Oops
The Times got it wrong: Tuvia Grossman is a Jew, not a Palestinian. He was attacked by an Arab mob in Jerusalem, severely beaten and stabbed. While the Times allowed the impression that Grossman (as a Palestinian) was beaten by Israeli police, the policeman pictured was actually protecting him.
The image of a boy shot dead in his helpless father's arms during an Israeli confrontation with Palestinians has become the Pietà of the Arab world... [T]he fatal shots could not have come from the Israeli soldiers known to have been involved in the confrontation. The evidence will not change Arab minds—but the episode offers an object lesson in the incendiary power of an icon. -- James Fallows, June 2003
Just like the story of Mohammed al-Dura, just like the Jenin "Massacre," it's been found that Israel didn't do it. But it's too late, the damage is done. Hardly anyone will see the Correction on the bottom of page 17, and even fewer will care.
If all those who love Israel went in sack cloth and wept and wailed on the beach in mourning for the loss of truth, no one would film us, no one would quote us. We would not be idolized as Icons in the New York Times.
In retrospect, of course it would have helped if Israeli officials hadn't been so quick to apologize, but there is just no denying the mainstream media their way with the news. Outside of the United Nations, Palestinian "cause" has no better friend than the global liberal press.
Report: IDF didn't shell Gaza beach
The IDF probe investigating the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians, caused by an explosion on a beach in Gaza on Friday evening, concluded that chances were slim that the accident was caused by IDF shelling.According to the findings, expected to be formally released on Tuesday, shrapnel taken from two wounded Palestinians who were evacuated to Israeli hospitals showed that the explosives were not made in Israel, IDF officials said.
Moreover, the investigation noted the absence of a large enough crater at the site of the explosion, as would be expected if an IDF shell had landed there.
The third observation casting doubt on the possibility that IDF shelling was the cause of the Palestinian deaths was that the IDF had accounted for five of the six shells that it fired in the area before the explosion and the shell that was unaccounted for was fired more than 10 minutes before the blast that killed the Palestinians.
On Saturday evening Gaza Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi insisted that the sites that were shelled by the IDF were the places from where Kassam rockets were launched. He noted those places were frequently targeted by the IDF, and were known to be dangerous places.
The leading theory currently entertained, suggested that an explosive charge, buried by Palestinians on the Gaza beach to prevent Israeli infiltration, was behind the explosion.
Searching Yahoo News for this story, it comes up on the fourth page of Israel-related stories as result #36:
AFP - "Gaza beach probe deaths finds no evidence Israel responsible."And even this story is accompanied by the ubiquitous image of the Palestinian girl weeping on the beach.
Looking back, I found this piece by Richard Starr in the Weekly Standard, celebrating (05/05/2002) the fact that The Big Jenin Lie was "debunked in record time."
... the Jenin fraud has been almost entirely inflated and then deflated in the short space of a month. I think it's safe to say that no one will win a Pulitzer for reporting on the (non-existent) "massacre of the 21st century."
These days the distortions and lies are coming at such a clip that we can hardly make a dent in correcting them all. A reporter on Fox News just last night was still referring to a document concocted by murderers who sit serving multiple life sentences in Israeli prisons, saying that it "implicitly" recognizes Israel. It doesn't seem to matter that the State of Israel is never even mentioned in said document, nor does it matter that the territory claimed by and for Palestinians in the document would return Israel to "Auschwitz borders." NO ONE in the media concedes that Palestinians have never offered any suggestion that would limit or end their claims over Israeli territory. Never.
This is so depressing, let me give you a little cheer-me-up story from that Weekly Standard article. CNN's Sheila MacVicar meets Israeli soldier in Jenin, subsequent to the non-massacre:
"One [Israeli] reservist sensed MacVicar's hostility. He was a soft-spoken man who approached her and introduced himself as the reserve unit's medical officer, Dr. David Zangen. He told her that when the fighting was over, they found photograph albums of children from roughly 6 years of age up through early and mid-teens. It was an album of photos of children who would be the next crop of suicide killers, with notations indicating when each of the children would be ripe. The reporter had no time for the doctor, however."'Perhaps you should ask yourself why,'" she said, dismissing him.
"'I do, madam,' he said, 'I ask myself why. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine sending one's child out to be a mass murderer who commits suicide to kill women and children.'
"'Well, I can explain it,' said the reporter. 'For me it all comes down to one word, "occupation."'
"'But madam,' the doctor said, 'Jenin hasn't been occupied for nine years.'"
Oops.
Posted by: disgusted | Thursday, 07 September 2006 at 03:29 PM