Fires in Ashdod after missile fire
UPDATED (several times) at the end of this post.
As I remarked in yesterday’s post about the renewed missile fire into Israel’s south, I wanted to make a point about the timeline of events in case the international media reversed cause and effect, in the old “Israel hit back first” meme:
Let’s just get this timeline straight in case the international media reverse cause and effect and report that “Israel hit back first”. The Islamic Jihad (or was it Hamas or someone else covering for them?) launched missiles against Israel on Thursday. Israel fired back, thankfully killing the terrorists and more importantly, their leader. So the terrorists launched more missiles.
And whaddaya know, that is exactly what has happened.
We’ll start with the Guardian’s article by their ridiculously biased and inane correspondent Harriet Sherwood. The headline reads “Israeli air strike kills nine militants“. As I anticipated, both the headline and the article make no mention of the initial missile fire last Thursday which triggered the lethal Israeli air strike.
A spiralling round of Israeli air strikes and rocket fire from Gaza claimed the lives of nine Palestinian militants and one Israeli civilian on Saturday following weeks of relative calm.
The Israeli air force targeted a group of militants in southern Gaza on Saturday morning that it said was preparing to launch long-range missiles into Israel. Five Islamic Jihad operatives were killed, including a senior commander, Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil.
A salvo of missiles later struck southern Israel, triggering air raid sirens and causing the death of a man in Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of Gaza. Four other Israelis were sustained light to moderate injuries. More than 20 rockets were fired in total on Saturday, according to the Israeli military.
The BBC carried two articles, both of which reversed the timeline as I expected, and only one of which mentioned the initial rocket salvo last Wednesday which triggered this current round of violence.
The first item was headed “Militants killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza” with no mention of Wednesday’s missile fire.
The second article carried the slightly surreal headline “Gaza-Israel ceasefire hopes after 10 killed“. This article did make mention of the missile fire on Wednesday, but it was buried deep within the article and it is easy to miss it. This kind of writing is designed, whether consciously or not, to lead the reader into thinking that Israel starts up the violence irrationally, and bombs militants terrorists in a vacuum, with no valid reason.
The New York Times continues with the chronologically challenged reporting with an article entitled “Israeli Drone strike kills militants in Gaza“.
They at least mention the initial missile strike of Wednesday in the second paragraph which makes me ask why the headline could not reflect that fact? Why didn’t the headline read “Gaza terrorists fire missiles, IAF responds killing terrorists”. It may not sound as sexy; after all it doesn’t give the impression that Israelis are bloodthirsty bombers out to kill poor innocent “militants” for no reason, but it certainly is more truthful.
Cars damaged by missile fire in Ashdod (not the picture in the NYT)
The picture accompanying the NYT article is of Palestinians waiting at the morgue. There are no pictures of the destruction on the Israeli side of the border.
Meanwhile both the Daily Telegraph and Sky News carried no reporting whatsoever on any of the events from Wednesday to today. It might be because today is Sunday, although that does not explain why Wednesday’s events were not reported. I wait with unbated breath to see how or if they will report the weekend’s violence tomorrow.
UPDATE: The Telegraph appears lately to have become as bad as the Guardian, at least in the misleading headline department. Their reporting of the weekend’s rocket attacks reads thus: Israeli air strike kills militant in Gaza Strip after truce announced. The contents of the article reflect the headline. Shame on them.
The Independent carries a more neutral article titled “Islamic Jihad declares truce after attacks“.
Neither article mentions the original rocket attack from last Wednesday, which was the trigger for the whole round of violence.
And still not a word on the Sky News website.
UPDATE to the update: Still nothing on the official Sky News site but Tim Marshall has a very good post on his Sky News blog, where he gets the chronology and the facts right. I wish all journalists could be as balanced as Mr. Marshall.
Here’s an absolute beauty http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/israeli-strike-kills-one-after-truce-20111031-1mqtb.html:
The headline:Israeli strike kills one after truce
Those sneaky Israelis! It was a truce, dammit, and they went and struck anyway! Well, what else can you expect from those bloody Jews.
In fairness, the second paragraph began, “The spike in violence, which began when a rocket hit Israel on Wednesday and escalated sharply over the weekend… ”
But then it continues:
“Shortly before dawn on Sunday, militant groups including Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Islamic Jihad, which has been central to the latest bloodshed, said they would observe a truce as long as Israel reciprocated.
Calm prevailed for some eight hours before Israel mounted a fresh air strike on what the military said was “a terrorist squad that was preparing to fire rockets at Israel”, killing one militant and wounding another.”
No it damned well DIDN’T prevail for some eight hours. It barely lasted eight minutes. Crap was landing soon after 6 am, which is when the supposed ceasefire was supposed to start.
Sheesh! That’s almost worse than the Guardian and that’s saying something. And even if the article is more or less accurate, how many people don’t bother reading past the headline? And even if they do, their opinion is coloured from the start by the
misleadinglying headline.“That’s almost worse than the Guardian”
Exactly what I thought.
Perhaps Israel might just as well adopt “Aridog’s Modified Golden Rule”:
Do unto others what they would do unto you, but do it first!
Y’all get blamed for it anyway.
I like that Aridog. Short, sweet and to the point.
(And so true…)
There’s a slight variation to that (non-lethal, supposedly): some years ago, during a rugby union tour of (I believe) South Africa – before the boycott – the coach of the GB & Ireland Lions, as they are named, told his players to “get their retaliation in first”. After all, this has a historic precedent: it’s what the Israelis did to the Egyptians, et al, before they get strike Israel in 1967.
Back then, no-one was blaming or condemning Israel.
How times change. (sigh, very deeply)
LOL! I like that axiom too.
Yeah, how times change.
They changed their headline to drop the reference to the “truce”–I guess they got a lot of complaints.
Well, well, well…
Here’s a slightly different view: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=243732
“The IDF identified a rocket launching cell in the southern Gaza Strip Sunday afternoon as terrorists were preparing to launch a rocket toward Israel, despite a reported cease fire with Islamic Jihad. IAF planes struck the cell, preventing the rocket from being launched.
Islamic Jihad, which has taken responsibility for the majority of some 39 rockets fired at Israel from the Strip in the past 24 hours, said late Sunday morning that it was committed to a cease fire agreement, although it asserted it reserved the right to respond to any Israeli attacks, Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported.
The attempted rocket launch mid-Sunday afternoon, however, cast doubts on the lasting power of the agreement. It was not clear if Islamic Jihad or another terrorist group in Gaza was responsible for the attempted launch.One Palestinian was killed and another seriously wounded in the IDF strike, Palestinian news sources reported.
The second attempt in as many hours to implement an Egyptian-brokered cease fire went into effect at around 7 a.m. Sunday morning, but the latest rocket launching attempt cast doubts on that agreement as well.
Following the 6 a.m. deadline for the earlier cease fire attempt, four rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Two of the rockets exploded in open areas causing no damage and two were intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system. The last rocket was fired at 6:40 a.m, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4141552,00.html
“UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel Sunday to display “maximum restraint” and condemned the rocket attacks from Gaza. ”
No comment
Banki is irrelevant- just a tiresome little sock puppet mouthpiece for the OIC. Ignore him- PM Stephen Harper does.
of course they wanted a truce they’re terrified how we’ll hit back ! we should’ve said no ceasefire until we decide to cease-you started it so we’ll finish it.
Pingback: Ceasefire, broken so soon – and how it is reported in the media | Anne's Opinions