There was more violence in Gaza, despite the recent ceasefire declaration. Apparently, on Wednesday, the Israeli army opened fire at a group of men approaching an Israeli Jewish-only settlement in Gaza. Here's the info from Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper:
So, the big story making headlines today is that President Abbas has fired two top security officials in Gaza for failing to prevent Hamas from lobbing bombs at the Israeli settlements.
I won't count the killing of this guy by the Israelis as not making headlines in the US, because the whole story is getting a lot of attention, but I'll note that none of the headlines that I've seen note that the Israelis were apparently first to open fire after the ceasefire was declared.
The reaction so far has been better than I expected. The Israelis pressured Abbas to act, and he did, by firing those security chiefs. I'm sure that those security chiefs, who must be popular in Gaza, will be very angry, and this might spark more Palestinian/Palestinian conflicts in Gaza in the coming days and weeks. We'll have to wait and see -- and hope.
Hamas said that the barrage came in response to a Wednesday incident near the southern Gaza settlement of Atzmona, in which IDF soldiers opened fire at a group of four men who came within 70 meters of the fence surrounding the settlement, critically wounding one of them.The man apparently died of his wounds later that night. Hamas then decided to start lobbing rockets and mortars at a settlement in retaliation.
So, the big story making headlines today is that President Abbas has fired two top security officials in Gaza for failing to prevent Hamas from lobbing bombs at the Israeli settlements.
I won't count the killing of this guy by the Israelis as not making headlines in the US, because the whole story is getting a lot of attention, but I'll note that none of the headlines that I've seen note that the Israelis were apparently first to open fire after the ceasefire was declared.
The reaction so far has been better than I expected. The Israelis pressured Abbas to act, and he did, by firing those security chiefs. I'm sure that those security chiefs, who must be popular in Gaza, will be very angry, and this might spark more Palestinian/Palestinian conflicts in Gaza in the coming days and weeks. We'll have to wait and see -- and hope.
I don't know who originally challenged you to this debate over whether the western media is pro-Israeli, but whoever it was seems to have surrendered on about day 2.
Now you're still coming with apache choppers and missiles, and they're not even throwing stones or suicide bombing anymore. You've become what you despise. It's time for you to withdraw from your settlements.
Normally, I wouldn't way in on your little media game, because as Bob said earlier, it is so fraught with methodological errors it would be an insult to pseudo-science to call it that, but this is kindof a stretch.
To say that shooting at and wounding a guy in a no-go zone is the first violation of the cease fire is a crock. Hamas wanted to fire those mortars so they did, and then they looked around and were like "shit, it was a quiet week, lets find a pretense," and this was the best they could come up with. If an Israeli had littered in Ramallah, they would have used that as an excuse, because what they wanted to do was fire mortars.
Now, regardless of that, the cease-fire is between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Army. The Israelis never said they would stop shooting at militants, just that they would stop making major incursions and wouldn't shoot at Palestinian security forces, as long as the Palestinian security forces worked to stop terror attacks/mortar fire/rifle fire. The reason there had been so few attacks against Israelis lately wasn't because nobody was trying, but because the Israeli army had been so effective at stopping them. Now that same burden is shifted to the Palestinian Authority.
Finally, like MB said, why don't you give this up? I don't even understand what you are looking at anymore or how your scoring works. This is the most convoluted media analysis I've ever seen, which makes me think it was compiled by some sort of sociologist.
-Dave
http://dworin.com
jesus erik, saying that someone blinked in the israeli/palestinian confict is like saying michael jackson molested another little boy. no blinked erik, because there never really was a staring match to begin with. i hate to be the wet blanket on your "peace in the middle east" party, but what in god's name makes you think that this time it's going to be different? we've all seen this dog and pony show before. "oh hey, let's stop the violence", "oh wait, israel/palestine looked at me funny, time to kill someone." honestly, i say, let 'em go to war. i'm so sick of having to hear about this shit.
Hi, Erik! It's me (I think you can guess?). I visit your blog everyday and really enjoy it. I am glad to hear you are sparking some discussions here. It's great!
Now, I am not going to state my opinion here, but I have a question to Dave. I think you have an awesome website up and running! Very cool. I just have a question for you: What do you mean by antisemitism? I lived in America for 6 years and kept hearing that term constantly, so I am curious as to what your definision is (I quickly visited your website and saw your comment).
Okay, keep up the good work, Erik! I will come back for more.
OK. Ayachan, glad to have you on the blog! Keep these comments coming.
Now, first of all, feel free to assault my methodology all you want. This is a web log, and I'm logging what I see on the web. It's as simple as that. Is it a perfect media study? No. Will I produce scientifically accurate information on internet media? No. Is it designed by a ridiculous would-be sociologist? Yes. Will I produce information that might be used to support my claims that the US media uniformly portrays Israelis as victims and almost never perpretrators of violence? I think so.
I'm not even scratching the surface of Israeli-initiated violence that the US media doesn't report.
Dave, you say it's a "crock" to claim that "shooting at and wounding a guy in a no-go zone" is a violation of the cease-fire. Again, I'm just scratching the surface. Sharon promised on 2/8/05 that Israel would "cease all its military activity against all Palestinians anywhere." Here are a few examples of Israeli military activity in the hours after Sharon's statement:
On 2/8/05, Israel erected a checkpoint near Nabi Elias village, east of Qalqilya. They stopped all Palestinian vehicles that were traveling on the main road that links Qalqilya with other Palestinian communities. (PCHR, 10 February 2005)On Feb 9, 2005, at approximately 02:00, Israeli troops moved into the Israeli-controlled al-Mawasi area in Khan Yunis. They raided and searched a number of houses and arrested 6 Paletsinian civilians: 'Aadel 'Eid 'Ali al-Douji, 25; 'Alaa' Darwish al-Sha'er, 30; Akram 'Awni al-Shoubaki, 25; 'Eissa Mohammed Saleh al-Lahham, 45; 'Arafat 'Abdul Wahab al-Najjar, 20; and Majed Khamis Zo'rob, 19. At approximately 14:10, Israeli troops positioned in military posts in the vicinity of the Rafah Yam settlement, northwest of Rafah, opened fire at Palestinian houses in Tal al-Sultan neighborhood and Bader camp to the east. (PCHR, 10 Feb 2005)
On February 8, Israel issued a military order confiscating 2 dunums of agricultural land in the east of Yatta village, south of Hebron. The order, which was signed by the Head of the Israeli Military Central Command Moshe Keblinsky gave the owner 10 days to appeal against the confiscation. According to local sources, IOF seek to establish a settlement post in the area for a number of settlers who live in a tent. (PCHR, 10 February 2005)None of these incidents have appeared in the US media, but there was extensive coverage of Hamas' shelling of the (illegal) Israeli settlement, which caused no injuries.
I don't dispute that Hamas was looking for any pretext, and they clearly should not have fired those rockets. But that doesn't excuse the Israeli military for violating General Sharon's promise, including this "major incursion" that you say would constitute a cease-fire violation, Dave.
In short, there were several violations of the cease-fire by the Israelis, none of which received attention in the US media.
So, about my project. My project is an attempt to document how a casual reader of US newsmedia on the internet might get information on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
This kind of project hasn't been undertaken before, as far as I know. I'm trying to do a real-time observation of US internet newsmedia. A more rigorous study might look at archives from the last 5 years and look for specific keywords and so on. I'm trying to bring you live, relevant information about what appears (and doesn't appear) in the US media.
Here's my terrible methodology in a nutshell. I'm checking news sites once a day. I'm looking for: 1) headlines that report Israeli violence toward Palestinians and 2) photos of grieving Palestinains or violent Palestinians vs. photos of grieving Israelis or violent Israelis.
I'm also watching non-US media websites for headlines which report Israeli violence toward Palestinians. When non-US media (BBC, AFP, Israeli media) have headlines about violence that the US media doesn't, I count it in my tally.
This project is innovative and open. I report everything I see as I see it. And, any internet user can provide input. I challenge others to create a comperable real-time study with better methodology.
Assault my methodology as much as you want, but I don't think any methodology would come up with different results than I've been getting so far. I challenge anyone to show that the US internet newsmedia reports extensively on Palestinian deaths and Israeli-instigated violence. Show that the US newsmedia provides photos of grieving Palestinians as often as it does grieving Israelis.
I agree, though, that the project needs a few changes to make it clearer. I won't change my methodology, but I'm gonna change how I report this stuff to make it easier to understand. Watch for this in the coming days.
And keep the comments coming, less important bloggers.
To the earlier poster, Antisemitism means jew hatred.
I don't really think this project is all that innovative, though it may be open. There are about a dozen sites on either side of the specturm that purport to be exposing the bias in the news media, and frankly, like i said originally, most of the bias is towards stupid more than anything else.
As for anyone doing the sort of analysis you are doing, I know of a sociologist right here at everyone's favorite land grant institution who was doing just such research, though I don't know if it has been published yet. Needless to say, if it was being done here, it's been done a lot of other places as well.
I'm unsure as to how you define a violation of the cease fire, but one could also cite the attempted suicide bombing in Jerusalem over the weekend and an attempt to use a child to smuggle explosives and munitions in Gaza. Israelis are trying to avoid what happened during the last cease fire, when Hamas and IJ simply used it as an opportunity to rebuild.
I also don't like the presumption that, while the US media is flawed, the European media is immaculate, which is a sentiment usually held by ignorant Americans of the self-loathing leftist persuasion.
I think you should stop patting yourself on the back for your revolutionary blog expose which has simply gotten confusing and tedious. Go back to blogging about interesting things, lest your blog decline in importance and lose its #1 spot.
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Hi, Dave. Thanks for responding to my message. So, antisemitism means jew hatred. Does this mean that not buying a product from Israel is jew hatred?
I am not so convinved.
Ayachan-
I think there are 2 parts to your comment. The first is that I believe you are referring to the post on my website about what my sister overheard, which is not about products made in Israel, but about products that conform to jewish dietary laws. The products are almost all by mainstream American companies, and none of the money goes to Jews (except insofar as Jews work for the companies, supervisory groups, etc...). The idea that it does is based on a myth called "The Kosher Tax" perpetuated by people who hate Jews, antisemites. My sister was rightfully offended by the comment because, first of all, it displayed a great deal of ignorance, and second of all, the people saying it were essentially saying that they did not want to buy a product if Jews benefitted from it, singling out Jews for some sort of special discrimination, even if Jews, in actuality, did not benefit from it. They had, in one respect, transformed a harmless symbol into something negative merely because it had Jewish affiliations.
As to whether or not it is Antisemitic not to buy products from Israel, I think that is a whole other can of worms and I don't think it is relevant to what my comment was. I think antisemitism refers to peoples motivations, and many groups that choose to boycott Israel are antisemitic in nature or statement, but not all the individuals who do neccessarily hate Jews, per se. There is, of course, a great deal more complexity to this than I'm getting into here.
This post is going to get bumped off of Eric's blog soon, but if you want to start a new discuss it further, you can start a topic in my forums (http://dworin.com/forums.html), and I'd be more than happy to keep this conversation going.