For the AP, the new year’s the same as the old
Just in case you thought the AP had turned over a new leaf, here’s its current take on the Israel/Palestine conflict. It’s titled, “Israel kills top Hamas figure, escalating campaign.”
True to form, the AP takes its time in divulging how the whole thing began (Hamas-launched rockets into Israel at the end of a cease-fire), not making any mention of such a thing until paragraph eight. Perhaps it’s surprising that it’s mentioned at all, and that when it is, it’s done in terms that are relatively harsh.
The Hamas “figure” (the AP’s rather neutral term; he’s also a “militant”) who was killed, Nizar Rayan, sounds like a lovely guy indeed. He was even a professor of Islamic law; what’s not to like? He also “was respected in Gaza for donning combat fatigues and personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces.” And then there’s this little detail, “He sent one of his sons on an October 2001 suicide mission that killed two Israeli settlers in Gaza.”
Some of his other children died in the blast on the apartment in which Rayan lived with his family. That explosion was augmented by the fact that the apartment—with all these innocent civilians living there—seems to have been a weapons storage facility as well.
[NOTE: For a previous in-depth discussion of the killlng of children in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and the strategy of the Palestinians to sacrifice said children rather than protect them, please see this.]
“Militant,” “terrorist”…? Can’t use real descriptive language can they.
They saw old media’s dying. Let’s hope AP’s the first to go.
Nice posting!
Unusual for him to send his own son on a suicide mission. Normally, it’s other people’s children.
In a world of changing values, the AP stays the same.
What is especially pernicious about the AP is that they are the ONLY source of foreign news reportage for many small and medium sized newspapers in the USA. Our own local rag is an example, but let’s not go there yet.
Were the AP to disappear, we would be stuck with local news and the high school football team exclusively. A mixed blessing.
I don’t pay attention to these people anymore. In fact, I began tuning them out a decade ago. I don’t know about you all but when some MSM outlets begin shuttering I intend to celebrate. If the Grey Lady goes the way of the dodo, I will buy a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka (the French boycott is over) and knock back a few.
Much of the Western media is Marxist and biased against Israel. Israel should forget about “proportionality” and begin collective punishment of its enemies, since neither the Islamic enemies nor the Marxist ones display any of the restraint they enjoin upon the IDF.
I would even consider targeted assassinations of Western journalists who provide aid and comfort for Israel’s enemies. Propaganda war is being waged against Israel and this is going on for at least three decades now. They’ll get the message, and soil their pants into the bargain.
The byline of the AP article includes “Ibrahim Barzak”, who writes a LOT of the “news” coming from the Mideast for the AP. Shockingly, he is biased towards Muslims and against Israel!
Even worse, what is NOT noted in the article, Neo, is that the Israelis warned the ‘law’ professor that they were targeting him; he refused to budge, and apparently thought the Israelis would hold back because of the women present. Oh well.
Good riddance to a murderer. Hopefully, some people will read between the lines and figure out this was an evil person and needed taking out, before he would kill more Israelis.
Apparently, even the Palestinian News Agency Ma’an admitted that Rayan had the Israeli warning, and still went ahead and tried to use his wives as human shields.
Any mention in the execrable AP article? Nah, Barzak can’t be bothered with that, he’s too busy praising the new shaheed.
The more people reward the Palestinian tactic, the more children they sacrifice. The Main Sewer Media must place the blame for this solely on the Israelis. After all, if they can’t blame the Jews, then they would ultimately have to blame themselves as the only other agent capable of morality in this play.
Regarding the Hamas leader….
Considering this worthless piece of human trash actually once made the “rational” decision to send his own offspring off on a suicide mission, I’d say the act of wiping out that entire branch is good riddance.
Good riddance to offspring being raised in hatred and taught that it’s ok and even commendable to act on that hatred. They will most certainly never carry out a suicide mission. Others may do so in their name – but they will be moldering in the grave instead of doing it themselves.
Good riddance to women who actually make more offspring from this nutcake, and then don’t stand in the way of this a$$hole sending their own children off on suicide missions.
Any woman who would willingly allow their *husband* to send the child they carried in their womb for 9 months, raised from infancy, and then not protest as this child is basically murdered by their father deserves about whatever they get.
And especially good riddance to Nizar Rayan – he was a waste of skin and the world is better off without him breathing our air.
Israel has 19 days left to defend itself before the new-left world order consolidates it’s power in Washington, and begins to dictate the terms of Israel’s co-existance with it’s mortal enemies….
Our media does not recognize cultural diversity. They are multiculturalists. All cultures should be celebrated and none are really different. To survive, we must be culturists and recognize diversity is real.
We assume that all cultures value life and just want justice. Our values are not universal, there goal is not secular humanism. If they fight with a zeal to be martyrs and we fight with an eye towards harming no one who hasn’t had a trial, we will lose.
But before we recognize diversity we have to recognize Islam confronts us. Our media and allies do not even yet recognize this fact
See my VIDEO on the NYC Hamas rally and our side’s not recognizing Islam.
http://culturismnews.blogspot.com/
Culturist John
the fact that many people now tend to measure placement and meta information about articles to gleen truth, means we have moved from news as news into news as propaganda in which we attempt to glean facts and adjust meaning by other means such as measuring when something is said or not, or other things having to do with the articles construction, not its content.
You want biased, come here to Indonesia and watch the Indonesian-language TV broadcasts of the Israeli operations. One of the stations (TV One) even carried Israeli gun-camera footage of a HAMAS mosque being bombed. Of course, the station edited the video to not show the secondary explosions that were quite obvious on the original. Can’t have the viewers getting the wrong idea, now can we?
Neo,
You are right to highlight this story, as it is almost a synecdoche of the larger conflict. So many threads tied into one story, one story standing for the larger narrative and counter-narrative.
Some thoughts:
1. This is a continuation of the policy of killing Hamas leadership that we saw during the second intifada. This was described as “assassination” in the World (i.e. Leftist and anti-Israeli) Press. I recall that at the time it seemed to be effective. It certainly generated a furious propaganda response. I expect we will see the World Press, the Europeans, the UN, and Left Democrats to take up the same propaganda playbook again in the near future.
2. We may be nearing a time when there will be widespread recognition that having the occupation “professor of law” doesn’t imply any connection with Enlightenment principles, reason, equality, progress, peace or anything else that we value. We have tended to treat “professors” as sober and respectable seekers of the truth.
But maybe it never was that way. In War of the World: 20th Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), Niall Ferguson argues that “An academic education, far from inoculating people against Nazism, made them more likely to embrace it. So much for the greatness of the German universities. Their fall from grace was personified by the readiness of Martin Heidegger, the greatest German philosopher of his generation, to jump on the Nazi bandwagon, a swastika pin in his lapel.” (p. 243)
3. Israel meant what it said when it said it is going to war against Hamas. War in the future will be conducted with degrees of precision and at various levels of escalation. At some level, we saw that in Iraq in 2003, when the war started with a decapitation strike aimed the head of state (Saddam).
4. The key success factors in this war will intelligence (in multiple layers), precise means of delivering force, political willingness to accept losses–both real and perceived–and a workable approach for dealing with propaganda and disinformation.
5. I don’t foresee Israel employing a Jacksonian strategy any time soon. The internal political conflict and damage to Israeli self-image would be unmanageable. It is extremely unlikely to be supported by any US government.
6. It was always clear that either Fatah was going to fight Hamas, or Israel would. The chessboard hasn’t changed, and the conflict must eventually come to a head.
7. I, too, wonder about which way the new American Administration will jump. On one hand, the Administration will attempt to cloud the issue, and there is evidence that various Arab governments will not be at all sorry to see Hamas get its wings clipped. On the other hand, this Administration in particular has defined foreign policy success as regaining the “respect” of the rest of the world, which will demand some kind of disapproval of Israeli action. On second thought, maybe what the US will do is obvious: it won’t jump one way or the other.
Apologies for the length.
I have a feeling the PeBHO’s former friends Ali Abunimah and Rashid Khalidi will be none too happy once their President has to make a decision favoring Israel over Hamas in this war.
I think the fact that Israel thought it had to act now speaks volumes for what its inner thinking is about the incoming American administration. When you have a new POTUS who has Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Zbigniew Brzynski, and perhaps George Soros on speed dial on his Blackberry, it isn’t so difficult to figure out where he will lean if he gets an opening. Clearly, I don’t think they trust Obama.
But why should it matter anyway? They are an independent country and do not have to take orders from us. Besides, I think that the glaring and deep deficiencies of our CIA in the area of HUMINT is a place where Israel has us by the short hairs. I suspect Langley relies a lot on MOSSAD. No, when push comes to shove, Washington will accede to Israel’s defense policy and actions. Otherwise, Obama’s daily security briefings become a lot less precise and meaty.
“But why should it matter anyway?”
America’s financial and political support is critical to the quality of Israel’s existance. I’ve always thought that people had become too casual in their assumption that Israel’s upper hand militarily would always be a permanent state of affairs. In fact, technology and numbers, on the side of Israel’s enemies, is effectively grinding away that edge. The outcome of the Lebanon war with Hezbollah was a bad omen. It’s way late in the game to finally be engaging the enemy in a serious manner. When Israel needed to be pursuing a strategy of “greater” Israel, for it’s basic survival, the left was suckering them into the fantasy of peace via “Oslo”; Even in the last several years Bush and company joined that insidious bandwagon with the “disproportionate” display that was the betrayal of Israel via Annapolis. Now, this New Years eve in the Paris “suburbs” over a thousand cars were burned, a new record for what is now becoming a yearly celebratory tradition by the jihadis. As part of the world pattern of events, this is clearly related to Israel’s situation. In 19 days Israel’s ability to fight back will no doubt be seriously compromised by America’s new left-wing president who did everything possible to undermine the war in Iraq; As sure as the names “Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Zbigniew Brzynski” ring a bell…
“For the AP, the new year’s the same as the old”
For the AP, bad news (for the “good guys”), has long been good news, because it sells, and big time… The fringe benefit for the AP is that their shills can go almost anywhere without fear or challenge…
What next on Gaza/Israel and Why Americans Should Care
Check out this guy’s post for an illustration of the difference between a soldier of Palestine and a soldier of Israel.
That said, Israel has a rapidly closing window of opportunity. They know what is at stake. And they know that their window closes on January 20th.
If they are to survive, they will have to take out Iran’s budding nuclear facility before then.
HOPE I am wrong.
“It will require tenacity and bold ideas — in framing the solution, bringing in previously excluded actors, creating mechanisms to implement a deal (such as international forces) and utilizing the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative — but the alternative is far worse, its what we see today and it guarantees ongoing instability in a region of paramount importance to the United States.” – Daniel Levy
This is simply another Oslo style perspective, incredibly naive and the worst possible scenario, because it places a long-run misguided faith in the ultimate motives of the islamist-arab world, especially the Saudi’s agenda. A fully independent and sovereign “palestinian” entity in the West Bank, coordinated with a Hezbollah dominated Lebanon, and an Assad ruled Syria in conjunction with Russian and Iranian high tech weapons, time and training will set the stage for a final assault on an emasculated Israel; Perhaps as soon as one to two decades following some agreement imposed by a fleeting Obama administration. Factor in the very real possibility of the eventual demise of the Jordanian monarchy. The only redeeming aspect will be that a Saddam led Iraq regime will not be there (thanks to GW and company) to further endanger the situation. Anyone who seriously thinks otherwise is grasping at straws, or simply dishonest.
Neo wrote, “Some of his other children died in the blast”
Oh good. Suicide bombers completed their mission before they got started…..
Truth That article you linked was highly flawed.
Statements like:
1) The immediate backdrop begins with the Israeli disengagement from Gaza of summer 2005, ostensibly a good move, except one that left more issues open than it resolved. It was a unilateral initiative, so there was no coordinating the ‘what happens next’ with the Palestinians
response: How about they stop with the suicide bombings, teaching their children to be suicide bombers, lobbing rockets into Israel cities, having bad faith negotiations like the one in 2000 where they refused the very good deal.
2) Rather than test the Hamas capacity to govern responsibly and nurture Hamas further into the political arena and away from armed struggle, the U.S.-led international response was to hermetically seal-off Hamas, besiege Gaza, work to undemocratically overthrow the Hamas government
Response: I agree with the U.S. position. We took our position before the elections. It was clear that we would not deal with a terrorist organization as a governing power. They are not somebody you can sit down at the table with OR trade with OR allow to receive any money of any kind.
So… the article being flawed to it’s core pushed the blame on the U.S. as if Hamas being a terrorist organization is the U.S. or Israel’s fault. The poor serial murder was only doing what society made him do. It was all a “missed opportunity” by society. Blah blah blah. If I were you Truth. I’d never read an article there again – that’s what I’m doing. And mind you – I read a lot and from a lot of different sources. But when somebody wastes your time with that dribble you can only conclude that the rest of their writing is worthless.
3) Sadly it is too late for preventive action but there is an urgent need for a de-escalation that can lead to a new ceasefire
response: hmmm. that’s one opinion. What is needed is not a ceasefire but Hamas needs to step down and Palestinians need to stop teaching their children to suicide bomb. That is not happening on the Israel side. There cannot be negotiations (though Israel has tried) with people of such bad faith making such bad faith efforts. Terror is not an option. People with such hate cannot be allowed to become prosperous and gain access to bigger and bigger weaponry. National security and defense of one’s country is legitimate.
The article has the word neocon in it. How about I try to persuade you by calling you a liberal fascist. Works? 🙂 no. Next time you link an article try to make sure it has some basic common sense!
Palestinians continue to marginalize their own selves. Israel has had to do checkpoints and security borders and blow up tunnels and find and target headquarters for one reason – Palestinians terror.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010101932_pf.html
We are all just paranoid people…. really.
Why I generally don’t vote for Democrats as leaders:
1) http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/01/01/democratic-voters-do-not-support-israeli-air-strikes/#more-14436
Because they are not for national security generally.
2) Because every Democrat leader I know is racist – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Connerly
It is not acceptable to be in favor of discrimination or preferential treatment based on race. If government is going to be in the business of giving a hand-up then it should do so for all who are economically or socially disadvantaged…
3) Because Senate TaxPayer friends as awarded by the National TaxPayer Union tend NOT to be Democrats http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=151
sorry. I meant that to be in the new year’s thread.
They are for Iran’s national security, Baklava. And Russia’s.
waltj,
i found indonesian television very interesting (like clockwork orange for cigarettes)… i knew how bad it was while i just left jojakarta and was in jakarta and was watching obama and another describing jakarta as a paradise (as if it might be more like bali – which isnt a paradise to me. the mountains are better for my kind of happy).
Neo, I’ve tried posting something here 3 times, apparently without success. Don’t know if it’s something on your end or mine (probably the latter). Since all 3 postings are similar, could you delete the first two (after my 1 Jan 11:12 pm one) and keep the third? And delete this one as well? Thanks.
Neo, I’ve tried posting something here 3 times, apparently without success.
You used some prohibited “spam” word. I suggest you break your comments up in paragraphs and post them separately.