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How Long Before I Get Tired Of This?

So, let's go through the top 5 hits for "israel" on Google News (a site which won't include LGF).

First
Annan ... said Israel was responsible for most of the violations of the fragile cease-fire

Hezbollah is supposed to be disarmed, but that's not going to happen.

Lebanon is supposed to secure its borders, but that hasn't happened.

Hezbollah is supposed to release the Israelis they kidnapped to start the war, but that hasn't happened.

Hezbollah isn't supposed to smuggle new weapons into Lebanon, but that isn't going very well.

To be responsible for most of the violations, Israel will need to have a list of at least about twenty (except it wouldn't be very hard to find twenty specific violations by Hezbollah, so the list ought to be a lot longer). I can't wait to see the list.

Second
War proof of Israel lobby's power

Why does the headline report as fact what was only alleged by two idiots?

Their argument, as best I can decode it, says that US support for Israel during the Lebanon war has increased the likelihood that Iran and Syria will continue to supply Hezbollah with weapons, because it strained the US (diplomatic) position in the Middle East.

So, we must avoid supporting Israel against Hezbollah, because that would cost us the credibility required to be able to help Israel against Hezbollah.

Third we have an article that doesn't care to differentiate between terrorists and innocents:
Israeli troops killed five Palestinians and wounded a dozen in attacks on militants in the Gaza Strip

See, it uses the word "Palestinian" where it should say "terrorist". Perhaps a case can be made that there isn't much difference, but I don't think that's what Reuters intended.

The confusion continues with comments like this:
The Israeli army has killed more than 190 Palestinians in Gaza since ... June 25

Where is the effort to figure out how many of those people should have died?

Here, I'll help generate criteria. Anyone who died while firing a machine gun at Jews, wasn't innocent. Anyone who died while planting a bomb, like the people mentioned earlier in this article, wasn't innocent.

Fourth we have an article about how most Israeli Arabs are disloyal. The author doesn't know that's what he's writing about, but he is:
Seventy-five percent of the Arab public in Israel believes that the military operation in Lebanon was a war crime

...

Sixty-four percent said they watched al-Jazeera, and rated it as being highly credible. Forty-six percent said they relied on al-Manar's reports, the channel which identifies with Hizbullah. Only 5 percent said the news on the Israeli network Channel One was credible

...

55 percent of the respondents rated Hizbullah's reports of the war as more credible than the Israeli ones. Only nine percent believed the opposite.

My main complaint about this article is the headline:
Israeli Arabs: Israel committed war crimes in Lebanon

Do we really need more headlines about how some idiot accused Israel of war crimes? Why not use, "Israeli Arabs: Hezbollah Is Credible"? It's a lot more informative than yet another accusation against Israel, and it *implies* the original title anyway.

Fifth we have an article which is a mix of accusations by a "human rights group" and insistence by Israel that it investigates abuses. Which makes a great excuse to use this in the headline:
Israel abused Palestinians

If the *Palestinians* said they investigate complaints about *their* abuses of Palestinians (let alone their abuses of Israelis) it'd be a bad joke. So why does the "human rights" group focus on the party that tries to do the right thing, over the one that does not try?

Elliot Temple on August 29, 2006

Messages (1)

You are just providing further proof that the West has lost its moral compass. The sources and behaviors you have described, I am afraid, are, unintendly, are providing the context for losing the War we ARE in. Unfortunately, denial, white guilt, PCism, whatever is easier for many than confronting hard truths--evil exists and there are people out there who want to kill us.


Anonymous at 4:40 PM on August 29, 2006 | #9 | reply | quote

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