What time is it, kids? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time. From an editorial in The Gulf News:
As the international community ponders ways to revive the Middle East peace process, Israel responds by launching its biggest war games in five years on the occupied Golan Heights and threatening to launch another war against Lebanon.
During the past three years, the Israeli government has rejected peace overtures made by Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. Israel occupied the Golan in 1967 and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. More than 15,000 Jewish colonists now live in the area.
Instead of working towards peace, the Israelis embark on provocative exercises, increasing tension in the region. The war games, a naked infringement on Syrian sovereignty, coincide with the Quartet meeting in Berlin. They do not help the efforts exerted to find a way out of the current impasse.
Now, for the cognitive dissonance. Hey! Asshats! Take a look down the Gulf and what do you see?
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards on Tuesday staged a war game simulating an enemy air strike as a second nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier arrived in regional waters in an apparent warning to Teheran.
The Revolutionary Guards land forces fought back the hypothetical air strike from enemy helicopters, planes and missiles with 620 anti-aircraft cannon and shoulder missiles, state television said.
“Today, we are fighting back at all kinds of planes at low and average altitudes,†said Brigader General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the commander of the Guards’ land forces.
“The manoeuvre is exceptional in terms of the number and types of the weapons used. We have used anti-helicopter weapons with a range of more than 10 kilometres (six miles),†he said.
It was the second of the three-day “Power Manoeuvre†exercises involving 3,000 units of the elite force in 16 of Iran’s 30 provinces, the second war games staged by the Guards this month.
Lest you think the Gulf News didn’t notice the Iranian war games, they did. Buried at the end of an article about the U.S. adding more carriers to the Gulf.
All together now: What time is it?
That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time. All’s right with the world.
Well, Maryl, “Gulf News” is expected to be a mouthpiece for anti-Israel propaganda. Reuters and the Associated Press, however, are…well, OK, they’re mouthpieces for propaganda, too.
This is just the Muslim way of acknowledging that they aren’t going to sneak past the IDF, no matter how the Syrians pretend their build-up on the border is just a routine reshuffling of units.