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Monday, January 05, 2009

PalArab news roundup

A Jordanian TV host burned an Israeli flag on the air.

Fatah came out with a statement condemning Hamas for targeting Fatah members in Gaza and telling its members to take proper precautions.

A Yemeni member of Parliament praised Al Jazeera's coverage of the Gaza operation, and slammed Al-Arabiya, saying "This Zionist channel is trying to highlight the Zionist and unfaithful voice and trying to find out excuses for the Jews. It represents the alien voice in media and performs the role of the devil in covering and defrauding the facts." Interestingly, Hamas has been using Al Arabiya to announce made-up claims of kidnapping and killing Israeli soldiers.

Meanwhile, Jordanian journalists slam both Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya as being too pro-Israel, by interviewing Israeli officials to "promote the Zionist perspective of the aggression and massacres." These journalists for Israel's peace partner helpfully add, "serving the Palestinian cause" during times of crisis is more important than journalistic codes of conduct.

An analysis in the Palestinian Arab Firas Press of European media's reactions to the Gaza operation takes comfort in Tikkun magazine's "Rabbi" Michael Lerner, who wrote for The Times of London that "it breaks my heart to see Israel's stupidity."

Israel resumed sending humanitarian aid through Kerem Shalom, and for the first time since the operation started managed to transfer fuel through the often-mortared Nahal Oz crossing, including aid from Jordan and Egypt.

A Palestinian taxi driver was "accidentally" shot dead in Nablus.

The Islamic Jihad mouthpiece newspaper Palestine Today now claims that 80% of the dead in Gaza are children! The percentage of truthful news in such a paper therefore can be determined to be somewhere around 20%.

There is a discrepancy in the count of victims of Gaza between the "hospital sources" quoted by newspapers worldwide and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which has a flawed but consistent methodology for counting. As of yesterday, when the worldwide media were claiming that there were over 500 people killed so far, the PCHR's count was at 424.