We haven’t had a rip-roaring case of Meryl’s near aneurysm brought on by the AP media spin, so have at it:
First, we have the headline:
Israel’s Premier Rejects Peace Deadline
Note that it’s all about Israel rejecting peace. Let’s look at the lede:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel is not bound by a December 2008 target for a peace agreement set at last week’s U.S.-hosted Mideast summit, telling his Cabinet that progress will depend on the Palestinians’ ability to rein in militants.
Note the words in bold. The peace “agreement” is a target. It is not an agreement. It is not binding. It is not a signed document, treaty, deal, or binding agreement of any kind. It is a target. A goal. A hoped-for state. And on what does that progress depend? Let’s take one more look:
progress will depend on the Palestinians’ ability to rein in militants
In other words, Olmert will not consider himself bound to any peace agreement that doesn’t also include an end to attacks on Israelis. Which means that the agreement is not being fulfilled by the Palestinians, who are bound to end attacks on Israelis. Not try to end attacks on Israelis. End them.
The comments reflected Olmert’s internal political weakness. Hard-liners have threatened to bring down his coalition government if he makes too many concessions in peace talks with the Palestinians. Olmert spoke a day before Israel was set to release 429 Palestinian prisoners in a gesture to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, a step that has drawn criticism from the same hard-line members of Olmert’s Cabinet
One would think that the comments reflect on Mahmoud Abbas’ weakness, but then, one would have to buy into the sham that he actually wants to stop attacks on Israelis. I am not one of those people. Now, however, let’s look at the language that was spoken at the conference:
At the Mideast conference sponsored by President Bush, the leaders agreed that “an effort will be made to hold accelerated negotiations in the hope that it will be possible to conclude them in 2008,” Olmert told his Cabinet, according to a statement. He added, “However, there is no commitment to a specific timetable regarding these negotiations.” The target coincides with the end of Bush’s term.
Well, duh. There’s no timetable? No commitment? Everyone knew that going in, and coming out. The AP knows that. And yet, that did not stop the AP editors from mislabeling this story to make it look like peace will not occur because Israel doesn’t want it. And even now, the AP continues its policy of moving the goalposts for the Palestinians any time that any sort of effort is made to hold them responsible for stopping the murder of Israelis.
Under the plan, the Palestinians must rein in militant groups that attack Israel _ a task that will be hard for Abbas to carry out so long as Islamic Hamas militants rule the Gaza Strip.
Hamas wrested control of the territory from forces loyal to Abbas in June, and remain firmly in control there. While Abbas claims to have authority over the territory, in practice he does not.
I swear, we don’t even need Hamas spin doctors. We have the wire services, and all the rest of the mainstream media. But especially, the wire services that push this crap to thousands of papers worldwide. Thanks, AP, for the unbiased look at the news. Shyeah. Right.
You know, I had to memorize Elizabetth Barrett Browning as an undergrad. I may have to do a riff for the AP:
How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…
The faux Palestinians now officially and explicitly say they do’t recognize Jewish self-determination, per my comment and link on the previous thread. The whole “process” is a farce, an asinine slow-motion appeasement by the Olmert government.
I wish Gillerman had the cojones to say all this at the next opportunity at the UN, but he will play the loyal party member. Too bad. Israel would get more respect if she walked away from these Arabs and their transparent games.
My almost mystical powers of prediction enable me to prophesy the following: The Israelis will not make the required concessions as time passes, pointing out that the terrorist acts are, in fact, continuing.
Abbas will then state that by golly he’s tried his best but he simply can’t fully control the militants. This explanation will be accepted by the world and Israel’s intransigence will be pegged as the reason for yet another failure of the peace process.
Anyone want to bet on this?
Actually, it is not hate but despise
The Arabs are beneath contempt
con·tempt (kÉ™n-tÄ•mpt’) pronunciation n.
1. The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless; scorn.
Actually, the synonyms below apply to the AP even more than the Arabs as they actually know better.
beneath contempt – Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :
113 Moby Thesaurus words for “beneath contempt”:
abhorrent, abominable, arrant, atrocious, awful, base, beastly, beggarly, below contempt, blameworthy, brutal, cheap, cheesy, common, contemptible, crude, crummy, deplorable, despicable, detestable, dire, disgusting, dreadful, egregious, enormous, execrable, fetid, filthy, flagrant, forbidding, foul, fulsome, gaudy, gimcracky, grievous, gross, hateful, heinous, horrible, horrid, ignoble, infamous, lamentable, loathsome, lousy, malodorous, mean, mephitic, meretricious, miasmal, miasmic, miserable, monstrous, nasty, nauseating, nefarious, noisome, notorious, noxious, objectionable, obnoxious, obscene, odious, offensive, outrageous, paltry, pathetic, pitiable, pitiful, poor, rank, rebarbative, regrettable, repellent, reprehensible, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, rotten, rubbishy, sad, scandalous, schlock, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, scuzzy, shabby, shameful, shocking, shoddy, sickening, sordid, sorry, squalid, stinking, terrible, too bad, trashy, trumpery, two-for-a-cent, two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, unclean, valueless, vile, villainous, woeful, worst, worthless, wretched
The Palestinian Authority cannot afford statehood. it would require self-reliance, whereas the Peace process entitles them to ever-increasing UN and EU largesse. US? Yes, by
(sorry about that, posting with tired fingers)
US? Yes, but WHY ??? Israel feels it has to mollify its trading partners without actually giving the Arabs pieces of the Land, but the US has no reason to pander to them.
To Sandy Arabia, perhaps? Not really. The media may pretend to believe that, but the Wahhabis know we have only one use for them. As long as they get money, we get oil. They passed the point some years ago when they could afford to withhold their own income.