Soccer Dad

Haveil havalim daily edition 08/11/2006

Haveil Havalim is the weekly Jewish/Israel blogging carnival. The most recent edition is here.

Since I originated the carnival, I've adopted the name for a daily edition that I will try to produce during the war against Hezbollah, Mondays through Thursdays. Unlike the weekly edition, the daily edition will be broken down into three sections. In Depth, Regular Stuff and Assignment Desk. In Depth will be an issue that I wish to explore. Regular Stuff will be a linkfest, though not as extensive as the weekly edition. Assignment desk will be a topic or project that I'm suggesting other bloggers or e-mailers explore. I'll be happy to publish links to or publish e-mails from anyone who responds.

Finally AbbaGav speaks for many of us when he talks of the pressures of blogging during the war. Of course the way he says it is a lot funnier than most of us.

IN DEPTH:
I made a comment yesterday about Mike Wallace's glowing report about Mahmoud Ahmadnejad.

NRO's Media Blog thinks that Wallace could use a nice long retirement.

Volokh Conspiracy.David Bernstein also fisks Wallace very nicely . And apparently Wallace has a pretty strong critic - in his own family.

Powerline and Outside the Beltway also have comments.

REGULAR STUFF:European bias
Earlier I had noted some observations about media bias from France and Germany.

In related news, the Hashmonean tells us that the Israeli government may censure the BBC.

Secular Blasphemy and Judeosphere write about a Norwegian columnist who had a Richard Cohen moment. Though it appears this was more out of maliciousness than ignorance. (He doesn't argue that Israel was a mistake but that it has no right to exist.)

Other media follies

Mere Rhetoric observes the NY Times all purpose reason for opposing any sort of military action - it hurts Arab moderates.

Maryland Conservatarian is spending way too much time on the Washington Post's op-ed page (actually it's good because it means that I don't have to) and in one post takes down France, the PM of Lebanon and former Clinton administration official (no not William Christopher, been there done that) this it's Richard Holbrooke. I wonder how many stones it took?

While we're on the subject of France, Barry Rubin lays out the choices France is making and alas, it appears to be going wobbly.

While the media's been focused on important stuff, Elder of Ziyon points out a few insignificant stories they may have missed.

Bad diplomacy, bad history

The Partisan Times notes that the UN's new, improved Human Rights Commision may be new, but it's hardly improved.

View from a Height critiques someone who seems doomed to repeat.

Government resources

People don't realize it but the Israeli government puts out some excellent information.

In Context gives us the list of fatal Hezbollah violations of Israel's northern border that occurred over the past six years.

Treppenwitz points us to a slide show showing the damage ball bearings cause. Actually there's a whole series of Lenny M.'s slide shows here.

Also the Israeli embassy website links to a pdf file "How did it start?" that includes an inventory Hezbollah's arsenal at the start of the war. For additional context here's a map that shows the range of Katyushas.

The almost terror

Is it Rove? Is it Bushitler? KesherTalk knows for sure. She's joking but he isn't.

Other observations

My obiter Dicta comments on the political changes he's observing in Israeli politics.

The counterterrorism blog thinks that the Israeli government is headed in the right direciton, but wonders if it will go far enough.

A few weeks ago, Daniel Pipes saw a hopeful sign that the American Jewish establishment understands the significance of the Islamic threat in the U.S.

ASSIGNMENT DESK:
I didn't assign anything but Cozy Corner took it upon himself to address the issue of Flexible response and suicide bombings in a thought provoking post.

Here's something for over the weekend. Previously I quoted James Poniewozik writing in Time Magazine. His thesis is that, yes, Reuters violated basic journalistic ethics, but the critics overhyped the charge by claiming that is symptomatic of greater problems with the media. In his words

And every time a straight-news journalist alters a fact — even something as picayune as the color of a bomb blast or the number of flares fired from a plane — it convinces people that the media must lie about big things as well. All facts become suspect, all information becomes relative, and you might as well believe whatever your gut tells you, because the news is invariably driven by its own bias, which is, invariably, against you.

In other words the sin is less in the altering of the facts than in allowing ideologues to dismiss serious journalism. I didn't buy it, but didn't have a comprehensive response. Meryl Yourish does, though, and it's quite good

This is standard operating procedure in the jihadi manuals. That is not rhetoric. We have their manuals on record, and there are whole sections that discuss the manipulation of the media. And our media plays along, always.

The picture Meryl paints is bleak. But I wonder if, perhaps, there's reason for cautious optimism on the propaganda front.

I also don't agree that the Jihadis are necessarily winning. I see an opposing critical mass being reached. There is a point where bloggers and press critics have forced on change and gotten noticed. (For Charles Johnson it was an imperfect writeup in the Washington Post.)

NRO's Media Blog writes

A lot of attention today on the blogs' role in Lamont's victory last night, but don't forget about that other blog win: Charles Johnson, Rusty Shackleford and others who's work uncovered a Jayson Blair at Reuters.

Lamont won, at least in part, due to his own contributions to his campaign. Someone of lesser means may not have won the primary with blogger help alone. But the media victory over Reuters was accomplished because it was correct. The media will have to decide now whether they will continue being a propagandist for terror groups and continue hemorraging credibility or wheter they will start to report that there is evil in the world and that the West is on the correct side of history.

I don't think that the Jihadis' victory is decided yet. And I think matters are starting to improve. (I don't think coverage is as bad as it was say at the height of the "Aqsa intifada" in 2000-2001. It's bad, but the media has had to be a bit more honest now.)

Do you think the Jihadis are winning on the propaganda front? Am I being too optimistic? If you have thoughts either e-mail them to me or blog them and send me the link at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

Remember that this coming Sunday is the next edition of the weekly Haveil Havalim which is scheduled to be hosted here. If you have a Jewish or Israel related post from the past week, please submit it to me directly at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com and put Haveil Havalim in the subject line.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Haveil Havalim Daily.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 10, 2006 10:15 PM