Sunday, August 21, 2011

The media (and the Israeli government) have gone mad

When I reported Thursday that the media was adopting its usual anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the unprecedented terrorist attacks and subsequent rocket barrage (over 150 attacks on Southern Israel in the last 3 days  - live coverage of the continuing rocket bombardment in Israeli is here) even I did not expect the extent of how bad things would be. Take a look at today's Telegraph - the only serious newspaper in the UK that is supposedly 'sympathetic' to Israel (in fact, like the Sun, it has not been 'sympathetic' to Israel for several years now). Despite the fact that terrorists under the control of Iran are mounting an unprovoked war against Israel, the ONLY mention of Israel in its massive Sunday edition is a brief paragraph stating that Israel's 'killing of Egyptian security guards' has led to the Egyptian ambassador from Israel being recalled. No mention of the terrorist attacks; no mention of the death in Beersheba yesterday, no mention of the school destroyed or the fact that 20% of the entire Israeli population are in shelters unable to move. Nor does any of this information appear anywhere else in any Western media outlet at all (although, of course you will find plenty of mentions of Israel 'pounding Gaza', even though they are not this time - more of that below).

The incident with the Egyptians is well covered here and here. What is especially bizarre about this is that Ehud Barak - the worst politician in Israel's history - actually apologized to Egypt. Remember Barak is also the person who, before looking at the evidence, apologized for the  'killing' of Muhammed Al-dura in September 2000; although this was subsequently proved to be a hoax it directly led to a thousand Israeli civilians being murdered in the subsequent intifada and the entire Muslim world has been indoctrinated about the Al-dura myth. Barak's motives this time were the same as in 2000. He feels that apologising for something the Israelis were not responsible for is worth doing if it can 'help calm things down'.

But the ineptitude of the Israeli government extends beyond Barak. Now that it is clear the war launched last Thursday is being directed by Iran and its proxies Islamic Jihad (as opposed to Hamas) the government has decided to do nothing (presumably for fear of offending President Obama), and has abdicated from its responsibility to defend its citizens from attack. Even worse, it is actually relying on the Egyptian military to do its job for it in the Sinai now -  a move that is monumentally stupid on two accounts: 1) The Egyptians will not halt the terrorists, but will actually provide direct support to them and 2) It allows an Egyptian military presence in the Sinai, even though this breaches the conditions of the 1979 peace agreement, and hence ensures that within a short number of years Israel will be facing a Sinai war with Egypt.

These are very worrying times indeed, all the more so for the fact that Barak is in charge of Israel's defence.

1 comment:

Juniper in the Desert said...

Excellent! shared!