Soccer Dad

Running Feud

The other day Greg Myre of the NY Times wrote "Israel Feuds With Agency Set Up to Aid Palestinians":

For years, Israel has feuded with the United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians over a wide range of issues, and recently Israel thought it had found a smoking gun to press its case.

Based on a grainy videotape shot from a spy plane, Israel asserted that Palestinians in Gaza City had placed a rocket of the type being launched against Israel into a United Nations ambulance.

Well, I'm not convinced that the item was a stretcher. I could have sworn that I saw tailfins on it in some of the earlier frames. But that's not really relevant. The Israeli military backed of its claim because the film was inconclusive not because it was certain it was wrong.

Unfortunately the whole article could be what I'd call a Sylvius excuse. Count Sylvius is Sherlock Holmes' nemesis in "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone." Holmes confronts Sylvius with a litany of crimes. The last one though, Sylvius objects and says he nothing to do with it. Holmes pounces, "Then I am right on the others!"

That's exactly what's happening here. Only there's no Holmes. Just a reporter for the New York Times unwilling to look into the unsavory aspects of the UN agency.

Why not? Another of the Israeli charges against UNRWA is that it allows incitement against Jews and Israel in the textbooks used in its schools. The New York Times has a reporter, Neil MacFarqhar who speaks Arabic. Why not allow him to look at these books and see if that Israeli charge holds any water.

Heck, I'll do the work for them. I'll check the "Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP) website and see what they've uncovered. Nope. It doesn't look good for UNRWA. The CMIP people found this quote in a textbook.

"Racism: mankind has suffered from this evil both in ancient as well as in modern times, for indeed Satan has in the eyes of many people, made their evil appear beautiful…such a people are the Jews""

The UNRWA called it correct. CMIP called it "Generalization, Stereotyping, Incitement" Who looks to be correct?

The problem is that by reducing Israel's complaints against UNRWA to a "long running feud" the NY Times makes no effort to expose the organization's complicity in undermining the cause of peace. Why didn't the Times do some real work and expose the UNRWA?
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at October 22, 2004 01:53 PM | TrackBack