ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

Foxfyre wrote:

Well said Ican.

I had to stop dead in my tracks knowing nothing good could come from reading further.

From a comment in today's Chicago Tribune (page 11, When it comes to facts in the Middle East, there is no middle ground

Quote:

[...]
Readers often are upset at the messenger and say they want a "balanced" report. But, in truth, is it really balance that they seek?

A science report in The Washington Post two weeks ago noted that partisans in a conflict "don't just arrive at different conclusions; they see entirely different worlds."



Researchers took television news clips from the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and showed them to 144 people, split between pro-Arab and pro-Israel supporters.

The pro-Arab viewers heard 42 references they thought were favorable to Israel and 26 that were unfavorable. The pro-Israel viewers, looking at the same video, noted only 16 references favorable to Israel and 57 that they saw as negative.

Post reporter Shankar Vedantam wrote that researchers have called the phenomenon "hostile media effect" to describe how partisans perceive media reports as biased against their side. The more knowledgable about the subject, the more they see bias.

Trying to achieve balance, of course, is not a simple 50-50 equation. And it is a cop-out to worry about criticism and attempt to present everything as equal or "morally equivalent."

How do you measure suffering? Should it be by the numbers of civilians killed or wounded? Should warring parties be viewed as winning or losing by the numbers of rockets launched or bombs dropped?

There are many facts in the Middle East. But the hatred and suspicion is so ingrained that any report is viewed through a prism of: "Does it provide any comfort to my enemy?" And if the answer is yes, then the report and the facts it uses must be wrong.
In the last week, some commentators have suggested that the Qana bombing was staged, something that neither the Israeli government nor any other reputable witness has claimed.

Human Rights Watch, an organization that has criticized both Israel and Hezbollah for indiscriminate targeting of civilian areas, did its own report on the Qana bombing and suggested the number of dead is less than first reported. No one has, or I suspect ever will, come up with a definitive number. The incident will join thousands of others in the mythology of both sides.

(emphasis added)

Israeli air strikes killed at least 29 Lebanese people today and Israel said it may expand its ground offensive.

Meanwhile, confusion surrounded an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, said that 40 people died in the attack before revising the death toll to just one.

It appeared that most of those believed dead had survived in a bunker.

Tonight, an Israeli strike hit a crowded area in Beirut's southern suburb, destroying a residential building and killing five, police said.

The Lebanese army called up reserve soldiers in a move apparently linked to a possible deployment of about 15,000 troops on the border with Israel to end nearly four weeks of fighting between Hizbullah guerrillas and Israeli forces.

Mr Siniora has proposed that Lebanese troops deploy in the south quickly, with the backing of a beefed-up UN force, so that the Israeli military can withdraw as part of any cease-fire deal.

Israel said it may expand its ground offensive, and a military source said the army had warned residents of south Lebanon to stay indoors after 10pm (2000 BST) on Monday. The Israeli cabinet were expected to make a decision later tonight on sending more troops into Lebanon.

The hostilities continued as diplomats at the UN in New York tried to win agreement over a resolution drafted by the US and France, which Lebanon and key Arab states rejected last night.

Israeli warplanes hit the Hizbullah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, eastern regions around the Bekaa Valley city of Baalbek and other targets in the south of the country.

There was also heavy fighting between Israeli ground troops and Hizbullah guerrillas in the south, about three miles (five kilometres) west of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

The Israeli defence minister, Amir Peretz, said the ground offensive would be expanded if there was no diplomatic solution soon.

Earlier today, Mr Siniora told a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut that an Israeli air strike in the southern village of Houla had "resulted in more than 40 martyrs".

But most of those feared killed were later found alive in a bunker. Local television stations reported that rescuers pulled out 65 survivors, including 35 children, from under the rubble.

Speaking later, Mr Siniora said: "It turned out that there was one person killed. They thought that the whole building smashed on the head of about 40 people and it turned out, thank God because we are not happy if someone is killed, they have been saved."

Houla is inside the proposed southern Lebanese security zone.

Other Israeli air attacks today targeted the last remaining crossing on the Litani river between Sidon and Tyre, cutting the main artery for aid supplies to civilians in the south, Reuters reported. Aid groups said Israel was paralysing aid delivery.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, yesterday warned that she expected fighting to continue once the text of the draft resolution was formally adopted. Speaking today in Crawford, Texas, the US president, George Bush, said he recognised that there were still divisions over the resolution but called for it to be adopted as quickly as possible. "We all recognise the violence must stop," Mr Bush said.

Hizbullah guerrillas fired more rockets into northern Israel, wounding one person.

Yesterday was the deadliest day of Hizbullah rocket attacks since the conflict began on July 12, with 15 Israelis - including 12 reservist soldiers - killed.

At least 19 Lebanese civilians died in Israeli air attacks yesterday, and the Lebanese health minister, Mohammad Khalifeh, today told Reuters that 925 people had so far been killed in the conflict, one third of them aged under 13. Another 75 are missing, presumed dead.

More than 90 Israelis, most of them soldiers, have been killed, with 48 dying in Hizbullah rocket attacks.

Arab foreign ministers who met with Mr Siniora in Beirut today warned the UN Security Council against adopting resolutions that do not serve Lebanon's interests. The top Arab diplomats said they had decided to send a delegation to New York to press Lebanon's case.

The ministers warned of "the consequences of adopting resolutions that are not applicable and complicate the situation on the ground and do not take Lebanon's interest and stability into account".

Arab leaders are considering holding an emergency summit on Lebanon in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, later this week.

Israel expects the UN security council to pass a resolution calling for the end of Israeli operations, but leaving the door open for air strikes on Hizbullah arms convoys and rocket launchers, this week.

The Lebanese government wants the UN draft resolution to call for the immediate withdrawal of around 10,000 Israeli troops from south Lebanon.

However, Israel wants to keep the troops there until an international stabilisation force, probably led by the France, moves in.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, criticised the draft resolution, dismissing it as "another operation against the Lebanese nation", the Associated Press reported.

White House Wants A Wider Mid-East War...

Walter Hinteler wrote:

SierraSong wrote:

I believe nothing coming out of Lebanon. Hezbollah uses staging tactics and manipulates what reporters are allowed to divulge.

You mean those live videos on tv are fake as well?

If Hezbollah dictated what could and could not be videographed, they very well could be something quite different than the accurate story.

Israel - Annual report 2006

The Israeli media were once again in 2005 the only ones in the region that had genuine freedom to speak out. But the government did not allow such freedom in the Palestinian territories it occupies. Israeli soldiers discriminated against Arab journalists and abuses against them, whether they worked for local media or pan-Arab TV stations such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, increased during the year. The Israeli army hounded, threatened, summoned and arrested them, sometimes without subsequent trial.
Awad Rajoub, a Palestinian journalist with Al-Jazeera's website, was arrested on 30 November and was still being held at the start of 2006. The army said his arrest at home in Doura had nothing to do with him being a journalist. A dozen journalists, nearly all Israeli Arabs, were summoned and interrogated about their work and political views by the Israeli intelligence service, Shabak, which suspected them of having links with the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
Nabil al-Mazzawi, an Al-Jazeera cameraman on the West Bank, was beaten on 4 November by Israeli soldiers and held for several hours after he filmed a demonstration against the wall separating Israel and the Occupied Territories. Majdi al-Arabid, cameraman for the Israeli TV stations Channel 10, was wounded in the stomach and the leg by gunfire as he filmed Israeli troops entering Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza.
French journalist Houda Ibrahim, of the radio station RMC Moyen-Orient, who had been sent by the French government to train Palestinian journalists, was refused entry to the West Bank from Jordan on 3 July.

Lebanon - Annual report 2006

2005 was a sombre year for the media in Lebanon, which has long had the best record for press freedom in the Arab world, and the country's journalists paid a very heavy price for the uncertainty and lawlessness since the 14 February assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. Samir Kassir, columnist with the Arab daily An-Nahar and local correspondent for the French TV station TV5, was killed by a car-bomb on 2 June and Gebran Tueni, an MP and managing editor of the paper, was killed by another on 12 December. May Chidiac, star presenter of the TV station LBC, was also targeted for assassination by a bomb placed under the seat of her car and was seriously wounded and mutilated. Lebanese journalists remain under pressure and live in fear, some of them fleeing abroad, as they await the definitive report of the United Nations enquiry into the Hariri murder, expected in June 2006.