Another day of liveblogging. Keep coming back to this post for regular updates.
7:47 p.m. Going through the Cagle Cartoons site, it strikes me that none of the critical cartoons I'm seeing are from North America; they're from France, South Africa, Manila, Brazil, Mexico, Bulgaria, Scotland, New Zealand, Ireland, Austria and another from Mexico.
This one's from the poison pen of Greek cartoonist Michael Kountouris.
7:05 p.m. I don't agree with the overall commentary, but Gwynne Dyer articulates an important point about collateral damage I can't ignore:
"The only reason there are more victims in Gaza than in Sderot is because Hamas is not good at shooting rockets," Zalli Jaffe, an Israeli civilian living in Jerusalem, told a BBC reporter last week. "To conclude that Israel is at fault would be like saying the U.S. was wrong in World War II because many more Germans died than did Americans."
That is quite true: Hamas would do exactly the same to Israelis if it could.
6:34 p.m. Jerusalem Post: that Hamas raided humanitarian aid trucks and sold the supplies to the highest bidders. This is the modus operandi of the so-called "social welfare organization?"
6:12 p.m. Nick O'Neill, who blogs all things Facebook, faces the fact that Facebook is being polarized by the Gaza war.
Individuals are turning to social media to express their feelings and beliefs as they should. I once hoped that social media would make the world more peaceful through direct exposure to the freedoms, capitalism, and individualism (Western ideals) present on social networks and in social media.
Unfortunately it appears that social media may in fact have a reverse effect: a deepening polarization as we are exposed to new cultures. I still believe that social media will help us to obtain a more clear view of the world but circumstances such as this one make the situation increasingly complex and even more polarized.
A more recent entry posted a few hours ago notes the surge in two Gaza-related applications:
The QassamCount application has grown to over 283,000 monthly active users and the STOP Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza application has surged to almost half a million users as of this morning. By tomorrow the application will likely be among the top hundred most active applications on Facebook.
(Via Dan Peguine)
5:57 p.m. Wondering how much the Israeli street cares about UK-based journalist Neil Clark, who got a tawdry little screed published in The Australian.
5:44 p.m. Only a wonk writing from the comfort of Vancouver would ask this:
Hiding behind civilians is illegal, but two wrongs do not make a right. The relevant question is, again, whether the direct military advantage of a particular target exceeds the risk to civilians. Is destroying a mortar position next to a school worth 42 innocent lives?
Michael Byers wouldn't ask such a question if the mortar position was about to fire at him.
5:26 p.m. Indicted: journalist and news producer charged with revealing confidential info during a live broadcast after they spotted IDF forces gearing up for a ground incursion. YNet News writes:
Although aware of the fact that the forces' movements were under embargo and were not cleared for publication by the IDF censor, the two began a live broadcast detailing the troops' moves.
The broadcast, said the prosecution, included an enumerate report of the forces and their vehicles; information which they knew could easily find its way to viewers in Gaza, including Hamas members.
4:39 p.m. While we're at the Toronto Star, let's rewrite a parenthetical statement by columnist Linda McQuaig:
(The removal of a few Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005 resulted in tighter, not looser, Israeli military control over the territory.)
Becomes:
(The rise of Hamas, which followed the removal Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005, resulted in tighter, not looser, Israeli military control over the territory.)
4:28 p.m. Toronto Star correspondent Oakland Ross examines Israel's media war. It's a much more level-headed and thoughtful piece than BBC bureau chief Jeremy Bowen's rumination.
4:14 p.m. Boston Globe columnist H.D.S. Greenway really glorifies Hamas:
No doubt Hamas is stubborn, even unreasonable, but Peres well remembers that in the long history of his own people there have been times, from Masada to Warsaw, when stubborn men deemed it better to resist against hopeless odds rather than accept subjugation.
If the Hamas leaders hiding in bunkers below Shifa Hospital kill themselves without taking other patients with them, perhaps they’ll manage to salvage a little respect in the judgment of history — suicide provided no boost for Hitler's legacy. Holing up underneath a hospital and sending others to die just isn’t heroic. As one commentary in the US News & World Report puts it:
Shields protect honorable combatants in the midst of battle. Human shields are the weapon of cowards . . .
4:02 p.m. Today's media critique just went live online. Media Gives Platform to Radical Doctor. Why does the MSM quoting propagandist Mads Gilbert?
3:28 p.m. The imagary of this Time magazine cover has echoes of Tony Auth and is just another degree removed from Nazi propaganda.
2:18 p.m. AFP treats Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert like an in-house expert, giving him a platform to accuse Israel of illegally using experimental weapons and raise the ghosts of Sabra and Shatila, But our colleagues at CAMERA dug up quite a few skeletons in the closet of this medical activist:
Gilbert is a radical Marxist and a member of the political Red (Rodt) party, a revolutionary socialist party in Norway. He has been a pro-Palestinian activist since the 1970's and travelled to Lebanon in support of the Palestinians during the first Lebanon war in 1982. He has long been a vocal opponent of Israel and the U.S. Gilbert has acknowledged that he cannot separate politics from medicine, stating, "there is little in medicine that is not politics." He even criticizes the group Doctors Without Borders for providing medical assistance to both sides in a conflict instead of taking a strong stance and supporting only one party. In a 2006 article in Nordlys, journalist Ivan Kristoffersen lamented the fact that Gilbert allows his humanitarian efforts to be politicized by his radical agenda.
CAMERA put considerable research into this. Read the whole thing. See also Melanie Phillips.
1:25 p.m. Meanwhile in Lebanon, the LA Times introduces us to an 18-year-old product of Hezbollah's educational system:
Aspiring filmmaker Hiba Qassir is about to graduate from a Hezbollah-backed high school. She loves movies, but would give up her career dream if offered the chance to be a suicide bomber.
12:57 p.m. BBC bureau chief Jeremy Bowen ponders narratives, press restrictions and "the sheer weight of images of suffering from Gaza"
12:45 p.m. Fox News talked to media watchdogs, including HonestReporting editor Simon Plosker about coverage of the Gaza fighting. Much of the discussion dealt with France 2 TV's apology for mishandled footage:
"This is further proof that you can't always believe the pictures coming out of Gaza at the moment," Honest Reporting Managing Editor Simon Plotsker [sic] told FOX News. "Hamas is controlling the images coming out for their own morale; they play up civilian casualties to use as propaganda against Israel."
12:09 p.m.Heh. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams calls on the world to recognize Hamas's electoral victory and engage the Islamists. Z-Word shows how Adams's own "journey" doesn't apply to Hamas.
11:57 a.m. Michael Totten explains why Hamas gunmen fighting in civilian clothes is bad news for the media:
Not only do Israelis have a harder time figuring out who is a target and who needs protection, we all have a harder time identifying those who have already been wounded and killed. Hamas says mostly civilians have been wounded and killed in the fighting in Gaza, but its fighters look just like everyone else. They can trot out the bodies of two dead terrorists in front of the cameras and say they’re civilians, thus easily fooling just about anyone. The number of civilian casualties, therefore, appears much higher than it really is. But even if that weren’t the case, far more civilians are being killed in this war because Hamas is fighting dirty.
11:54 a.m. We have differences with Jordanian cartoonist Imad Hajjaj, but I respect the fact that he's not afraid to take on the Arab establshment — today, via Memri, he turns his attention to Arab media coverage of the Gaza war.
Something to keep in mind if Al-Jazeera material floods the MSM.
11:43 a.m. Yesterday, Benyamin Netanyahu discussed the war in Gaza with bloggers. One Jerusalem posted an audio of the conference call. More details at Gateway Pundit,
11:15 a.m. Efforts to use humanitarian aid to smuggle items into Gaza continue. This from Reuters:
An Israeli security guard holds an electronic device at the Kerem Shalom crossing outside the southern Gaza Strip January 12, 2009. Israel said on Monday it was investigating how a night-vision security camera and other electronics ended up on humanitarian aid trucks bound for the war-torn Gaza Strip. The equipment was seized at the Kerem Shalom border crossing before entering the coastal enclave along with truckloads of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, said defence official Peter Lerner. REUTERS/Amir Cohen (ISRAEL)
This ain't the first time Israel caught not-so-humanitarian aid like this . . .
11:07 a.m. Protect Beersheva, Ashkelon and Sderot from Qassam rockets in a game of Iron Dome online.
10:58 a.m. Thumbs up to NY Times bureau chief Ethan Bronner for a great piece about the oft-ignored "Israeli street."
“It is very frustrating for us not to be understood,” remarked Yoel Esteron, editor of a daily business newspaper called Calcalist. “Almost 100 percent of Israelis feel that the world is hypocritical. Where was the world when our cities were rocketed for eight years and our soldier was kidnapped? Why should we care about the world’s view now?”
Read the whole dispatch and you'll understand why the MSM's storyline of Israeli siege mentality is oversimplified.
10:50 a.m The Palestinians launched a YouTube channel to respond to the IDF's YouTube channel. Note the similar URLs. The Palestinian one has now been suspended.
IDF: http://www.youtube.com/idfnadesk
Palestinian: http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk1
