Thursday, February 01, 2007

THE OTHER CHEEK

I know very little about blogger Andrew Landeryou of The Other Cheek but he has Ed O'Loughlin of the Melbourne Age well worked out. This is what he has written about O'Loughlin's most recent attempt at belting the victim (remember O'Loughlin's article was ostensibly about the murder by a suicide bomber of three innocent civilians in a bakery in Eilat, a southern Israeli resort town):

LIES, DAMNED LIES AND FAIRFAXISTA STATISTICS

Beefy Fairfaxista Ed O'Loughlin (allegedly found roaming free in Belgian Congo and domesticated by Fairfax Media) has been kicking Israel again, this time through the use of statistics presented without any context or background.

It's a nice trick. An oldie but a goodie, the OC Propaganda Department frequently embraces the technique on occasion. A writer on a par with Steven Lewis, Mark Twain once wrote that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics."

Honest Reporting which reviews the world media for dishonest, biased and selective reporting about the Middle East was scathing about O'Loughlin.

FROM SUNNY EILAT COMES THE DARKNESS OF FAIRFAX DECEIT

And his recent report exemplified the Twain doctrine, filed from the resort town of Eilat in Israel where no doubt he forced down multiple cocktails in luxury with fellow scribes while bemoaning the shocking plight of the Palestinian people, he wrote:

"Yesterday's attack ends a long period of quiet within Israel.

"According to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, killings of Israeli citizens in the occupied territories and Israel reached a low of 23 last year, including six soldiers. In the same period the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces rose to 660, B'tselem found, half of them non-combatants and 141 of these minors."

Why was that? Why have Palestinian terrorists slipped below the Osama bin Laden Killing Spree Index Worldwide Terror Benchmark?

It'd be that pesky Israeli security fence, the one the Left would love to present as a symbol of repression. Unlike their Berlin Wall which kept people from escaping socialist tyranny, the security fence is designed to keep killers out.

And it's working. Big time. Read more and curse those who misrepresent the wall as "apartheid", a disgusting insult to the victims of apartheid in South Africa. Checking international borders is not unique to Israel, it's just when the Jews do it. Jew haters like to paint it as some expression of Neo Nazi totalitarianism. It'd be hippy-great to live in a world without Customs or passports or whatever but that day is a long way off. Countries that are in the terrorist's crosshairs, like Israel, the United States, Australia, anywhere where civilisation prevails, are entitled and obliged to protect themselves and their people.

ARE YOU A RACIST OR DO YOU JUST HATE JEWS?

The right to self-defence is widely accepted although in Israel's case too frequently questioned including by those who would be horrified to be told they're anti-semites. Look in the mirror a little closer lefties. Is your hatred of America driving you into the arms of a double standard about Israel that can only be explained in a race-hate context.

Dora McPhee probably doesn't think she hates Jews but she certainly is dripping with venom about the Jewish state. Her letter published today in the left-wing press:

Turning Palestinian against Palestinian

READING Ed O'Loughlin's report "Palestinian unity hopes collapse in violence" ( The Age, 9/1), it is no wonder Palestinians are starting to turn on each other. (OC1: I'll make a wild prediction. It's must be Israel's fault right?)

In fact, it is extraordinary that for their nigh-on-60-year struggle for a just solution to their dispossession they have managed to avoid descending into civil war (OC: Yes they've been so united while shooting each other for decades) despite suffering an extraordinarily unjust dispossession of their land, nearly 40 years of Israel's military occupation of the remaining 22 per cent and a continued theft of their land while they are corralled by Israel's apartheid policies. (OC: Must invite her in to do a consultancy on invective)

All the while, they have seen how the West, led by the US, has colluded with Israel in its further dispossession and "ethnic cleansing" of what remains of Palestine. (OC: She calls it Palestine, presumably supports a two-state solution, and yet thinks Israel imposes "apartheid" by checking the borders of the "two nations". Logic is rarely allowed to get in the way of a good story at The Aged)

But finally the Israel-US coalition has found a way to make the Palestinians turn on each other (OC: JK Rowling move over) by arming and funding Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party while punishing the whole population with a crippling boycott that has strangled the Hamas-led Government they dared to vote in. (OC: Nice to see she's even bought into the Palestinian faction fight herself. Are the Jews also to blame for her divisive rhetoric?)

This must surely be a cynical exercise in creating the landscape for a civil war. It will not bring peace to Israel, but it will buy it more time to create more facts on the ground with its ethnic restructuring of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. (OC: The last sentence did not translate well from the original German)

Dora McPhee, Melbourne

Lieutenant Dan of the OC Investigations Unit (pushing for promotion to Field Marshal with recent efforts) pointed out this unpleasant material and makes the compelling point:

Yes, reading O'Louglin's bile probably WOULD leave "no wonder". However, it would also leave one with the impression that EVERYTHING in the world is Israel's fault, including (but not limited to) Palestinians killing each other, Shea and sunni Muslims killing each other, Janjaweed Arabs Killing Africans in Darfur, Lebanese Muslims Killing their fellow Christians in Lebanon and more than 20 worldwide conflicts from Thailand to Chechyna invloving Muslims with not a Jew nor American in sight (but let's blame them anyway).

Game on.

Here's some more foood for thought on the same subject matter from an ICJS subscriber:-

O'Loughlin wasted no time in turning the story of a suicide bombing murder of three Israelis into a story about the deaths of Palestinians during the course of an asymmetrical war being waged mainly against Israeli civilians.

In that regard, whilst the death of non-combatants is regrettable, O'Loughlin presents a scenario whereby it's Israel that is totally to blame for the deaths of the non-combatants.

What he conveniently omits to divulge to his readers is that there is considerable doubt as to non-combatant numbers (most terrorists wear civilian clothing and therefore are often wrongly classified as non-combatants) and then there's the issue of terrorists putting non-combatants in harm's way because they operate in breach of humanitarian laws from civilian areas. That makes the terrorists responsible for all of the deaths - there's no need to distinguish whether they are combatants or not.

Unfortunately, the shameful way in which O'Loughlin reports on the conflict makes it almost respectable for the Dora McPhees of the world to spread their bile and froth at the mouth about alleged Israeli injustices against the Palestinians as she did in yesterday's letter to the Age. The letters editor of the Age surely has sufficient knowledge about the Middle East to know that Ms. McPhee's letter was nothing more than a piece of vile agitprop with little factual foundation. That he/she allowed such crap to be published in the first place, tells us a lot about the dark place that he/she and this once great newspaper now inhabits

I think these sum up how contemptible The Age has become in its coverage of the conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbours.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Correct on the whole issue of non-combatants.

Take this Haaretz article for an example:-

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/820051.html

Note this -

"Later Thursday morning, troops shot dead a Palestinian near the Qalandiyah refugee camp north of Jerusalem. According to an IDF spokesperson, troops fired on the man after he tried to cut the West Bank separation fence and infiltrate Israeli territory."

I'm willing to bet that B'Tselem would categorise the dead Palestinian as a "non-combatant" for the purpose of its statistics.

Why?

Because he wasn't identified as a member of any of the myriad of Palestinian terrorist groups. He was just some Joe Shmo from a refugee camp who tried to cut a fence and get into Israeli territory. He didn't kill anybody so he was a "non-combatant" casualty.

The thing is every country in the world would have been justified in shooting at someone attempting to cross a border in this way - especially in circumstances where so many others have tried to infiltrate and cause damage to those on the other side.

Ed O'Loughlin can feel warm and fuzzy and Leunig can scrawl a few smartarse pictures about those nasty Israelis and think they're doing some good for the Palestinians.

They're not!

People like O'Loughlin and the person who wrote the letter (I doubt they used their real name) are helping the terrorists in their aim of perpetuating the conflict. The terrorists don't want a two state solution and they don't want an end to the conflict or the suffering of people on either side.

And the Age still doesn't get it!

Anonymous said...

I have a question for people like Dora McPhee who believe the Pals are being coralled or forced to live in open air prisons.

Since when do people in prisons have the weaponry and the fire power of the armed thugs who terrorise their own populations?

Read this - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070202/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians

"The resurgent violence, which has killed 10 people since Thursday, destroyed a brief truce between Fatah and Hamas and forced thousands of Gazans to huddle in their homes to escape the crossfire." and

"Rival gunmen fought in the streets overnight with mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy caliber machine guns. Dr. Muawiya Hassanin of the Palestinian Health Ministry said Friday morning that 120 people had been wounded since Thursday afternoon. Ambulances and rescue teams were caught in the crossfire all over Gaza, he said."

How many other prisoners parade around with rocket propelled grenades?

If Gaza is a prison and the Palestinians are coralled into such areas then it's certainly not a prison created by the Israelis.

They're doing to themselves and as much as your warped imagination sees it that way, the Jews aren't to blame Dora!

Anonymous said...

Let's get this right Dora McPhee.

When gunmen from Hamas killed three children of a senior Fatah intelligence officer, pumping dozens of bullets into their car as it passed through a street full of schoolchildren, it was the Jews who were at fault.

Right Dora.

We know exactly what you're on about.

Anonymous said...

Not to mention that they never talk about the Palestinians who di want to work with Israel being killed by the PLO as "collaborators".