Dear Honest Reporting Member,
HonestReporting expresses its deep and heartfelt condolences to the Israeli Government, to the Israeli people, and to the family and friends of Israeli cabinet minister Rechavam “Gandhi” Ze’evi, who was gunned down by Arab assassins in Jerusalem on October 17.
Ze’evi’s cold-blooded murder was celebrated by Palestinians in Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank. Yahoo News is commended for posting AP and Reuters photos of the rejoicing Palestinians. Notably, the news agencies which avoided taking such pictures in the past, did not hesitate this time. Most prominent among the photo subjects was the infamous Laila Khalid, a Palestinian aircraft hijacker and leader of the PFLP.
View the photo series at:
http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=Palestinian+Front&c=news_photos&n=10
Did your local newspapers run these photos?
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ISRAEL’S RESPONSE TO TERRORISM
In the aftermath of the assassination, an excellent editorial was published by The Daily Telegraph (UK), aptly entitled, “Israel’s right of defence.” Excerpts:
“[An] unnamed administration official reacted to yesterday’s murder of Rehavam Ze’evi, the tourism minister, by urging Israel and the Palestinian Authority to build on the ceasefire that they reaffirmed last month… Yet the Americans should ask themselves what they would do in Ariel Sharon’s position. The assassination of a cabinet minister is an outrageous assault on the Israeli state and its elected representatives…
“America and Britain have built an impressive coalition against terrorism. But Israel’s right to self-defence should not be sacrificed to its maintenance… Whatever the diplomatic imperatives of keeping the coalition together, it would indeed be strange to deny a state that has been prey to extremist violence for decades the right to respond forcefully to an unprecedented attack. The fight against terrorism should be indivisible.”
Unfortunately, it was expected that some newspapers would blame Israel’s campaign against terrorism for causing the assassination of Ze’evi. The Guardian (UK) lived up to expectations.
In its editorial, “Death in Jerusalem,” The Guardian recommends that Syria, where the terrorist PFLP maintains headquarters, should “catch those responsible.” But then The Guardian reverts to its policy of equating victim and terrorist, an immoral policy of moral equivalence. For the Guardian, Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in “tit-for-tat violence” in which both sides see their assassinations of the other sides’ leaders as legitimate.
“Israel understandably sees this ruthless execution of a democratically elected politician as a calculated escalation,” The Guardian posits, but it immediately presents a radical Palestinian view that after Israel’s efforts to kill terrorist leaders, the murder of Gandhi is seen as “proportionate retribution.”
Read the full Guardian text at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,576244,00.html
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The most effective method is to write a letter in your own words. Otherwise, use the following letter as a basis and make minor changes.
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HonestReporting.com
========== SAMPLE LETTER OF COMPLAINT ============
To the Editor of The Guardian:
After the assassination of Israeli Minister Rechavam Ze’evi, I was shocked to see The Guardian refer to “tit-for-tat violence. In its gyrations to achieve even-handedness, The Guardian reprehensibly equates these two positions.
Whoever elected the Palestinian terrorist lords to office? Whoever approved their target list of young mothers and school children?
On the other hand, Israel is a democracy, and its army never targets civilians or children, nor rejoices in their deaths.
At a time when democracies are under attack around the world, Israel deserves support to go after terrorists. For if one type of terrorism is allowed to proliferate, it strengthens the hands of all terrorists — ultimately threatening the free world far beyond the narrow borders of Israel.
