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Gilad Schalit turned 24 years old today.
He is the son of Aviva and Noam Schalit from Mitzpe Hilla in the Western Galilee and the brother of Yoel and Hadas.
On Sunday, June 25, 2006, at 5:40 in the morning, a terrorist group of several Palestinians crossed the border south of the Gaza Strip into Israel through a tunnel near Kerem Shalom and attacked an army facility that was within the sovereign territory of Israel.
The force numbered 8-armed Palestinians. It penetrated about a hundred meters into Israeli territory and split into three groups. The first group shot at an armored car that stood there. It was empty so no one was hurt. The second group attacked an IDF post manned by soldiers of the Desert Patrol. This attack included explosives and gunfire from light weapons which wounded three Israeli soldiers. At the same time at least one rocket was fired and grenades were thrown at a tank positioned in the area. The tank was manned by four soldiers one of whom was Gilad Schalit. The missile hit the rear end of the tank causing the death of its commander and an additional soldier.
One soldier was wounded. Gilad Schalit, the fourth soldier in the tank, was wounded in the shoulder and was abducted from the tank and taken by the terrorists to the Gaza strip.
Gilad’s abductors were members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Palestinian governing party Hamas), the Popular Resistance Committees (which includes members of Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas), and the Army of Islam.
To date, attempts by the international Red Cross to communicate with Shalit have been thwarted, but there’s hope, among those organizing the Free Gilad Schalit Campaign, that their efforts will help facilitate communication with Gilad and lead to his release.
Here’s contact information for those wishing to express support:
In the U.S., mail cards to: Gilad Shalit c/o Conference of Presidents 633 Third Ave 21st Flr New York, NY 10017
In Israel, mail cards to: Gilad Shalit By Magen David Adom in Israel Post Office Box 101101 Tel Aviv 61950
For more info or to send electronic greeting go to www.giladgreetings.org.
From the London Evening Standard of Wednesday, 25th August 2010 – another example of “If you can’t get the true story, make it up.”
This story appeared under the headline, “Schoolboy joke means red faces at the Guardian“ and centred on the Guardian’s usual mindless cranking up imaginary discontents – in this case the alleged north/south divide in educational opportunity in the UK:
It claims that class war is alive and well, “In the 20 years since George Osborne sat his A-levels at St Paul’s little has changed at the elite boys’ school. Its lush grounds are still spread across 45 acres of prime riverside land in south-west London, and the pupils still justify their fees (£17,000 a year) with superlative exam results…”
However, the unfortunately named Helen Pidd (I had never heard of her either) was sent to interview students who had come to the school to collect their A-level results. Pidd then wrote an article tying in Chancellor George Osborne into the north/south divide in educational standards. She had her aim in mind, now all she had to do was to bend the “evidence” to fit it:
Pidd quoted in her article one “Joe Bibby” who, she was told, had received five A* (A stars) at A-level and contrasted him with a Grimsby photographer who had struggled to gain pass marks in Maths and English at GSCE level. In the Guardian video of results day, “Joe Bibby” reveals to Pidd that he has a three A* offer to study at university.
However, Pidd had been well and truly, and deliberately, hoodwinked. “Joe Bibby” does not exist – as a pupil. He had been working over the summer at St Paul’s on school maintenance.
Red faces all around at the Guardian.
It seems that the Guardian just can’t get intelligent staff these days or, at the very least, staff who research a story fully before it goes to print?
Then again, why break the habits of Rusbridger’s lifetime?
This is cross-posted at the blog, Daphne Anson
If, like me, you’re owned by a cat or dog, chances are that you associate Frontline with a veterinary product which with super-efficiency zaps fleas and tapeworms. However, for metropolitan champagne socialists, whether scribes or non-scribes, Frontline is just as likely to signify the Frontline Club, motto: “Championing Independent Journalism”. The club seems particularly fond of inviting as speakers journalists known for their harsh criticism of Israel – inevitably, therefore, Jeremy Bowen of the BBC and Jon Snow of Channel 4 have both featured on its guest list. (Al Beeb’s College of Journalism website has links to both resultant videos – funny about that, eh?) And not only journalists – Frontline also hosted, on one inglorious occasion, that professorial trio of Jewish Israel-loathers Jacqueline Rose, Shlomo Sand, and Avi Shlaim.
It’s been said of Bowen that he comes across as a thwarted thespian, but I reckon that it’s Snow who’s the actor manqué. Yes, he really ought to be in show business, did histrionic Jon. Authoritative voice raised in pompous indignation, arms flailing to emphasise a point, the well-connected university drop-out (actually, he was rusticated when his leftist political activism went too far ) who admits to getting his start as a television reporter owing to nepotism, has almost become a pastiche of himself. A few years ago, around Remembrance Day, with the dismissive phrase “poppy fascism”, he announced his refusal to conform to etiquette (some might say “decency”) and wear a British Legion poppy in honour of Britain’s fallen service personnel – the people who gave their lives so that democracy and free speech might endure. His hammiest performances have included shouting in self-righteous anger at Israeli media spokesman Mark Regev regarding Cast Lead and the Mavi Marmara affair, performances that reinforced Snow’s cult status in anti-Israel circles and made him the darling of those hateful types who post nasty judeophobic messages on YouTube whenever a video of Regev appears there.
Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist writing for Ha’aretz, where he has a column called “Twilight Zone”, is of a decidedly thespian disposition too. He’s an assured and accomplished speaker with a flair for the dramatic and an instinct for working an audience that many a budding actor at RADA would envy. A “hate-mongering post-Zionist” is the veteran international Jewish leader Isi Leibler’s assessment of him (Jerusalem Post, 8 December 2008). Levy demonises his own country, saying how ashamed he is to be Israeli, how brutal and indifferent to human suffering his countrymen are, and how he appreciates the boycott movement – all the usual obscenities and maybe a little bit more. Here’s how Leibler described him more recently:
Almost exactly 4 years ago, a conflict ignited on the Lebanese-Israeli border when Hezbollah terrorists attacked an Israeli border patrol convoy, which led to a 30 day war between the Jewish state and the Iranian backed terror group. I watched it unfold on CNN, as well as on the local news – reports suggesting that Israel was intentionally killing Lebanese civilians in its response to the provocation.
That narrative was a usual one when discussing wars involving Israel and Arabs despite that, by this time, we have seen the Coalition invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq unfold and have seen the tactics deployed by Jihadists seeking martyrdom. As a matter of course, they were hiding behind civilians, civilian structures, and even dressed like civilians when ambushing American, Canadian and British soldiers who were seeking out the enemy among an undeniably unfortunate civilian population.
Yet when Israel responded to the kidnappings and rocket barrages of Hezbollah, the media reported Hezbollah casualties as “civilians”. Each day, 100, 200, 300 “Lebanese civilians” died while Hezbollah declared (and the media reported) that they lost 3 or 5 fighters on a given day. It sounded insane. I recall one report near the end of the war which stated that Israel lost 138 soldiers, but killed 1200 Lebanese civilians, while Hezbollah lost 15 fighters. No sane person would believe such nonsense so why, I asked myself, was this on the news.
Something seemed out of tune here. Something seemed really wrong with that picture.
Like many of us, 9/11 changed me. I was always aware of terrorism and radical Islam but starting that day, I entered the online world of news and commentary, and discovered scholars, experts and personalities who‘s work probably did not matter as much on September 10, 2001. During those long nights sitting at the computer reading people like David Horowitz, Robert Spencer and Steven Emerson, to name a few, I plunged into a new world. A world where I have discovered issues and conflicts similar to the ones my father told me about when he was growing up during WWII. One of those issues was anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews. Not long after the attacks on New York and Washington, conspiracy theories were spreading that Jews were the actual culprits and Israel was the one benefiting from this and that Bush was under the control of a Jewish cabal and as such needed to declare a war on Muslims.
I found these ideas so silly that I laughed at them and assumed nobody could possibly believe such nonsense. I was wrong. Many have, and many more believed other, even crazier, conspiracy theories. I also realized that these 9/11 Jewish conspiracies were not created in a vacuum but were the culmination of a long and steady effort of demonizing Israel and the Jewish people, which started before I really cared to notice. The internet was always a crazy place. Conspiracy theories were all over it for years. How those ideas managed to find themselves in mainline publications was the question I needed answering.
In 2006 when the Lebanon war coverage was taking up most of the afternoons on CNN, and occupied most of the space on the popular blogs (which I read but never commented on seeing no real purpose to do so), I read a couple of articles and exposes on the Guardian and its comments section which was, according to these reports, filled with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Islamist propaganda. In fact I recall the Guardian being in the news when it was revealed that CiF contributor Inayat Bunglavala had praised Osama Bin Laden.
During the start of the Lebanon war, I started to read the blog of the Guardian, called ‘Comment is Free’. I was curious to find out what the fuss was about as much was written about CiF on American Blogs, exposing the often explicit anti-Semitism and, at times, apparent sympathy for terrorist movements.
What I found was more than I could have ever bargained for. Comments about the inhumanity of Jewish fighters during the 1948 war, and even rhetoric about the “savagery” of the Jewish fighters during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (according to SS officers) caught my eye. This was a rude awakening.
What I saw was the complete and perfect merger of anti-Israel rhetoric with old anti-Semitic tropes. It was like reading a magazine from 1936 Germany but instead of “Jew”, “Zionist” and “Israeli” were the descriptive words.
Harriet Sherwood was predictably all agog on August 25th over Baroness Ashton of Upholland’s bizarre and inappropriate intervention in the decisions of the legal system of a country not under her jurisdiction. That this unelected and supremely under-qualified Eurocrat thinks it her divine right to interfere in the affairs of a sovereign country trying to defend itself from constant terror threats, and to proffer schoolmarm-type admonishments on a subject about which it is embarrassingly obvious she does not have a clue, is nothing new. She has been doing it ever since she was shoe-horned in to her current £328,000 per annum position on December 1st, 2009.
First there was her miserable opening speech on the Middle East just two weeks after she came into office in which she stated that:
“East Jerusalem is occupied territory, together with the rest of the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the demolition of Palestinian homes, the eviction of Palestinian families, the construction of Israeli settlements and the route of the “separation barrier”.
Then came her ridiculous – and equally historically ignorant – demand that Israel end the partial embargo on Gaza and “throw open its long-closed border” with Gaza.
“The best option seems to be, and that is the most supported by Palestinians, is to open the land crossings, and that’s what we’re working on.”
“The position of the EU is clear: the blockade is unacceptable, unsustainable and counterproductive. It is not in the interests of any of those concerned.”
Well, I’m not sure exactly when Catherine Ashton thinks she became an authority on the subject of the interests of the Israeli people, (maybe she doesn’t realise that we actually have democratically elected representatives to take care of those issues on our behalf), but I do know that her preposterous statements and her patronising tone are sadly reminiscent of British imperialistic attitudes supposedly gone by.
And now it’s the turn of the anti-terrorist fence to arouse Ashton’s steroid-enhanced sense of moral outrage.
“The EU considers Abdallah Abu Rahmah to be a human rights defender committed to non-violent protest against the route of the Israeli separation barrier … The EU considers the route of the barrier where it is built on Palestinian land to be illegal.
“The high representative is deeply concerned that the possible imprisonment of Mr Abu Rahmah is intended to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the existence of the separation barriers in a non-violent manner.”
This is co-written by Armaros and Medusa
From his attempts to smear the Israeli government for their alleged collaboration with South Africa on nuclear warheads to his latest egregious distortions of Pamela Geller’s motives for her opposition to the mosque near Ground Zero, the Guardian’s Chris McGreal’s animus towards Israel and Jews remains unchanged and is a direct reflection of the divorced-from-reality Guardian World View and the twisting of facts to suit its preconceived conclusions.
Let us examine these illustrations of what might charitably be described as spitefulness on McGreal’s part:
As early as 2003 McGreal and, because of their association with him, the Guardian, achieved Honest Reporting’s Dishonourable Mention in its yearly awards for dishonest reporting. McGreal merited this dubious distinction by projecting his own twisted interpretations onto the Israeli government’s motives when the Guardian and he used the death of Col Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut, to malign the Israeli government. McGreal wrote that the government had “used the tragedy to paint Israel as a democratic western nation standing firm with the US against the barbarians.” From this we get the flavour of things to come.
On 6th and 7th February 2006, McGreal was responsible for a two-day special report in the Guardian, in which he attempted to delegitimise Israel’s very existence, portraying her as an apartheid and colonial state (note the buzz words here, calculated to appeal to and crank up hatreds of the lowest common denominator). McGreal – the bit well and truly between his teeth – also accused the Israeli government of providing South Africa with the expertise and technology for it to construct its own nuclear bombs. (McGreal seems to have an obsession with this but he subsequently dug himself into a hole. That will be examined later in this article).
CAMERA (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) called McGreal’s allegations defamatory, as indeed they were. Further passages indicating an anti-Semitic bias included McGreal’s clear suggestion that South African Jews were particularly ardent supporters and beneficiaries of the apartheid regime. CAMERA rebutted McGreal’s claims in two articles (see here and here).
(It should be noted that one of the first conspiracy theories regarding Israeli/Jewish involvement in South Africa’s acquisition of nuclear weapons surfaced when an opinion piece was published in Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church newsletter which accused Israel and South Africa of working together to develop an “ethnic bomb” to kill Blacks and Arabs”.)
CAMERA’s subsequent complaint to the Press Complaints Commission was not upheld, however, it seems, on a technicality.
The Guardian’s seeming failure to ensure the veracity (and logic) of their claims, facts, and arguments – and an appalling failure to provide appropriate political or historical context – is an oft-recurring theme.
McGreal does not confine his slipshod and dishonest reporting to the Middle Eastern conflict alone. His sloppiness about facts and research seems to be something of a transferable skill. He was the focus of a complaint about an article he wrote later in 2006 about the Mau Mau in Kenya in the 1950′s. The subsequent complaint went to the external ombudsman, who reported in March 2008. Among other things, McGreal was accused of misleading the readers about the numbers of detainees. The complainant, David Elstein, concluded that the Guardian “recycles spurious research and justifies continuing to do so, refuses to admit fault and refuses to publish a refutation”.
CiF Watch has often documented how any piece in the Guardian even remotely related to Israel typically elicits extreme anti-Semitic (not merely anti-Israel) replies in the comments thread. Though the Guardian represents an especially egregious example, it is a much broader phenomenon. (See CiF Watch’s cross-post of Lee Smith’s piece, Playing with Fire, which explores another element of this issue)
In a recent story in the Telegraph, Aug 24, Julian Kossoff, the paper’s senior editor, wrote a piece entitled “Where did all the BBC’s anti-Zionists go?”. His essay centered on the recent BBC Panorama program entitled “Death in the Med” – a story on the events surrounding Israel’s interception of the Mavi Marmara. While Kossoff was mildly supportive of the program – which many supporters of Israel thought was relatively well-balanced – he also cited the balanced reporting on the show to express criticism of those who contend that BBC is inherently biased against Israel. All and all, Kossoff’s piece wasn’t so much about the flotilla incident, or about the Panorama program, as it was a broader defense of the BBC, and other media, who are accused by both sides of being biased. He said:
“When Israel’s supporters mount this type of campaign, it’s often portrayed as a visitation from the all-powerful “Zionist lobby” rather than just a bunch of slightly overwrought citizens who really care about Israel, don’t understand how journalism works, and aren’t particularly interested in hearing the other side of the story.
But now that Israel’s supporters are falling over themselves with praise for “auntie”, what becomes of the widely held belief within the Jewish community that the BBC is a writhing nest of anti-Zionist, Arab-loving vipers?
No doubt we’ll now see the flip side to this paranoia. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists will start droning on about Jews…on any website comment thread that will have them.”
In fact, Kossoff’s words were quite prophetic. Here are just a few of the first 30 or so comments I read beneath the column.
Like this:
Once again (we’re getting quite accustomed to this, aren’t we folks?) Harriet Sherwood was busy focusing on the trees at the expense of the forest in her August 24th article which quoted at length a new report on the subject of the education system in eastern Jerusalem produced by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Ir Amim. If you happen to be a British or European tax payer you may like to read the report in full, because it is more than likely that you paid for its production.
The Association of Civil Rights received $2,671,443 from the New Israel Fund from 2006 to 2008, 231,754 Euros from the EU for the period 2010 to 2012, as well as additional funding from Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, the Ford Foundation and Christian Aid. According to an article by Professor Asher Maoz of Tel Aviv University, the President of ACRI apparently stated in 2007 that “A Jewish state is a dream, a fiction, a journalist’s romance … to which we have related with excessive seriousness” and “I think that it [the establishment of Israel] is the most foolish thing that the Jewish people has done in the past 1,000 years. Putting down a stake in a permanent place is an invitation to a new Holocaust”.
The Jerusalem-based organization Ir Amim is funded by the EU (1.7 million shekels in 2007), the New Israel Fund, the Ford Foundation , the Moriah Fund, the Norwegian Government (165,000 shekels in 2007), the Czech Government, the Dutch Government and the British Embassy in Tel Aviv (800,000 shekels in 2007) .
According to the Jerusalem Post, “an Ir Amim official said the group was indeed seeking to advance a political agenda, and was not an organization geared to promote coexistence”; a statement which would probably be of interest to many a British and European tax payer. Indeed the organization runs a blog hosted by the Huffington Post ; a publication not exactly known for its well balanced views on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The subject of education in eastern Jerusalem is not new to Ir Amim however. In 2007 they produced another report on the subject in which their rather bizarre proposed solution to the problems highlighted in the report was the operation of the system by a Palestinian supervisory board.
So the two above organizations have now come up with a report which concludes that Arab schools in eastern Jerusalem are in a much worse state than those in the rest of the city, and of course Harriet Sherwood is quick to pick up on this to infer discrimination against Israel’s Arab citizens. I contacted the Jerusalem Municipality in order to hear what they have to say on the subject and of course, like most things in Israel, the subject is rather more complex than the Guardian’s simplistic presentation of affairs would imply.
From Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook at Palestinian Media Watch.
On Sept. 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian terror organization Black September broke into the athletes’ village at the Munich Olympics. They kidnapped and ultimately murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
After Amin Al-Hindi, one of the senior planners of the terror operation, died this week, the Palestinian Authority glorified him and his terror attack. The official PA daily described his participation in the Olympic massacre, saying he was “one of the stars who sparkled… at the sports stadium in Munich.” The attack itself was referred to as “just one of many shining stations” in his life.
The PA daily reports that Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad were at the funeral, where “a red carpet was laid out for the arrival of the body, and the military band played the final farewell melody.”
“]”Abbas shown at the funeral of Al-Hindi [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 19, 2010
Ron Prosor’s essay in CiF – “Before We Talk to Hamas: No missiles means no blockade. When Israelis feel secure, concessions will follow. It’s that simple” – proposed that for real peace to occur, Israel has to feel secure that any territorial withdrawal, and other such concessions, wont’ be met by more missiles, terrorism, and incitement. He noted, what should be obvious:
“[Hamas] must renounce violence, recognise Israel and abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.”
Prosor (Israel’s Ambassador to the UK) then pointed out that:
“At no point has Hamas satisfied these conditions – or indicated any intention to do so.”
Prosor noted:
“The Hamas charter advocates the destruction of the state of Israel, the genocidal slaughter of Jews and the imposition of an Islamic state governed by sharia law. When an organisation’s constitution venerates your murder, it is difficult to know how negotiations should begin – perhaps with a discussion of the flowers for one’s funeral.”
He continued:
“This week marks the fifth anniversary of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza. We withdrew every Israeli soldier and citizen, gambling on the formula of land for peace. Instead of peace and progress we received missiles and misery.”
He then observed:
“Our experience following the Gaza pull-out has scarred the Israeli public. Hamas’s missiles wounded the concept of land for peace, increasing Israeli fears and skepticism.”
He concluded:
“When Israelis feel secure concessions follow. Last weekend Israel dismantled the security barrier in Gilo, a Jerusalem suburb that came under heavy Palestinian sniper fire during the second intifada. If in Gilo no sniper fire means no wall, so in Gaza no missiles would mean no blockade. It is that simple.”
Yes, it really is that simple – except, that is, for the Guardian’s fellow travelers. The Guardian printed several letters in response to Prosor’s reasonable argument. They are really a sight to be seen.
Richard Horton
First, was a letter by Dr. Richard Horton, Editor of the Lancet – a highly politicized medical journal. Lancet, it was noted, in a devastating expose by Honest Reporting, reported on Lancet’s multi-article series on Palestinian health written by Israel boycotters that went way beyond accepted medical norms.
His letter contains passages, attempting to refute Prosor’s essay, that are simply breathtaking. He says, apparently with a straight face (and I’m quoting him exactly and in context):
“Gaza is NOT a terrorist enclave”
CiF Watch is one year old today, and what a year it has been! I tried to figure out how many hours of work must have gone into getting the site up and running and then keeping it going, but soon gave up on that one!
This seems like the ideal opportunity to ask for some input from our readers. What do you like about CiF Watch and what motivates you to visit our site? What are we getting right, or wrong? How would you like to see the site continue over the next year? Are there any features you would like to see added? Which were our strongest posts to date?
On the latter subject, I think that the live thread during the flotilla incident which featured constant updates and breaking news was one of our outstanding ones and an invaluable source of information, although I’m not entirely convinced that Hawkeye has yet caught up on the sleep lost during that week.
So tell us what you think, and raise a glass to the coming year of CiF watching!
This a guest post by Modernity.
*Satire
This is going to be difficult, but imagine you are a British neofascist:
“Further, imagine, that you long for the days when you can openly worship Nazism, as your forbears in and around the leadership of the British National Front used to do.
Imagine your frustration, you are a British neofascist and yet you can’t be open about it, you can’t express your admiration for David Irving or visit extreme right-wing Japanese groups without someone finding out.
In short you are in a pickle, you want your odious ideology to succeed but realise that most people would sooner eat their own vomit than join you in the Nazi salute.
Then you have a bright idea. Why not hide the extremes of your neofascist ideology? Why not wear a suit? Why not try to pick on the weakest in society as your heroes from Nazi Germany did, but do it with a twist?
Cunningly, as a devious British neofascist, you would not attack the ultimate target: Jews, directly
No, that wouldn’t work, so you have to think of another scheme.
Who to attack? And who to whip up hatred against? Who to use to build a street army?
Then in a flash it occurs to you, you’ll attack immigrants, but stop, that hasn’t been too successful for the BNP. What else can you do?
Ahh, attack Muslims, but not directly, not whilst wearing your suit.
So you infiltrate a new organisation, you make sure that all your neofascist and neo-Nazi pals are in key positions of power, and eventually take it over.
Still you’re worried, as a devious British neofascist, that your political enemies with see through these tactics, and then it hits you, how to throw them off the scent?
Pretend that you like Jews. Get one of your knuckle headed friends to get an Israeli flag or two. And when you walk around wave it a lot. What a laugh!
I don’t know how we didn’t catch this sooner!
*Satire
This is cross-posted by Elder of Ziyon
The mainstream media and NGOs were the the main purveyors of the myth of Gaza was suffering form a humanitarian crisis – a myth that goes back to the early 90s at the very least.
Since the Gaza Mall opened, we have seen on a few occasions the people who have made a living talking about how miserable life is in Gaza take a step back and re-frame their arguments. They cannot deny the truth, but they don’t want to retroactively look like liars – which is what they effectively have been for nearly two decades.
So, one by one, they are re-framing the Gaza meme to try to save face and make sure that people still blame Israel for Gaza’s problems.
Gaza is still miserable, these newly-sophisticated and nuanced journalists are saying, but it is not because the Gazans are hungry, or poverty-stricken, or cannot get basic items. Forget all those thousands of articles over the years that we wrote, forget us uncritically quoting Jimmy Carter about how Gazans are “literally starving” or being “starved to death.” No, the problems with Gaza are not so much physical but a state of mind, you see.
Previously, we mentioned Slate’s backtracking, admitting that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and no hunger. Instead, Slate quotes an official, it is a “crisis of dignity.”
Oh, I see. So how does Gazans’ dignity stack up against, say, that of poor Egyptians or Yemenis or even Saudi Arabia’s lower class? We don’t know, and we won’t know, because reporters much prefer to hang out in Gaza where they can visit the Roots restaurant than to go to poor Arab villages in other parts of the world.
Time magazine’s reframing of Gaza sounded like this:
Gaza’s residents will concede that there is no hunger crisis in the Strip. Residents do love the beach, and the store shelves are stocked. But if you’re focused on starvation, they say, you’re probably missing the point. To them, the word prison speaks more to the effect that years of conflict and political and economic isolation have had on the Gaza psyche. “We are talking about continuous stress and ongoing trauma,” says Hasan Zeyada, a psychologist at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), the territory’s main psychological treatment and research NGO. “It’s not one incident, but all of the time. We are at a continuous level of high stress and human-rights violations and traumas through Israeli invasions and war.”
Oh, so we are missing the point if we focused on starvation? Then why did Time magazine’s Gaza correspondent write, in 2008, “As you sit down to a Thanksgiving feast, please spare a thought for the starving Palestinians of Gaza. There are 1.5 million of them, most of them living hand to mouth, or on UN handouts, because Israel has them under siege.”
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Mya Guarnieri and the chimera of a “Tide” of Islamophobia sweeping America
August 27, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Comment is Free, Guardian, Mya Guarnieri | by Adam Levick | 53 comments
Mya Guarnieri’s latest CiF piece, Islamophobia: The new anti-Semitism, August 26, draws parallels between one pastor in her hometown of Gainesville, Florida - who apparently is planning to “commemorate” September 11, 2001 by publicly burning the Qur’an – to memories of the racist violence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) she recalls from her youth. Indeed, she goes further, arguing that if this preacher carries through with this act, it would be an indictment on the intolerance of the entire country.
Comparisons between the hateful rhetoric of one preacher to the KKK – a violent, white supremacist terrorist group – is, simply, bizarre. The Klan, though extremely marginal today (Their membership today, which was as high as 4 million in 1920, is no more than several thousand nationwide) has terrorized and murdered scores of African-Americans – and white supporters of integration and civil rights – dating back to 1865.
Of course, beyond the absurd comparison between an extremist group like the KKK and the vitriol of one Florida preacher, Guarnieri is clearly trying to make a broader point. Since the controversy surrounding the proposed construction of a Mosque near Ground Zero, a narrative has been advanced that a “wave” of anti-Islamic bigotry has been sweeping the nation. Yet, based on hate crime data collected by the FBI every year, nothing could be further from the truth.
As Jonah Goldberg notes:
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