THE BLANK PAGES OF THE AGE

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

THE T WORD

The Age today uses the "T" word in connection with the attack on a police academy in Pakistan - PAKISTAN ROCKED BY TERROR ATTACK ON POLICE ACADEMY.

Pakistan descended further into chaos yesterday when terrorists stormed a police academy in Lahore, killing more than 20 people and holding soldiers at bay for nine hours.

Of course, when Arab terrorists fire rockets on a daily basis at Israeli citizens, they're not terrorists at all according to the Age and when Arab terrorists try to destroy a mall filled with Israelis in Haifa, it doesn't even rate a mention.

Monday, March 30, 2009

YET ANOTHER LIE DEBUNKED

Click for Video from Honest Reporting

THE AGE PALESTINE LOBBY KICKS AN OWN GOAL

Last week the Palestine Lobby was working overtime in the Melbourne Age bringing readers a daily dose of allegations of war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers during the recent Gaza War. In the main, the allegations came in the form of shoddy unsubstantiated fairy tales from various sources, many anonymous and many others with axes to grind against the Jewish State. We've seen in recent Blank Pages of the Age posts how some have already been debunked and how others are unlikely to stand the test of solid investigation.

But the stories came on a daily basis - even the ones that had been repeated before ad infinitum. The Palestine Lobby has found a comfortable home at Fairfax where it can push its anti-Israeli line as hard as it can while, at the same time, airbrushing out of existence any sniff of negativity about their own cause. So last week, when Arab terrorists aligned to Hizbullah attempted to commit mass murder of Israelis in Haifa, there was not a word about it in the Melbourne Age.

But there was a sweet story in last Friday's edition on Page 10 "Musical interlude helps to soothe hearts in torn land" by Isabel Kershner of the New York Times. The story appeared originally in that newspaper under the title - Holon Journal Palestinians Serenade Survivors in Israel. It came as a wonderful counterbalance to the stories of the claimed dirty deeds carried out by those nasty Israeli soldiers.

The problem is that whilst the orchestra did perform for Holocaust survivors in Holon Israel, the story behind the story is something different altogether. The truth is that Palestinian authorities were rather miffed at the idea of their youth playing for Holocaust survivors in Israel and have disbanded the orchestra - Palestinian youth orchestra disbanded over concert for Holocaust survivors.

The fact that Palestinian polticians could spoil such a beautiful thing as this youth orchestra and mar such a good deed for victims of the Holocaust and the reasons for them doing so, is not deemed newsworthy by the Palestine Lobby in the Age is proof that such a lobby exists.

But the contents of the blank pages have revealed this as a fact a long time ago.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

NEW YORK TIMES TELLS THE OTHER SIDE - NOW THE AGE?

The New York Times has now run a follow-up article on reports of the alleged IDF Gaza atrocities which, while far from perfect, corrects and rebuts many of the false charges that spread from Ha'aretz to news outlets around the world - Israel Disputes Soldiers' Accounts of Gaza Abuses.

According to Camera, the article, which was on the Times website on Friday, was published in the Saturday paper (which has the lowest circulation of the week) on page four, not on page one above the fold like the Times' first article on the subject.

Still the article admits that the alleged killing by an Israeli sniper of the mother and her two daughters was an "urban myth" that almost certainly did not occur, and quotes Israeli soldiers including, as we had suggested, Yishai Goldflam, on how they tried to avoid harming innocent Palestinians and their property.

The article also quotes an Israeli academic who has studied the impact of the growing proportion of religious soldiers in the IDF and the influence of rabbis on the conduct of these soldiers. According to the professor the rabbis have had a moderating impact on the soldiers, contradicting claims in the Times (A Religious War in Israel's Army) and elsewhere that rabbis had called for a religious or "holy war" against the Arabs and specificaly in Gaza.

On the negative side, editors chose to use with the article an inflamatory photo of a dead cow and a destroyed building, together with a rather deceptive caption that was not in accord with the thrust of the article:

Destruction near Gaza City in mid-January. "I'm not saying that nothing bad happened," said one Israeli colonel who described efforts to avoid harming civilians.

In sum, while the story had some serious flaws, and was marred by the photo/caption choice, overall it was a positive effort that helps to start correcting the record.

The Age has used articles by Ethan Bronner in the past. I don't believe there's much of a possibility that it will publish this one but the dead cow is a better than 50:50 chance!

Saturday, March 28, 2009

THE UNRWA SPOKESMAN AND THE BBC BIGOT

In the past Tom Gross has outlined the concoctions of UNRWA which resulted in the defamation of Israel and physical attacks on Jews in many places around the world. These false reports in the media, including those in our local broadsheet, led to anti-Israel riots and attacks on Jews in all six continents of the world. It is important to understand how these false reports arose in light of the campaign being run by the Palestine Lobby and supported in sections of the media - REVEALED: UNRWA SPOKESMAN WHO LIED ABOUT ISRAEL PREVIOUSLY WORKED AT THE BBC WITH JEREMY BOWEN

... UNRWA has now admitted that their claim that Israel shelled a school in Gaza in January and killed 32 Palestinian civilians is completely false. The shell in question, it turns out, was in response to Palestinian mortar fire at civilians in Israel and killed nine Palestinian adults, none of whom were in the school. Seven of those killed were armed operatives and two were civilians.

The sensational and false claims of UNRWA led to headlines around the world such as "UN accuses Israel of herding 110 Palestinians into a house then shelling it, leaving 30 dead" (London Daily Mail Online UK, Jan 9 2009 11:59AM GMT).

Gross reports that Chris Gunness, the UNWRA spokesman who went on several different international TV networks in January to accuse Israel of "war crimes" on account of the supposed school incident, is in fact a former BBC journalist and a close colleague of the BBC's notoriously anti-Israel Chief Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Bowen.

In a diary article which Jeremy Bowen posted on BBC online, he states:

“I just broke off writing for a couple of minutes to take a call from Chris Gunness, who is the spokesman for Unrwa, the UN agency that looks after Palestinian refugees.

“He was ringing to say that Unrwa wanted an investigation into whether Israel has committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Civilians are protected by the laws of war.

“I have known Chris for years, as he used to be a BBC foreign correspondent. He wanted to make sure that we knew he was using the phrase for the first time. He said that the attack this morning on a UN school in Gaza looked as if it was a war crime.”

Tom Gross continues:

In three occasions in the past when I have criticized the BBC, the BBC online editors have then subtly changed their website so as to delete the part I criticized without letting readers know it had ever been there in the first place.

For the record, at the end of this dispatch, I attach Jeremy Bowen’s full diary entry (in which he makes the remarks above), together with two biographies of Chris Gunness. Gunness worked for the BBC for 23 years in senior editorial positions in both television and radio.

So it turns out that the UNWRA spokesman condemning Israel for “war crimes” that in fact never happened, is a former BBC World Service correspondent and producer who is a close friend of the current BBC Chief Middle East Correspondent who helped spread these allegations. Can it be that the false claims about Israel coming from two august institutions, the BBC and UNWRA, are in the hands of two friends who might just have a world view not sympathetic to Israel?

The BBC World Service and UNRWA are both funded by the British government. UNRWA receives huge amounts of money from many other countries too. Earlier this month, the Obama administration announced it would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the considerable funds it has already supplied UNRWA, an organization accused of allowing the promotion of suicide bombing and martyrdom to be taught at the schools it pays for and administers.

Gross asks "is this the BBC's idea of a correction?

In January, Jews in Britain suffered a level of anti-Semitic attacks on a level not seen since the 1930s. This can be attributed to at least in part by the inflammatory and false coverage of Israel by the BBC and other British media.

The BBC has finally added a small footnote correction to the end of one of its stories that falsely claimed Israel shelled a school in Gaza.

The BBC wrote that “40 Palestinian civilians sheltering at the Fakhura school in Jabaliya” had been killed by Israel, and also broadcast that false statement on countless occasions on its multitude of domestic and international radio and television networks. BBC radio broadcasts in dozens of languages around the world.

Below is the BBC’s small correction, which they placed at the foot of one of their online stories, a correction that fails to state that nine Palestinians died, not 40; that none were at the school; that seven of the nine killed were militants; and that Israel had not fired first but was responding to rocket fire by those militants at towns and villages in Israel.

And a BBC UPDATE update in which the Beeb (unlike the Melbourne Age) admits its mistake at the (almost) truthful end of its item - 'Stray mortar' hit UN Gaza school

BBC Update: In February 2009, the United Nations said that a clerical error had led it to report that Israeli mortars had struck a UN-run school in Jabaliya, Gaza, on 6 January killing about 40 people. Maxwell Gaylord, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Jerusalem, said that the Israeli Defense Force mortars fell in the street near the compound, and not on the compound itself. He said that the UN “would like to clarify that the shelling and all of the fatalities took place outside and not inside the school”.

Tom Gross disputes that it really was a clerical error -

CLERICAL ERROR? - I don't think so

Honest Reporting has released an analysis of the BBC's systemic bias against Israel in itsd reporting of the Gaza War.

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's Middle East editor, kept a running diary of the conflict. In one entry, poignantly titled "Tears of a Mother," Bowen publicizes another shocking claim:

Zeinat said the Israeli troops had herded several families from the al-Samouni clan into one of the houses.

She said soldiers came in and asked for the house owner. Her husband, Atiya, put up his hand.

A soldier shot him through the head at point blank range.

Then the soldiers sprayed the room with gunfire, she says. Her four-year-son was killed.

Yet where were the follow-up investigations to these claims? What evidence besides one person's word does Bowen have to support this horrific charge?

An Internet search of the woman whom Bowen interviewed (Zeinat Abdullah al-Samouni) shows that the only other places (besides the BBC) these charges are repeated is on anti-Israel blogs. It is strange that an alleged cold blooded murder carried out in front of multiple witnesses would receive no other mainstream coverage other than an account in Bowen's diary.

The Palestinians have a well-documented record of using the media to disseminate propaganda. (See HonestReporting's "The Big Lies" presentation). With this in mind, the BBC should have been even more careful to fact check such claims before publishing them.

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/The_BBC_During_the_Gaza_War_Biased_Coverage_of_the_Conflict.asp

Bowen has boasted about the accounts coming from the Palestinian side. In his Middle East Diary entry for January 15, he reported that:

The fact that there are good Palestinian journalists in Gaza means that accurate and trustworthy accounts of what is happening are getting out.

On what is he basing his opinion that the accounts are accurate and trustworthy? With so many Palestinian claims being investigated and later dismissed, it seems he is vouching for something over which he has no knowledge. As the BBC's top Middle East reporter, he has a professional responsibility to be objective and not simply accept narratives without corroborating evidence.

Friday, March 27, 2009

A STORY THE AGE PALESTINE LOBBY WON'T LET YOU READ

SOLDIERS TELL OF ASSISTING PALESTINIANS

FRUITCAKE CITY

The Australian gets it right - MEET THE UN'S SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE TO FRUITCAKE CITY.

The Australian reported yesterday on the activities of Richard Falk, UN expert on Palestinian territories and 9/11

IN a report presented yesterday at the UN Human Rights Council, (Richard) Falk, the UN expert on the Palestinian territories, called for a probe to assess if the Israeli forces could differentiate between civilian and military targets in Gaza. "If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful, and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law," he said.

Richard Falk in The Journal, November 9, 2008:

GIVEN the dark cloud of doubt that lingers over the official 9/11 narrative, why was the issue not even discussed during the many months of presidential campaigning? As far as I can tell, the real explanation is a widely shared fear of what sinister forces might lay beneath the unturned stones of a full investigation of 9/11. Ever since the assassinations in the 1960s of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, there has been waged a powerful campaign against conspiracy theory that has made anyone who dares question the official story to be branded as a kook or some kind of unhinged troublemaker. The persisting inability to resolve this controversy about 9/11 subtly taints the legitimacy of the American government. It can only be removed by a willingness, however belated, to reconstruct the truth of that day, and to reveal the story behind its prolonged suppression.

David Aaronovitch in The Times online, April 15, 2008:

IN my library of conspiriana are several books by the American theologian David Ray Griffin, intellectual guru of the "Bush blew up the twin towers movement". In a chapter written by Falk for Griffin's 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, the UN expert-official opines that part of the evidence that there was conspiracy is the very fact that so many people say there wasn't. Or, in intellectualese: "Momentous suspicious events bearing on the legitimacy of the process of governance in the US have been consistently shielded from mainstream inquiry by being reinscribed as the wild fantasies of 'conspiracy theorists' ... the management of suspicion is itself suspicious." As you can see, because I believe Falk, like Griffin, has taken leave of what remained of his senses, this column is now itself part of the sinister plot. I believe in the UN, but we all must stop regarding it as though it was some kind of moral arbiter, doing right in a world of wrong. Because, unfortunately, the term UN expert means neither good nor expert. It can mean warped and stupid.

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton on Fox News, July 15, 2008:

I THINK (Falk's beliefs are) fruitcake city, but among many delegations to the UN it's probably the conventional wisdom.

Falk is the nutcase the Melbourne Age cites as "UN expert" when he condemns Israel. His novel interpretation of international law as highlighted in the first quote above demonstrates the extent of his sheer stupidity. The interpretation in question only applies to Israel; others have every right to defend themselves against terrorists using civilians as human shields. The Palestinian cheerleaders at the Age also carry the same lack of insight and understanding of international law.

THE AGE REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN - # 31

Another day, another shonky Age expose on Israel's alleged illegal use of white phosphorous in its recent Gaza campaign.

Remember those earlier allegations?

The ones that the Age has reproduced on at least half a dozen occasions over the past two months? The same identical claims that have been made by the usual suspects and refuted by bodies like the Red Cross. The ones that made by people holding partisan pro Palestinian/Hamas viewpoints, reported on by people holding partisan pro Palestinian/Hamas views and published by newspaper editors carrying out pro Palestinian/Hamas agendas.

It's like Groundhog Day again today!

In accordance with Wilbur's law, the truthful part of today's Age effort (lifted from the Guardian no less) comes near the end -

The Israel Defence Forces yesterday said its investigation into the use of white phosphorous was still under way, but insisted its use of what it called 155-millimetre "smoke shells" was legal.

"Based on the findings at this stage, it is already possible to conclude that the IDF's use of smoke shells was in accordance with international law," it said.

"These shells were used for specific operational needs only and in accord with international humanitarian law. The claim that smoke shells were used indiscriminately, or to threaten the civilian population, is baseless."

Which leads to the question, how many times can a newspaper present the same story as news before its readers realise the newspaper is nothing more than a pithy propaganda sheet running a sinister agenda, namely to demonise one country and one people ahead of next month's Durban 2 hatefest which just happens to co-incide with Adolph Hitler's 120th birthday?

THE AGE REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN - # 30

The Israel Defence Forces yesterday said its investigation into the use of white phosphorous was still under way, but insisted its use of what it called 155-millimetre "smoke shells" was legal.

"Based on the findings at this stage, it is already possible to conclude that the IDF's use of smoke shells was in accordance with international law," it said.

"These shells were used for specific operational needs only and in accord with international humanitarian law. The claim that smoke shells were used indiscriminately, or to threaten the civilian population, is baseless."

THE AGE REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN - # 29

The Israel Defence Forces yesterday said its investigation into the use of white phosphorous was still under way, but insisted its use of what it called 155-millimetre "smoke shells" was legal.

"Based on the findings at this stage, it is already possible to conclude that the IDF's use of smoke shells was in accordance with international law," it said.

"These shells were used for specific operational needs only and in accord with international humanitarian law. The claim that smoke shells were used indiscriminately, or to threaten the civilian population, is baseless."

THE AGE REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN - # 28

The Israel Defence Forces yesterday said its investigation into the use of white phosphorous was still under way, but insisted its use of what it called 155-millimetre "smoke shells" was legal.

"Based on the findings at this stage, it is already possible to conclude that the IDF's use of smoke shells was in accordance with international law," it said.

"These shells were used for specific operational needs only and in accord with international humanitarian law. The claim that smoke shells were used indiscriminately, or to threaten the civilian population, is baseless."

THE AGE REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN - # 27

The Israel Defence Forces yesterday said its investigation into the use of white phosphorous was still under way, but insisted its use of what it called 155-millimetre "smoke shells" was legal.

"Based on the findings at this stage, it is already possible to conclude that the IDF's use of smoke shells was in accordance with international law," it said.

"These shells were used for specific operational needs only and in accord with international humanitarian law. The claim that smoke shells were used indiscriminately, or to threaten the civilian population, is baseless."

THE AGE REPEATS ITSELF AGAIN - # 26

The Israel Defence Forces yesterday said its investigation into the use of white phosphorous was still under way, but insisted its use of what it called 155-millimetre "smoke shells" was legal.

"Based on the findings at this stage, it is already possible to conclude that the IDF's use of smoke shells was in accordance with international law," it said.

"These shells were used for specific operational needs only and in accord with international humanitarian law. The claim that smoke shells were used indiscriminately, or to threaten the civilian population, is baseless."

Thursday, March 26, 2009

THE MEDIA'S WANTON KILLING OF THE TRUTH

Alex Safian of Camera informs us that the brigade commander of the unit linked to alleged "wanton killings" in Gaza launched his own investigation after hearing of the charges, speaking with actual eyewitnesses, "all of whom said that the alleged killings did not took place."

Remember, the original stories upon which the allegations were based were based not only on hearsay but, in one instance, on the "testimony" of a soldier who wasn't even in Gaza.

The brigade commander’s findings were reported in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, in a story titled IDF Investigation Refutes the Testimonies About Gaza Killings. According to the story (translation by CAMERA):

Two central incidents that came up in the testimony, which Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy presented to Chief of Staff Gaby Ashkenazi, focus on one infantry brigade. The brigade’s commander today will present to Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg, commander of the Gaza division, the findings of his personal investigation about the matter which he undertook in the last few days, and after approval, he will present his findings to the head of the Southern Command, Major General Yoav Gallant.

Regarding the incident in which it was claimed that a sniper fired at a Palestinian woman and her two daughters, the brigade commander’s investigation cites the sniper: “I saw the woman and her daughters and I shot warning shots. The section commander came up to the roof and shouted at me, ?Why did you shoot at them.’ I explained that I did not shoot at them, but I fired warning shots.”

Officers from the brigade surmise that fighters that stayed in the bottom floor of the Palestinian house thought that he hit them, and from here the rumor that a sniper killed a mother and her two daughters spread.

The other alleged incident, the killing by a sniper of an elderly woman, also seems not to have taken place:

Regarding the second incident, in which it was claimed that soldiers went up to the roof to entertain themselves with firing and killed an elderly Palestinian woman, the brigade commander investigation found that there was no such incident.

Safian suggests that those newspapers that "gave these stories great play despite a clear lack of evidence, should be composing forthright corrections – preferably to be run on the front page."

Don't hold your breath Alex!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A CLASS ACT

Now, I thought IAJV Obersturmbanführer Antony Loewenstein was intellectually and factually challenged but after reading this article on the IAJV website from one of his underlings Michael Brull, I reckon young Ant's a frigging genius by comparison:-

EDWARD EINFELD

I should like to take a break from issues related to the pro-Israel lobby in this blog, to address something I've found enormously distasteful.

There has long been enormous media coverage of the Edward Einfeld case, gleeful reporting of his lying, and self-righteous proclamations of the need for him to suffer for his crime and so on. I find the desire to see him publically lynched and humiliated quite repugnant.

Freddy Brull concludes:-

I should also say, it should be considered distressing that the leading Jewish organisations are not willing to rally to his defence. Why have they abandoned one of the Jewish community's most decent and admirable figures? I expect that in 40 years, the Jewish community will reclaim him as one of their brave figures fighting for social justice, just as today it proudly claims Spigelman's role in the freedom rides.

It's a good thing the Jewish community hasn't abandoned Edward's second cousin Marcus, otherwise there would be hell to pay from George Brull.

USEFUL IDIOTS EXPOSED

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, slams the useful idiots who believe there is anything to be gained from dialogue with the likes of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami will speak at La Trobe University's Centre for Dialogue tomorrow - Khatami is just Ahmadinejad with a silver tongue [the article's in the Australian of course!]

Those who want honest and meaningful dialogue tomorrow night would be better off sitting between a Carlton and a Richmond supporter at the MCG.

THE GUARDIAN (AND THE AGE) GO TO PALLYWOOD

The Melbourne Age continues its Intifada against the Jewish State today (courtesy of the Palestine Lobby) by reproducing a recent London Guardian report from Clancy Chassay and Julian Borger - WAR CRIMES CHARGES MOUNT AGAINST ISRAEL.

Melanie Phillips has already given this work of journalistic bias in the extreme a decent Fisking in THE GUARDIAN GOES TO PALLYWOOD. Of the allegations of Israeli war crimes she writes:

It presents these allegations as facts. It does so even though they are only allegations, unsupported by any evidence whatever. It does so even though the allegations are made by people with a proven track record of systematic lying to journalists and fabrication of stories and images. It does so even though such people either support Hamas or are controlled and schooled by Hamas to tell lies under pain of torture or death.

It does so without providing any verifiable information – full names, dates, specifics. It does so without making any mention of the extraordinary lengths to which the Israel Defence Force went in trying to avoid civilian casualties, by leafleting targeted houses to warn the inhabitants to get out and even calling them on their mobile phones to urge them to do so. It does so without acknowledging the fact that it was Hamas which used Gazan civilians as human shields – indeed, it dismisses this in a sentence by stating that Amnesty and Human Rights Watch found ‘no evidence’ that it had done so.

And the damning conclusion:

In similar vein, no mention at all in the Guardian of the enormous bomb planted in a shopping mall in Haifa last Saturday evening – 100 kg of explosives packed with ball bearings -- which, had it not been defused, would most likely have killed hundreds of people.

Truly, the Guardian is an evil newspaper.

As is the Age for its continuing campaign against Israel.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

THE AGE HELPS SPREAD THE LIES

It's almost a month since The Australian Newspaper did the decent thing and apologised for the media slanders published in newspapers like the Melbourne Age over the Gaza School Blood Libel wherein it was alleged that Israel targeted that school is Gaza where 42 civilians were supposed to have died - THE AUSTRALIAN'S RETRACTION FOR THE AGE and ISRAEL DISPUTES CIVILIAN TOLL NEAR UN SCHOOL.

The Age has never retracted those allegations made on 7 January, 2009, nor has it apologised for misleading its readers.

Worse still, the Age is publishing articles that in part repeat the claim in the blood libel insofar as it relates to the false claim of the number of civilain dead which was actually three and not 42 - Israel to probe soldier abuse claims.

Rights groups have accused Israel of using disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians. Cases they cite include the use of white phosphorus ammunition and shelling near a UN school that killed 42 people seeking sanctuary there. White phosphorus can be employed legitimately in battle, but rights groups say its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitutes a war crime.

The Age has been crying wolf with false and unsubstantiated claims of alleged Israeli war crimes ever since the conflict began and it simply can't help itself. One piece in today's Age claims United Nations offical Richard Falk is an expert on Palestine ISRAELI WAR CRIME LIKELY, SAYS UN . Falk managed to get his job at the United Nations because of his credentials as an Israel basher and was refused entry into Israel at the time of Gaza War because he linked Israel with the Nazis. In the Alice in Wonderland world of the U.N. that's fine but shame on the Age for its failure to reveal that fact in this story.

Of course, when the allegations made against the Jewish State are finally refuted, you won't read about that in the Age.

Monday, March 23, 2009

SEPARATED AT BIRTH

Look alikes Josef Fritzl, George Galloway and Ismail Haniyeh. They make such a fine trio!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

BACK TO FRONT

I've taken to reading all items in the Melbourne Age that touch on any aspect of the Israel/Arab conflict from back to front.

It all started when I began to notice that when the Age published letters from readers about the conflict, almost invariably the anti-Israel letters would appear first. We all know the old story about first impressions lasting the longest but does this mean I'm paranoid and that this is really an accidental phenomenon or is there an agenda at the Age to place Israel on the defensive at all times?

I almost settled for the paranoia angle before I realised it's the same with most items of news from the region, particularly those which bring up allegations of wrong doing on the Israeli side.

When we read stories of unsubstantiated allegations against the Jewish State made by Palestinians or dissident Israelis, the true Israeli version is often buried deep within the article and usually at the end. More often than not, as is the case of most media beat ups, the best that can be elicited from the Israeli side is a promise that the matter will be investigated and we already know that when the investigation proves the story to be a fabrication or a significant stretch of the truth, there is no withdrawal or apology - just silence (or even worse, allowing the lie to be repeated over and over).

That's why I read yesterday's Koutsoukis article about allegations in Haaretz newspaper of misconduct by Israeli soldiers during the recent Gaza War - Civilians 'gunned down in Gaza war' from the back to the front starting with these lines:

According to Major Gur Rosenblat, a reservist who commanded more than 100 men during the war in Gaza, the accounts were nothing more than rumours and had no basis in fact.

"I was there. I fought in Gaza and I am telling you that I have no idea, no idea, what these other soldiers are talking about," Major Rosenblat said. "It's not even close to the things I saw when I was there."

As with every accusation of human rights abuses by Israel during the conflict with Hamas the allegations made at the beginning of the article are serious and warrant investigation. In this instance, there have been strong denials from the IDF soldiers who took part in the January offensive - IDF soldiers rebut claims of immoral conduct in Gaza. Notwithstanding this, the fact that the allegations were permitted to be published in an Israeli newspaper and then openly discussed within that country is evidence of the strength of Israel's democracy.

Unfortunately, there is no similar openness within Palestinian society today and, as a consequence, newspapers like the Age spend little of their time and space covering the overt criminality of the Palestinian terror groups whose raison d'être is to inflict pain and death on the neighbouring Israelis - and this includes the elected Hamas which governs Gaza and the PA's Fatah forces in the West Bank. Sadly, the Age and many other media organs simply chose to ignore real human rights abuses on their side while speculating upon possible breaches on the Israeli side.

This extends even to situations where the possibility of those breaches being proven is remote and that is why I had to read Koutsoukis' piece from back to front. I was already aware of reports were questionable at best:

Channel 2 TV Army correspondent Roni Daniel stated at 6:30 PM this evening, that he personally tracked down one of the soldiers interviewed for the Haaretz article. Apparently the soldier's testimony to Haaretz wasn't based on anything he personally saw or witnessed, rather based on rumors and hearsay he heard (and the soldier wasn't even in Gaza!)

Truth is rarely important to Haaretz, as long as it can bash the IDF, Israel, settlers, religious Jews, or anyone not agreeing with them. As a result of their propaganda article, the entire planet picked up on their "expose" and the poison keeps propagating around the world.

- The Muqata

My conclusion therefore is that if you want to find the truth in many of these reports you will only find them at the end and not the beginning and that's why I prefer to start there.

On the subject of Israel's soldiers, Herb Keinan of the Jerusalem Post has it nailed in The crucial morality of the IDF's cause

The beauty of Herb's article is that you can start reading it anywhere you like!