My friends tell me I go on and on about the NY Times, and its true-- sometimes I do. For example, every time I get a subscription offer in the mail I write them a nasty letter and send it back in their pre-paid postage envelope (I canceled home delivery years ago). Once in a while I even print out a particularly biased piece and send it to their advertisers with a note.
Today's NY Times had a prime example of the way they manipulate the news. In the past two days 11 Quassam rockets were fired into Israel. Fatah, the group the Palestinian “Moderate,” President Abbas runs, fired many. Also yesterday, the IDF caught one of the rocket brigades "in the act" and blew them to smithereens. What is the headline of the Times, Eleven Terrorist Rockets Hit Israel? NOPE, its Israel Fires on Gaza Palestinians, Saying Rocket Attack Was Near. Nothing about the 11 rockets in the headline and basically denying that there were any rockets around. Same old Times--Good for your birdcage and not much else.
Israel Fires on Gaza Palestinians, Saying Rocket Attack Was Near
JERUSALEM, March 28 — The Israeli Army fired into the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, aiming at a Palestinian militant cell about to launch a rocket attack, an army spokeswoman said, the first time that Israel has responded to rocket attacks since a shaky cease-fire took effect in November.
Israeli officials said the action, which appeared to foil the attack but followed a series of others, did not change their policy or signal the start of an escalation. Still, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that their restraint would not last forever in the face of continued rocket fire.
The army said the Israeli strike had come from ground forces, but would not say what type of artillery had been used. Israel Radio reported that a tank shell had been fired. The Palestinian news media reported that four members of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing had been wounded in the strike. Islamic Jihad does not participate in the cease-fire.
Militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel almost daily since the cease-fire began. As a result, in late December, Israel’s security cabinet authorized pinpoint responses to rocket launchers.
“This was the first time that the defined parameters for a response came together,” said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office.
The only other recent Israeli military action in Gaza occurred in late January, when the air force attacked a tunnel militants had dug near the Karni commercial crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Nine rockets were launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, an unusually large number for one day, the army said, but they caused no injuries. “This was a legitimate act of self-defense,” said David Baker, an aide to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
In addition to Islamic Jihad, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which is loosely affiliated with the mainstream Fatah organization, claimed responsibility for some of the rockets. The groups said they were responding to Israeli military actions in the West Bank.
On Wednesday morning, Israeli soldiers clashed with armed Aksa militants in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, and Palestinians said one militant was killed. On Tuesday, two militant Fatah members were killed after their group opened fire on soldiers in Nablus in the West Bank, the army said. The two were on Israel’s “wanted” list, the army said.
Palestinians have called for extending the cease-fire to the West Bank, but Israelis say it should be properly carried out in Gaza first.
Internal violence continued in Gaza, with an attack by gunmen on the car of a senior member of the military wing of Hamas in Beit Hanun, a northern town. Hospital officials in Gaza said that the Hamas official and two of his children, who were traveling with him, were seriously hurt. An agreement reached between Fatah and Hamas on Feb. 8 in Mecca was supposed to end the violence, but 12 Palestinians have been killed in interfactional clashes since, a Fatah spokesman said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the police removed more than 450 Israeli conservatives from the ruins of Homesh, a former Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank, where they had camped since Monday. Both sides sought to avoid confrontation, negotiating and coordinating for hours before the 7 a.m. deadline for leaving, a police spokesman said. Demonstrators who passively resisted the evacuation were carried onto buses.
Israel razed Homesh in its disengagement plan in summer 2005. Boaz Haetzni, an organizer of the temporary return, acknowledged that the chances that Homesh would be rebuilt were low. But he said the return had achieved its goal in that it had “reawakened the issue of the disengagement” among the public.
1 comment:
Good old NYT... I am more into Guardian, if you know what I mean, but yes, I am totally with you on this.
Cheers.
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