Tragedy was averted when authorities closed this Beersheba school subsequently hit by an Iranian made Grad missile fired by Hamas. It appears in the Blank Pages of the Age but you won't find it in the newspaper. Why?The Melbourne Age continues to wage the battle for Hamas and against the Israeli and Palestinian people with its jaundiced coverage of the news from the embattled region.
The headline from today's story by Jason Koutsoukis is "Israeli PM rejects ceasefire proposal" as if the onus of stopping the shooting lies with Israel rather than Hamas which deliberately provoked the current conflagration when it declared the so-called June 2008 truce dead and buried on 19 December 2008 and then initiated a barrage of missile file at Israeli civilian areas. As usual the emphasis is solely on the hurt felt by the Gazans as a result of Israel's targeting of Hamas terrorist operations and the Israeli civilians under fire are completely ignored.
There's no mention of the fact that Israel's largest cities in the nearby Negev have been targeted by Hamas or that Hamas has increased the range of its weapons during the period of that so-called "truce". Unreported was the story of the Iranian built Grad missile which hit a school in Beersheba and the fact that disaster was averted by a decision to close the school that day.
The message of these attacks is an inconvenience for anyone who wants to portray the war as one of Israel as an oppressor breaching all norms of behaviour against the oppressed Gazans because it demonstrates clearly the murderous motives of a Hamas that never intended to honour the "truce", that deliberately provoked the Israelis into their action and that, in all likelihood, will not honour any similarly negotiated truce in the future.
Backing up the Age's slanted reporting is an Op Ed from the appalling Michael Shaik, a mouthpiece for Australians for Palestine, better known for embarrassing itself while hounding Jewish ALP candidates at the 2007 Federal election. The writer is on decidedly shaky ground factually in his piece- The deadly consequences of the games that Israel plays.
Shaik starts off well enough by quoting Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard's statement:
"Hamas has broken the ceasefire and engaged in an act of aggression against Israel. Israel has responded."— Julia Gillard
However, after that, he finds himself challenged by the truth. He claims the Gaza Strip is the most densely populated part of the world today which is rubbish. Tel Aviv is slightly more densely populated as are many other cities across the world. Hong Kong is 50% more densely populated than Gaza.
However, Shaik's big lie (if any one of them can be said to be bigger than any other in this encyclopaedia of drivel) is this one:-
"On November 4, the ceasefire was shattered by the Israeli Army when it crossed into Gaza to destroy a tunnel and kill six Palestinian militants ..."
Shaik's nose must have been growing longer by the second when he wrote that piece of nonsense but even there he was aided by the Age in his ability to try to pull off the deception.
Back on 1 November 2008, Jason Koutsoukis produced this puff piece on how the 800 tunnels between Gaza and Egypt were being used to smuggle vital supplies like food and petrol for the poor suffering Gazans - Blockade forces Gazans underground to survive. The tunnels might well serve this purpose but Koutsoukis was being hoodwinked by his subjects because, in fact, their primary use is for smuggling lethal rocketry into Gaza. These missiles are now being poured onto the heads of Israel's civilian populations and are indiscriminately killing Arab and Jew alike.
But what of the operation of 4 November? Koutsoukis described the operation in Ceasefire in danger of collapse (notice, it's the Israelis who he claims are endangering the ceasefire). The story is about the IDF uncovering the construction of a cross-border tunnel between Gaza and Israel and given that this happened only three days after his 1 November story about tunnels appared in the same newspaper, wasn't it just a little strange that no mention was made of the sinister nature of this particular tunnel?
This tunnel was heading into Israel, not Egypt. This tunnel could only have been used for the dangerous purposes which the IDF claimed it was being used for and accordingly, the IDF was acting quite properly in attacking the terrorists involved.
All this went completely over the heads of Koustouskis, the Age and naturally Mr. Shaik but the truth is that the very existence of this tunnel is proof of a breach from the Palestinian side of the "truce/ceasefire/lull/whatever" and the full story of the tunnels (including their use for arms smuggling) is proof that Hamas never intended to honour that "whatever". Further, it demonstrates how newspapers and journalists can be used by evil forces to further their nasty designs.
Apart from their dishonesty, Shaik and his AFP group are apologists for the fascistic policies of Hamas. Little wonder therefore that they don't see eye to eye with Julia Gillard and her government's principled stand on the subject.
An excellent aid to understanding how some within the media of the West are working to do further damage to the prospect of peace and the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, is Melanie Phillips' Groundhog day for the fifth column of malice. She explains how some in the media are playing a role in defending the terrorism of Hamas in Gaza and I agree fully with her conclusion in which she asks:-
"Isn’t there a case for legal action against these media outlets on account of their blood libels, for indirectly aiding the perpetrators of attempted genocide?"
The headline from today's story by Jason Koutsoukis is "Israeli PM rejects ceasefire proposal" as if the onus of stopping the shooting lies with Israel rather than Hamas which deliberately provoked the current conflagration when it declared the so-called June 2008 truce dead and buried on 19 December 2008 and then initiated a barrage of missile file at Israeli civilian areas. As usual the emphasis is solely on the hurt felt by the Gazans as a result of Israel's targeting of Hamas terrorist operations and the Israeli civilians under fire are completely ignored.
There's no mention of the fact that Israel's largest cities in the nearby Negev have been targeted by Hamas or that Hamas has increased the range of its weapons during the period of that so-called "truce". Unreported was the story of the Iranian built Grad missile which hit a school in Beersheba and the fact that disaster was averted by a decision to close the school that day.
The message of these attacks is an inconvenience for anyone who wants to portray the war as one of Israel as an oppressor breaching all norms of behaviour against the oppressed Gazans because it demonstrates clearly the murderous motives of a Hamas that never intended to honour the "truce", that deliberately provoked the Israelis into their action and that, in all likelihood, will not honour any similarly negotiated truce in the future.
Backing up the Age's slanted reporting is an Op Ed from the appalling Michael Shaik, a mouthpiece for Australians for Palestine, better known for embarrassing itself while hounding Jewish ALP candidates at the 2007 Federal election. The writer is on decidedly shaky ground factually in his piece- The deadly consequences of the games that Israel plays.
Shaik starts off well enough by quoting Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard's statement:
"Hamas has broken the ceasefire and engaged in an act of aggression against Israel. Israel has responded."— Julia Gillard
However, after that, he finds himself challenged by the truth. He claims the Gaza Strip is the most densely populated part of the world today which is rubbish. Tel Aviv is slightly more densely populated as are many other cities across the world. Hong Kong is 50% more densely populated than Gaza.
However, Shaik's big lie (if any one of them can be said to be bigger than any other in this encyclopaedia of drivel) is this one:-
"On November 4, the ceasefire was shattered by the Israeli Army when it crossed into Gaza to destroy a tunnel and kill six Palestinian militants ..."
Shaik's nose must have been growing longer by the second when he wrote that piece of nonsense but even there he was aided by the Age in his ability to try to pull off the deception.
Back on 1 November 2008, Jason Koutsoukis produced this puff piece on how the 800 tunnels between Gaza and Egypt were being used to smuggle vital supplies like food and petrol for the poor suffering Gazans - Blockade forces Gazans underground to survive. The tunnels might well serve this purpose but Koutsoukis was being hoodwinked by his subjects because, in fact, their primary use is for smuggling lethal rocketry into Gaza. These missiles are now being poured onto the heads of Israel's civilian populations and are indiscriminately killing Arab and Jew alike.
But what of the operation of 4 November? Koutsoukis described the operation in Ceasefire in danger of collapse (notice, it's the Israelis who he claims are endangering the ceasefire). The story is about the IDF uncovering the construction of a cross-border tunnel between Gaza and Israel and given that this happened only three days after his 1 November story about tunnels appared in the same newspaper, wasn't it just a little strange that no mention was made of the sinister nature of this particular tunnel?
This tunnel was heading into Israel, not Egypt. This tunnel could only have been used for the dangerous purposes which the IDF claimed it was being used for and accordingly, the IDF was acting quite properly in attacking the terrorists involved.
All this went completely over the heads of Koustouskis, the Age and naturally Mr. Shaik but the truth is that the very existence of this tunnel is proof of a breach from the Palestinian side of the "truce/ceasefire/lull/whatever" and the full story of the tunnels (including their use for arms smuggling) is proof that Hamas never intended to honour that "whatever". Further, it demonstrates how newspapers and journalists can be used by evil forces to further their nasty designs.
Apart from their dishonesty, Shaik and his AFP group are apologists for the fascistic policies of Hamas. Little wonder therefore that they don't see eye to eye with Julia Gillard and her government's principled stand on the subject.
An excellent aid to understanding how some within the media of the West are working to do further damage to the prospect of peace and the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, is Melanie Phillips' Groundhog day for the fifth column of malice. She explains how some in the media are playing a role in defending the terrorism of Hamas in Gaza and I agree fully with her conclusion in which she asks:-
"Isn’t there a case for legal action against these media outlets on account of their blood libels, for indirectly aiding the perpetrators of attempted genocide?"
4 comments:
Brilliant Wilbur.
Israel has superb civil defence systems, as demonstrated by their shelters, air-raid sirens and tough political decisions to close the school in case something like this happened.
As a result, fewer Israelis die.
So instead, we get to listen to idiots like Shaik, Loewenstein et al suggest the relatively low number of Israeli fatalities doesn't entitle them to respond.
I'd love to know exactly just how many Jews do need to die, before they feel Israel would be entitled to fight back.
Another 6 million perhaps?
Well said Wilbur. It is about time that someone had the courage to point out the extreme bias of The Age's journalists and the editors that let them get away with it. Instead of reporting factual news they act as Hamas's official cheerleaders. This irresponsible journalism must be exposed!
Excellent point. We need blogs as portals to each different example of MSM Israelivilification.
Did everyone see SBS' coverage tonight (Sat Jan 3)? I wondered how long it would take them to wind up to it; 5 seconds of explaining why Israel is bombing Gaza, then 15 minutes of all the progressive, peace-loving right-thinkers protesting the "atrocities".
As for Lowenstein, do you think if we ignore him he'll go away?
I've got similar links over on my blog here, apologies for the spam.
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