Receives Role in Durban II
We hear from demopaths too often in the West- and the upcoming Durban II conference gives them a spotlight and a large microphone from which to vilify Israel and America. Demopaths use democratic language and invoke human rights, not because they believe in those ideals, but because it give them legitimacy in the open societies which they wish to fool. And in the worst cases, to destroy.
Demopaths use the jargon of civil society and human rights like a Trojan horse, swaying their targets, often the citizens of a Western democracy, with language and terms those targets identify with. Through this progressive discourse, demopaths exploit people eager to believe that civic values, especially negotiation, can resolve a problem. Sometimes demopaths are completely hostile to the cultures in which they live or to whom they are speaking.
Gaza Anomalies Blow PCP’s Circuits: Result – The Sounds of Silence
A few friends of mine went to a party in Jerusalem that was primarily made up Anglophone reporters, people who work for NGOs and UN agencies. What amazed them was the pervasive sense of the people they met and spoke with that Israel was the greatest human rights violator in the world and that the dismantling of Israel would be a great step forward for global human rights.
Now the idiocy of this position, the suicidal nature of this strategy to advance human rights is nothing short of breathtaking. Take Israel out of the Middle East and the region becomes nothing but Hama rules… especially when the nastiest people — those who want to destroy Israel — would feel empowered by such a victory. But try and tell that to people who are smart enough to believe they can’t be wrong, and credulous enough to believe the demopaths who pull their chains on a daily basis. And as a result, they are prime targets for a hate campaign against Israel.
The latest news from Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank illustrates all the anomalies involved in this fundamental failure of the “human rights” community to understand what’s going on: black hearts and red spades galore. Melanie Phillips has a superb column which analyzes the current, mind-boggling situation in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the Fatah “refugees” from Gaza seeking asylum in Israel.
Refugees From Whom?
The Spectator MONDAY, 4TH AUGUST 2008
Melanie PhillipsExtraordinary developments in Gaza have given a new meaning to the term ‘Palestinian refugees’. As the Jerusalem Post reports, fierce fighting in Gaza between Fatah and Hamas over the weekend, in which 11 people died and dozens more were wounded, resulted in 180 Fatah refugees fleeing from what they called a ‘war of genocide’ by Hamas against Fatah supporters. And where did they flee to? Why, to Israel, of course — which allowed them in and proceeded to treat 23 of them (some of whom were wounded by the Israeli army after they approached the crossing into Israel) in Israeli hospitals.
This is one of the most important anomalies for those who follow the current PCP narrative about the Middle East in which Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people explain the ferocious hatred of the Palestinians for the Israelis. According to that version of events — largely the one that liberals have taken over by adopting the Palestinian narrative of suffering — the last place these Palestinian “warriors” would go was Israel, their mortal enemy who is trying to commit genocide against their people. If the Israelis want to wipe out Palestinian civilians, how much the more would they want to kill Palestinian “militants”?
And yet, this is not a new story. When King Hussein, “the moderate,” found himself dealing with a restive Palestinian population in 1970, he slaughtered some 10,000 of them — men, women and children — in “Black September.” The Palestinians fled his tender mercies across the Jordan to Israel where the Israelis, obligingly, shipped them over to Lebanon, where, within five years, they plunged that unhappy land into a seven-year war that killed over 100,000 civilians. When Israel finally put an end to that civil war by invading in 1982, and the Phalanage took advantage of their upper hand to slaughter several hundred Palestinians at Sabra and Shatilla in revenge for Damur, the terrified inhabitants of the camps ran immediately to the Israeli positions outside the camp for protection. Why? Because they knew, despite all the “narratives” that when the chips are down, you can expect more mercy from the Jews than your fellow Arabs.
These are revelatory moments, when you see not the “public transcript” but what people really think. In honor-shame cultures they can be deeply embarrassing, since the public transcript is the “honorable” one, and the revelations that reverse that — like in the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes — are almost by definition shameful. Participants might prefer not to remember these, might even seek to reverse them by insisting still more shrilly on the original “narrative.” But outsiders need to pay close attention, because these rare moments are infinitely more revealing than the “public transcript.”
Reuters Releases Films of Terrorists Training in Gaza, CNN and BBC Don’t Air it
Tom Gross, on his site Mideast Media Analysis, reports that Reuters has released video that shows Gaza terrorists, the Popular Resistance Committees, and Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, involved in bomb-making and training for terrorist attacks. Keep in mind, there is a cease-fire in place between Hamas and Israel.
Not surprisingly, says Gross,
“CNN and BBC seem to have chosen to avoid showing this new Reuters footage, even though they regularly air the anti-Israel footage which Reuters has previously pumped out.”
Better to keep their reporters from being harmed in Gaza than to uphold journalistic principles and let the public in on the reality in Gaza.
Hamas Leader’s Christian Son Speaks Out Against Palestinian Worship of Shaheeds
Haaretz ran an interview on July 31 that is as refreshing as it is shocking. Sheikh Hassan Yousef, the Hamas leader in the West Bank, has a son who is a Christian convert. Sheikh Yousef has been in and out of Israeli prisons over the past decade. Masab (now Joseph) Yousef not only comdemns Palestinian society for their worship of terrorists, he also recognizes and respects Israel’s decency and freedoms.
Sheikh Yousef
“You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death.”
Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?
“More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the ‘heroism of the shaheeds.’
“Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country,” he says.
Masab is a brave man indeed for his willingness to risk his own (and his father’s) life in order to follow his personal beliefs, and to speak out against the society in which he grew.
CAMERA: Palestinian Values Evident in Gaza Kidnapping
The intimidation of the press is not new to Palestinian-controlled areas. Episodes like the threats and confiscation of film of journalists who covered celebrations after 9/11 and the lynching of the reservists in Ramallah are part of a systematic campaign by Palestinian groups in power, both Fatah and Hamas, to use the press as a vehicle for disseminating their narrative. Hamas and other allied groups in Gaza have a record of kidnapping reporters, most recently Sawah Abu Seif of the German network ARD. Hamas abducted Abu Seif during their crackdown on Fatah in the Gaza Strip after an explosion killed five Hamas members and a young girl.
It is no coincidence that Hamas chose an ARD reporter. Esther Schapira’s documentary about Muhammad Al-Dura, “Three Bullets and a Dead Child”, was broadcast on ARD. The documentary concluded that Israelis could not have killed Al-Dura.
CAMERA contrasts the behavior and values of the Palestinian organizations with those of Israel, as evidenced in Olmert’s departure.
OLMERT'S RECENT ANNOUNCEMENT AND GAZA NEWS HIGHLIGHT DIFFERENCES, ISRAEL'S KINSHIP TO U.S.(BOSTON, Mass.-July 30, 2008) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s announcement Wednesday that he plans to step down, due to corruption charges, serves as a striking reminder of the democratic nature of Israel. The news underscores the respect for justice and the rule of law that Israel shares with the United States and other western democracies. “Israeli democracy works just like the US,” points out CAMERA Associate Director Alex Safian. “The top leader, whether President or Prime Minister, can be investigated, and can face charges, and can be forced out of office. In Israel, no one is above the law.”