Want An Example Of Media Bias…?

.(hat tip  Elder Of Ziyon)

 

 

When Reuters decided it needed a picture of Palestinian children behind prison bars, what did it do? It used this photograph:

 

And the caption reads: Palestinian children stand at a gate to the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip during a protest against the Israeli blockade July 13, 2009.

 

So what’s the problem with it…?

 

The superb Elder Of Ziyon blog explains:

 

But which bars to choose? Well, obviously, the most photogenic ones. I know – the Egyptians have some nice blue ones! Let’s go there, to the big gate that stops us from going to Egypt and stops Egyptian goods from being imported to Gaza – and tell the world that we are protesting the Israeli blockade!

 

This is not an isolated example. Rather, it is typical of the inaccuracy and yes, downright deception which characterises reporting on Israel.  If pressed, no doubt Reuters will feign surprise and claim ignorance over the fact that their report blames Israel for something Egypt is doing. Who do they think they are kidding?

 

This is not just bad journalism.

This is immoral.

 

 

 

 

Palestinians Becoming Disillusioned With Hamas…?

(hat tip ‘Infidels Are Cool’)

Check out this story from the Jerusalem Post – do I spy a tiny, tiny glimmer of  hope on the horizon…? Er, no. Because of course, rival group Fatah also deny Israel’s right to exist. And the good old Palestinian Authority is no better. It seems to spend most of its time teaching four year old kids that ‘killing jews is a religious duty’. Niiiice…

Jerusalem Post:

Hamas support among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is waning, according to a survey conducted by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC).

According to the results of the poll published Monday, 18.8 percent of the Palestinian population backs the Islamist group, compared to 27% when the last JMCC survey was conducted in January.

The survey of 1,199 people also showed that 35% of Palestinians support Fatah, a nine percent rise compared with the previous survey.

23% said Hamas was responsible for the breakdown in Hamas/Fatah talks,  and 15% blamed Fatah.

Khader Khader, head of the JMCC media unit, said Hamas’s popularity was hit by disgruntlement among Gaza residents over a lack of a deal in Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks and the continued blockade of the territory.

“It’s a sort of protest by the people (of Gaza) because there is no progress on these two major issues,” Khader was quoted by Reuters as saying.

When Pictures Speak Louder Than Words

This post is dedicated to those people who constantly insist that Israel is on a ‘land grab’ in the Middle East. The claim would be funny – if millions didn’t believe it.

Let’s make this really simple:

 

Israel And The Arab Nations

 

See that tiny blue sliver?

That’s Israel.

Hardly been on a ‘land grab’ now, has it…?

 

Let’s get more specific:

Israel And Egypt - Israel is in BLUE

Egypt also has a border with Gaza. And prior to 1967, when Egypt occupied Gaza, it stuck the Palestinian Arabs in camps and then left them there to rot and garner world sympathy. Guess what? The world did not say a damn word. The Palestinians did not protest and they sure as hell didn’t aim deadly missiles into Egypt.  There was no international condemnation of Egypt behaving like ‘Nazis’, despite their abuse of the Palestinians.

 

Israel And Saudi Arabia

 

Saudi Arabia is a known supporter and funder of Islamic terrorism. Saudi Arabia can always be heard lambasting Israel for its ‘expansionist’ desires. Obscene, is it not…? Look at their comparative sizes again.

 

Now let’s take a good look at the relative sizes of Israel and America. Obama is so obsessed with ordering Israel to give up land – easy for him to demand that, isn’t it? After all, what does he know about living in a country so small that it’s a miracle it’s managed to survive this long surrounded by hostile states dedicated to its destruction?

Israel And America

 

And especially for my fellow Brits:

 

Israel (blue) And Britain (yellow)

 

 

And finally, just to really put it in perspective, here is Israel, compared with Lake Michigan:

 

Israel (blue) And Lake Michigan (yellow)

 

So next time you hear someone trotting out the weary old Arab propaganda about Israel being on a ‘land grab’, you’ll know their claims are utter fiction. By looking at these maps, you’ll perhaps now also realise that if Obama and the Arab and Muslim worlds get their way, you won’t be able to see Israel on any map for that much longer.

Egypt Bans Marriage To Israelis

Here is yet more proof – if any was needed! – that Islam is inherently anti semitic.  In Egypt, ostensibly on ‘peaceful’ terms with Israel, Islamic religious law has now been cited to ratify a ban on marrying Israelis. No doubt Egyptian Muslims are feeling empowered as a result of Obama’s wooing of Islam.

One Egyptian certainly is. Here, from the World Jewish Review:

Solicitor Nabih Al-Wahsh has managed to extract a ruling from Egypt’s Administrative Court — which rules in disputes between citizens and the state — that would force the Egyptian government to strip Egyptians married to Israelis of their Egyptian citizenship. The May 19 ruling was met with the cheers of millions in this populous Arab country.

After the verdict was read in the Cairo courtroom, Nabih al-Wahsh jumped for joy and received an avalanche of telephone calls from friends congratulating him on his latest legal victory.

“This is an historic ruling,” al-Wahsh said to reporters after the ruling. “Egyptians married to Israelis are dangerous to Egypt’s national security, acting in ways that contradict the constitution of their country and Islamic laws,” he said.

Calls flooded into TV talk shows discussing the verdict and readers posted comments on Web sites of newspapers that wrote about it.

Everyone appeared united in elation at the ruling, as well as in hatred of the Jewish state and everything that related to it.

Such sentiments among a large chunk of Egypt’s population of about 80 million underscores the wide chasm that distinguishes Egypt at the official level and the same country at the level of its public.

Although Egypt was the first country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, almost 30 years ago, its government and its people still walk two different paths.

Egyptian officials visit Israel, meet members of its cabinet and sign agreements secretly and openly with them, but the people on the street still view Israel as an “enemy,” “imperialist” in nature, and those Egyptians who travel and get married there are seen as “traitors.” These same critics have consistently attempted to abort every possibility of breaking the ice that has blocked the way between Cairo and Tel Aviv for decades now.

In this sense, it is true that Egypt is the “heart of the Arab world,” as President Barack Obama and his advisers like to call it.

Egyptian analysts say the court ruling asking the government to revoke the nationality of Egyptians married to Israelis should not affect peace between the Jewish state and the country that bore arms against Israel four times in the last 60 years.

Some estimates put the number of Egyptians living in Israel between 6,000 and 7,000, although al-Wahsh believes the number could be between 30,000 and 40,000.

The reason people leave Egypt for Israel is not a secret to the people in this country, even among decision-makers themselves. In addition to the fallout from the international economic downturn, which has weighed heavily on the Egyptian economy, Egypt has been suffering its own economic deterioration for years.

In this country, which features the oldest civilization in the Arab Middle East, more than 40 percent of the population lives beneath the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

The economic reform policies of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party have failed to improve living conditions for the majority of the population and have even backfired at times, creating a new class of monopolistic businessmen who control the prices and availability of basic commodities.

Israel, by contrast, is a thriving multiethnic country that enjoys political pluralism and offers Egyptian job seekers a model totally different from in their own country, where jobs are rare, diversity is nonexistent and religious tolerance is scarce.

Part of the antipathy to Israel stems from what Egyptians see on their national TV and read in their newspapers every day.

A few weeks ago, TV anchor Mahmud Saad, in an on-air telephone interview, lashed out at Egypt’s Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, who is seeking election to the top post of UNESCO, for inviting Daniel Barenboim, a conductor with Israeli origins and international acclaim, to lead an orchestra at the Egyptian Opera House.

“I hate Israel,” Saad, who hosts the popular talk show “al-Beit Beitak” (“Feel at Home”), shouted while speaking with the minister.

Days later, Egypt’s ex-mufti — a top religious leader who advises the country’s Muslim majority on religious matters — lampooned Arab countries that sign agreements with Israel in a veiled criticism of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.“

Yet there was Obama last week, in Egypt, legitimising Islamic hatred of ‘infidels’ and actually claiming that Islam valued ‘racial equality’.

That man wouldn’t recognise integrity if it walked up and slapped him round the face.

The Antidote To The Prince Of Appeasement

 

I don’t know about you, but I’m still feeling queasy following the Prince Of Appeasement’s love letter to Islam yesterday. So I thought that to counter the blatant misinformation that Obama offered about Israel, I’d post a sure fire antidote. I refer to the brilliant Joseph Farah. Farah is an Arab American journalist who has spent considerable time in the Middle East. His articles are always a joy to read – concise, clear, accurate and fair.

You will notice that one or two of them were written several years back. You’ll also note that they are every bit as relevant today as they were then.

 

 

Obama tells Jews where they can live

by Joseph Farah, World Net Daily, 2009

 

 

Barack Obama is taking what he and his administration refer to as “a more balanced approach to Middle East policy.”

Let me explain what that literally means in real terms.

It means the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.

I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country.

Of course, that would never happen with “a more balanced approach to the Middle East.”

It’s the 1930s all over again. This time, it’s the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live and how far they must bend if they want to live at all.

I know you haven’t heard it put like this before. I don’t really understand why. There is simply no other accurate way to explain the machinations behind the latest demands on Israel from the West and the rest of the world.

Israel is being reduced to “Auschwitz borders.” Jews have already been told they can no longer live in the Gaza Strip. Now they are being told they can no longer choose to live in any of the areas being set aside by international elites for a future Palestinian state.

Again, I ask, “Why would internationalists seek to create, by definition, a racist, anti-Jewish state that doesn’t even tolerate the mere presence of Jews?”

Can anyone answer that question for me?

Obama and Clinton – and, thus, by definition, you and me, the taxpayers of the United States – have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.

I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people. Yet, because most people simply don’t understand the clear, official plan by the Arab leaders to force out all Jews from the new Palestinian state, the policies of capitulation retain a degree of sympathy, even political support, from much of the world.

Think about what I am saying: It is the official policy of the Palestinian Authority that all Jews must get off the land! Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea?

Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?

Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims?

Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?

That’s what we do when we forbid “settlement construction,” repairs, natural growth, additions to existing communities.

 

This is “balance”? Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No. Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.

Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well. But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.

All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naïve hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors. Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely.

But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.

I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends. These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s. These are the same kinds of people who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich. These are the same kinds of people who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.

I say, “No more ethnic cleansing. No more official anti-Semitism accepted. No more Jew-bashing. No more telling Jews where they can live, how they can – and if they can live.”

 

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