OK, no one ever really hates it when they’re right. But I do hate that, once again, Israel has been blamed for something it did not do, despite past instances of this blame-before-fact-finding behavior. Check out this lede from a January 6 AP story, “Israeli bombs hits [sic] UN school” (italics mine):
Israeli forces edged closer to Gaza’s major population centers on Tuesday and attacked new targets, including a U.N. school, taking more civilian lives after ignoring mounting international calls for an immediate cease-fire.
The insinuation in the title and lede is that Israeli planes purposely dropped bombs on the UN school as if its very nature made it a target. Some news organizations did report the matter correctly, which is that Israeli artillery shells (not bombs) fell outside the school, which is where the civilian casualties occurred. Some did not, though, as they led many readers to believe — myself included — that Israel had hit the school building itself. Much of the mistake, according to the United Nations Relief Works Agency (the only UN refugee agency dedicated to one group of people), is that some unnamed “separate branch” of the United Nations perpetuated the falsehood. Whatever that means.
Civilian lives must be taken very seriously in combat, and any time a nation intentionally strikes a civilian target with no military purpose, then that is a war crime. But news agencies and supposedly neutral international organizations need to be very careful when they accuse. Their accusations get reported as fact and, in a sense, become fact because enough people believe them to be true.
You have a point. But they haven’t exactly been helpful in allowing the press to get the story right. Israel’s press restrictions leave the wires dependent on unreliable stringers and sources, making accurate reporting harder than it needs to be. And that actually hurts Israel’s case rather than helps it.
Also, OT but what’re your thoughts on the election?
You’re correct that Israel’s media blackout backfired. I thought it was a mistake.
On the election . . . hoo boy. I was glad to see Kadima overperform, although sad to see Labor underperform. My guess is that Peres will try to broker something like he and Yitzhak Shamir did in 1984, where they form a national unity government and rotate the lead party after two years. It’ll be Labor-Kadima-Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu (assuming they accept ministries other than defense, interior, and foreign affairs).
It could have been a lot worse, but I still think Livni should have just gave in to Shas’ demands last year. Would have saved a lot of trouble.
There are no words to describe how bdaoocius this is.
[...] Operation Cast Lead — that the death toll was as high as Hamas claimed, that Israel was targeting UN schools, that the operation was part of some strategy of maintaining the hopes of “Greater [...]