I am an American and very much ashamed to admit it, this horrific day. While Rice is smiling ear to ear with Olmart and other Isreali officials while innocent are being MASSACRED. Disgusting. I am sick as I wake to the news of Qana. I have been hurting for the Lebanese this week. I cannot eat, my stomach sick and I am paralyzed. EVERY AMERICAN READING THIS MUST CALL/WRITE THEIR SENATORS ASAP. Time for a ceasefire, time to stop letting Isreal take our country hostage with their policies. If you have any heart whatsoever tell your government you do not support this carnage. Do not beleive the rhetoric of the American men serving on the IDF. Unbeleivable to see so many Americans serving on the IDF. Wake up my fellow Americans ~ no more "mistakes", these are "pinpoint surgical strikes"!!! With my tax dollars! I am very upset and I call on my fellow Americans with any heart at all to pick up the phone, ask anyone you know to take the step to stop this carnage against innocent Lebanese. Where are the rocket launchers in the rubble? No where.
what the israelis have done today is unacceptable... there was no rocket, no hizbullah asset on the ground.. the world asked for a 72-hour truce,which israel refused...why? too many children dead...its not even about today only, its about all the 200 children killed so far... only 35 hizbullah fighters, compared to 500 civilians...something is massively wrong...this operation is wrong...the tactique is wrong... shame on the world for sitting and watching...shame on the so called precision guided missiles... and what worse than the fact that it is the second time in 10 years that an israeli strike massacres so many people in qana, the land where jesus turned water into wine... to the blog administrators, i dont know if you have foreseen this massacre, but putting the post "Grapes of Wrath" on friday really surprised me... please, please world we need a cease-fire...
this is a terrible act of war. Im sure Israeli government and IDF and IAF are also regerting this act. the problem is when Hizbullah bastards using these poor civilians as human shields... leading them to death and distruction.
I hope civilians fight back at hizbullah and refuse to protect these bastards give them shelter after they fire rockets into Israel. that way When Israel strike against these fighters bastards no civilians will be killed.
Fu*k Hizbullah! Long live peace hope dreams and happy times.
anonymous, Such language is uncalled for... beirut had a large community of jews living in it, more specifically in wadi abu jmil...they were living as one with all...and all respected and dealt with them... till today, there is synagogue which stands in downtown beirut and is up for refurbishment... let us respect religion and let us be strong to find solutions...
Omar al-Ahmad is fishing from the pier at the deserted Sand's Rock resort in Jieh. Less than a kilometre away the burning tanks at the Jieh power plant, rocketed by the Israelis, throw flames several hundred feet into the air. He is not bothered by the threat of a new explosion or the slick of oil on the sea. 'It is only on the surface,' he explains. Inside the resort its elderly owner, Elias al-Kazi, drinks his coffee under the restaurant canopy to avoid the rain of oil and surveys the ruination of his dreams.
The run into Tyre is as frightening as before. The bomb crater at the outskirts has a new addition: a smashed red car sitting inside it. The city is full of groups of journalists prowling in cars or sitting at the Tyre Rest House. Lebanon has become a ghastly reality show. We head to the hospital as shells fly in. A petite, intense young woman in a headscarf approaches and asks to speak. She has a story she wants to tell. Alamida Ghaith, 22, is a student from the village of Shihin, 20km from Tyre. Last Sunday she was sitting down to lunch with her father, Mohammed, 60, her mother Mounira and her sister Raja. 'We could hear the helicopter all morning, but the atmosphere seemed calm and the helicopter seemed far away. I wasn't afraid and I was eating lunch when the helicopter fired and the building fell on us.
'My father and mother were in the kitchen. A large block fell on me. But God spared me. When I got to the rest of my family they were under blocks. My sister - she was going to be married at the end of this month - her head was destroyed.' The horror passes across Alamida's face. 'My mother looked so content. She reached up a hand to touch my face. I tried to put an arm under her to support her, but when I reached beneath her there was only a hole and a red-hot piece of shrapnel. But she touched my face and looked at me.
'My father does not know his wife and daughter have died. His ears have gone.' Alamida becomes angry. 'Do we look like fighters? Do we look like Hizbollah? Until Sunday all I lived for was my education. Now all of us are the resistance.'
Later, on the most dangerous section of the road, we come across a broken-down car full of refugees from Aita Shaab, the border village from which Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, the incident that sparked this war. We squeeze the women and children into our two cars, exhausted, frightened and hungry after 10 days under constant shellfire.
Back in Beirut's centre that evening, bathed and clean, I watch the rituals of the youthful evening strollers. And Lebanon survives.
One thing that absolutely boggles my mind...For a people who have lived through a Holocaust...how can they inflict a Holocaust on other people...How can they just there go about their everyday lives while a whole generation of children is being wiped out only a few kilometers from them...A sorry won't do...These are war crimes that need to be tried ... First in 1996 now ten years later anohter one...This is completely unacceptable...Plz we need to take action ...The world needs to scream...
All of you Israelis who care about children's souls, we the Lebanese call upon you to stop this horror. we are being massacred for a war that will have no effect but the destruction of lebanon and our democracy... we beg you to do something, we cannot shed more tears...
keep on screaming, no one will hear you blame hizbullah people.they are the ones to have started this, now they will use this as an excuse to attack even further. bring it on, we are waiting.
i am saddened to see that there is so much hate that can come out on a day of mourning... it is this kind of talk which allows for such horrible events to happen. let us not follow the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" thinking, but rather let us move to stop these atrocities... we need an immediate cease-fire now...
Did Hizbullah start this? as some on the commentators say, in the hope that if you tell a lie often enough, it will b believed.
Look at the Shebaa Farms, look at the mines Israel has left behind in Southern Lebanon. These mines blow up children and Israel still refuse to provide a map of their layout. Look at the Arab prisoners Israel has incarcerated in its prisons, and you still say Hizbullah started it.
Here is an article:
Down the Memory Hole Israeli contribution to conflict is forgotten by leading papers 7/28/06
In the wake of the most serious outbreak of Israeli/Arab violence in years, three leading U.S. papers—the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times—have each strongly editorialized that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon were solely responsible for sparking violence, and that the Israeli military response was predictable and unavoidable. These editorials ignored recent events that indicate a much more complicated situation.
Beginning with the Israeli attack on Gaza, a New York Times editorial (6/29/06) headlined "Hamas Provokes a Fight" declared that "the responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas," and that "an Israeli military response was inevitable." The paper (7/15/06) was similarly sure in its assignment of blame after the fighting spread to Lebanon: "It is important to be clear about not only who is responsible for the latest outbreak, but who stands to gain most from its continued escalation. Both questions have the same answer: Hamas and Hezbollah."
The Washington Post (7/14/06) agreed, writing that "Hezbollah and its backers have instigated the current fighting and should be held responsible for the consequences." The L.A. Times (7/14/06) likewise wrote that "in both cases Israel was provoked." Three days and scores of civilian deaths later, the Times (7/17/06) was even more direct: "Make no mistake about it: Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side...and that is Hezbollah."
As FAIR noted in a recent Action Alert (7/19/06), the portrayal of Israel as the innocent victim in the Gaza conflict is hard to square with the death toll in the months leading up to the current crisis; between September 2005 and June 2006, 144 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces, according to a list compiled by the Israeli human rights group B'tselem; 29 of those killed were children. During the same period, no Israelis were killed as a result of violence from Gaza.
In a July 21 CounterPunch column, Alexander Cockburn highlighted some of the violent incidents that have dropped out of the media’s collective memory:
Let's go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.
Now we're really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing eight civilians and injuring 32.
That's just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.
On June 24, the day before Hamas' cross-border raid, Israel made an incursion of its own, capturing two Palestinians that it said were members of Hamas (something Hamas denied—L.A. Times, 6/25/06). This incident received far less coverage in U.S. media than the subsequent seizure of the Israeli soldier; the few papers that covered it mostly dismissed it in a one-paragraph brief (e.g., Chicago Tribune, 6/25/06), while the Israeli taken prisoner got front-page headlines all over the world. It's likely that most Gazans don’t share U.S. news outlets' apparent sense that captured Israelis are far more interesting or important than captured Palestinians.
The situation in Lebanon is also more complicated than its portrayal in U.S. media, with the roots of the current crisis extending well before the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. A major incident fueling the latest cycle of violence was a May 26, 2006 car bombing in Sidon, Lebanon, that killed a senior official of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group allied with Hezbollah. Lebanon later arrested a suspect, Mahmoud Rafeh, whom Lebanese authorities claimed had confessed to carrying out the assassination on behalf of Mossad (London Times, 6/17/06).
Israel denied involvement with the bombing, but even some Israelis are skeptical. "If it turns out this operation was effectively carried out by Mossad or another Israeli secret service," wrote Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s top-selling daily (6/16/06; cited in AFP, 6/16/06), "an outsider from the intelligence world should be appointed to know whether it was worth it and whether it lays groups open to risk."
In Lebanon, Israel's culpability was taken as a given. "The Israelis, in hitting Islamic Jihad, knew they would get Hezbollah involved too," Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at Beirut’s Lebanese American University, told the New York Times (5/29/06). "The Israelis had to be aware that if they assassinated this guy they would get a response."
And, indeed, on May 28, Lebanese militants in Hezbollah-controlled territory fired Katyusha rockets at a military vehicle and a military base inside Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes against Palestinian camps deep inside Lebanon, which in turn were met by Hezbollah rocket and mortar attacks on more Israeli military bases, which prompted further Israeli airstrikes and "a steady artillery barrage at suspected Hezbollah positions" (New York Times, 5/29/06). Gen. Udi Adam, the commander of Israel’s northern forces, boasted that "our response was the harshest and most severe since the withdrawal" of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000 (Chicago Tribune, 5/29/06).
This intense fighting was the prelude to the all-out warfare that began on July 12, portrayed in U.S. media as beginning with an attack out of the blue by Hezbollah. While Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers may have reignited the smoldering conflict, the Israeli air campaign that followed was not a spontaneous reaction to aggression but a well-planned operation that was years in the making.
"Of all of Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, told the San Francisco Chronicle (7/21/05). "By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we’re seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board." The Chronicle reported that a "senior Israeli army officer" has been giving PowerPoint presentations for more than a year to "U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks" outlining the coming war with Lebanon, explaining that a combination of air and ground forces would target Hezbollah and "transportation and communication arteries."
Which raises a question: If journalists have been told by Israel for more than a year that a war was coming, why are they pretending that it all started on July 12? By truncating the cause-and-effect timelines of both the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, editorial boards at major U.S. dailies gravely oversimplify the decidedly more complex nature of the facts on the ground.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2928
and part of an earlier one:
In U.S. Media, Palestinians Attack, Israel Retaliates
FAIR has surveyed how the language of "retaliation" has been used on the nightly news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC.
From the start of the Intifada in September 2000 through March 17, 2002, the three major networks' nightly news shows used some variation of the word "retaliation" (retaliated, will retaliate, etc.) 150 times to describe attacks in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. About 79 percent of those references were to Israeli "retaliation" against Palestinians. Only 9 percent referred to Palestinian "retaliation" against Israelis. (Approximately 12 percent were ambiguous or referred to both sidessimultaneously.) [Full data below.]
Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict routinely present their attacks as being retaliation for previous attacks or actions. Both sides portray their struggle as essentially defensive. Whether one regards these justifications as credible explanations or self-serving rhetoric, the fact is that reporters make choices about whether to report them. The network news shows have characterized Israeli violence as "retaliation" almost nine times more often than Palestinian violence.
This disparity is meaningful. The term "retaliation" suggests a defensive stance undertaken in response to someone else's aggression. It also lays responsibility for the cycle of violence at the doorstep of the party being "retaliated" against, since they presumably initiated the conflict.
Among the three major networks, ABC's World News Tonight was the closest to being balanced, with 64 percent of its uses of "retaliation" referring to Israeli actions and 21 percent to Palestinian actions-- a three-to-one ratio. CBS Evening News came next, with 79 percent of its uses of "retaliation" referring to Israeli actions and 7 percent to Palestinian actions. NBC Nightly News was the most imbalanced, never once referring to Palestinian retaliation.
The devastating human toll of such "retaliations" makes these imbalances all the more striking. According to the latest estimates from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, 897 of the Palestinians killed from September 29, 2000 though March 30, 2002 have been civilians. Israeli security forces killed 823 of those 897 people, including 192 children. B'Tselem records that 253 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians in the same period, including 48 children. At least 16 of those 253 people were killed by Palestinian National Authority security forces or persons reportedly linked to them. B'Tselem notes that these figures include neither suicide bombers nor Palestinians who "died after medical treatment was delayed" by Israeli forces. (See .)
Figures like these, highlighting the targeting of non-combatants and even children, make clear that it is simply inaccurate to cast either side as acting purely defensively.
The language of retaliation is only one factor in reporting, of course, but FAIR's findings-- 79 percent to 9 percent-- are striking and indicate a tendency to define Israel's role as defensive, and the Palestinian role as aggressive. By doing so, ABC, CBS and NBC have oversimplified this complicated conflict and done a disservice to viewers.
For the complete article, for a complete history, for Israel's designs, read more of the alternate media, and not the official doctored one.
It is telling how the Lebanese, who are paying the heaviest price in this conflict so far, and who truly have lost the most, continue to express and call for tolerance and the purposeful rejecting of hate.
It is telling that the pro-Israeli comments are so vocal in their hate, and intolerance and so vicious in their righteous indignation.
As for the peace loving Israelis one of the comments asked about. They are conspicuous in their absence.
For example, I visited the forums at the Jerusalem online paper at http://www.jpost.com to get a grasp of what Isreaelis and Jews were thinking and feeling. I read much about what they are thinking.
there is no place for peace and blablabla anymore...israelis are right to call it a question of life or death for their country, because hopefully, israel will be one day erased from the face of the earth.. and i am not a terrorist, nor a muslim, i'm a christian lebanese who thinks that jews bring only violence and hate to this earth... it's war now, complete war. may you all die from a iranian missile
please, this blog is intended for people who can make wise and smart comments. anyone can curse, very little can actually talk wisely... if you want to curse, please exchange your emails or phone numbers and do it directly... thanks
Now, we came to know who are terrorists. Bush said, Iran is still giving weapons to Hizbullah. Where are the weapons. But he is giving weapons to Israel. Who'll be going to ask the question to Bush.
Fuck Iran and Hizbullah - they are killing our country! we need to push these warmakers freeks out of our country so we can live quietly and enjoy our lives whatever the religion is.
Hizbullah and fuking Iran are not welcome here now that we got rid of Syria lets get rid of these ugly creatures before its too late and our land is becoming unlivable with fanatics imposing religious rule on Lebanon.
I once asked MrTez (a close of mine)if I could curse on this site. I answered the question myself. Cursing is what cowards and people who have nothing good to say, SAY. So please Philip, if you want to curse, do it alone and not on this site. Sorry MrTez :)
26 Comments:
I am an American and very much ashamed to admit it, this horrific day. While Rice is smiling ear to ear with Olmart and other Isreali officials while innocent are being MASSACRED. Disgusting. I am sick as I wake to the news of Qana. I have been hurting for the Lebanese this week. I cannot eat, my stomach sick and I am paralyzed. EVERY AMERICAN READING THIS MUST CALL/WRITE THEIR SENATORS ASAP. Time for a ceasefire, time to stop letting Isreal take our country hostage with their policies. If you have any heart whatsoever tell your government you do not support this carnage. Do not beleive the rhetoric of the American men serving on the IDF. Unbeleivable to see so many Americans serving on the IDF. Wake up my fellow Americans ~ no more "mistakes", these are "pinpoint surgical strikes"!!! With my tax dollars! I am very upset and I call on my fellow Americans with any heart at all to pick up the phone, ask anyone you know to take the step to stop this carnage against innocent Lebanese. Where are the rocket launchers in the rubble? No where.
what the israelis have done today is unacceptable...
there was no rocket, no hizbullah asset on the ground..
the world asked for a 72-hour truce,which israel refused...why?
too many children dead...its not even about today only, its about all the 200 children killed so far...
only 35 hizbullah fighters, compared to 500 civilians...something is massively wrong...this operation is wrong...the tactique is wrong...
shame on the world for sitting and watching...shame on the so called precision guided missiles...
and what worse than the fact that it is the second time in 10 years that an israeli strike massacres so many people in qana, the land where jesus turned water into wine...
to the blog administrators, i dont know if you have foreseen this massacre, but putting the post "Grapes of Wrath" on friday really surprised me...
please, please world we need a cease-fire...
this is a terrible act of war. Im sure Israeli government and IDF and IAF are also regerting this act. the problem is when Hizbullah bastards using these poor civilians as human shields... leading them to death and distruction.
I hope civilians fight back at hizbullah and refuse to protect these bastards give them shelter after they fire rockets into Israel. that way When Israel strike against these fighters bastards no civilians will be killed.
Fu*k Hizbullah! Long live peace hope dreams and happy times.
now you understand why now people in the middle east and all around the world throughout history always hated jews...
anonymous,
Such language is uncalled for...
beirut had a large community of jews living in it, more specifically in wadi abu jmil...they were living as one with all...and all respected and dealt with them...
till today, there is synagogue which stands in downtown beirut and is up for refurbishment...
let us respect religion and let us be strong to find solutions...
Please post...from Guardian...
Thursday 27 July,
Jieh and Tyre
Omar al-Ahmad is fishing from the pier at the deserted Sand's Rock resort in Jieh. Less than a kilometre away the burning tanks at the Jieh power plant, rocketed by the Israelis, throw flames several hundred feet into the air. He is not bothered by the threat of a new explosion or the slick of oil on the sea. 'It is only on the surface,' he explains. Inside the resort its elderly owner, Elias al-Kazi, drinks his coffee under the restaurant canopy to avoid the rain of oil and surveys the ruination of his dreams.
The run into Tyre is as frightening as before. The bomb crater at the outskirts has a new addition: a smashed red car sitting inside it. The city is full of groups of journalists prowling in cars or sitting at the Tyre Rest House. Lebanon has become a ghastly reality show. We head to the hospital as shells fly in. A petite, intense young woman in a headscarf approaches and asks to speak. She has a story she wants to tell. Alamida Ghaith, 22, is a student from the village of Shihin, 20km from Tyre. Last Sunday she was sitting down to lunch with her father, Mohammed, 60, her mother Mounira and her sister Raja. 'We could hear the helicopter all morning, but the atmosphere seemed calm and the helicopter seemed far away. I wasn't afraid and I was eating lunch when the helicopter fired and the building fell on us.
'My father and mother were in the kitchen. A large block fell on me. But God spared me. When I got to the rest of my family they were under blocks. My sister - she was going to be married at the end of this month - her head was destroyed.' The horror passes across Alamida's face. 'My mother looked so content. She reached up a hand to touch my face. I tried to put an arm under her to support her, but when I reached beneath her there was only a hole and a red-hot piece of shrapnel. But she touched my face and looked at me.
'My father does not know his wife and daughter have died. His ears have gone.' Alamida becomes angry. 'Do we look like fighters? Do we look like Hizbollah? Until Sunday all I lived for was my education. Now all of us are the resistance.'
Later, on the most dangerous section of the road, we come across a broken-down car full of refugees from Aita Shaab, the border village from which Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, the incident that sparked this war. We squeeze the women and children into our two cars, exhausted, frightened and hungry after 10 days under constant shellfire.
Back in Beirut's centre that evening, bathed and clean, I watch the rituals of the youthful evening strollers. And Lebanon survives.
One thing that absolutely boggles my mind...For a people who have lived through a Holocaust...how can they inflict a Holocaust on other people...How can they just there go about their everyday lives while a whole generation of children is being wiped out only a few kilometers from them...A sorry won't do...These are war crimes that need to be tried ... First in 1996 now ten years later anohter one...This is completely unacceptable...Plz we need to take action ...The world needs to scream...
i am at a loss for words to express my sadness........i pray for you all
All of you Israelis who care about children's souls, we the Lebanese call upon you to stop this horror.
we are being massacred for a war that will have no effect but the destruction of lebanon and our democracy...
we beg you to do something, we cannot shed more tears...
57 dead...37 children...one building...
where is the world? where are the peace loving israelis...
750 people killed, 2,000 injured...where are our rights? where will our future be?
keep on screaming, no one will hear you
blame hizbullah people.they are the ones to have started this,
now they will use this as an excuse to attack even further.
bring it on, we are waiting.
i am saddened to see that there is so much hate that can come out on a day of mourning...
it is this kind of talk which allows for such horrible events to happen.
let us not follow the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" thinking, but rather let us move to stop these atrocities...
we need an immediate cease-fire now...
very wise words mrtez
Did Hizbullah start this? as some on the commentators say, in the hope that if you tell a lie often enough, it will b believed.
Look at the Shebaa Farms, look at the mines Israel has left behind in Southern Lebanon. These mines blow up children and Israel still refuse to provide a map of their layout. Look at the Arab prisoners Israel has incarcerated in its prisons, and you still say Hizbullah started it.
Here is an article:
Down the Memory Hole
Israeli contribution to conflict is forgotten by leading papers 7/28/06
In the wake of the most serious outbreak of Israeli/Arab violence in years, three leading U.S. papers—the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times—have each strongly editorialized that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon were solely responsible for sparking violence, and that the Israeli military response was predictable and unavoidable. These editorials ignored recent events that indicate a much more complicated situation.
Beginning with the Israeli attack on Gaza, a New York Times editorial (6/29/06) headlined "Hamas Provokes a Fight" declared that "the responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas," and that "an Israeli military response was inevitable." The paper (7/15/06) was similarly sure in its assignment of blame after the fighting spread to Lebanon: "It is important to be clear about not only who is responsible for the latest outbreak, but who stands to gain most from its continued escalation. Both questions have the same answer: Hamas and Hezbollah."
The Washington Post (7/14/06) agreed, writing that "Hezbollah and its backers have instigated the current fighting and should be held responsible for the consequences." The L.A. Times (7/14/06) likewise wrote that "in both cases Israel was provoked." Three days and scores of civilian deaths later, the Times (7/17/06) was even more direct: "Make no mistake about it: Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side...and that is Hezbollah."
As FAIR noted in a recent Action Alert (7/19/06), the portrayal of Israel as the innocent victim in the Gaza conflict is hard to square with the death toll in the months leading up to the current crisis; between September 2005 and June 2006, 144 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces, according to a list compiled by the Israeli human rights group B'tselem; 29 of those killed were children. During the same period, no Israelis were killed as a result of violence from Gaza.
In a July 21 CounterPunch column, Alexander Cockburn highlighted some of the violent incidents that have dropped out of the media’s collective memory:
Let's go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.
Now we're really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing eight civilians and injuring 32.
That's just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.
On June 24, the day before Hamas' cross-border raid, Israel made an incursion of its own, capturing two Palestinians that it said were members of Hamas (something Hamas denied—L.A. Times, 6/25/06). This incident received far less coverage in U.S. media than the subsequent seizure of the Israeli soldier; the few papers that covered it mostly dismissed it in a one-paragraph brief (e.g., Chicago Tribune, 6/25/06), while the Israeli taken prisoner got front-page headlines all over the world. It's likely that most Gazans don’t share U.S. news outlets' apparent sense that captured Israelis are far more interesting or important than captured Palestinians.
The situation in Lebanon is also more complicated than its portrayal in U.S. media, with the roots of the current crisis extending well before the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. A major incident fueling the latest cycle of violence was a May 26, 2006 car bombing in Sidon, Lebanon, that killed a senior official of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group allied with Hezbollah. Lebanon later arrested a suspect, Mahmoud Rafeh, whom Lebanese authorities claimed had confessed to carrying out the assassination on behalf of Mossad (London Times, 6/17/06).
Israel denied involvement with the bombing, but even some Israelis are skeptical. "If it turns out this operation was effectively carried out by Mossad or another Israeli secret service," wrote Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s top-selling daily (6/16/06; cited in AFP, 6/16/06), "an outsider from the intelligence world should be appointed to know whether it was worth it and whether it lays groups open to risk."
In Lebanon, Israel's culpability was taken as a given. "The Israelis, in hitting Islamic Jihad, knew they would get Hezbollah involved too," Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at Beirut’s Lebanese American University, told the New York Times (5/29/06). "The Israelis had to be aware that if they assassinated this guy they would get a response."
And, indeed, on May 28, Lebanese militants in Hezbollah-controlled territory fired Katyusha rockets at a military vehicle and a military base inside Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes against Palestinian camps deep inside Lebanon, which in turn were met by Hezbollah rocket and mortar attacks on more Israeli military bases, which prompted further Israeli airstrikes and "a steady artillery barrage at suspected Hezbollah positions" (New York Times, 5/29/06). Gen. Udi Adam, the commander of Israel’s northern forces, boasted that "our response was the harshest and most severe since the withdrawal" of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000 (Chicago Tribune, 5/29/06).
This intense fighting was the prelude to the all-out warfare that began on July 12, portrayed in U.S. media as beginning with an attack out of the blue by Hezbollah. While Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers may have reignited the smoldering conflict, the Israeli air campaign that followed was not a spontaneous reaction to aggression but a well-planned operation that was years in the making.
"Of all of Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, told the San Francisco Chronicle (7/21/05). "By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we’re seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board." The Chronicle reported that a "senior Israeli army officer" has been giving PowerPoint presentations for more than a year to "U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks" outlining the coming war with Lebanon, explaining that a combination of air and ground forces would target Hezbollah and "transportation and communication arteries."
Which raises a question: If journalists have been told by Israel for more than a year that a war was coming, why are they pretending that it all started on July 12? By truncating the cause-and-effect timelines of both the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, editorial boards at major U.S. dailies gravely oversimplify the decidedly more complex nature of the facts on the ground.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2928
and part of an earlier one:
In U.S. Media, Palestinians Attack, Israel Retaliates
FAIR has surveyed how the language of "retaliation" has been used on the nightly news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC.
From the start of the Intifada in September 2000 through March 17, 2002, the three major networks' nightly news shows used some variation of the word "retaliation" (retaliated, will retaliate, etc.) 150 times to describe attacks in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. About 79 percent of those references were to Israeli "retaliation" against Palestinians. Only 9 percent referred to Palestinian "retaliation" against Israelis. (Approximately 12 percent were ambiguous or referred to both sidessimultaneously.) [Full data below.]
Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict routinely present their attacks as being retaliation for previous attacks or actions. Both sides portray their struggle as essentially defensive. Whether one regards these justifications as credible explanations or self-serving rhetoric, the fact is that reporters make choices about whether to report them. The network news shows have characterized Israeli violence as "retaliation" almost nine times more often than Palestinian violence.
This disparity is meaningful. The term "retaliation" suggests a defensive stance undertaken in response to someone else's aggression. It also lays responsibility for the cycle of violence at the doorstep of the party being "retaliated" against, since they presumably initiated the conflict.
Among the three major networks, ABC's World News Tonight was the closest to being balanced, with 64 percent of its uses of "retaliation" referring to Israeli actions and 21 percent to Palestinian actions-- a three-to-one ratio. CBS Evening News came next, with 79 percent of its uses of "retaliation" referring to Israeli actions and 7 percent to Palestinian actions. NBC Nightly News was the most imbalanced, never once referring to Palestinian retaliation.
The devastating human toll of such "retaliations" makes these imbalances all the more striking. According to the latest estimates from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, 897 of the Palestinians killed from September 29, 2000 though March 30, 2002 have been civilians. Israeli security forces killed 823 of those 897 people, including 192 children. B'Tselem records that 253 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians in the same period, including 48 children. At least 16 of those 253 people were killed by Palestinian National Authority security forces or persons reportedly linked to them. B'Tselem notes that these figures include neither suicide bombers nor Palestinians who "died after medical treatment was delayed" by Israeli forces. (See .)
Figures like these, highlighting the targeting of non-combatants and even children, make clear that it is simply inaccurate to cast either side as acting purely defensively.
The language of retaliation is only one factor in reporting, of course, but FAIR's findings-- 79 percent to 9 percent-- are striking and indicate a tendency to define Israel's role as defensive, and the Palestinian role as aggressive. By doing so, ABC, CBS and NBC have oversimplified this complicated conflict and done a disservice to viewers.
For the complete article, for a complete history, for Israel's designs, read more of the alternate media, and not the official doctored one.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1657
It is telling how the Lebanese, who are paying the heaviest price in this conflict so far, and who truly have lost the most, continue to express and call for tolerance and the purposeful rejecting of hate.
It is telling that the pro-Israeli comments are so vocal in their hate, and intolerance and so vicious in their righteous indignation.
As for the peace loving Israelis one of the comments asked about. They are conspicuous in their absence.
For example, I visited the forums at the Jerusalem online paper at http://www.jpost.com to get a grasp of what Isreaelis and Jews were thinking and feeling. I read much about what they are thinking.
I leave it at that.
what utter rubbish from previous coment!
shows how little you know what Israeli actualy think.
TWAT, IDIOT
What is the point of your statement Topo?
Who are you responding to?
The comments made in the forums are actual opinions and views.
there is no place for peace and blablabla anymore...israelis are right to call it a question of life or death for their country, because hopefully, israel will be one day erased from the face of the earth..
and i am not a terrorist, nor a muslim, i'm a christian lebanese who thinks that jews bring only violence and hate to this earth...
it's war now, complete war. may you all die from a iranian missile
I wish Hizbullah will take care of Gilgamesh and destroy a missile on him/her and its family and close ones.
Nassralah will take care of that one way or another - lets just hope you are lucky enough
this world has no room nor place for the scum like you, CUNT!
please, this blog is intended for people who can make wise and smart comments.
anyone can curse, very little can actually talk wisely...
if you want to curse, please exchange your emails or phone numbers and do it directly...
thanks
Now, we came to know who are terrorists. Bush said, Iran is still giving weapons to Hizbullah. Where are the weapons.
But he is giving weapons to Israel. Who'll be going to ask the question to Bush.
Fuck Iran and Hizbullah - they are killing our country! we need to push these warmakers freeks out of our country so we can live quietly and enjoy our lives whatever the religion is.
Hizbullah and fuking Iran are not welcome here now that we got rid of Syria lets get rid of these ugly creatures before its too late and our land is becoming unlivable with fanatics imposing religious rule on Lebanon.
Peace to Lebanon!
Shut up Philip!
I once asked MrTez (a close of mine)if I could curse on this site. I answered the question myself. Cursing is what cowards and people who have nothing good to say, SAY. So please Philip, if you want to curse, do it alone and not on this site. Sorry MrTez :)
ok Ramsay and Tarek and HB and team - please could you also post the following link to promote discussion, Merci.
http://www.libanoscopie.com/fulldoc.asp?doccode=994&cat=2
we hate Hizbullah here in Beirut. get them out of here now please thanks
if you can read french please go to this link:
http://www.libanoscopie.com/fulldoc.asp?doccode=994&cat=2
help us get rid of this cancer - Hizbullah!!
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