CAMERA
CNN offers an online analysis, "Crisis in Gaza: Why is this Happening?" by Senior National Editor David Schechter (Jan 9, 2009). While an attempt is made at "balance," there's no effort to note when one side's claim is obvious nonsense or proven fact. Also, most of the issues discussed are typical Arab talking points. The Israeli perspective/history is barely raised. Israel is portrayed as the aggressor throughout the Arab-Israeli conflict and Arab culpability and extremism is almost entirely ignored. Some important context is provided, but not enough to make this analysis fair or truly informative. Here are key problems with CNN's analysis [our comments in brackets]:
"How far back do you want to go?...Isaac's people became the Jews; Ishmael's the Arabs and Muslims."
[ No real history given. Why no mention that the Jews had their own independent kingdom in the land of Israel, including in areas that are now known as the Golan and West Bank? ]
"In 1948, Israel declared its independence, followed almost immediately by war with the Arab nations, in which Israel captured far more land than had been allotted in the U.N. plan."
[Wrongly implies that Israel started the war as a land grab, when it was the Arabs who attacked Israel.]
"In the months leading up to the war, several hundred thousand Arabs fled their homes, beginning the refugee issue that persists today. Debate continues over the degree to which they were forced out by the Jews or encouraged by their own leaders to leave, expecting to return when the Jews were defeated.
In the months and years following the war, several hundred thousand Jews left their homes in Arab nations, the majority settling in Israel.
[The Jewish refugees didn't just leave – most were forced out by Arab governments, in some cases after officially sanctioned pogroms.]
"In the 1967 'Six-Day War,' Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza strip, the West Bank (as in the West Bank of the Jordan River), the eastern half of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. "
[Again, CNN ignores Arab culpability, wrongly implying that Israel started the war.]
"Gaza, as densely crowded a piece of real estate as you will find on this planet, has been a boiling cauldron. "
[There are many places more densely populated than Gaza and they are not boiling cauldrons. The "boiling" is due to hate indoctrination and bad Arab leaders and policies, not the amount of land they have.]
"That squalor is the enduring memory of my first visit to Gaza more than 20 years ago."
[No mention that Israel greatly improved Gaza conditions when they controlled it from 1967 - 2005 with electricity, running water, hospitals, schools, etc. No mention that Israel built new homes for Arab refugees in Gaza, and that under Arab pressure the UN passed resolutions demanding that these refugees be returned to the refugee camps. The PLO also threatened the lives of any refugees who would dare to move to a private home in Gaza. Finally, why are Palestinians still living in refugee camps when the camps are under Palestinian rule?]
"Over the years, the leaders of Arab and Muslim nations have used protests about the plight of the Palestinians as a convenient way to let their populace blow off steam over unrelated domestic issues.
The Palestinians have reason to feel used, if not betrayed, by some of their brethren. "
[good context]
"...Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Islamic political and military organization that fought a 2006 war with Israel."
["fought"? Why not write "started the 2006 war with Israel by firing rockets into northern Israel and killing/kidnapping Israeli soldiers"?]
"Israel is at war against Hamas, a Sunni Muslim organization created more than 20 years ago; its name an acronym for the Arabic words "Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia" meaning Islamic Resistance Movement."
[ Again, Israel is portrayed as the aggressor, while Hamas is merely resisting. But actually it is Hamas that wants to destroy Israel and has repeatedly attacked Israeli civilians and sometimes soldiers.]
"Hamas is a political party and provides social services in Gaza.
It also has a military component. Israel and the United States are among those who consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Hamas has taken credit (a more boastful stance than a mere claim of responsibility) for suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis. Hamas also has fired several thousand rockets and mortars into Southern Israel during the past several years.The rockets are crude by modern military standards, though Israel says that Iran has given Hamas rockets with longer range and greater accuracy."
[ CNN enhances Hamas image as provider of "social services" when services are actually all geared to garnering support for Hamas extremism and terrorism. The distinction between "political" and "military" (actually terrorist) is a false one. Would a Ku Klux Klan school that teaches racial hatred be seen as a "social service"? CNN also minimizes effect of Islamist rocket attacks on Israelis. ]
"An Israeli blockade on relief supplies failed to pressure Hamas into halting rocket attacks. "
[There's no blockade on relief/essential supplies, but on non-essential supplies. Israel PROVIDES Gaza with essential supplies. Quite amazing, since it would be like the U.S. providing the Taliban with supplies. ]
"But it did give Palestinians the chance to link Israel's tactics to the Holocaust by calling the blockade 'the siege of the Gaza ghetto,' a barely veiled reference to the Nazi siege of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw."
[Instead of parroting this charge, why doesn't CNN point out its offensive absurdity? The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were innocent victims of the Nazis, who wanted to kill them because they were Jews. Just as Hamas wants to kill the Israelis because they are Jews. And, of course, the Jews never threatened Germany or launched missiles at it.]
"Palestinians accuse Israel of 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing.' Israelis are offended by the linguistic linkage to the Holocaust and point to language such as this from Hamas' 1988 convenant: 'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.' "
[Good context, but why did CNN include such Holocaust analogies earlier with the apparent agreement with the sentiments by the reporter? And why note merely that Israelis are offended? The analogy is clearly false and it should be stated that there is no Israeli policy or history of routinely and purposefully slaughtering Palestinian civilians, that actually Israel carefully targets combatants.]
"Israel contends that while its military tries to limit civilian casualties, Hamas fires rockets from residential neighborhoods and the grounds of schools and other institutions, using the local population as "human flak jackets," Chemi Shalev wrote in the newspaper Israel Hayom."
[Israel "contends"? Israel does make huge efforts to limit civilian casualities. And it's a fact and a war crime that Hamas fires from civilian areas...why not state that?]
"If only in the interest of getting off on a positive foot [with Obama], might Israel consider concluding its current Gaza campaign before the Oval Office changes hands? "
[Israel is running Operation Cast Lead in what it believes is the best way to protect the lives of its citizens. But CNN suggests that Israel should ignore the security and safety of its citizens, and instead should run the campaign according to what might be convenient for the incoming President. CNN can be that cavalier with Israeli lives, but presumably the Israeli government will take a different view.]
"With the Israeli military at war neither Livni nor Barak (the Israeli Prime Minister at those failed Camp David negotiations) wants to appear soft when most segments of the Israeli public back the campaign against Hamas and an election battle looms with the decidedly hawkish Netanyahu."
[ Why no mention of Hamas leaders as being "hawkish" or "extremist"? Why no mention of Hamas leaders acting for political reasons, such as their contest with the PA? Or that Hamas is acting according to dictates from their Iranian sponsors?]
" Just as the Jews achieved their dream of a national homeland, the Palestinians yearn for a nationality to call their own. But the past (how far back do you want to do?) years have embittered Israelis toward Palestinians and Palestinians toward Israelis. Generations have been born and grown up and grown old knowing no other reality. "
[Palestinians could have had a homeland next to Israel in 1948, but they rejected UN Resolution 181, the partition resolution, and instead went to war against Israel. Palestinians and the Arab countries also rejected earlier suggested compromises. For both the Arabs and the Palestinians, destroying the Jewish state has always been more important than creating a Palestinian state.
For their part, Israelis have always been willing to compromise for peace, and co-existence and a desire for peace are fostered in the Israeli education system. Unfortunately, Arabs have indoctrinated their populations to hate Jews/Israel/compromise and the West. The incessant pervasive anti-Israel, anti-western incitement is one of the key causes of the worsening violence.]
"Until that cycle ends, there won't be many 'good' dates on the calendar."
[There's no "cycle," just endless Arab hatred, incitement and violence against Israel, which Israel must defend itself against. CNN wrongly equates the arsonist with the firefighter.]
Comment: Now stand up to those who misrepresent reality.
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