Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 11, 2006

AP TV: Inherent bias in all TV news against Israel (LGF)

Little Green Footballs published an amazing article describing the business model of Associated Press TV News, which provides raw video images to all major broadcasters in much the same way AP and Reuters provides raw photographs to newspapers.

It has many of the inherent problems that the wire services have that can skew the news for the pro-Arab agenda: hiring local stringers to take the video and providing their own descriptions of the events which may or may not be biased or even accurate. The subscribing news services like BBC, CNN and Fox decide what to air and how to describe it, but the basic information is provided by APTN.

The most troubling part, though, is that Arab states hire the same APTN to provide entire newscasts for them, not just clips. The same people who have to create news programs for Arab TV (with the biases that they require) are coworkers with the ones who provide the supposedly unbiased clips. This has two effects: the initial footage is slanted towards what Arab audiences want to see, and access to historic video has to be approved by APTN. As the author of the article mentions, this may be why the TV news never shows Palestinian celebrations of 9/11 or the Arab lynch mob in Ramallah in clips - AP may be refusing to allow such "sensitive" video to be rebroadcast.

Read the whole article. If the media's entire business model is skewed against impartiality, these things need to be exposed.

Thank you so much to those who made the original Elder Challenge a success. As you can see on the sidebar, between our sponsors and donors we have raised almost $5200 for Israeli charities so far.

Version 3 is a twist on the earlier matching programs. Donors can give to the charities of their choice as they usually do, and send (sanitized) receipts to me at elderchallenge -at- gmail.com.

I will list specific donations on the sidebar (anonymously, of course.) Anyone who wants to match an existing donation can then do so, and let me know.

So, for example, at one point in time we may see that someone donated $18 to Mogen Dovid Adom, someone else gave $36 to the One Israel Fund and a third gave $50 to Zaka. If you want to match any of these donations, just donate it yourself, send me the receipt telling me it was a matching donation, and I'll keep the totals updated and inform the original donor that their donation has been matched.

It is a little shticky but the point is, of course, to make sure that we keep the money going to those who need it.

If you want to donate to a different Israeli charity, feel free to do so - just make sure that it can be paid online, give us a web address and if people want to match, they can.

I will keep the two running totals on the sidebar of the amount donated and the amount matched.

I hope this isn't too confusing!

The new challenge starts immediately. We'll try for $1000 donated and another $1000 matched in the next 10 days, by August 21.

Thanks again to all who donated and especially for the generous people who sponsored Version 2 of the challenge!

!תזכו למצוות

Michigan Muslims threaten Jews, support terror

I wrote in May about how the Muslim community in Dearborn, Michigan was openly pro-Hezbollah. I also wondered last month whether there was active fundraising for terror in the same community.

NPR buries interesting details in the middle of a story about Lebanese-Americans:

New Support for Hezbollah
Osama Siblani runs the Arab-American News, America's largest such newspaper. He says the fighting is fueling anger in his community -- not at Hezbollah, but at the Bush administration.

"The anger that you see in the Arab community, you do not see in the eyes of the American community," says Siblani. "They're not viewing the same thing. And the perspective you get out of Jazeera or Arabiya, you do not get it out of Fox News or CNN."

Siblani says many in the community who opposed Hezbollah before the fighting have now changed their minds. The U.S. State Department has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Siblani disagrees.

"The terrorist here is the Bush administration," he says.

Daily Demonstrations

Daily protests occur in Dearborn. At one recent demonstration, organized by the Congress of Arab-Americans, about 1,000 people attended. College-age men asked, in call and response fashion, "Who is your army?" Protestors responded: "Hezbollah." "Who is your leader?" they were asked. "Nasrallah," the chanters responded. Many carried placards of the Hezbollah leader. A few days earlier at an even larger demonstration, more than 15,000 turned out, about half of Dearborn's Arab community.

Those who regularly attend the demonstrations tend to be the most strident.

"Oh, Jews, remember Khaibar," the marchers chant. "The army of the Prophet will return."

The line is a reference to Khaibar, a Jewish town north of Medina that, according to Islamic tradition, was overtaken by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Once defeated, the surviving Jews of Khaibar were forced into serfdom. Two decades later, they were expelled from the Arabian peninsula.

So half of the Dearborn Muslim community attends demonstrations with explicit death threats against Jews. NPR calls them "strident."

As usual, Debbie Schlussel is all over this story, and her regular reports covering the Muslim communities in Michigan are chilling.

One must also ask: if the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, how come the biggest terror supporters almost invariably come from the largest Muslim communities, and terrorists invariably hide in those same communities? One would think that the peaceful majority would have a moderating effect.

Does Hezbollah already own Lebanon?

I can't claim to be an expert on Lebanon's history or psyche. But what can one make of the following recent news items:

The Lebanese Prime Minister's comments are indistinguishable from Hezbollah's.
A poll claims that 87% of Lebanese now support Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Army allowed Hezbollah to import arms openly from Syria.

And then...

Hezbollah is interested in the plan where the Lebanese army replaces them south of the Litani river.

The only way this all makes sense is if Hezbollah is already confident that they own Lebanon, and therefore a Lebanese force at the border with Israel is synonymous with Hezbollah itself.

Lebanon is 60% Muslim and 40% Christian, so the Lebanon poll numbers may be considered suspect. But Hezbollah seems to have already established a network of fear, a modern Arab KGB, where politicians and the media are afraid to say anything that might upset them.

Lebanon may already be lost.

UPDATE: Meryl Yourish makes a similar point about Hezbollah and the Lebanese army, and adds evidence that the Lebanese army helped Hezbollah target the Israeli naval vessel in mid-July.

AP practically writing press releases for Hezbollah

Confederate Yankee writes a good essay about Hezbollah's media manipulation. Here's part:

Scan the photos coming out of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, and you'll see and unending stream of dramatic photos of dead women and children and anguished rescue workers climbing through the remains of bombed-out residential buildings, and you will see heart-rending photos of toys in the rubble. You will see mourning. You will see pain. You will see a civilian infrastructure in tatters.

What you will not see, except in very rare cases, is Hezbollah.

The "Party of God," well-known for their parades of armed masked men in the past, have vanished into the ether. You will see no Hezbollah fighters brandishing their weapons with bravado. You will see no photos of Hezbollah’s rocket launchers or rockets prepared to fire upon Israel’s civilian population. You will see no photographs of shattered launchers or weapons caches or even fighting aged men amid the rubble. The media itself quietly reports that anyone who does take such pictures may be killed, though you wouldn’t know it from the amount of attention that disturbing detail has received in the press.

Hezbollah is fighting the Victim's War, hiding behind civilians that they set up as targeted pawns by firing rockets from inside Lebanon's villages, cites, and towns, from outside apartment buildings, hospitals and schools in residential neighborhoods.

It is a war of cowards, largely covered by sympathetic Arab Muslim stringers and their Hezbollah minders who determine what can and what cannot be reported; a war in which the "professional" media is all too complicit.

Well, here are one of those rare cases, along with a caption that is so fawning that one almost has to assume that the author is on the Hezbollah payroll:

A Hezbollah volunteer carries pots and pans, as he passes next to bags full of food trays with rice before delivering them tosome of the hundreds of thousands of refugees now living in schools across the capital at a makeshift Hezbollah-run kitchen in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday Aug. 10, 2006. Even now, despite crippling Israeli airstrikes that have destroyed most of Hezbollah offices across the country, the guerrilla group is actively assisting in relief efforts. Hezbollah runs a sophisticated network of schools, clinics and social services deeply rooted in the Shiite Muslim community.(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hezbollah volunteers fill food trays with rice before delivering them to some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees now living in schools across the capital, at a makeshift Hezbollah-run kitchen in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday Aug. 10, 2006. Even now, despite crippling Israeli airstrikes that have destroyed most of Hezbollah offices across the country, the guerrilla group is actively assisting in relief efforts. Hezbollah runs a sophisticated network of schools, clinics and social services deeply rooted in the Shiite Muslim community.(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

This has been a Green Helmet production

A German TV magazine shows video of "Green Helmet Man" directing photographers and videographers in Qana, as well as staging multiple scenes with the same dead boy's body to get a better shot.

News you may have missed

Extremely rhetorical question

By now you've heard about the attempted mass murder terror attack that was stopped by Scotland Yard this morning.

Not quite as well known are the other Al-Qaeda terror attacks that have been stopped in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and North America.

Here's the question:

If Hezbollah wins a perceived victory in Lebanon, will this increase or decrease the number of Islamist terror attacks worldwide?

And the followup question:

How come the free world is refusing to act as if they know the answer to this question?

Abbas praises Hezbollah. Anyone shocked?

That famous Palestinian "moderate" is praising the group that aims thousands of rockets at innocent civilians - and which has so far killed many Arabs as well.

In an interview on al Arabiya TV on Sunday, the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas voiced strong support for "the resistance" in Lebanon. Abbas said that he and his people "definitely perceive the resistance in Lebanon as noble Arab resistance."

We have yet to see Abu Mazen ever condemn a terror attack against Jews on moral grounds.

Update on Hezbollah and UN human shields

Every day, Hezbollah fires rockets from near UNIFIL positions, as they try to avoid Israeli retaliation, or try to get Israel to fire on UN forces.

These are hardly ever reported.

Here are excerpts from the most recent five UNIFIL daily reports:

8/5:

There was one incident of Hezbollah firing rockets from the vicinity of the UN position in the general area of Tibnin.

8/6:

Three members of the Chinese contingent with UNIFIL were lightly wounded this morning, when one mortar round from the Hezbollah side, according to UNIFIL’s preliminary reports, impacted inside the Headquarters of the Chinese contingent in the area of Hinniyah in the western sector.

There were three incidents of Hezbollah firing rockets from the vicinity of UNIFIL positions in the general area of Tibnin, At Tiri and Bayt Yahun.

8/7:

There were two incidents of firing close to a UNIFIL position by Hezbollah in the area of Hula. In another incident yesterday, two missiles from an unknown source impacted in the vicinity of a UNIFIL logistic convoy in El
Addaisseh. This morning, Hezbollah fired rockets from the vicinity of the UN position in Tibnin, and the IAF carried out air strikes on the areas from which the fire originated. There were no injuries or damage to UNIFIL property.

8/8:

There were two incidents of firing from the Israeli side close to a UNIFIL position in the area of El Meri, and one incident of firing close to a UNIFIL position by Hezbollah in the area of Hula yesterday. In another incident yesterday, one rocket missiles from an unknown source impacted in the vicinity of a UNIFIL position in the area of Hinniyah. This morning, Hezbollah fired rockets from the vicinity of the UN position in Tibnin, and the IAF carried out air strikes on the areas from which the fire originated.

8/9:

Hezbollah fired rockets from the vicinity of UN positions in At Tiri and Tibnin.

A real uncomfortable question

Last week, Egyptian Sandmonkey caused some ripples in the blogosphere when he posted an informal poll of his friends in the wake of Qana:

I asked him what he would've thought, if a Hezbollah rocket had attacked a building in Israel, killing 55 civillians, of which 30 were children. He responded immeidtely "I would've thought it was great! A7san!".

So I repeated the same question to 8 other co-workers, and the responses so far have been as follows: 7 said they would celebrate, and 2 said that such an attack would've been bad, but justified! Yeah! Not a single person said that the death of any civllian, on either side, is an equal tragedy. Civillians dead on our side is tragic, civillian deaths on their side cause for celebration. And if you think I am being unfair or demonizing arabs or whatever, do me a favor and try it at your work place and/or with members of your family. Conduct this little social experiment and see for yourself. The results are very interesting.

I have a better question for our Arab and Islamic friends and neighbors:

If the Muslim world had the capability to turn all of Israel into a nuclear wasteland, killing millions of Jews (as well as Palestinian Arabs), and if such a land would be uninhabitable for decades or centuries because of the radioactivity, would it be worth it to get rid of Israel?

I think I know the answer. And it puts the entire conflict in an entirely different light than what one sees in the newspapers and TV.

Video of PalArabs using kids as human shields

This is a must-see video. (H/T Jameel.)

Apparently not all PalArab kids want to willingly be part of the action. But then again, maybe he promised his mother he'd keep an eye on Junior.

Also, this picture came out yesterday:

"Choose your Charity, Double your Donation" - Sponsors Needed!

The charity challenge that we've been sponsoring has resulted in nearly $5000 being given to various Israeli charities, thanks to our sponsors and the many donors who have been matching donations.

We would like to keep this going, so if you know any individual or organization who would be willing to sponsor this challenge going forward ($500 and up), please have them email me at elderchallenge -at- gmail.com.

Thanks so much!

Tonight's fake news photo update

Zombietime has one of the better roundups of the photo fraud that is being exposed - from Reuters and the New York Times.

This is a major, and much-needed, blow to the arrogant mainstream media.

Meanwhile, in Tehran...

The Iranians seem ready to thumb their noses at any Western economic sanctions over Iranian nukes:

Tehran, 8 August (AKI) - by Ahmad Rafat - Iran has practically rejected a UN security council resolution threatening economic sanctions if it fails to suspend uranium enrichment by 31 August. And as a document obtained by Adnkronos International (AKI) suggests, Iran means to show how much the West has to loose [sic] if a boycott is imposed.

The 11-page document prepared by authorities in Tehran offers an analysis of Iran's economic relations with Western countries using data from Iran's central bank, the Bank Markazi. The document rethorically poses as its main question: "who will have the courage to boycott the Islamic Republic?"

Europe would lose some 13 billion euros in exports and 10 billion in imports a year, mainly in gas and petrol, the document estimates.

As far as Italy, Iran's main commercial partner in Europe is concerned, cutting ties with Iran would bring a loss amounting to two annual budgets, a fact recognised recently by Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema.

Relations between the Islamic Republic and the West however are not limited to commercial exchanges.

Iran has debts worth 27 billion dollars with European banks. Moreover, the Iranian government has 25 billion dollars deposited in banks in Europe which could be withdrawn any time soon, causing significant debts.

Ten major oil companies including Italy's ENI have invested 15 billion dollars in South Pars, the world's largest gas field in the Persian Gulf off Iran. China has signed investment accords in the energy sector worth 25 billion dollars.

Finally, the document talks about the 'oil weapon'. Today 40 oil companies, including three from Italy, import every day 2.5 million barrels of crude oil. Japan, with its 541,000 barrels imported each day, would be the hardest hit.

The economy of South Korea, whose exports to Iran in the past three years totalled 26 billion dollars, would be hugely damaged by a boycott on Tehran.

Overall, experts who drafted the document eestimated that were Iran to stop exporting crude oil and gas, the price of oil a barrel would amount to a minimum of 100 dollars but could reach 125 dollars.

Nothing would benefit the Western world more than $125/barrel oil. If that would happen, alternate fuels would become instantly affordable in comparison, which would help stop the petrodollar-fueled terror threat, as well as reduce pollution.

And Iran would stand to lose far more from sanctions than the West.

But shortsightedness will rule the day, as usual, and when Iran has the bomb there will be very little pleasure in "I told you so"s.