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War Ain’t Purdy – Especially the Parts You Aren’t Supposed to See

18 years ago
28 Comments
by grandmuffti
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This is probably old news by now, but Israel’s Channel 2 aired a video that the army hadn’t cleared for viewing. It involves an Israeli raid on a home in Lebanon. It’s not a happy video and it is a sad reminder of how demoralizing war is for all involved. Muffti hates censorship (unless it compromises safety of citizens) and so here is the video as aired on the CBC for your viewing displeasure.

Editors Note: This video was actually made 4 years ago, not during the current conflict. Furthermore, it was filmed in Bethlehem, not Lebanon.

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28 Comments

  • Stumbled upon this:

    “Israeli pilots ‘deliberately miss’ targets”, “Fliers admit aborting raids on civilian targets as concern grows over the reliability of intelligence”

  • Finnish, most of Beirut is not war-torn, one key section is. Second, all of these reporters, except for the Israeli ones, tend to move back and forth. Third, it’s not that I would consider this bias, it’s that anybody would and should. Fourth, a large portion of the international media is hardly covering the real injuries, deaths and damage taking place in Israel. It’s the same as using the word “homemade” when speaking of Qassem rockets. They aren’t “homemade” but somehow they become less meaningful that way. The point is that the majority of the press is leaning against Israel and these are people who should know better. There is already one Robert Fisk, we don’t need any more of them.

  • If you’re in the movies watching some overly sugared movie and everyone around you cry, don’t you also feel a bit like… crying? Maybe the reporter got caught in the moment… I don’t know. In any case, it wasn’t the most professional reporting.

    If the reporter had laughed and said “I’m happy the old snake is dead! Whoo-hoo!” instead of crying, that would have been just as biased, and just as unprofessional. But ask yourself, had this happened, would you personally now consider BBC biased?

    I actually read the linked article in the morning. I can fully understand why you think BBC is biased. But I think the “bias” which you detect is not the bias of BBC, but instead of the people having to live in war-torn Beirut.

    I mean, if a reporter is to report about the overall “feel” of the people living in a war zone, do you think the people who are interviewed have nothing but the highest praises for whoever is keeping them awake at night and in fear? However careful the air strikes are, however much effort is used to avoid civilian casualties, there’s the truth that Israel is the one who is shooting bombs into Beirut.

    If you interviewed the people of for example Haifa, I’m sure they’d say the same things about Hizbullah: that when will it end, will there be more rockets, and that Hizbullah are the ones keeping you awake while you’re in the bomb shelter with children whose houses are in the line of fire, all that because Hizbullah is the one shooting rockets into Israel. Would BBC be biased against Hizbullah in this case? I think not, at least I would not consider them to be such, because also in this case the BBC would be reporting the feelings of the people.

    It’s not good for reporters to go falsifying stories, to have a bias, regardless of which way the bias goes: pro-Israel, anti-Israel, it just doesn’t matter which way, because there’s no side without innocence in this whole mess and thinking there is, that is the biggest bias of all.

  • Make that Jerusalem Post, not “News”. Apologies! Time for morning coffee.

  • Themiddle, I’m interested in knowing what is wrong with BBC. I mean, from what I’ve followed their reporting over many years, if they report conflicts, they seem to not have bias towards either side. (Although I’ve followed only their web edition, not the television broadcasts)

    As for Nakia’s question, I think the solution is to first of all be critical about everything you read regardless of the source, and second to consume multiple sources, like CNN, BBC, al Jazeera, Haaretz, Jerusalem News, etc.

    I also heartily recommend the IDF web page, the Hebrew scroller things are very hypnotizing.

  • NPR sucks balls.

    On the other hand, FOX has been surprisingly critical of Israel in certain segments about the conflict in Lebanon. Besides, Pat Buchanan, a known Israel hater, is on there pretty frequently.

  • While FOX, MSNBC, and their ilk are so biased in favor of Israel that it has become impossible to accept their reporting about Israel at face value. Who can a girl trust for news? NPR seems OK, and so does the CBC, but as far as English speaking news outlets, the pickings are slim.

  • Nakia, the BBC is so biased against Israel that it has become impossible to accept their reporting about Israel at face value.

  • It’s just like the footage of Palestinians “celebrating” 9/11- but sadly, it was mainstream TV news that was up to that nonsense. For what it’s worth, I’m a BBC geek all the way.

  • No one denies the tragic aspect of this video. Not me, not the IDF, not any person with a shred of decency. But that’s no excuse for innaccuracy.

  • This happenned in Bethlehem, not in Lebanon. And it happenned in 2002 during the height of the intifada. Ismail Hawaja, the aggrieved widower is however, a remarkable man. He had this to say days after his wife’s death:

    “I have no grudges,” he says. ” I’m willing to have Israelis come to my house… The most important point is that my wife has been killed in front of her five children. I don’t want this to happen to an Israeli… What has a mother done to be killed in front of her five children?” he says. “And what is the crime of a child to be killed in front of his mother at a synagogue,” he adds, referring to one of the victims of a Palestinian suicide bomber who struck an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem two weeks ago.

    Source: Christian Science Monitor

    Ibrahim Abayat was the head of the Tanzim militia in Bethlehem at the time and was interviewed for the CSM article. He killed Avi Boaz, a 72 year old man with polio who had many Palestinian friends in Bethlehem and travelled in and out of the West Bank without any problems. Until Abayat kidnapped him and murdered him in cold blood. You can read about that on MSNBC.

    Abayat, who would have been one of the top men the Israelis were looking for, was involved in the following murders:

    · 20 September 2001 – A shooting attack on an Israeli vehicle near Tekoa, in which Sarit Amrani was murdered. · 16 July 2001 – The detonation of an explosive charge on the Beit Safafa -Talpiot bridge inside Jerusalem. · 15 January 2002 – The abduction and murder of Avi Boaz, a US citizen residing in Israel. Boaz was stopped at a Palestinian roadblock near Beit Sahour. There he was abducted by Abayat’s operatives, who took him to Bethlehem, and upon Abayat’s instructions, shot him to death. · 18 February 2002 – The detonation of a car bomb at the Zaim checkpoint, resulting in the death of an Israeli policeman. · 25 February 2002 – A shooting attack at an Israeli vehicle close to the Tekoa junction. Avraham Fisch and Aharon Gorov of Nokdim were killed in the attack, and Tamar Lipschitz, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, was wounded in the attack. · 2 March 2002 – A shooting attack at a vehicle south of Jerusalem, in which dental technician, Devorah Friedman, mother of four, was murdered.. · June 14, 2002 – Involvement in the planning and execution of the terrorist murder of Israeli intelligence officer, Yehuda Edri.

    This I got from the Jewish Virtual Library.

    Ibrahim was involved in the siege at th Church of the Nativity. After his surrender he was exiled and now lives in Spain, a guest of the Spanish government – at one point living in a minister’s lavish villa, waited upon by his maids.

    This is the guy the Israelis were after. So yes, war sucks. Please Muffti next time add some context before you go posting innaccuratly described videos of old, old stories.