Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 27, 2007

Another example of Reuters pro-terrorist bias

Reuters dispatched a photographer to one of those ubiquitous "press conferences" in Gaza yesterday, but instead of the usual pictures of ski-masked terrorists, they took a number of pictures of fully masked female terrorist wannabes:

Female Palestinian militants (with white scarves) from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades arrive at a news conference in Gaza April 26, 2007.

But nowhere can one find an actual Reuters article about the topic of the press conference, and why women with guns were there.

You would need to search a bit harder to see what the press conference was about (via UPI):

GAZA, April 26 (UPI) -- Palestinian women activists are publicly joining the ranks of militant suicide bombers and have threatened Israel should its forces attack the Gaza Strip.

Four masked women said Thursday in a news conference in Gaza they were human bombs ready to blow themselves up inside Israel and at other unexpected Israeli targets. They identified themselves as activists from four military units affiliated with the nationalist Fatah movement, of which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a leading member.

The women, dressed in military fatigues, said they were ready to respond to the Israeli threats to invade the Gaza Strip, adding they have established an operations room to "confront the Israeli aggression." They urged all the other factions to join them in expanding the operations for "coordination, confrontation and to direct painful blows to the occupation."

Palestinian factions have recently appealed to young women to join their military ranks, and several have announced female brigades.

Reuters attended a press conference where women, recruited by the "moderate" Fatah, promised to blow themselves up. Yet, even though they took pictures showing them with guns, they refrained from pointing out that the women were wearing bomb belts as well (AP mentioned it), and that they promised to kill Jews to enter Paradise. They didn't bother mentioning that Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas, the darling of the wishful-thinking brigade.

In other words, because the fact that these women terrorists do not fit the liberal media playbook of "Fatah=good, Hamas=bad, Palestinian Arab women=innocent victims of Israeli aggression", Reuters deliberately chose not to report the story.

More proof of media bias in Gaza

Yesterday I wrote about how everyone admits that the media coverage in Gaza is overwhelmingly tilted to make Palestinian Arabs look as sympathetic as possible. Journalism, in Gaza, has a clear agenda and the reporters play their parts perfectly.

Further proof can be seen from this article about a Gaza-based photographer who just won a $15,000 award for a photograph of a dead child at a funeral in Gaza:

A PALESTINIAN photographer for AFP has won an Arab award for a picture of the funeral of a Palestinian child killed during an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip.

Mahmud Hams, 27, a native of Rafah, bagged the prize for photography of the Arab Journalism Awards handed out by Dubai Press Club at the end of a two-day Arab media forum in Dubai on Wednesday.

The US$15,000 prize "is a boost which will prompt me to work with more enthusiasm", said Hams. "I am happy to be able to convey the Palestinian people's daily reality."

If one looks at the news photo archive at Yahoo (which cover the past month) we can see all of the photos that Mahmoud Hams took. Here is the breakdown (not counting older file photos or non-Gaza photos):

Palestinian Arab political figures making speeches: 2
PalArabs seeking shelter after sewage flood: 2
Grieving relatives after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza: 7

How does Hams cover stories that could possibly put Palestinian Arabs in a poor light? He manages to make them look heroic anyway!

There was a crippling garbage worker strike in Gaza this month, and there were piles of garbage everywhere rotting in the streets. But the only Hams photo that mentions the strike is this one:

A Palestinian boy stands in front of blaze from garbage piled up in a street in Gaza City during a general strike by municipality workers.(AFP/Mahmud Hams)

There were many murders in Gaza over the past month, and security is nonexistent. So how does Hams cover this story?

Palestinian Hamas militants hold up their weapons while attending a press conference in Gaza City, 2006. The Palestinian government on Saturday voted to implement a security plan aimed at restoring order in the Palestinian territories and unifying diverse security forces.(AFP/File/Mahmud Hams)

And the generic cute kid picture, flying that wonderful flag of theirs:

What pictures are missing?

Considering that during the past month, Gazans managed to be outkilled by PalArabs compared to by Israelis by a ratio of roughly 30-6, one would expect pictures of dead bodies from clan clashes, or wailing relatives, or perhaps people injured in infighting. A family carried a corpse into a PA government building and shot the place up - where was Hams? A 5-year old girl was shot in the head, two 12-year old boys were killed - where was Hams? Police attacked 5 PalArab journalists - where was Hams? A Christian bookstore was bombed in Gaza - where was Hams? Video stores and libraries were burned down - where was Hams?

Apparently, in the alternate Gaza universe that Hams and his journalist friends choose to show the world, we not include such unpleasant topics. And what editor can resist a picture of smiling Palestinian Arab kids waving flags - when they have no other pictures to show?

UPDATE: Dave at Israellycool had noted a similar award, for a similar picture, also given to Hams two weeks ago where Hams actually "dedicated the prize to Palestinian martyrs."

Given that, I believe that "bias" is not an accurate word when referring to Hams - it is "propaganda." (I also believe that "opportunistic" is another accurate adjective, but journalists and photographers always seem to do their work with one eye towards receiving awards, actively seeking out pathos at the expense of fairness.)

Sderock

Imagine a place where there is poverty, where you are in danger of being killed every time you step outside, where it seems like even your own people don't care about you outside of empty slogans.

If you are the Western media and this is Gaza, you would expect that the natural reaction to this numbing situation is violence - joining terror gangs, marching with AK-47s and rocket launchers.

But the people in the Israeli town of Sderot react somewhat differently:

The underground Israeli pop-rock music scene seems to start here, in a bomb shelter set in the center of town.
It does not matter how loudly the teenagers hammer at their drums or pluck at the guitars; the metal walls that are meant to protect residents from incoming rockets also work as a sound barrier for the funky music.

It is not unusual for Israeli towns to turn shelters into community centers of some sort. But Sderot, barely a mile from the Gaza Strip, is one of the few cities where such shelters are still used with frequency.

And in Sderock, as the shelter-turned-music-studio is called, the teenagers grapple with the dueling realities that have made the city famous: the music that comes out of it and the rockets that come into it.

"This is the safest fun place in the city," said Nir Oliel, a 21-year-old resident, who has played guitar for several years. "It is also where everyone great came from."

In the Israeli public consciousness, Sderot is a place of poverty and danger. It has been barraged by more than 4,000 rockets in the past six years, including nearly 200 since November's shaky cease-fire. Six people have died and dozens of homes have been damaged.

Yet Sderot is also the hometown of a pop-culture hero of the moment: Kobi Oz, lead singer of Teapacks, the Israeli pick for the popular Eurovision song contest. ...
Oz, with two platinum albums in Israel, is by far the most successful musician to come out of Sderot, but he is hardly alone. He got his start with Sfatayim (Hebrew for "lips"), a band composed of young artists from Sderot who played Moroccan music. On Israeli radio, it is possible to hear more than half a dozen bands from this city, quite a feat for a place with a population around 25,000.

The musicians who grew up in the 1980s are the children of immigrants from North Africa and other parts of the Middle East. They blended guitar and drum with oud (a stringed instrument) and darbukah (a goatskin-covered drum) to create what critics called ethnic pop. Those who perform it say it is simply Israeli.

But it is a particular kind of Israeli, reflecting the sort of chip-on-the-shoulder attitude that many children here grow up with, convinced that the wealthier European Jews in the bigger cities like Tel Aviv look down on them....
"Don't Break," a song one group recorded for Independence Day celebrations this week, focuses on their sense of defiance and fear: "We won't break, we won't be afraid," the chorus goes.

And then:

How does the state abandon?

This war, who is extending his hand?

They do nothing, when it comes to you.

The verse ends with "Shma Yisrael," which translated literally is a command: "Listen, Israel." It is also a reference to the Shema, the Jewish prayer said twice daily.

With the success of so many musicians in the past decade, the city has poured considerable resources into cultivating more talent. The city estimated it spends some $30,000, a considerable portion of its budget, on music. International groups have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on projects like Sderock...
For their teachers, it is only a matter of time before the younger students become more political in their songs and outlook. A byproduct of parents' insistence that their children stay inside to avoid the crash of Qassam rockets, the music shelters have became more popular than the basketball courts.
Biton's anthem for Sderot has become a sort of mantra for the residents: "I don't leave the town for any Qassam."

And Oz, who has become a sort of ambassador of Israeli kitsch, said he was determined to sing about a place that lives in a constant tension between joy and sorrow, always navigating cultural divides.

"Our music is a bit schizophrenic, but that is how life is," said Oz, who now lives in Tel Aviv but visits Sderot frequently. "There is always a double kind of meaning. The point is to show everybody that's normal here."

I've recently blogged about how maturity can be defined as taking responsibility, something that most Arabs seem congenitally unable to do. Another good definition of maturity is the ability to work with the cards that you are dealt and make the best of them, as opposed to whining and waiting for other people to bail you out.

The comparisons between Sderot and Gaza are compelling, but the differences of how they handle adversity are even more so.

The hits just keep on coming

From Paltoday Arabic, a Force 17 member was killed by a family in Al-Bireh.

The "security forces" imposed a curfew on Al-Bireh and tried to arrest members of this family (translated as "rainfall") but they shot back.

Curfews? Surrounding buildings to arrested wanted people? Nah, the enlightened Palestinian Arabs wouldn't act that way!

The self-death count for the year is now up to 187.

UPDATE: Ma'an says that Israeli soldiers killed the Force-17 man, but admits that Paleos imposed the curfew. The PalToday article remains up and is very clear blaming the family. YNet also says that it was an intrafada death, so I'm still counting it as a self-death.

UPDATE 2: A member of the Palestan security forces, Abdul Rahman Shihda Abu Tair, was shot in the head and killed by a "family" at the Rafah crossing Friday morning. Two others were injured. 188.

UPDATE 3: Mohammad Khalil, 27, from the An Nasser Salah Addin Brigades (PRC) blew himself up in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. 189.

UPDATE 4: The PalArabs are claiming that a 19-year old was killed by an Israeli artillery shell in Gaza. Israel denies it. Since Israel has no problem admitting when they do fire into Arab areas, I'm counting this as a self-death until I see any evidence otherwise. 190.

UPDATE 5: 55 year old man killed in another Clan Clash in Gaza. 191.

UPDATE 6: Body of 20-something Nasser Abu Amuna found in Khan Younis, victim of those ubiquitous "unknown gunmen." 192.

Ineffective Arab boycott update

A four day meeting of 14 Arab League states that pretend to enforce an economic boycott of Israel just ended, in Damascus.

So-called US allies Iraq and Saudi Arabia are among the countries represented at the conference, despite US pressure on the two countries to end their enforcement of the boycott, which bans business with Israel or business in Israeli-made goods.

Saudi Arabia continues to uphold the Israel boycott in blatant violation of an agreement made with the United States in November 2005, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"The Arab boycott of Israel will remain an influential tool and strong backer of the Palestinian people until the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital and the restoration of all the occupied Arab territories," Muhammad al-Ajami, director of the Syrian Office for the Boycott of Israel, said to the official Syrian news agency SANA.

Among the countries represented at the conference are Syria, Sudan, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Libya, Lebanon, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Yemen. Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries that have signed peace treaties with Israel, are not participating in the meeting.

Isn't it strange that the PA, which is so heavily dependent on Israeli goods, says that it enforces this boycott?

Even Arabs know that the boycott is a joke:

The Arabs set up an organization decades ago to boycott Israel to isolate the Jewish state, but the effectiveness of the boycott dwindles by the year.

Sources close to a four-day meeting that opened in Damascus Monday are describing the conference's agenda as "ridiculous" in the wake of pressure on Arabs to abandon "the weapon of the boycott."

The sources told United Press International on condition of anonymity the "absurdity" of the agenda was a reflection of the pressures placed on the Arab countries by Western powers led by the United States.

"The participating Arab countries in the conference are like someone drowning and trying to prove he is still alive, especially after previous meetings have failed in imposing a ban on multinational firms" dealing with Israel, one source said.

Which begs the question: if the boycott doesn't hurt Israel, and in fact if Israeli goods continue to be sent to Arab countries directly or indirectly despite the boycott, why do they keep the fiction going?

The answer is simply that to admit it is a failure would be a disgrace and these macho nations cannot bear to look like they have capitulated. Honor yet again trumps true self-interest in the Arab world.

UPDATE: Once again, those Likudnik Zionist neo-cons show how cunning they are, by encouraging their puppet Iraq government to join the Zionist boycott and thereby redirecting suspicion away from themselves - since we all know that the entire invasion was a Zionist plot.

PalArabs win 20th in a row, in a squeaker

Anyone reading the news over the past seven days saw that the IDF killed 9 Palestinian Arabs in a 24-hour period last weekend (seven of them seem to have been terrorists, including a 17-year old "child" throwing a firebomb.)

But even with this commanding lead in the weekly game of Who Kills More Palestinian Arabs, the Paleo side managed to methodically increase their score, reaching 10 dead right at the final buzzer and managing to include 2 kids and one woman in their final tally (a 12-year old girl shot in the head may have died too, but I couldn't find it reported anywhere.) The feared IDF offensive never materialized and the PalArab team managed once again to outkill the Israelis.

This marks 20 weeks in a row that PalArabs have managed to kill each other in greater numbers than that genocidal, ethnic cleansing, IDF war machine. Apparently the fearsome US-funded weapons of the Zionist pigs cannot hope to overcome the tenacity and pure pluck of the scrappy Palestinian Arab team when it comes to killing.

Congratulations to the winners, and it is too bad that your accomplishments do not get the publicity that they deserve.

April Qassam calendar

As with the February and March calendars, the numbers for each date represent the number of Qassams fired on that day. The numbers in parentheses are those I saw reported by Palestinian Arab media, outside of parentheses are those reported in Israeli media.

The dates with URLs (in red on some browsers) are the days Israel responded to events in Gaza.

May calendar here.

April

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
(2)		1	3	1	(2)	1
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
(1)				(4)		(2)
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
	1 (2)	(1)		(4)		4 (6)
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
1	(2+ 2)	10 (30)	1 (3)	2 (2 +2)	1 (1)	(3)
29	30
1 (2)	(5)

It appears that Blogger doesn't allow me to link contiguous strings with different URLs so I lost some of the URLs above. Sorry.

The ten second truce

Reuters reports:

Palestinian armed factions renewed their commitment to a Gaza Strip truce on Thursday but said rocket salvoes from the territory could resume if Israel did not halt military operations in the occupied West Bank.

But as this "news" went out over the wires, Israel confirmed one rocket being shot and two PalArab groups in Gaza claimed four rockets and two bombs aimed at Israel.

So the PalArab definition of "truce" seems to be "the time period between shooting rockets." Not that Reuters would notice things like that.

JIB musings

As I've mentioned in past years, I have a problem with self-promotion, both for the weekly Haveil Havalim as well as for the JIBs. And it is utterly irrational - I spend enough time creating postings for the blog, and the entire point of these postings is to advance a pro-Israel argument, so why shouldn't I do everything possible to increase my audience?

On the other hand, the blogs that are screaming "vote for me!" and who nominated themselves in every category under the sun just rub me the wrong way.

Yet on the proverbial third hand, I am still obsessively checking how this blog is doing in the first round votes for Best Israel Advocacy Blog, and I see my position in third place teetering precariously. (In order to make it to the finals, I need to stay in at third place or better.)

So, reluctantly, I am asking my readers who have not voted yet, and who like this blog, to vote here - at least get me to the finals. I don't expect to win but there is definitely a bump in readership from being nominated, and I do work hard to put together original articles and perspectives that you will not find elsewhere.

And as always, a great "thank you" to those who did vote and all of you who continue to visit here.

Everyone agrees that the media is biased towards PalArabs

Around 100 journalists demonstrated to release Alan Johnston. But guess where they held the demonstration?

On the Israeli side of the Gaza border.

One UK newspaper said that the kidnappers faced the wrath of the world's media. Yes, I'm sure they were quaking at the thought of a few dozen reporters too scared to even enter Gaza to begin with.

The BBC reiterated how news coverage of Gaza suffers when no foreign journalists work there:

In terms of news, they also fear that Gaza could be neglected by the wider world.

"It only serves to limit the coverage in the Gaza Strip, if foreign journalists stop going," said Walid Batrawi, a Palestinian correspondent for the Arabic satellite TV station, Al-Jazeera.

"The human stories of the people of Gaza will not be told."

There is a recurring theme that when foreign journalists stay away from Gaza, the Palestinian Arabs suffer - because their story is not getting out. For example, this article in Asharq Alawsat:

By kidnapping the BBC reporter, this "victimized" executioner has lost one of the world's leading and most reliable media outlets. Without further engaging in unacceptable arguments on Western bias, let us recall our numerous rightful issues that were revealed by the Western rather than the Arab press – Abu Ghraib is just one example. Can we imagine what it would mean to hide the stories of Palestinian suffering from the global press?

Or look at what rabid anti-Zionist London mayor Ken Livingstone said:

"All the Palestinians needed was the truth to be reported, which is what Mr Johnston did. His abduction was a catastrophe. If you wanted to find a person whose abduction could damage the Palestinian cause, you couldn't find anyone better to do the job."

The mayor then appealed directly to Johnston's kidnappers. He said: "Look what you have done. Instead of the foreign media continuing to report on the situation in Palestine, the media focus has been shifted to the story of the kidnapping.

"Unless the journalist is liberated it's likely that coverage of the situation will continue to be about Mr Johnston."

Is a journalist's job to act as a PR representative of the area he or she is covering, or to report the news - whether it is good or bad?

No Zionist is saying "Israel needs more foreign journalists, in order to show the human face of Israel." Because we all know that the vast majority of journalists in Israel have little interest in making Israel look good. In most areas of the world, having more journalists would not be considered a great PR move - their job, after all, is to uncover news, and news is usually negative. But the unspoken backstory here is that journalists in Gaza do have an agenda, that they will gloss over bad news from Gaza and that their absence hurts the Palestinian Arab people.

Let's look at how life in Gaza is today. In the past six months there have been dozens of kidnappings, hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. The very reason that journalists refuse to go there is because it is too dangerous for them. Now, why exactly would foreign reporters in Gaza be expected to help make PalArabs look good? If they are truly meant to be fair and unbiased, wouldn't they be reporting and publicizing the chaos far more than they are now? Aren't daily murders considered newsworthy anymore? Wouldn't their presence be a bad thing for most Palestinian Arabs?

And it is not like there are no journalists in Gaza now. As the BBC says:

[I]nternational organisations have been relying almost entirely on their local staff to gather information for reports.

So there are reporters there - all of them Palestinian Arabs. They still gather the news and sometimes write for the major media outlets. Why would foreign journalists in Gaza be expected to be more favorable towards PalArabs in their stories than PalArabs themselves are?

The only possible reason that foreign coverage is widely assumed to help Gazans is because foreign reporters are heavily biased towards Arabs against Israel.

And everyone knows it.

First quarter injury report: 1065 PalArab self-injuries

I haven't been keeping statistics on injuries from PalArab internal violence, but the Al-Mezan center does.

In the first three months of this year, according to Al-Mezan, 1065 PalArabs were injured in internal violence (their count of deaths was not too far off from mine - 147 vs. 160 during those three months - so this looks like an accurate number.)

In contrast, the UN OCHA counts 513 PalArabs injured from Israeli actions during that same time period.

I guess that the PalArabs must be practicing "genocide" against themselves!

Hamas, Qassams and Freud

I found a wonderful Arabic article on Alqassam.net (the Hamas "military wing" website) which just screams out "PENIS ENVY". Qassam missiles are just phallic symbols, meant to restore the masculinity that PalArabs have lost over the years by losing wars to lowly effeminate Jews.

Although much of the translation is almost incomprehensible, it shows how in Arabic the themes of humiliation and disgrace are so central. This is a critical part of the Arab psyche that must be understood. Anyone who thinks about the Middle East starting from the premise that the Arabs have the same values and thought processes as Westerners is fatally wrong.

It must also be understood that since humiliation and disgrace is so feared, and masculinity to treasured, that the goal of these missiles are not so much to physically damage Israelis as to disgrace them. This is why a rocket barrage that caused essentially no damage is being celebrated - damage isn't the point, but the fact that Israel could not destroy the rockets or launchers immediately.

This ode to Qassams shows the Arab psyche far more accurately than anything one will find in English.

In the shadow of missiles (1)

By : Rashid firm

Now a Qassam rocket to measure the nobility and dignity; and the balance of masculinity and attitudes of men in Palestine or absence!

Shell and the most destructive in the percentage of anger missile Al-Qassam Brigades and not one cent of that missile battalions riddling the venerable nests brothers of monkeys in two hours; and the rate of one missile every seventy-two seconds!

...

Today renewed Hamas killed last hope of leading Zionist dementia; or American official Smug; European politician or sinful gay; to subject movement and spoken word atheism and the National Forensic; and let resistance in the name of Allah and Jihad for the Mundane fleeting soaring dignity; and refrain from cutting the tree which paved without God versus Drahmin Najasin of Satan; Like who had reneged Ghazlam and falling and Artxoa; replaced their pride and humiliation; and national treason; and sold Immortality alienate young martyrs and the waiver; and pronouncing words and missed on contempt martyrdom operations!

They have killed scruples chests Oh Qassam; How are you prepared a clear demarcation between the two schools : schools do not recommend increasing the people and win in the elections and push for the rule only closest to the people; and attached to the charge of the people; the sake of spiritual covenants and the Grand National; School of the homeland and the blood of martyrs, and soil and sanctities Hemostat for lovers; and peaceful for personal ambitions and heart disease and corruption conscience; even at the expense of religion and homeland and its people!

...And in the hands of Qassam honors one or insulted ...

Also today Akram Aqsa holy God; and loved the land Ascension; and lovers of the first Qiblah and CO mosques and the Rock Wall sons of the Islamic nation; renewed hope that they had never disappointed in this Althlh Almstavoyer Maairiyha Ansariyeh Army Mohammed peace be upon him; even though the unbelievers; even with the football team error Muslims and Hassadtham and Guchechtham!

If modern viewers who danced their hearts eve percentage rocket joy!

The worst whose right Qassam them shame and humiliation that singles out those in need of special article; to prevent the viewers and at worst one; and also because some of the humiliation and inseparable Qassam Hakram greater coverage urgency; Valley Forum in the near future, God; again in the shadow of missiles!