Posted on 12/30/2003 2:44:55 AM PST by kattracks
That the media gets its facts wrong when reporting the Middle East is hardly news, but the ways in which the media reports its mistaken statistics tells us a lot about their bias. For example, you will hear the media say that 904 Israelis have died since the beginning of the (misnamed) "al-Aqsa Intifada," but that count is intentionally deflated. The media begins the count in September 2000, seven years after the Oslo carnage actually began. This is yet another effort by the media to lead people to believe the entire bloodbath was caused by Ariel Sharon going for a stroll on the Temple Mount in September 2000, a stroll almost as provocative as would have been a similar stroll in the Vatican by an Italian politician.The victims of the Oslo Peace Bloodbath should be counted beginning at the time of the handshake on the White House lawn. That event marked the signing of the Oslo Agreement by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres with Yasser Arafat in 1993. The actual number of Israeli dead is 1,261 as of today, not the 904 (and counting) that is being reported. A much better accounting can be found here.
I have long suspected that the deflation of the number of Israeli victims of Palestinian terror is done to obscure the fact that the carnage was caused by the imposition of the Oslo "peace process" on Israel by its domestic Left and by hostile forces overseas.
Those hostile forces were at work again this past weekend. The college students (and professors, and other domestic liberals), the "beautiful people" who support terror against Jews, went on the warpath against Israel's "security fence." A group of members from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) joined some Palestinians and Israeli far-leftists in physically attacking a portion of the fence in the West Bank.
One wag suggested that ISM really stands for "I Support Murderers." But the Left responds, reflexively, by relying on their eyesight, rather than their insight. They cannot understand the charges leveled against their fellow leftists. They say, "But they are the beautiful people: They love peace. They pet cats. They sing Joan Baez songs and believe in the brotherhood of 'humankind.' How dare you slander them?"
All this ignores that fact that ISM members were on the West Bank to show their solidarity with mass murderers and suicide bombers. They understand that the security fence Israel is building is designed to make it harder for the terrorists the ISM supports to enter Israel and murder Jewish children and other civilians. And that is precisely why they believe it must come down.
The ISM marched on Saturday, gathering by a part of the Security Fence, a segment that is still chain link and has not yet been turned into towering concrete walls. There they attacked the fence, sabotaged it, vandalized it and ripped pieces from it (possibly including its electronic sensors). You see, they think the terrorists should be allowed to enter Israel to protest Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands, by which they also mean Tel Aviv and Haifa. They oppose anything Israel tries to do to protect its citizens, indeed, anything short of total capitulation to the progressive demands of the Palestinian fascists.
So it is predictable that their group got violent and tried to cut through the Israeli security barrier outside the Palestinian village of Masha near Qalqilya. And yes of course they admit that they were trying to damage the barrier of razor-wire fences, concrete walls and trenches that Israel says it needs to stop infiltrations by Palestinian suicide bombers.
One of the protesters described the mob's actions thus: "We began cutting the fence and shaking it."
"The Israeli army was waiting for us and shot live bullets directly at us," Liad Kantorowicz, one of the Israeli protesters, who described themselves as anarchists, told Reuters. They used wire cutters to destroy this segment of the fence.
The crowd included the usual international provocateurs from the ISM, the International Solidarity Movement, the group that actively opposes Israeli anti-terrorism initiatives. Rachel Corrie, the young supporter of terror from Washington State who played a fatal game of chicken with an Israeli bulldozer (which could not see her), had been one of these.
In short, these are people who believe that 1,300 murdered Israelis are not enough. They will not tolerate any attempt by Israel to defend its children. And that is why they violently attacked the security fence Saturday.
Yet the international Left cries in horror, "How dare those soldiers shoot one of these pro-terror vandals in his leg? So what if he was wearing a mask while valdalizing the fence? And how dare they injure one of the ISM provocateurs from overseas showing her support for terrorism? So what if she was using wire cutters at the time on the fence? So what if the crowd would have been mowed down with gunfire had they been trying to use wirecutters on, say, the fence of any U.S. military facility on earth? So what if the ISM people injured had signed a contract promising not even to enter the West Bank if allowed to disembark in Israel? So what if Israel's Police Minister described the 'protesters' as 'collaborators with terrorism,' and so what if parliament member Yuri Stern described them as 'barbaric criminals'?"
No, the international Left now demands an investigation -- of the Israelis! The Left wants to arrest all those who cheered the troops who fired at these "demonstrators," who suggested that the troops be awarded medals, who suggested an official commission of investigation be set up to see why only one hooligan was shot and charge them with incitement. And maybe libel.
But it is only the law-abiding who must play by the rules in the Left's universe. It is only the orderly, staving off attacks on innocent women and children -- on Western civilization itself -- who must be investigated, interrogated, harassed and forced to recant their ways. After all, if leftists had to obey laws, then how would they ever take power? Instead, they take it one chain-link at a time.
I caught the BBC report on the fence last night. It was downright hilarious, or infuriating, whichever way you are prone to react. Nothing about safety for Israelis, lots about 'economic hardship' for the so-called palestinians.
Not much sympathy here. This wall is the best idea to come along in decades, and will do more to protect law abiding peace loving people from terrorist scum than any 'peace negotiations'.
Let them create their own prosperity. The Jews did it from nothing.
Rachel Corrie's group FYI.
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