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19 JULY – DAY EIGHT |
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PLEASE RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING The Guardian eases up on its anti-Israel rhetoric by allowing the more moderate tones of Jonathan Freedland to put his analysis of the situation forward. Vicious words, however, are replaced by tasteless and graphic imagery in the form of a cartoon by Martin Rowson (click on image to view in full):
Letters to the Guardian. RECOMMENDED READING AND ANALYSIS FROM THE UK PRESS Roland Watson offers personalised observations in his Israel Notebook for the Times, looking at the human aspect of IDF soldiers and other snippets of life in Israel: “A few more hours, and a couple of their comrades on the Lebanese border were kidnapped. The swift Israeli bombing of airport runways, roads and bridges was in part to try to ensure that they are not by now in Iran. Their names meant nothing to anyone but family and friends. But everyone knows these people; they are next door’s cousin, everyone’s son, everyone’s daughter.” Times Foreign Editor Bronwen Maddox takes a look at the splits within the Arab League over the current crisis: “Only Saudi Arabia has criticised Hezbollah directly and bluntly, calling the seizure of the soldiers irresponsible. But Egypt and Jordan have also criticised Hezbollah’s “adventurism” and said that the region could do without that quality. If only. The league’s other wing has been loud in its support for Hezbollah: Yemen called for members to “end any co-operation with Israel”. This rift is deeper than in the past and the Saudi remarks, which might sound mild at face value, mark a dramatic shift by that cautious regime. For once, Saudi Arabia has rejected the tactic of complimenting Israel’s opponents. That does not reflect the regime’s sense of security, but the opposite. It is aware of the restiveness of its own Shia minority population and the potential militancy of its underemployed young men. It does not want to see the Shia crescent grow. So it has chosen to berate the new Shia threat rather than pander to its audience at home. That is not a recipe for unity in the Arab League, but it may be one for progress.” Back in Israel, the Sun’s Oliver Harvey found himself in a near miss with a Katyusha while reporting from Nahariya: “It began with a dull thud on our left followed by a second, stronger blast that shook our car. Then, just 50ft away, the roof of a family home burst into a ball of flames as a Katyusha rocket ploughed into it. A mother of three, her hands clutching her face, ran screaming into the debris-strewn street as flames licked through the shattered suburban home. A little girl of six dashed from her nearby bomb shelter clutching her dolly, her eyes streaming tears. Sun photographer Phil Hannaford and I had been caught up in a terrifying Hezbollah missile attack on the frontline town of Nahariya in northern Israel yesterday. This was no surgical strike, no precision bombing raid.” Scottish Herald Defence Correspondent Ian Bruce continues to present fair military analysis of the situation, today looking at the Iranian missile cache in Hezbollah’s hands: “Intelligence sources said yesterday that up to 200 Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen are now manning and guarding the Zelzal 1 and 2 missiles, which are considered too politically sensitive for Hizbollah to control outright.”
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18 JULY – DAY SEVEN |
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PLEASE RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING The Independent published, on Monday, a shocking piece by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (click here to read full article) accusing Israel of apartheid and carrying out its military operations as a result of anti-Arab racism: “As we witness the bombardment by Israel of Lebanon and Gaza – a grotesque over-reaction – and, as the death toll of Arab civilians mounts, you have to ask how the Israelis can do what they do. My only answer now is to conclude that it is racism. No political or territorial struggles can convincingly explain or excuse the maddened onslaught by the Israeli state.” She concludes by comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa: “Israel espouses the same ideology, religious self regard and policies to control Arabs today. True, the country has many enemies wishing its destruction, but racism and apartheid are still unacceptable, even more so for a country with such a history.” Letters to the Independent. The Guardian continues to give op-ed space to Israel’s detractors. Ahmad Khalidi prefers to ignore the genocidal intentions of Israel’s enemies and the threat of terror. Instead: “There is no reason in the world why Israel should be able to enter Arab sovereign soil to occupy, destroy, kidnap and eliminate its perceived foes – repeatedly, with impunity and without restraint – while the Arab side cannot do the same. And if the Arab states are unable or unwilling to do so then the job should fall to those who can.” Despite the obvious intentions towards Israel of terrorists and rejectionist states in the region, Khalidi maintains that they are the ones who need to defend themselves against Israel: “What is at issue here is not democracy but the right to resist Israeli arrogance and be treated on a par with it in every respect, including the use of force. If Israel has the right to “defend itself” then so has everyone else.” Letters to the Guardian.
RECOMMENDED READING AND ANALYSIS FROM THE UK PRESS David Aaronovitch defends Israel’s right to take action against Hezbollah in an excellent commentary in the Times: “An autonomous heavily armed militia, working from the territory of a state, has – without agreement from its own government (of which it is a part) – launched its own attacks on the territory of a neighbour. What is Israel, or any nation in that situation, supposed to do?” Addressing the Hezbollah threat, Aaronovitch states: “Knowing this, do we think that Israel’s response is “proportionate”? By the way, if it isn’t, then the Falklands campaign, in which deaths actually exceeded the population of the contested area, can only be described as grossly disproportionate. Dead kids in a blasted car can never be described as a price worth paying, even if – in effect – all sides actually think they are. And there are so many false trails here. On the BBC yesterday I heard a reporter in the bombed port city of Tyre being told by a local man: “No Hezbollah in Tyre!” Which – as the reporter didn’t say – will come as extraordinary news to everyone in Lebanon.” Meanwhile, the Times‘ leader states: “Although history suggests that the region’s problems are intractable, the parameters of the current crisis are simple. Iran, with help from Syria, is trying to maximise its influence. Its arming of Hezbollah with rockets that can reach deep into Israel gives the radical militia group, and ultimately Tehran, the power to sabotage any Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. It is of widespread interest, particularly to the Arab world, that this “Shia crescent” is not allowed to become the region’s powerbroker. This includes Syria.” In typically straightforward language, the Sun declares that the “blame for this terrible war rests with the Mad Mullahs who run Iran. And with Syria, the cowardly middleman which provides Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists with the missiles to bombard Israel.” Writing in the Independent, Linda Grant conducts a lengthy examination of the British Jewish community’s varying attitudes towards Israel. Note: HonestReporting UK draws attention to this article as a matter of interest and leaves it to subscribers to judge the contents for themselves. The Scottish Herald’s Defence Correspondent Ian Bruce offers a very accurate and detailed assessment of the current conflict, describing it as a “battle Israel cannot afford to lose”, stressing “it only has to lose once to spell the end of Israel as what is arguably the region’s only functioning democratic state. The campaign against Hizbollah is one it cannot afford to shirk without jeopardising the long-term security of its northern towns and coastal cities, all of which are now in range of Iranian-supplied missiles.”
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17 JULY – DAY SIX |
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PLEASE RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING The Guardian, true to form calls Israel’s response “disproportionate” while claiming that Israel “has acted as though the politics of the region do not exist; instead it has reacted directly to each kidnapping and each missile.” Meanwhile, David Clark claims: “The plain truth is that Israel thinks that it can get more by imposing a solution through force than by negotiation and is not interested in any kind of peace process.” Writing in the same paper, Charles Harb downplays the Hezbollah threat claiming that “an agreement between the various parties – sponsored by France, the US, and the UN – has reflected the “balance of terror”: Israel would refrain from bombing Lebanese civilian structures, and Hizbullah would not bomb civilian structures in northern Israel. Although several military operations by the Israelis and by Hizbullah have occurred since 2000, neither side has violated this understanding. In 2004, Hizbullah secured the release of some prisoners held captive in Israeli jails in an exchange with Israel. And Hizbullah’s military operation last week falls squarely within that framework.”
Letters to the Guardian. RECOMMENDED READING AND ANALYSIS FROM THE UK PRESS A number of papers call for action against Iran, including the Daily Telegraph and Dore Gold, who argue that “Teheran is sponsoring terrorist movements on Israel’s borders as part of its wider strategy of regional encirclement. As long as the mullahs go unchecked, neither Israel, nor Palestine, nor Lebanon will be secure.” Anton La Guardia, in the Daily Telegraph notes that “Lebanon has become the battleground between pro-western and radical Islamic forces. Few governments, even Arab states, want to see Hizbollah win the contest” and says that “Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader who had been a strong foe of Israel during the civil war but then became a powerful critic of Syria, summed up the situation as follows: “The war is no longer Lebanon’s … it is an Iranian war. Iran is telling the United States: You want to fight me in the Gulf and destroy my nuclear programme? I will hit you at home, in Israel.”” The influence of Iran is also the focus of William Kristol in the Financial Times: “No Islamic Republic of Iran, no Hezbollah. No Islamic Republic of Iran, no one to prop up the Assad regime in Syria. No Iranian support for Syria (a secular government that has its own reasons for needing Iranian help and for supporting Hezbollah and Hamas), little state sponsorship of Hamas and Hezbollah. And no Shi’ite Iranian revolution, far less of an impetus for the Saudis to finance the export of the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam as a competitor to Khomeini’s claim for leadership of militant Islam – and thus no Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and perhaps no Hamas either.” Meanwhile, the Times calls for international action to help Lebanon evict Hezbollah: “To allow Iran, Hezbollah’s puppet master and a regime that believes Israel should be wiped off the map, and Syria such deadly influence in the region is a recipe for disaster. The Lebanese people are clearly not enamoured by the presence of Hezbollah guerrillas in the south of their country. But their Government needs help and political cover from the international community if it is to evict them.” Also in the Times, Tim Hames states that “In the dreadful circumstances, Mr Olmert has been “proportionate” and “balanced”, as is acknowledged by the United States and Britain and, privately, officials in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.”
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HOW YOU CAN HELP – DONATE TO HR UK HERE Israel’s international image is extremely important, particularly during a crisis of this magnitude. Please consider donating to Israeli causes, some of which are listed below, and also forward this communique and encourage others to subscribe to HonestReporting UK to enable them to better respond to media bias. Some featured Israeli charities:
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