Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Phillies, Obama and Israel

I became a Phillies fan when the Philadelphia Phillies were pretty much the worst team in baseball.

In 1972, the Phillies ended up in last place in their division. Their lineup consisted of forgettable players who I was enamored with, like Roger Freed and Denny Doyle in the starting lineup.

The Phillies' ugly 59-97 record is most remarkable because a full 27 of those wins were due to a single pitcher, Steve Carlton, who racked up an amazing 27-10 record that season with an inept team. If it wasn't for Carlton, this team may have indeed been the worst ever. (And I remember being incensed after the 1971 season when the Phillies traded my favorite pitcher, Rick Wise, to St. Louis for Carlton, now recognized as one of the most lopsided trades in history.)

It is easy to be a Phillies fan today, as they are leading the World Series. It was much harder to be a fan in the early 1970s.

It is likewise easy in today's political environment to be considered "pro-Israel." Forgetting the infamous "Israel lobby," any US politician can easily claim to be pro-Israel. This is because positions that would have been considered anti-Israel only a few years ago have morphed into Israeli policy under the Kadima banner.

The idea that a Palestinian Arab state would somehow automatically bring peace, the idea that Israel is the only party that needs to make permanent concessions, the idea that the Saudi "peace plan" is seriously worth considering, the idea that Israel must give up the strategic Golan Heights on the one border that has been the most peaceful since 1973, the idea that abandoning the Shebaa Farms will magically make Hezbollah love Israel, the idea of talking with Syria, the idea of dividing Jerusalem, the idea of willingly giving up almost all major Jewish shrines - all considered patently ridiculous by mainstream Israeli politicians of all persuasions in relatively recent times - are now considered sacrosanct. The ideas of Israel's loony left have been co-opted as mainstream by a government that has no mandate, no support, and utter disregard for the wishes of ordinary Israelis.

If the Government of Israel holds these positions, how can they be considered anti-Israeli?

Israel's government has adopted the worldview of the European Left that "occupation" is the primary evil in the region and that surrendering land will inevitably bring peace. Giving Gaza to Hamas brought unprecedented (albeit temporary) levels of support from Europe - and unprecedented numbers of rockets to Sderot. Israel's reclaiming of victim status boosted its popularity among those who feel that strength is inherently immoral.

In such an environment, it is easy to claim to be pro-Israel while advocating positions that would seriously erode Israel's security and virtually eliminate Jewish sovereignty over her own holiest sites.

But as in baseball, the true test of friendship is how one acts when the other party is not so popular.

Every poll for the past couple of years shows that Likud, not Kadima, would win a general election. And Likud is not considered a "winner" in the eyes of the world. On the contrary, the word "Likud" conjures up adjectives that the media has hammered into the world's consciousness - adjectives like "hard-line," "intransigent," and "hawkish." To be pro-Likud, according to conventional wisdom, is to be against peace.

The question isn't which candidate for president supports the Israeli policies that are designed to appeal to world public opinion. It is which candidate would support the Israeli policies that a democratic Israel would support.

The answer to this question is certainly not Barack Obama.

Obama started his political career as highly supportive of an "even-handed" policy between a democratic, peace-thirsty state and people who to this day overwhelmingly support terror attacks. His friendships with radical Palestinian Arab intellectuals are well documented. Only when Obama considered running for national office did his public positions tilt towards Israel. As the co-founder of Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah says:

Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front." He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, "Keep up the good work!"

In an unguarded moment, Obama stated what he felt about the Likud in February:

This is where I get to be honest and I hope I’m not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I’ve seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn’t talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we’re going to have problems moving forward.

In this quote, Obama betrays his opinion that the Likud - the party that orchestrated the peace treaty with Egypt - is purely militaristic and warmongering.

How would he act towards a Likud government, a very real possibility? His statement indicates that his "pro-Israel" posture is one that conveniently follows the liberal ideas that the only obstacle to peace is Israeli reticence to give back more and more land.

Yes, it is easy to say that you are pro-Israel when the Israeli government has been acting out of the same fear of terrorism as the EU, but how will he act when an Israeli government returns to power that is willing to fight terrorism, despite the criticism of the media and liberals? When Obama reportedly said that "the Israelis must be crazy not to accept" the Saudi "peace plan" that would turn Israel back into a nine-mile wide strip of land, where Ben Gurion Airport and Tel Aviv would be in Qassam rocket range, perhaps it may be considered "pro-Israel" in context of the reprehensible policies of Kadima, but is it pro-Israel according to the majority of Israel's citizens?

I have no problem with people rooting for the Phillies today who have hated them in the past, but I would not call those people "friends of the Phillies." They would just be considered opportunists, not friends. And that is how Barack Obama appears when it comes to Israel.

The US gave $700M to PA this year - so far

From IHT:

The U.S. has transferred $150 million to the Palestinians, exceeding its original pledge of aid to the moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank.
U.S. consul General Jake Walles says Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad asked for the additional assistance last month to help with the Palestinian budget.

A statement from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem says American aid to the Palestinians in 2008 now totals over $700 million and exceeds the amount the U.S. pledged at a donors conference in December 2007.

We have already seen that 60% of the PA budget goes to Gaza, where Hamas benefits from the world's largess towards Palestinian Arabs.

So this year the US has effectively given Hamas $420 million this year.

Condoleeza must be so proud!

Do you think that any of the people who pretend to care about US aid to Israel are going to complain when huge amounts are given to Israel's enemies?

Murder of an 86-year old: "Heroic operation"

Palestine Today, a newspaper associated with Islamic Jihad, shows unanimous praise for this morning's terrorist murder of an 86-year old man in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem.

A number of Palestinian factions agreed unanimously that the Gilo attack in the occupied city of Jerusalem carried out by a Palestinian from the city of Bethlehem that it comes within the framework of the natural response to Israeli crimes which have increased in recent times against our people in the city of Acre, and the right of the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The factions blessed this heroic operation to "Palestine Today," which comes to confirm that all security measures taken by the occupation authorities in the occupied West Bank and the city of Jerusalem will not discourage resistance to reach its objectives, nor will it discourage our people from the lifting of oppression and injustice themselves.

Daoud Shihab, leader of the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine, said the Jerusalem attack was a natural reaction to crimes of the occupation in the city of Jerusalem and other towns and villages in the occupied West Bank.

For its part, Hamas considered the incident to be a natural response to occupation practices in the city of Jerusalem itself.

The movement spokesman Ayman Taha said attempts by the occupation government and troops to deter resistance and the displacement of the population of Jerusalem and annex land to build settlements are doomed to fail, to the insistence of the Palestinians to continue resistance and jihad.

He added: "The occupation authorities take repressive measures every day against the population of the city of Jerusalem before and after a heroic operation, while noting that such measures will not discourage our people to continue in the path of resistance and liberation."

The Popular Resistance Committees said the heroic Gilo attackcame after increased Judaization of Jerusalem, and building Jewish synagogues in the Al-Aqsa mosque.

PRC spokesman Abu Mujahid said that any Palestinian and Muslim can not afford to see Msarri Allah bless him and the Jews, and defiles, adding that the process of "Gilo" came to make sure that a popular uprising against the occupation and the policy of arrogance is still on the table and will address all repressive measures in Jerusalem and the occupied city of Acre.

Abu Mujahid said that the occupation does not stop their continuing psychological war after each operation in occupied Jerusalem and threatening the demolition of houses and the withdrawal of citizenship and the displacement of the population, stressing that this war will not stop and heroic martyrdom operations may hit everywhere and at any time.

I commented in July about how the world doesn't consider it strange that Arabs consider murder to be "natural."

Terror attack in Jerusalem; Ma'an gets facts backwards

There was a terror attack this morning in Jerusalem where an Arab stabbed a policeman and a 86-year old man. The terrorist was shot by the injured policeman, and he then stabbed the older man to death before being arrested.

The Palestinian Arab news outlet Ma'an, naturally, gets the basic facts wrong. For the past hour both its Arabic and English sites are still saying that the attacker was shot to death by Israeli police, and its adds some more fanciful fiction as well:

Israeli police then shot the attacker, killing him. One eyewitness reported that the man was detained before he was shot.

Even the version updated at 12:50 PM does not include the fact that the victim died, which was reported an hour beforehand, nor that the attacker is still alive in serious condition but conscious.

Providing yet another example of how even the most Westernized of Palestinian Arab media is filled with baldfaced lies.

Jordanian poet arrested for apostasy

That moderate Arab friend of ours, Jordan, has just arrested a poet for "apostasy" two weeks after Jordan's Grand Mufti declared the artist as an "enemy of Islam."

The poet, 27-year old Islam Samhan, published a collection of his poems eight months ago. Only recently has this been noticed by the Grand Mufti, and Jordan now says that this publication was "illegal" as every published work must be registered with Jordan's Press and Publication Department. Samhan claims that it was registered.

All this comes as something of a surprise to Samhan, whose book, In a Slim Shadow, published eight months ago, is a collection of his best work over the past decade. The ministry of culture even bought 50 copies.

The offensive poems include:

One that compares the poet's loneliness to that of the biblical Joseph, called Yusuf in the Quran. (This one is the one that caught the Mufti's attention.)

In a second, Samhan has a character address God, which his critics say personifies God.

In another the woman is talking to God while lying beneath a see-through sheet. Samhan said he was referring to the gods of Greek mythology.

Again, this is not Saudi Arabia or Iran. This is the Jordan that is often described in the Western media as "cosmopolitan" with a thriving nightlife - and a plethora of massage parlors.

It is instructive that the Mufti made his accusations weeks ago, on literature published months ago, after the author has publicly read from his works to acclaim. Jordan's authorities clearly felt pressure from the religious establishment to cave to 7th century theocratic mores.

PalArab news roundup

An Islamic Jihad terrorist was accidentally killed during "training exercises" in Gaza.

A mortar was shot from Gaza to Israel on Tuesday night.

Hamas claims to have stopped an assassination attempt again one of their leaders in Gaza. "Unknown persons" tried to set a remote-controlled bomb near the leader's house.

A union leader says that Hamas has so far closed some 450 medical clinics in Gaza since the doctor strike started a couple of months ago. Still no word from Doctors Without Borders.

A breakaway Fatah movement has started in Syria called Fatah Uprising. Not surprisingly, this wing of the Fatah movement rejects all attempts at a peaceful resolution.

There is a tomato shortage in the West Bank. The reason? Jews were buying West Bank tomatoes at higher prices for the Sukkot holiday, tripling the prices. Even when Palestinian Arab farmers get rich from Jews, the story at Ma'an gets twisted as if Jews are forcing Palestinian Arab families to starve.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 202.

It looks like Rice really did praise Hamas

In a story that I've been following for nearly two weeks, it appears that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice may have really sent a message to Hamas that praised them for their actions. From Al Jazeera:

The US state department has denied that Condoleezza Rice, the country's secretary of state, sent a message to Hamas' senior political adviser praising the Palestinian movement for its halt in firing rockets into Israel.

The so-called "verbal communication" between the US and Khaled Meshaal is said to have been received this month through mediators visiting the Gaza Strip.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the message also stated US support for the inter-Palestinian dialogue mediated by Egypt.

Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said Hamas is not denying that communications with the US have taken place.

However, the organisation has said that they have not received anything official from the US, she said.

"I would like to inform you that your maintenance of the ceasefire is an absolute Palestinian interest and will be for the benefit of the people of Gaza and of course Hamas, which seized control of the strip," Rice was quoted by Ma'an, a Palestinian news agency, as saying.

"I would also like to commend the measures you have taken to protect the borders with Israel and prevent extremist terrorists from launching rockets at the south of the Jewish state," the message continued.

"I feel it is important for Hamas to be ready to renounce terrorism and to seriously consider living peacefully in two states, side by side in peace and security, allowing both the Israeli and Palestinian sides to live in peace and prosperity.

"I hope this can be the beginning of greater communication with Hamas, after your assimilation into the negotiation process and acceptance of the Quartet committee's demands."

Abu Marzouk said that Hamas considers the message a "recognition" of its existence, although the US still labels Hamas as a "terrorist" organisation.

Ahmed Youssef, a senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed Palestinian prime minister and a key Hamas member, told the Al Ahram newspaper that the message does not herald a massive change in the current relationship between Hamas and the US.

"It certainly reflects the US administration's sense that the justifications upon which it has long grounded its antagonism towards Hamas and the Palestinian resistance are crumbling," he said.
According to Al Ahram, a source in the Haniyeh government said that communications have been taking place for more than a year between his government and the office of Tony Blair, the Quartet's Midde East envoy.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, the former Palestinian foreign minister from Hamas, confirmed that Hamas had received a message from Rice.

But "this cannot be regarded as a turning point in relations between the US administration and Hamas", he said.

Odeh said these messages are not new.

"Previous US administrations have constantly tried to nudge isolated political parties into mainstream politics," she said.

"It also indicates that the US government cannot deny the influence of Hamas in the region."

The US denials do not ring true - calling it "unofficial" gives plausible deniability - and the contents sound like State Department-speak to make this sound legit.

One more holiday

Home stretch on the holidays - here in the Diaspora we have two more days, for Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

Play nicely and have a good Yom Tov! I hope to be back Wednesday night.

Iran fears "spy pigeons"

From AFP (h/t Global Freezing):

Security forces in Natanz have arrested two suspected "spy pigeons" near Iran's controversial uranium enrichment facility, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper reported on Monday.
One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that some metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird.
"Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings," the source was quoted as saying of the second pigeon.
The source gave no further description of the pigeons, neither their current status nor what their fate will be.

Good job, Zionist psy-ops! While you send the obvious pigeons to be caught, the real nano-technology spy gnats are gathering up petabytes of information!

Open thread

Here is how the New York Times described the current Jewish holidays in 1897. (Click to enlarge.)

Somewhat better than the 1902 description in this Colorado newspaper!

Odds and ends (updated)

Self-death number 200: An 18-year old Palestinian Arab was electrocuted in a tunnel Saturday night.

Flying pig moment: Ha'aretz quotes residents of Judea and Samaria in saying that Palestinian Arabs destroy their own olive groves and blame it on settlers:

"They benefit twice," he said. "Cutting the trees down benefits the groves, and they also benefit financially because the damage supposedly was caused by settlers."

Lieberman also recalled how leftists "torpedoed" an agreement between residents of the Itamar settlement and their Arab neighbors.

"Village representatives would have gone to the community and, along with Itamar residents, evaluated the crops' yield, and determined the sum Palestinians would receive for the harvest. The extreme left prevented this," he said.

Lieberman admits, however, that the so-called "hilltop youth" of the surrounding outposts often clash with the farmers.

"If we don't protect the individual rights of the Palestinians, our neighbors we will break our hold and our roots in Judea and Samaria. We have an interest in maintaining what belongs to them, and what belongs to us. They are human beings, and we must deal with them as with human beings," he said.

Orit Struk, the head of Judea and Samaria Human Rights Group, said the media's treatment of confrontations between settlers and Palestinians is hypocritical.

"More than a year ago we released a document describing hundreds of instances of Palestinians harming Jewish farmers and their property. The media wasn't interested at all, and the police weren't exactly excited either," she said.

Proving once again that Israeli "extremists" are people who want to live in peace with their neighbors, and Palestinian Arab "extremists" are people who want to blow up their Jewish neighbors.

Two PalArab women tried to commit suicide.

First there were reports that Condi Rice sent a message to Hamas praising them for the "calm," then Hamas denied it. Now Hamas says she did send a message through Arab foreign ministers, but not to praise them, apparently.

UPDATE:

Al-Azhar University is closing for the third time in a week because Hamas is attacking people there with bombs and guns. Ho hum.

A man in his twenties was found dead in Gaza of multiple gunshot wounds. Must be the Zionists' fault! (The 2008 PalArab self-death count rises to 201.)

And here's the latest news from "Jewish extremists," according to Firas Press:

They tried to go to the Temple Mount armed with - shudder - prayerbooks!

How extreme can you get?

Hello, world. Yahooers have noticed me.

Although I can't find any links, apparently Yahoo decided to link my critique of a Reuters article yesterday to many news articles today, bringing a couple of thousand of new readers. You can see some of them commented on the piece, some making more sense than others.

One of them caught my eye, because he copied my entire posting onto his blog as well. (He also commented.) In his blog, he doesn't bother to answer any of my points, apparently assuming that his audience will understand that I am a complete idiot just from my own words. He only comments with this unassailable logic:

Israel has to be the biggest nation of self-indulgent whiners, narcissists and gun wielding paranoid thugs on the planet.
And delusional to boot.

Sure enough, his audience rises to the occasion, with his first commenter posting this brilliant analysis:

Ok folks, i don't like to boast about myself a lot, because i like to be as humble as i can, i am not smart, nor a scientist nor a psychologist. However i think that am a very instinct-oriented person, and my instincts and senses tell me that Israelites want to control a great part of the world, if not the whole world.

He also has a graphic on his site to boycott Israeli goods and claiming that you can tell what products are made in Israel by UPC code, which even Muslim boycotters have found out is simply not true. But since he defines himself as being part of a "fact based reality" I suppose that this is irrelevant.

Anyway, this person also threw in this gem in his comment:

Funny, but I can't help but to remember that before Israel came into existence, the US had NO enemies in the ME.

Which is really funny, because the US had enemies in the Middle East since the 18th century!

Reuters again trivializes Israel's security concerns

More anti-Israel bias from Reuters, from a couple of days ago:

Filet mignon menu brightens fearsome West Bank wall

It might be a while before some future U.S. president prevails on Israel to "tear down this wall," so Palestinian restaurateur Joseph Hazboon printed his menu on it instead...in waterproof colors.
When Israel ran a towering concrete "security barrier" past the window of the Hazboon family's Bethlehem property a few years ago, it seemed liked the kiss of death commercially.

But Hazboon, 35, hit on the idea of transforming what was now a highly undesirable location into a lucrative attraction.

He renamed the place "The Wall Lounge" and, judging by the results, the setting is surprisingly popular with tourists.
...The barrier is made of razor wire-tipped fences, walls of the sort that block the sound from motorways, and mightier sections of concrete panels similar to those that East Germany once used to seal off the West, complete with watchtowers.
...Like the Berlin Wall, which Ronald Reagan famously demanded be torn down, the Israeli barrier has attracted artists, poets, spraypaint taggers and jokers, whose colorful works take some of the menace out of its hard gray concrete slabs.

Reuters again downplays Israeli reasons for building the fence, putting "security barrier" in scare quotes as if that could hardly be the reason Israel built the wall.

And taking its cue from the worst Israel bashers, Reuters explicitly compares the barrier to the Berlin Wall, when it is the exact opposite. The Berlin Wall was built by communist East Germany to stop East Germans from defecting to the West; the people it was meant to stop were the people seeking freedom. The people that Israel's barrier is meant to stop are terrorists. The barrier, over 90% of which is a fence, is meant to keep bad people out, not good people in. The sections that are concrete also help stop Palestinian Arab snipers from targeting Israeli citizens.

The comparison to the Berlin Wall is odious and obscene, and the positive results of the barrier are undeniable. In the three years before and while Israel started building the fence (2001-2003) about 450 Israelis were murdered in suicide bombing attacks alone; in the three years from 2005-2007 the number went down to 41. In 2002 alone the number of suicide bomb victims was 220; if it wasn't for the barrier and other Israeli countermeasures that are also roundly criticized there is no reason to think that we wouldn't be seeing hundreds such deaths every year.

As usual, the wire service trivializes Israeli security concerns - and real-life examples of the hundreds of lives that have been saved - and emphasizes the undeniable but comparatively minimal inconvenience to Palestinian Arabs that the barrier brings. (It also happens to be inconvenient to many Israelis, as are the checkpoints that Israelis have to endure in their daily lives when going to malls and other popular bombing targets, but that will never be reported.)

It would have been possible for Reuters to report on Joseph Hazboon's restaurant and his use of the wall in an accurate, fair and entertaining manner without its clear bias against legitimate Israeli security concerns. But why would Reuters want to do that?

Reuters blames Israel, again

Here's today's textbook example of Reuters' bias:

Harvesting olives is a laborious process, not made easier if teargas is drifting over the groves as it does most Fridays here in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli-Palestinian clashes are almost ritual.

Since this is the first paragraph of the article, it sets the tone for the piece: Israelis fire tear gas and Palestinian Arab farmers therefore cannot harvest their crops.

One has to read the entire article, and parse out the bias, to see the truth.

"This happens two or three times a week maybe. But with an emphasis on Fridays," says Ram Kaho, an Israeli border police officer whose squad of 40 patrols one of the many fault-lines on the tense interface between the two communities.

Kaho's sector is where the Jewish settlement of Hashmonaim rubs up close to the Arab village of Nilin -- soon to be cut off by the barrier Israel is building in the valley between.

So Reuters is saying that the problem is both Jews having the audacity of living near Arabs, which is of course considered provocative, and Jews wanting to separate from Arabs with a fence, which is considered a violation of international law. Either way, the Arabs can't be blamed for anything.

"This is an especially difficult place," he says. "In relation to other places we have lots of injuries. So it's a very problematic area."

Injuries? From what? Reuters has not yet told us. The only people at fault mentioned so far are Jews, so perhaps they are injuring themselves?

Israeli settlements on occupied land in the West Bank are perhaps the most contentious issue in the way of a peace settlement with the Palestinians ending decades of conflict.

This has been repeated so often that most people cannot notice the obvious absurdity: settlements don't stop peace; terrorism is what stops peace. Before the current Intifada, Israelis and Palestinian Arabs visited each other, shopped in each others' villages, and worked together, and the settlements weren't a factor in real-life interactions.

The Nilin clashes have been going on for about a year.

Again, we have yet to be told what exactly happens in these "clashes."

In 2004, the World Court in The Hague ruled that Israel's proposed 720-km (430-mile) barrier on occupied Palestinian land -- begun in 2002 -- was illegal.

Israel says the barrier, a mix of wire fence and concrete walls, keeps suicide bombers out of its cities.

But why believe them? Just because the number of successful suicide bombings has decreased dramatically since the barrier was started? Nah, it is just an unverified claim. And why should Israel's claim that lives are being saved be more important than a non-binding court ruling?

When Kaho's police hear the Friday Muslim call to prayer from the hill opposite, they brace for action. They are sure that as soon as prayers are over, some Palestinians backed by international activist supporters, will begin throwing rocks.

Rocks? Who said anything about rock throwing? No, in Reuters' universe, the (potentially lethal) rocks that are thrown at Israelis is in paragraph 9, but the (non-lethal) tear gas that Israel shoots in return is in paragraph 1. Causality is a bit less than obvious.

...Half-way up the hill, a couple of young Palestinian men and their father perch on ladders, stripping blue-black olives from a tree onto canvasses spread on the ground below.

They seem oblivious of the flying whiz and exploding pop of tear-gas canisters just up the slope. But the breeze soon blows acrid fumes over the small stony terrace of ochre soil where they are working.

Would anyone even dare to suggest that if the protesters would stop throwing rocks that perhaps there wouldn't be any tear gas? Or is the IDF more active against the olive harvesters?

"There would be more of us here harvesting, normally, but the soldiers make us go away. And we send our young kids home," said one of the men, who declined to give his name.

Ah, we have someone here saying that Israel stops the olive pickers. Sometimes. Although not when any reporter is around.

The protesters are no match for the Israelis, who have automatic weapons and armoured jeeps. Three Palestinians have been shot dead in the West Bank over the past four days, for aiming firebombs at troops, the army says.

The first sentence implies that only Israel uses deadly force and sets up the "David and Goliath" myth. The second sentence follows through, saying that Israel kills protesters, only incidentally mentioning that the "protesters" had deadly weapons themselves. The entire paragraph is structured to make Israel look as aggressive as possible and to give it no reason to defend itself against firebombs - perhaps because the IDF has jeeps?

"Here we really, really try to avoid any use of lethal force," says Kaho. He relies on an arsenal of gas and stun grenades, or "shock weapons" as he calls them, to keep the stone-throwing attackers at bay.

Here we start to get a little balance - when most readers have already moved to the comics page. The major part of the article demonizing Israel is finished, now Reuters can pretend to be fair. Allow that Israel tries to avoid using lethal force after accusing Israel of killing protesters for little reason.

The olive harvesters are allowed to get on with their work but when the protesters mingle among them "we start to worry".

You mean that the protesters - many from nowhere near the area - are perhaps the problem? You mean that the Palestinian Arab farmers would be allowed to harvest their olives without any problem if it wasn't for these outside troublemakers who encourage stone throwing and firebombs? Would real journalists perhaps try to expand upon this just a little bit?

Nah - that would place blame on someone other than Israel, and that just is not an acceptable position for this article. Move along, nothing to see here.

Many facts are here in this article, but Reuters skillfully highlights some and backpedals others to give an impression that is opposite the truth. Not that this is a great piece of writing anyway; it meanders between the tear gas, the olive pickers and the barrier, and it ignores the protesters almost completely. Since this is a "feature" article one would expect it to be a bit more expansive and organized, but that would defeat the theme of Israel's culpability.

Gaza tunnels exposed!

Every journalist and their brothers have been filing stories from the Gaza tunnel industry, so the Islamic Jihad-leaning Palestine Today joined the party.

After a number of photographs of two masked men transporting their booty from Egypt to Gaza, we finally get a chance to see what life-saving goods they brought for the starving Gazans stuck in their concentration-camp conditions. Medicines? Wheat? Rice?

Let's look a little closer....

So this is what they are starving for! The great taste of Gotcha!, a big hit of wafer layers, delicious caramel and crispy cereals in real milk chocolate!

Gotcha! - the official candy bar of Gaza tunnel rats!