When Kevin Spacey was on The Daily Show, he went on and on about how much better the news situation was in London than in the US. I couldn't help but remember that segment when I read Stressed out and anxious in Beirut. (I found this link in another article called Israeli war deaths go largely unnoticed.) It really is a piece of work: the journalist is sitting with the people of Beriut, musing over where Israel will bomb next and trying to explain his understanding of Israel's motives to the Lebanese people. Hey, newsguy, you wanna understand Israel? How 'bout, you know, going to Israel and talking to them instead of reporting your speculations as news. What a bunch of baloney, which is what passes for "articles" these days:
People keep saying to me, "We are not Hezbollah - why are they bombing our homes?"
The Israelis say that these renewed attacks on Beirut are justified because they are targeting Hezbollah. But for the hundreds of thousands of people in this city who don't support Hezbollah it feels like collective punishment.
Hezbollah's primitive, unguided Katyusha rockets hit civilians too - although far fewer have died in Israel than have been killed in Lebanon by the massive Israeli munitions.
Many Lebanese readily agree that Hezbollah gravely miscalculated when they captured those two Israeli soldiers on 12 July - but now they go on to say: "We were never Hezbollah. But we are all Hezbollah now. The Israeli response is completely unjustified."
I have met some who curse Hezbollah, and who say the Israeli bombardment is understandable. Some, but not many.
And I don't think "But we are all Hezbollah now" is just talk. The more Israel destroys, the more supporters Hezbollah will be able to recruit.
How fair and balanced. Kevin Spacey must be so proud. The article ends with:
Smoking hubble-bubble at a cafe one evening, I heard the sound of a fighter-bomber overhead.
A young man at the next table leaned over to me, gestured in the direction of the menacing rumble, and said: "This - this also is terrorism!"
What a gross misstatement of the definition of terrorism. Provided as the final punch in this craptastic article. Looks like someone at the BBC has been studying his "New Rules" For Mideast Reporting.
Posted by Sarah at August 6, 2006 09:51 AM | TrackBackI was watchign SkyNews here yesterday and there was an interview with some British minister...I believe his last name was Crispin...and he also managed to trash America in his interview about the situation, and talk about how America has already soiled its reputation in Afghanistan and Iraq. I was so ticked off.
However, the day before I had been walking around with a friend, and they have some English language newspapers here, and one called the Cyprus weekly I believe had the headline along the lines: Hezbollah rockets kill 8 Israelis. And I took a photo. Usually it would be something about how many Lebanese were killed, and then somewhere in the text would come the mention of Israeli deaths, or anything Hezbollah had done to warrant any Israeli wrath.
Problem is, to Hezbullah, Hamas, Syria, Iran, et al, every Jew is a soldier, regardles of his or her age. Eight-day-old boy? Yep, he's a soldier, and therefore a legitimate target. And of course, Europe won't disagree with that, will it? Thus it follows that "Eight Israelis Die..." means a Katyusha rocket hit eight "soldiers"--little matter their ages.
Posted by: Jim Shawley at August 6, 2006 04:02 PM