Live action naqba cartoon

Posted on 05/02/2008 by Soccerdad

How do the Palestinians commemorate Naqba?With a play, of course.

LGF in And now the Nakba dwarf describes the scene.

… a malignant dwarf with an automatic rifle, dressed as a stereotype Jew.

Snapped Shot (and a h/t for alerting me to this) in Naqba Coming Soon: Those Dastardly Zionists

Seriously, I’m not sure what I find funnier about this picture—The fact that they use midgets to represent the IDF, or the fact that there is almost nobody watching (at least, judging by the background).

Israelly Cool’s take:

Apparently, the palestinians believe that in 1948, they were attacked by Zionist mafia dwarfs.

Of course though we may laugh at the absurdity of the scene, what’s being promulgated here is a real life caricature of the short, hook nosed Jew that is so common in Palestinian cartoons. And of course such stereotyping isn’t unique to the Palesitnians; it has long been the caricature of Jews by those who hate them.

I recently saw an essay equating Naqba-denial with Holocaust denial. What the writer failed to grasp is that much of what fuels Naqba commemorations is the same hatred that, unchecked, fueled the Holocaust.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, palestinian politics | Comments Off on Live action naqba cartoon

Hey, they are not celebrating our Independence Day!

Posted on 05/02/2008 by SnoopyTheGoon

With the same inevitability as the increase in terrorist attacks and rocket scientists’ activity toward Jewish and Israeli holidays, the so called Jewish anti-Zionists get restless during the period. The phenomenon usually manifests in a joint letter, published in a sympathetic newspaper. And in UK you can hardly get a more sympathetic one than The Guardian, of course.

This time the wretches couldn’t even wait for the Holocaust Remembrance day to be over.

In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating.

And then the usual tripe, half-truths, distortions, etc. And the usual list of signatures with painfully familiar names. The democratic nature of the list is touching – professors, writers, thieves, rabbis, you name it.

There is one thing I would like to understand better: why should a person declare with such pomposity and publicity that he/she doesn’t celebrate this or another holiday? I mean, if I decide not to celebrate, for example, St. Patrick’s day (rest assured I shall not do so, it’s just for illustration) – should I get a space in a Turkish (to use another example) newspaper to announce this decision to the world?

There is another issue unclear to me: who asked these people to celebrate? As far as I know, Olmert is too busy these days, what with all these investigations and stuff, and his ministers are too busy watching him – not to miss the moment he stumbles or blinks first.

And the last, but not the least: who cares? As far as I, and the other 99.9% of Israeli citizens are concerned, this whole list could collectively kiss our collective rosy posterior.

And it is only of respect to the place where this post will appear that I refrain from posting a certain picture I have in mind.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Juvenile Scorn | 2 Comments

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Posted on 05/01/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Today is the day that Jews all over the world remember the victims of the Holocaust. Even as we do this, the Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim allies once again try to expropriate the language and images of the murder of Jews, and apply it to Palestinians. The word “Holocaust” is being used a lot to describe Gaza. Well, let’s take a look at the difference between the real Holocaust, and the utter misuse of that word to describe Palestinian deaths in a war with Israel.

The real Holocaust deaths (a partial list):

CountryJews Killed% of Country’s Jews Killed
Austria50,00036
Belgium25,00060
Belorussia245,00065
Bohemia/Moravia80,00089
Bulgaria11,40014
Estonia150035
France90,00026
Greece65,00080
Hungary450,00070
Italy750020
Latvia70,00077
Lithuania220,00094
Luxembourg195050
The Netherlands106,00076
Norway87055
Poland2,900,00088
Russia107,00011
Romania270,00033
Slovakia71,00080
Ukraine900,00060
Yugoslavia60,00080

The total number of Palestinians killed in the territories since the start of the second intifada: 4,609.

The Palestinian population today (disputed):

Gaza: 1,482,405
West Bank: 2,611,904

The Palestinian population in 1967:

Gaza:380,800
West Bank: 604,494

Someone else can figure out percentage of population growth and the number of Palestinian deaths. I’m not going to waste the time on an obviously spurious comparison. I’m just going to continue to point out the attempt to expropriate all of the language used to describe the world’s crimes against the Jews by the Palestinians, who would have you believe they are also victims of anti-Semitism. This needs to be stopped.

Never forget. There is no Palestinian “Holocaust.” There was only one Holocaust, that of the Jews by the Nazis, with the willing help of Europeans and Arabs, including the ones who lived in what was then known as Palestine—and whose descendants live in the territories today.

The descendants of the victims of the Holocaust? Well, there are none for the true victims. Only for the survivors.

Am Yisrael Chai. The people of Israel live. Long live the people of Israel.

Posted in Holocaust, Jews | 7 Comments

Mixed message

Posted on 05/01/2008 by Soccerdad

Daled Amos asks How long have we been trying to ‘bolster’ Abbas? and answers it showing that bolstering Abbas has been going on for some five years now.One of the actions taken by Israel to bolster Abbas has been to free Palestinian prisoners. Most of those in Israeli prisons now were engaged in terror since the signing of the Oslo Accords. In other words, people who engaged in terror to undermine peace.

So what happens to Palestinians who supposedly did something to fight terror? Well they’re not valued nearly as highly as those who engaged in terror.

The Palestinian military court on Monday sentenced Saad to death for collaborating with Israel, court officials and security sources said.

This isn’t Hamas, this is Fatah. I have no idea if Mr. Saad is guilty of the charge or not. However he was deemed guilty of it by Israel’s “peace partner.”

So freeing terrorists is the same as bolstering Abbas and peace and condemning those who work against terrorists is OK, what sort of message does that send about how much Fatah is committed to peace? The U.S. may say the right things about Hamas, so why is it encouraging prisoner releases and staying silent about the killing of those Palestinians accused of fighting terrorists?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Hamas, Israel, palestinian politics | 1 Comment

Yossi Harel

Posted on 05/01/2008 by Soccerdad

Yossi Harel the captain who commanded Exodus 1947 died. Here’s an interesting tidbit from the NYT obituary.

In a speech in La Jolla, Calif., in 2005, Mr. Harel gave statistics to show that running the British blockade was deadlier than Israel’s war for independence. He said that 6,000 of 600,000 Jews who fought in the war were killed, or 1 percent. Of the 100,000 who tried to get through the blockade, 3,000 died, or 3 percent.“With all these casualties, they kept coming, they didn’t stop,” he said. “A nation destroyed was coming back to life.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel | Comments Off on Yossi Harel

Mofaz warns world of the Second Holocaust

Posted on 05/01/2008 by Meryl Yourish

On the eve of Yom HaShoah, the day that Jews worldwide remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust while most of the world stood by or actively aided the Nazis, Israel’s Shaul Mofaz spoke at Yale yesterday of the Iranian attempt to commit the second Holocaust, and Israel’s refusal to allow it.

“The Iranian regime is the number one threat to mankind in the 21st century. It is a multi-dimensional, multi-armed threat, which increases every day, every hour.”

Taking the diplomatic route at this time is the best thing to do, he said, “But we must set two timetables – one for rating the Iranian progress and the other to rate the effects of the sanctions. Should those two prove mutually exclusive, we mustn’t exclude any of our options.

“We have to be ready for any scenario,” he continued. “This is a historical time in human history, in the life of a nation, of a people. The Jewish people know this better than everyone. No leader will be able to say, ‘We didn’t know, we didn’t understand.’ This time the entire world, and Israel in it, will have to take the initiative and do whatever it takes to make sure the next generations will enjoy a future of peace and prosperity.”

Time is running out, he warned his audience, and the sanctions must be enforced: “Appeasement has not proved an efficient policy and in the Middle East it is perceived as weak… The situation in Iran is dire and I believe that in that kind of a reality the change can grow from within.

Unlike so many of the fools in the world who insist that Iranian nuclear ambitions are peaceful, Shaul Mofaz pointed out something he has that they don’t: He was born in Iran.

“As someone who was born in Iran and is closely watching it, I can assure you that the Iranian people do not share their regime’s aspirations. I am a great believer in the power of the Iranian people. Iran is no stranger to revolution… The Iranian regime is trying to maneuver its long-term aspirations with the need to survive. We believe that only heavy international political and financial pressure – which would reflect the contradiction between the two – could make Iran change course.”

Mofaz spoke to Iranians on a radio call-in show, and I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about to a large degree regarding the Iranian people. But that was a long time ago (five years, in fact), and his hopeful signs from then haven’t turned into anything concrete. And Iranian polls indicate that the Iranian people, in whom Mofaz places so much confidence, think they should be able to attain nuclear weapons.

But Mofaz gets the bottom line.

“This is a threat to the very existence of the Jewish state. The (uranium) enrichment program is the pivotal point which will set the course for nuclear development. The coming year is critical – our assessments show it is a matter of months, less than a year, before Iran gets hold of enrichment technology and will be able to create uranium suitable for a nuclear bomb.”

Yes.

Posted in Iran, Israel | 1 Comment

When Kim confronted Ehud

Posted on 04/30/2008 by Soccerdad

Back in December North Korea condemned the Israeli raid on what we now know to be a Syrian nuclear reactor.

North Korea lashed out Tuesday at Israel for invading Syrian airspace last Thursday, its official news agency said.”This is a very dangerous provocation little short of wantonly violating the sovereignty of Syria and seriously harassing the regional peace and security,” a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea strongly denounces the above-said intrusion and extends full support and solidarity to the Syrian people in their just cause to defend the national security and the regional peace,” he added.

Last week it was revealed that perhaps there was an even bigger reason for North Korea to condemn Israel.

Ten North Koreans may have been killed in an Israeli air strike on Syria in September, NHK reported on its Web site, citing unidentified South Korean intelligence officials.The 10 people, whose remains were cremated and returned to North Korea in October, had been helping with the construction of a nuclear reactor in Syria, Japan’s public broadcaster said. Some North Koreans probably survived the air attack, NHK said.

Now, President Bush is making the connection explicitly. The New York Times reports:

Making the first remarks in public about the Israeli attack by any American official, Mr. Bush said that his administration maintained a cloak of secrecy to avoid the risk of further military conflict in the region, including possible Syrian retaliation against Israel. He said that risk of conflict “was reduced” now.Mr. Bush did not explain why exactly the administration disclosed the information at this point, but the timing coincided with renewed efforts to persuade North Korea to abide by last year’s agreement to acknowledge all of its nuclear activities. The North Korean activities include what administration officials assert are a still undisclosed program to enrich uranium and the sale of nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

“We also wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures, and one would be to the North Koreans to make it abundantly clear that we, we may know more about you than you think,” Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference.

Senior officials have signaled that the administration may accept a less-than-full disclosure, allowing North Korea, for example, not to explain its nuclear cooperation with Syria in the kind of detail that American officials have now done.

In his remarks on Tuesday and at Camp David on April 19, the president appeared to back off such a compromise. He restated his demand that North Korea make “a complete disclosure” about its proliferation and enrichment activities.

More than that President Bush emphasized:

Mr. Bush said that the disclosure of a covert Syrian reactor, which Syria has denied, should persuade other countries to support United Nations Security Council resolutions intended to keep Iran and other countries from developing nuclear arms.“We have an interest in sending a message to Iran and the world for that matter about just how destabilizing a nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East,” he said.

In addition to his comments about the North Korean aid to Syria, the President also added (according to the Washington Post):

Bush avoided criticism of former president Jimmy Carter’s recent talks with Hamas, the radical Palestinian group classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist entity. The United States refuses to engage with Hamas, which Bush said is “undermining peace.””They’re the ones whose foreign policy objective is the destruction of Israel,” he said. “They’re the ones who are trying to create enough violence to stop the advance of the two-party state solution.”

The President implicitly gives too much credit to Fatah, but it’s correct for him to acknowledge this.

Left unsaid, is that this episode suggests that the “axis of evil” was quite possibly more than just a rhetorical flourish.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Posted in Israel, Politics, Syria | Comments Off on When Kim confronted Ehud

Anti-Semitic attacks up worldwide

Posted on 04/30/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Anti-Semitic attacks are up worldwide, and “major” anti-Semitic attacks—ones classifed as severely violent—tripled in the past year. And this time, the world doesn’t have the Lebanon war to blame for their attacks on Jews. It’s just plain old vanilla Jew-hatred, aided and abetted by the media portrayal of Jews and Zionism, with a lot of help from the anti-Semitic United Nations.

A 6.6% rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks has been registered across the world in 2007, a report published on Wednesday by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at the Tel Aviv University revealed.

Furthermore, the number of severe violent attacks rose threefold in 2007.

According to the study, 632 incidents of racially-motivated violence against Jews have been reported in 2007, compared to 593 in 2006. Fifty-seven percent of the attacks in 2007 have been classified as “major attacks” – three times higher than in 2006, when the number of major attacks stood at 19.

The report’s authors noted that the trend of growth in anti-Semitics violence continued last year, despite the absence of a direct “external catalyst” – such as the Second Lebanon war the year before.

Islamophobia is mentioned. I’ll have to read the full report, because this sounds like excuse-making to me:

They further suggested that the rise in major attacks could be linked to internal social and economic tensions in various countries and the consequent rise in Islamophobia.

The vast majority of violent assaults were registered in western and central Europe, where the growing presence of millions of immigrants, including some 20 million Muslims, is a source for constant friction, the report maintained.

And the three countries with the biggest rise in anti-Semitic attacks?

Meanwhile, in Germany, Canada and Britain the number of anti-Semitics assaults in both categories grew in 2007.

The good news: Attacks grew only 6.6%. The bad news: Attacks in 2006 doubled over 2005. I suppose we should be grateful that the growth industry is seeing a severe slowdown. But let’s face it: Attacks on Jews never go out of style. And now, they rarely go reported, except by Jewish organizations.

Posted in Anti-Semitism | 1 Comment

Rice to U.S. Jews: Palestinian propaganda is working

Posted on 04/30/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Condoleeza Rice told U.S. Jews that Palestinian propaganda is working—they’re raising a generation of Palestinians who don’t want peace with Israel. But I don’t think that’s quite the message she was trying to get across.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told an American Jewish audience Tuesday that young Palestinians are losing hope for an agreement with Israel.

“Increasingly, the Palestinians who talk about a two-state solution are my age,” Rice, 53, said in a somber speech to The American Jewish Committee at its 102nd annual meeting.

Insisting that the Bush administration will never yield to dealing with Hamas militants, Rice said, “What you don’t want is that the hopelessness and the vision of the extremists have no counter.”

So it looks like the Palestinan refusal to stop “incitement”—which is another word for raising their children on a steady diet of Jew-hatred in the schools, on TV, and in the homes—is paying big dividends. For the Palestinians, who never truly agreed to live with Israel in the first place.

Qureia said in response that Barak “can say whatever he wants, but the determining factor will be the negotiations and the outcome of the talks.

“On principle, we know what our rights are and will fight for them using all means and ways. We reject any demand, any position, or any Israeli statement regarding territory outside the 1967 borders.”

And that’s just a jumping-off point to the next phase, which is still, in their minds, the elimination of Israel. It’s just that Fatah is a little more subtle about it than Hamas.

And, the administration would have no dealings with Hamas or other Palestinian extremists that war with Israel and refuse to recognize the Jewish state.

“Either you are a political party or a terrorist group,” Rice said. “You cannot be both.”

Yeah, tell that to Fatah. The ones who are boycotting any dignitary that celebrates Israel’s 60th birthday.

Presidents, prime ministers and other dignitaries who attend Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations next month will be shunned by Palestinian leaders if they visit the West Bank.

However, one positive thing came out from Condi: She dissed Jimmah again.

Once again, Rice criticized former President Jimmy Carter for holding talks with Hamas leaders. “I don’t see the point of trying to negotiate with people who are determined to destroy the foundation of peace,” she said.

Look for him to respond petulantly.

Posted in Hamas, Israel | 2 Comments

Jews stabbed in U.K., perpetrator of unknown origin charged

Posted on 04/29/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Two Orthodox Jewish men were stabbed in fairly rapid succession, yet the British press first called these attacks “random,” and the perpetrator is not being charged with a hate crime. See if you can guess the probable faith of the perpetrator.

A man has been charged following a double knife attack on two Orthodox Jews in Golders Green.

Mohamed Jama Ahmed, 37, of North Circular Road, Cricklewood, was arrested after two stabbings which happened just meters apart in roads off Golders Green Road on Friday.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said the attacks, which happened at around 6pm, appear to have been random and unprovoked, but were not being treated as faith hate crimes.

Officers were alerted to a 47-year-old man in The Drive who was suffering from stab wounds to his arm and chest.

While at the scene, police were informed that a 43-year-old man had been stabbed in nearby Beverley Gardens.

Yes, the attacks were meters apart, and “random and unprovoked,” but the British police—who charged a British television station with race hate for running a program that showed the anti-British, anti-Semitic, and anti-infidel attitudes of radical Islamists in British mosques—can’t seem to bring themselves to discover a faith-based motivation for an attack on two religious Jews. I guess they must have been attacked on the day they didn’t dress as religious Jews. Or maybe the British police are of the opinion that it’s anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism, motivating the attacker.

Here’s another whitewashing:

The 37-year-old was arrested after two men were attacked within minutes of each other in Golders Green, north-west London.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said detectives are keeping an open mind about the stabbings.

But she added that the attacks, which took place on Friday at about 6pm, were not being treated as faith hate crimes.

Amazing how the U.K. simply cannot call an anti-Semitic attack an anti-Semitic attack. No wonder anti-Semitism is on the rise in the U.K.

Posted in Anti-Semitism | 8 Comments

Extra! Extra! in Abu Dhabi

Posted on 04/29/2008 by Soccerdad

There’s a new paper in town!

ONE of the Middle East’s wealthiest ruling families has a new asset: The National, a newspaper that promises independence from its royal owners.The paper, an English-language daily based in Abu Dhabi, published its first issue on April 17, under close scrutiny in the Middle East and abroad. With its pledge to emulate Western newspaper standards and to “help society evolve,” The National is an anomaly in the Middle East, where most media are tightly controlled by the government.

“We aim to produce an excellent newspaper out of the region” that will set a new standard for other publications to aspire to, said Hassan M. Fattah, the deputy editor, who was a correspondent for The New York Times in the Middle East before joining The National. “Being government-owned does not equal being government-run,” he said. “There are no ministers sitting in my office” telling the paper what to write.

Western newspaper standards?

The National, which aims at expatriate and local professionals in Abu Dhabi, has published a few articles with criticisms of the region, like one about severely overcrowded private schools, which limit companies’ abilities to attract new people. It has also printed controversial opinion pieces, one asking Arabs to welcome Jewish investors to the region and another warning that Emirate culture is disappearing.

Is encouraging Jewish investment controversial in the West?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Jew Cooties | Comments Off on Extra! Extra! in Abu Dhabi

Mofaz positions himself opposite Olmert

Posted on 04/29/2008 by Meryl Yourish

It looks like Shaul Mofaz is openly declaring that the Golan Heights needs to stay exactly as it is right now: Under Israeli control.

Giving Syria the Golan Heights will mean bringing Iran there as well, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said overnight Monday after meeting in Washington with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

[…] “I can only say one thing about that: Due to the fact that there is a strengthening of the radical axis, and Syria is a very central and dominant component of the radical axis, any handover of the Golan Heights to them means Iranians in the Golan Heights.”

“We must take this under consideration, not as a statement that creates headlines, but as an issue that will become very tangible and real,” he added. “Just as today the Iranians have a foothold in southern Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip, they will have one in the Golan Heights.”

Yes.

“This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make peace with the Syrians in the future, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk to the Syrians, but in this reality the Golan Heights is a strategic asset for Israel and handing it over to the Syrians is tantamount to handing it to the Iranians.”

And yes again. Let’s not forget that Syria regularly attacked Israel from the Golan.

From 1948-67, when Syria controlled the Golan Heights, it used the area as a military stronghold from which its troops randomly sniped at Israeli civilians in the Huleh Valley below, forcing children living on kibbutzim to sleep in bomb shelters. In addition, many roads in northern Israel could be crossed only after probing by mine-detection vehicles. In late 1966, a youth was blown to pieces by a mine while playing football near the Lebanon border. In some cases, attacks were carried out by Yasir Arafat’s Fatah, which Syria allowed to operate from its territory.

Israel’s options for countering the Syrian attacks were constrained by the geography of the Heights. “Counterbattery fires were limited by the lack of observation from the Huleh Valley; air attacks were degraded by well-dug-in Syrian positions with strong overhead cover, and a ground attack against the positions…would require major forces with the attendant risks of heavy casualties and severe political repercussions,” U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) Irving Heymont observed.

Israel repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, protested the Syrian bombardments to the UN Mixed Armistice Commission, which was charged with policing the cease-fire. For example, Israel went to the UN in October 1966 to demand a halt to the Fatah attacks. The response from Damascus was defiant. “It is not our duty to stop them, but to encourage and strengthen them,” the Syrian ambassador responded. Nothing was done to stop Syria’s aggression. A mild Security Council resolution expressing “regret” for such incidents was vetoed by the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Israel was condemned by the UN when it retaliated. “As far as the Security Council was officially concerned,” historian Netanel Lorch wrote, “there was an open season for killing Israelis on their own territory.”

After the Six-Day War began, the Syrian air force attempted to bomb oil refineries in Haifa. While Israel was fighting in the Sinai and West Bank, Syrian artillery bombarded Israeli forces in the eastern Galilee, and armored units fired on villages in the Huleh Valley below the Golan Heights.

Sure. Let’s hand the Golan back to Syria. They’ve proven themselves eminently trustworthy. It’s not like they’re trying to build nuclear weapons on the sly or anything like that. Oh, wait. Yes they are.

A suspected Syrian reactor bombed by Israel had the capacity to produce enough nuclear material to fuel one to two weapons a year, CIA Director Michael Hayden said on Monday.

Hayden said the plutonium reactor was within weeks or months of completion when it was destroyed in an air strike last September 6, and within a year of entering operation it could have produced enough material for at least one weapon.

“In the course of a year after they got full up, they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons,” Hayden told reporters after a speech.

And then there’s this spin by the UN:

A diplomat close to the UN nuclear watchdog and outside analysts have said the US disclosure did not amount to proof of an illicit arms program because there was no sign of a reprocessing plant needed to convert spent fuel from the plant into bomb-grade plutonium.

Hm. Can we think of a country that Syria is currently allied with that would have the plant necessary to do the reprocessing once the Syrians had the nuclear fuel? Let’s think. Hm. Starts with “I” and ends with “ran.” That’s right. Iran. The same people who will show up in the Golan Heights if Israel gives it back now.

Posted in Israel, Syria | Comments Off on Mofaz positions himself opposite Olmert

This week’s Shire Network News

Posted on 04/29/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Shire Network News is up, and I have a piece in this week regarding the Syrian “peace” overtures.

It’s a full house this week; Doug and Damian have commentary as well. Tom’s interview is with Barry Rubin of the GLORIA Center.

Posted in Podcasts | Comments Off on This week’s Shire Network News

Reuters post mortem

Posted on 04/29/2008 by Soccerdad

Throughout the day Reuters reported:

Israeli fire hit a house in the Gaza Strip on Monday while a family was eating breakfast, killing six Palestinians, including four children and their mother, residents and medical officials said.

Elder of Ziyon and Israelly Cool! followed the story and did a little research over the course of the day and showed that there was some doubt that it was “Israeli fire” that hit the house.

Israelly Cool!:

What I am not seeing in the mainstream media is this version reported in the Jerusalem Post (hat tip: Shy Guy):The Palestinian mother and her four children who were killed Monday during IDF ops in Beit Hanun were not hit by a tank shell but rather were killed when ammunition carried by gunmen exploded, Army Radio quoted an IDF source as saying.

Elder of Ziyon:

After reading the IDF explanation as well as the PCHR preliminary investigation into the deaths of the mother and four daughters this morning, I am convinced that the IDF version is correct – the IDF shot a missile at two terrorists who were outside the Abu Meatak home, and the explosives that at least one was carrying exploded, killing most of the family.

I’d add that Elder of Ziyon did not just rely on the IDF report.

The NY Times managed to acknowledge the Israeli version of the deaths.

The Israelis said they shot a missile from the air that hit two armed men who were carrying heavy explosives, which blew apart the family’s house behind them. Palestinian witnesses said they believed an Israeli tank shell or a missile from a drone flew into the small house, killing the four as they were eating breakfast. Two other children from the same family were badly wounded and hospitalized.

The Washington Post does too:

Israeli military officials said the blast was caused by explosives that the two gunmen were carrying in backpacks. But Gazan medical officials said the Israeli fire had directly struck the one-story, corrugated metal home of the Abu Meiteg family as the children and their mother began to eat breakfast.The children ranged in age from 1 1/2 to 5. The blast also killed a teenager passing by the home, and the Israeli military said he may have been one of the targeted gunmen.

The Post also takes care to acknowledge the sixth death. (Israel claimed to have killed the two gunmen, so the death toll should be seven not six. Or was the teenager double counted.)

The Post also gives some context:

The attack took place in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, a frequent launching area for rockets targeting southern Israel. The Israeli military said 18 rockets and more than a dozen mortar shells were fired from Gaza on Monday, adding to a tally that stands at more than 1,600 for the year. One Israeli home was damaged by the attacks, but they caused no serious injuries.

But Reuters is less a news agency than a mouthpiece for Hamas.

The game is up so what does Reuters report?

Palestinians carry the bodies of four children and their mother during their funeral in the northern Gaza Strip April 28, 2008.

That’s the complete report. Instead of reporting that there was any doubt about the circumstances surrounding their deaths, Reuters doesn’t leave us with any hints that their earlier assertion was mistaken or incomplete.

UPDATE: Crossing the Rubicon points out that Andrew Sullivan is doing all he can to promote Hamas without context too. Utterly irresponsible.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Hamas, Israel, Media Bias | Comments Off on Reuters post mortem

Calling all computer geeks

Posted on 04/28/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Folks, I dropped my WD portable hard drive. It’s not spinning properly. Best Buy’s Geek Squad thinks it’s pretty much done unless I want to spend over $1500.

I can pretty much recover the data I need for work, but I’m going to lose all of the photos I took since last June, since I’ve been lax transferring them to CDs. That means all of my final Tig photos are gone.

Is there anyone out there who knows of a good data recovery place that might be able to pull the data off for less than I’ve been quoted?

Posted in Computers | 13 Comments