March 20, 2007

Erlanger vs Landes on media manipulation

Tune in to ZOA internet radio here tomorrow (Wednesday March 21) at noon:

Steve Erlanger, NYT Jerusalem Bureau chief, will join us as we question him about his coverage of the Middle East, and particularly his "news" story that ran in the NYT on March 12th: A GENERATION LOST: The Second Intifada; Years of Strife and Lost Hope Scar Young Palestinian Lives.

Following the interview with Erlanger, we will be joined by Richard Landes, BU History Professor and an expert on media manipulation. Landes will discuss the various levels of dangers presented by the mainstream media's portrayal of Israel - and the NYT is the Mother of all Mainstream Media!

We will also have the opportunity to chat with H. Patrick Swygert, president of Howard University. Swygert swiftly and courageously nullified a decision by a rogue portion of the Howard University faculty to force the university to divest its holdings from Israel.

Our friend Landes fisked Erlanger's latest piece and has said unkind things about him in the past (not on record) so this should be fun.

At a media conference in Israel (not the one I was at) Erlanger confirmed all the worst stereotypes about the MSM:

Continue reading "Erlanger vs Landes on media manipulation"

Judith | 03/20/07 at 07:24 PM | 5 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - The War of Dire Straits

January 29, 2007

A look back at the War of Dire Straits

Michael Totten interviews an Israeli soldier who fought Hezbollah in southern Lebanon last summer. He substantiates the claims that Hezbollah took over villages and drew fire by shooting from mosques. The comment thread which takes off from this is extremely interesting and thoughtful, ranging from military strategy to geopolitics to right/left labels.

One commenter links to this video, which was posted on Lisa Goldman's blog last summer. I pointed people to it at the time, and I am glad it is now available on another video site. An Israeli journalist is embedded with an Israeli unit fighting Hezbollah, videoing the house-to-house fighting using night vision goggles, with computer graphics of the battle areas added later. It graphically illustrates the information in Michael's interview, as well as the chaos of battle.

A must-see.

My name for the war? See here.

Judith | 01/29/07 at 04:54 PM | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - The War of Dire Straits

January 17, 2007

Martin Amis on the Most Depressing Thing in Britain

In a Q&A at the Independent, with questions sent in from online readers Martin Amis was asked:

What is the most depressing thing about Britain you have observed since your return? And the best? GRANT MULLIN, Surrey

The most depressing thing was the sight of middle-class white demonstrators, last August, waddling around under placards saying, We Are All Hizbollah Now. Well, make the most of being Hizbollah while you can. As its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, famously advised the West: "We don't want anything from you. We just want to eliminate you." Similarly, when I went on Question Time the other week, a woman in the audience, her voice quavering with self-righteousness, presented the following argument: since it was America that supported Osama bin Laden when he was fighting the Russians, the US armed forces, in response to September 11, "should be dropping bombs on themselves!" And the audience applauded. It is quite an achievement. People of liberal sympathies, stupefied by relativism, have become the apologists for a creedal wave that is racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperialist, and genocidal. To put it another way, they are up the arse of those that want them dead.

[Hat tip: Stephen Pollard]

Alcibiades | 01/17/07 at 12:20 PM | 2 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - The War of Dire Straits

January 13, 2007

From Michael Totten in South Lebanon

Michael Totten and Noah Pollack visit South Lebanon guided by Said and Henry, who work for the Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559, an NGO which closely advises the Lebanese government and the international community on the disarmament of illegal militias in Lebanon. From the safety of the Christian village of Ein Ebel just outside Bint Jbail, Henry discusses the situation in Lebanon.

“We have been screaming about this conflict for 30 years now,” Henry said as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire from a deck of cards in his pocket. “But no one ever listened to us. Not until September 11. Now you know how we feel all the time. You have to keep up the pressure. You can never let go, not for one day, one hour, not for one second. The minute you let go, Michael, they will fight back and get stronger. This is the problem with your foreign policy.”

“Since 1975 we have been fighting for the free world,” Said said. “We are on the front lines. Why doesn’t the West understand this? America can withdraw from Iraq, you can go back to Oregon, but we are stuck here. We have to stay and live with what happens.”

More of Arafat's legacy. He sowed chaos and death wherever he strode.

In retrospect, though, it's interesting to note that Arafat's use of Lebanon for war against Israel - a Sunni incursion - was soon followed by the Iranian revolution.

We are still living in the aftermath of these two disastrous events.

Arafat and Khomeini in hell looking up at the world, at Gaza, at South Lebanon, at Jenin, at parts of Iraq:

Arafat says to Khomeini: This is the world that we made. Isn't it wonderful?

Alcibiades | 01/13/07 at 06:47 PM | 2 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - The War of Dire Straits

October 22, 2006

Phosphorus Bombs

This new story, that Israel admits to using phosphorus bombs in Lebanon, is troubling, both for the morality of the situation and because it is going to end up producing a huge propaganda victory against it. As well as being very unpopular in Israel, itself, unless Israel can supply a good reason for it.

Phosphorus bombs are not considered to be chemical weapons and they are not illegal. But that is not going to be the standard applied to Israel.

UPDATE: The story is currently a top headline on the BBC website. Can more international opprobrium be far behind?

Alcibiades | 10/22/06 at 01:52 AM | 15 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - The War of Dire Straits

September 16, 2006

Michael Totten On The Second Lebanon War

Michael Totten interviews Yaacov Lozowick, the archivist at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, on the Second Lebanon War. Lozowick is essentially a centrist and he provides Totten with another informed perspective on Israel and the Lebanon war besides the left wing one he already had two members of Peace Now.

It's an interesting interview, and although longish, Totten's interview style makes it a quick and enjoyable read.

And although I would not classify myself as a centrist, I happen to agree with most of Lozowick's conclusions - at least his one's on the second Lebanon war. Not his evaluation of Bibi Netanyahu's prime ministership or his opinion about disengagement from the West Bank. But that goes outside the point I am making in this post. Although I still think Totten should have gone to the West Bank and talked to settlers himself to gain, firsthand, a sense of their perspective.

Here's Lozowick on the Lebanon war:

Lozowick: Okay. So tens of thousands of people live [in the Hezbollah suburbs of Beirut]. We killed…500 of them? That means that most of them weren’t there. Right? Now, clearly it’s easier to do this in Nablus than in the [southern suburbs], and I think from the perspective of the Israelis that a certain amount of collateral damage was inevitable. But…what for? Killing Lebanese civilians in order not to achieve anything…there’s no justification for that that any of us can see.

Continue reading "Michael Totten On The Second Lebanon War"

Alcibiades | 09/16/06 at 07:49 PM | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - The War of Dire Straits

September 10, 2006

Minhag Anglia

Melanie Phillips, in one of her bravura pieces, calls British Jewry to task for failing to make a peep while Israel was culmniated left, right and center, during the recent War in Lebanon. Nary a peep from the Jews, which leaves the state of the argument about Israel in Britain solidly in the hands of Israel's adversaries.

With such a torrent of lies and distortions crying out for rebuttal, such behaviour is simply astounding. In Israel, people were amazed and distressed by the silence of British Jews. In America, they simply could not believe it.

American Jews expected Britain to respond as they would have responded to such an assault upon the Jewish people: full page ads rebutting the lies, mailshots to MPs, questions in Parliament about the blatant manipulation of journalists by Hezbollah, protests by prominent community leaders, public rallies, articles placed in the press.

There was none of that. It was left instead to a few non-Jews, such as Freddie Forsyth, Julie Burchill or other voices of gentile conscience, to ask why the country had taken such comprehensive leave of its senses.

It’s shocking — but not surprising. It’s minhag anglia, the historic custom of the leaders of British Jewry, to be craven and servile, to be terrified of rocking the boat and drawing attention to the fact that they are different, that they are Jews.

They are frightened for their reputations and their interests, for their place in British society. They are frightened of being accused of being partisan and not properly British, of being demonised as extremists, of being stamped as supporters of Jewish war criminals.

They are frightened, indeed, that the big lie that Israel is guilty of war crimes might be true. Above all, they are frightened that if they say anything about antisemitism they will provoke even more of it.

Alcibiades | 09/10/06 at 03:23 PM | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBacks | Categories: - The War of Dire Straits

September 05, 2006

"We're the severed-heads people!"

Hezbollah continues to be a fertile source of comedy - this is from Bill Maher's show (via Jewlicious).