Soccer Dad

Haveil havalim daily edition 07/31/2006

In Depth: Neither editorial from the NY Times or Washington Post gave an indication that the building collapse in Qana was due to anything other than the Israeli air raid. NY Times

The 48-hour limited suspension of air raids that Washington pressed Israel into declaring was a modest step in the right direction, even though, as it became clear yesterday, it has far too many exceptions. Too bad that even this partial and temporary restraint came only after dozens of Lebanese civilians, many of them children, were killed by an Israeli air raid on the town of Qana.

It took the worldwide uproar over the Qana casualties to finally jolt the Bush administration into asking for something it should have sought many days earlier. Washington’s instant turnabout and Israel’s instant response has left the damaging impression that had America expressed similar concerns sooner, these and many other innocent Lebanese lives might have been saved.

Washington Post

DESPITE THE terrible bloodshed in Lebanon and Israel over the weekend, including the tragic death of scores of women and children in the village of Qana, the United States, Israel and the Lebanese government continue to seek the same outcome to the war.

True the Post editorial doesn't explicitly tie it to the Israeli bombing, but if there's been some sort of manipulation, it should have been worthy of comment. To be fair the rest of that paragraph isn't too far off the mark.

That is the removal of Hezbollah's militia from the Lebanese-Israeli border as well as steps toward its disarmament; the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south; and the extension of the Lebanese government's sovereignty to all of the country's territory. Despite all the rhetoric about an immediate cease-fire and the predictable focus by media outlets around the world on Israel's mistakes and excesses, every party in the Middle East other than Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian sponsors believes that a resolution to the crisis that fails to achieve those conditions would be a catastrophe.

Steps towards the disarmament of Hezbollah, are not enough. It must be disarmed and/or destroyed. Else the cycle of violence will start all over again. And the predictable focus on "Israel's mistakes and excesses" should be self directed. To what degree was the media manipulated? Daled Amos provides examples.

Regular Stuff:
In Baltimore, I know that Homeland Security funds have been dedicated to protecting Jewish institutions. At first I thought that this was a bit of overkill. After Seattle I'm not so sure. It's worth noting that per capita, Jews suffer the highest rate of hate crimes in the US of any religious or ethnic group. (The Jewish population is about 1/7 the size of the Black population but suffer 1/3 the number of hate crimes.) According the latest information, though, anti-Jewish hate crimes against people are not that common - less common than anti-Black violence that is directed against people; but against property the rate is very high.

Dr. Helen contemplates the security procedures at her JCC.

Colossus of Rhodey.Hube notes that the LA Times was clueless as to the shooter's motive - though he stated it!

Daniel Pipes noticed a few years ago that anti-Jewish terror gives the government pause too.

Maryland Conservatarian puts it all together and concludes that the shooting in Seattle could not have been a terrorist incident.

Elder of Ziyon lists three more asymmetries that hinder Israel's efforts to defend itself.

The Volokh Conspiracy.Eugen Volokh found an old NY Times article.

In a similar vein Libertas sees not much different with CNN. (h/t Colossus of Rhodey.Hube)

Assignment desk: Key Republican breaks with Bush on Mideast. The CNN story goes on to describe Sen. Hagel's call for greater understanding of the dictators and monarchs in the Middle East. But what makes him a "key" Senator? Other than the times when he disagrees with the president on foreign policy he doesn't really have a high profile. I don't know what makes him "key." Or does key just mean "he's a Republican but he's important because he agrees with our fundamental premises about the Middle East?"

In this way the media can be "objective" and still get its opinion accross. It quotes someone approvingly. So Sen. Hagel really said that. We're being objective!

Funny but less conventinal wisdom often seems to escape the media. Most of the media is wringing its hands over the crisis in the Middle East. (The crisis wasn't when Hezbollah stockpiled weapons and trained terrorists unmolested for a decade, but when Israel defended itself.) So it's funny that those harbingers of hope, the markets, according to Lawrence Kudlow are gaining as Israel appears to be gaining.

The U.S. stock market and world equity bourses are important measures of fear, hope, security, and the health of the world's economy. And while you might not know it from today's magnified headlines about war, terrorism, higher oil prices, and rising interest rates, the stock market message is one of reasonable hope, confidence, and optimism about the state of the world.

Could it also be that world stock markets are rallying as Israel and its freedom agenda advances toward a Hezbollah-free Lebanese border, highlighting a significant defeat not only of the thuggish and cowardly Hezbollah murderers, but their totalitarian backers in Syria and Iran?

This underlines a very real problem. As noted above the Washington Post editorial referred to Israel's "mistakes and excesses" and yet neither the Post nor the NY Times have reported on the excesses of Hamas and, perhaps, mistakes of the media that have become in the past few days.

For example on Sunday, an Australian newspaper published pictures of Hezbollah taking over a civilian neighborhood in Beirut. And then there's the matter of the doubts that have emerged about what exactly happened in Qana. Neither issue has been reported on by the Washington Post or NY Times. I think it behooves us to contact their ombudsmen Deborah Howell ( ombudsman@washpost.com ) and Byron Calame ( public@nytimes. com ) and challenge them to publish this information. They cannot hide behind presumptions of fairness if they suppress information that challenges their papers' own editorial judgment. (If you have a different paper in mind, do the same for that paper.)

Don't be abusive but be firm.

If you write an e-mail please e-mail me a copy and I will post part or all of it in a future daily edition. If you have a blog, post it on your blog and send me the URL for future posting.

The media must take responsibility for their failure to give reader the whole picture.

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Posted by SoccerDad at August 1, 2006 6:14 AM