Once again, CNN shows its bias.
Death toll rises as Israel encircles Gaza City
That’s two headlines in a row that start with “Death toll rises.”
If you’re coming here from the CNN link, take a look around to get the other side of the story. Israel is fighting a group of terrorists who have been sending rockets and missiles into Israel civilians for years. Prior to 2005, the pretext was to drive Israel out of Gaza. Now that Israel is out of Gaza, what’s the pretext? Oh, that’s right. Hamas wants to get rid of the “settlers” in Israeli cities.
You may also want to read this before posting a comment. I’m not interested in reading here the same kind of boring, repetitive anti-Israel drek that I can read everywhere else. No, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. But most of it is.
Update: Terrorists were firing from the school. I don’t expect the anti-Israel crowd to read that link. But if you want to read a different side of the story, click it.
Drek? I always thought it’s dreck. Hmm…
It’s “dreck” in German, “drek” in Yiddish.
Robert
Today’s Detroit Free Press’s article on the war includes the sub-headline: “20 Palestinian Kids Killed.”
Not even “children;” “kids.”
The Hamas are following the same pattern as Hezbollah. They will position their mortars/rockets in schools/civilian areas so they get maximum media time when Israelis return fire. They have finally learned how to use media like the North Vietnamese. A ceasefire at this time will only help the Hamas to rearm and refit for their next attack.
US citizen here, in total agreement with what Israel has to do to defend herself.
Meryl,
I want to first commend you on your posts. Second, I wanted to share one of my own that I’ve made on another blog. I thing it will spur thought and debate. Here it is:
“I share your pain at the loss of civilian life, and I think that Israelis share your pain as well. But I think it is important to make several points here.
Surely there is a distinction targeting terrorists with unfortunate collateral damage (Israel) and targeting civilians with the intent of killing civilians (Hamas). Believe me, if Israel wanted to commit genocide, in bombing a thousand targets in the most densely populated area on earth, they would and could have killed far more than 500 people (75% of whom, according to the UN, are armed terrorists). I think Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties and, with some unfortunate unavoidable exceptions, doing an outstanding job.
At that, surely if you have a problem with Israel firing at civilian centers, you would also condemn Hamas which is – you guessed it! – targeting civilian centers. Your silence in the face of Palestinian terrorism is telling…
Moreover, I would argue that your denial of Israel’s right to defend its civilians against lethal Hamas attacks – essentially having innocent Israelis and their children be sitting ducks for genocidal terrorists – is nothing short of genocidal itself.
The painful scenes that Palestinian children are witnessing are sad, but also important. Palestinian children are also learning an important life lesson – terrorism against innocent civilians doesn’t pay. Far from achieving independence and honor, it brings Palestinians suffering, humiliation and devastation. Instead of building rockets and training to be suicide bombers perhaps these children will do something more than their foolish parents – perhaps they’ll build themselves an economy, hospitals, and infrastructure and become something more than a hotbed for terrorism and hate.
Oh, and as for the “occupation.†Israel withdrew from Gaza two years ago. The Palestinians – in elections monitored by Jimmy Carter and the EU – elected Hamas. So what on earth is “occupation†other than yet another buzzword to excuse all Palestinian wrongs?”
I am taking a look around at the headlines – to say the least. You have to take the average of the headlines to get the real story (and even then it is difficult). The headlines are now talking about all the civilian deaths at two different schools in Gaza. This is Hamas using civilians as shields – and ultimately sacrificing these women and children for their hopeless cause. The Hamas cause is to murder Israeli civilians in any way, shape, or form they can imagine. They have the same contempt for life of their own citizens.
I love the way all newssite are showing that a school was hit but failing to mention that the terrorist from Hamas were firing rockets right behind the school. Why doesn’t the UN make sure terrorists don’t use these people as human shields? When terrorists hide among civilian populations, they are not soldiers, but cowards. They talk of killing Jews, but they only want to kill those who cannot defend themselves. Go fight the Israeli Army if you’re so set on destroying Israel. They’re leaders are hiding in bunkers while the people are involved in the war. Bunch of cowards and the news service needs to report them as such.
How do you manage to keep your pro-Israel feelings aside while determining what’s objective and what’s not? or you are pro-Hamas but you are so good at being objective that make it look the opposite way. Maybe you are a Palestinian Colbert and all this is comedy.
Israel has every right to defend and protect it’s citizen. From every accounts, it shows that hamas will do everything (even sacrificing their people) to spread their hate against Israel. Hamas is so cold blooded that they will use innocent civilians and children as human shield. If they wanted peace, they could have done it in a peaceful – non-violent way. But alas, Hamas has so much hate against Israel. Therefore HAMAS must now be eliminated as a group wanting peace. Give them the hell they wanted so much.
Thank goodness, finally somebody being honest! CNN is always biased against Israel. Not sure why, really; it’s not like it’s some radical left wing publication. It just seems not to like Israel very much. :-(
In the past eight years, more than 5000 (FIVE THOUSAND) Kassam rockets have fallen on the town of Sderot. The people of Sderot have exactly 15 seconds to run for a bomb shelter before the missile lands. HOW ABOUT THAT FOR CNN HEADLINES?!
Carlos, I don’t need to be objective to be able to tell objectivity. Just as a heart surgeon doesn’t need to have a heart attack to be a good surgeon.
I have never, ever, pretended to be objective on this blog. It’s a blog. By definition, it’s opinionated.
Meryl, on the other hand, a heart surgeon never operates on a patient to whom he is emotionally linked.
if you never pretended to be objective, as you said, which I think is just fine, why do you complaint when other sources are not (according to your not objective opinion) objective. And by the way, many non palestinian people are acusing the press of not using words like: invasion, genocide or phrases like: Geneva Convention in their reports.
You guys got fed up and attacked, bombed and invaded, I think that was the only way to stop the rockets but don’t try to make it look like everybody is in a conspiracy against Israel. You guys are killing civilians, a lot and that has to be reported and it reflects in a negative way on you because maybe what you are doing is wrong. By blindly justifying 100% of your actions you become a fanatic on the eyes of the outsiders (most of the world) like me (latino from Argentina) and that’s not smart and takes a lot of credibility away from your point of view but that’s your opinion and I accept it and try to be in your shoes as much as possible and it must be awful to be showered by rockets as you must be (I’m assuming you live near the problem areas), if I lived there maybe I would hate the other side, too. Thanks
Carlos, our media insists it is objective, and that it fairly portrays both sides of the story.
That is why I complain when they do not.
I am not a media outlet. I am a blogger, writing my opinions. Not news. Opinions. The media are supposed to be reporting news. Not opinions.
Do you get it yet?
By the way, I don’t live in Israel.
Ok, I get it, your opinion about the media not being objective is biased but it’s fine because you are a blogger. The rest of my message was conveniently ignored for the same reason. I won’t waste more of your time. Chau.
Carlos, and others, should go read the Fourth Geneva Conventions. If somebody hides his fighters and munitions and arms among civilians, and the other side with whom he is at war kills civilians in the course of attacking those legitimate military targets hidden among protected people and buildings, the casualties to protected people and losses of protected property are the responsibility of the side that put them there. In this case Hamas puts its men and munitions among protected civilians and the latter get hurt. That is Hamas’ resposibility by international law, not Israel’s.
Israel needs to pick better PR people. That british woman was basically insinuating that we knew about civilians in the school and fired anyway. The Major gave a terrible answer. All they knew was that there were mortars coming down from that location. What does a soldier do when he’s shot at? He shoots back. The real question is, ‘What were those so called innocent civilians doing next to a bunch of masked guys launching mortars?’ They know there are F16s and drones, electric devices that can pinpoint mortars, and that all of these things are either following smoke trails or analyzing trajectories to find the launchers. There can only be two answers. A: Hamas is holding them hostage. or B: These people invited Hamas to use their property so that they can kill some infidels and/or become martyrs and PR boosts. That woman, and a good percentage of the world would be as far away as they could get from a rocket launching team in the middle of a war. You could just hear the anti jewish hatred seething behind that reporter’s words.