“… our job is simply to report the facts.”

But prior to that she wrote,

“The point we were trying to get across…”

Well, which is it? This is exactly why the media is held in such contempt today, because they cannot tell the difference (or refuse to recognize the difference) between reporting facts and “getting a point across”.

The FACT was that these were harmless balloons and the accusations of “poison gas” were unfounded hysteria. But the “point [we] were trying to get across” was, well, we’ve got to blame it on the Joooos somehow.

Kristin Dailey, this story is exactly like the story a few years ago from the Sudan where hysterical Arab men claimed (falsely) that their male organs shrank to nothing after they shook hands with “a foreigner”. I thought the Lebanese were supposed to be sophisticated and educated people, yet they seem to fall into the same paranoid fantasies as one of the more backward areas of the Arab world, an area filled with ignorant fools.

If you had wanted to build trust, reduce animosity, or reassure a terrified population, you may have included more than one line in your article to indicate the vague possiblity that the balloons were not full of magic killer Jew-gas.

I am quite willing to believe that yours was the least insane coverage of the evil balloons in the Arab press. But do not us for laughing. The alternative is facing the fact that all the Lebanese, including intelligent educated politicians, are willing to believe absolutely anything, as long as they can blame Israel for it. Which does not bode well for a peaceful neighbourly relationship, does it?

Have you heard of a Golem? Lebanon, like the rest of Israel’s neighbors, has fantasised Israel into a monster of inhuman malice and limitless capability—and now trembles in fear of a demon of its own imagination. The fact that a Lebanese newspaper does not have the manoeuvring room to tell its readers so outright is an additional sad commentary on the state of your society.

It’s a bit much, then, to expect Israel or its friends not to crack a smile when so much hatred and self-delusion boomerangs on you in such farcical way. And it is unrealistic to think that we might be able to say anything to people trapped in such paranoia that wouldn’t be construed as more proof of Israel’s guilt.

If, on the other hand, you are saying that it was simply the requirements of straight reportage that stopped your paper from emphasising the true meaning of the story, why didn’t you pair the report, in the same issue, with an editorial to spell it out?

Perhaps the “terrified population” won’t recognize its own folly unless someone emphasizes it.

This is what we’ve waited for.This is it, boys, this is war!

Perhaps they could get clowns to bend the balloons into the shapes of pigs and dogs.

As usual, Meryl, you’re being unfair to the AP and Reuters. It’s their job to give both sides of a story. So they have reported claims that Israel is trying to gas innocent Lebanese and Israeli claims that these are simply promotional balloons. Isn’t that fair reporting?

You know, if Lebanese balloons had drifted south, do you think anyone would have noticed/raised a ruckus/alerted international news media/etc?

Do you think anyone in Israel would have cared?