A sticky post continuously updated. Keep coming back here throughout the day.
6:24 p.m. Too bad Israeli civilians in the Western Negev can't afford to buy flak jackets like the reporters wear. Despite what the journos have written in the past about the "crude" "homemade" rockets, the flak jackets make a bigger fashion "statement."
5:52 p.m. NATO forces in Kosovo suffered no combat fatalities against Serbians; Martin Sherman explains why, along with a lesson in proportionate response:
Quite the contrary, the very modus operandi they adopted – i.e. high altitude bombing – demonstrates that they deliberately aspired to disproportionality. As noted, this ensured an almost zero casualty rate among their own combatants but inevitably resulted in less accurate targeting of alleged military objectives on the ground, exposing a virtually defenseless civilian population to far greater danger and far higher casualties.
‘Put a sock in it’
All of this serves to underscore vividly the crass hypocrisy of Israel's critics. Indeed, in stark contrast to NATO's willful disregard for enemy civilians, the IDF has often placed Israeli soldiers in mortal peril to prevent Palestinian civilians from being harmed. Furthermore, Israel's use of military might has invariably been in response a tangible threat – or actual assault – on its citizens.
5:37 p.m. Olmert: Hamas gunmen in UN HQ fired on IDF today.
5:22 p.m. Scott MacLeod of Time was so busy blogging statements from Palestinian National Initiative, UNICEF, Ban Ki-moon, B'Tselem, the Red Cross, and Human Rights Watch about the humanitarian situation in Gaza he simply forgot to get a comment from Israel.
5:13 p.m. Barry Rubin: Mideast conflict ain't about Jews vs. Arabs; it's about Islamic fundamentalists vs. Arab nationalists.
4:58 p.m. A few days ago, the NY Times reported how Al-Jazeera's going for broke to reach US audiences by licensing its Gaza coverage as Creative Commons rather than as Copyright. I wondered if this meant that the West would be flooded with Al-Jazeera coverage.
Looks like the flood begins.
4:31 p.m. If this Christian Science Monitor is indicative of the West Bank mindset, any Israeli handover of Gaza to Fatah will be a complicated dance in its own right:
"Fatah is not planning to take over or to control Gaza again. If there are some elements inside Fatah who think along these lines, they are dreaming," he says.
"Those who think otherwise are not being realistic. Going back to Gaza should be coordinated between the [PA] and Hamas," Mr. Rajoub says. The reality, he says, is that Hamas cannot be destroyed. "Hamas may have been harmed significantly and suffered heavy losses militarily, but on the street, they will remain strong."
When will Fatah realize it takes — not three — but two to tango?
4:15 p.m. Must-read: Cuban journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner on "disproportion."
4:11 p.m. Joel Mowbray blows the lid on the UNRWA:
The United Nations agency that administers a school in Gaza where dozens of civilians were killed by Israeli mortar fire last week has admitted to employing terrorists to work at its Palestinian schools in the past, has no system in place to keep members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad off its payroll, and provides textbooks to children that contain hate speech and other incendiary information.
The UNRWA still has some 'splaining to do about Awad al-Qiq.
3:55 p.m. India's Israel Envy after Mumbai.
As Israel demonstrates anew its determination to end attacks on its civilians by militants based in Hamas-controlled territory, many in India, still smarting from the horrors of the Mumbai attacks in November, have been asking: Why can’t we do the same?
3:47 p.m. Fania Oz-Salzberger to Naomi Klein: If you want to boycott Israel, take a closer look at who you're boycotting.
3:36 p.m. The Independent gave Ismail Haniyeh a soapbox. Yasser Arafat's ghost writers had a better ear for English. 'Nuff said.
3:28 p.m. Reporter Jeff Swicord visits Sderot. Voice of America gets it.
As the Israeli military drives deeper into Gaza, local officials here say the rocket attacks on the city have dropped from about 40 to two on this day. For the people of Sderot, that is still two too many.
2:58 p.m. Jay Rosen has an important piece on HuffPost lays out why bloggers and online activists are so important for expanding the national debate. In essence, Israel activists ignore what’s happening online at their own peril.
In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized– meaning they were connected "up" to Big Media but not across to each other. But today one of the biggest factors changing our world is the falling cost for like-minded people to locate each other, share information, trade impressions and realize their number. Among the first things they may do is establish that the "sphere of legitimate debate" as defined by journalists doesn't match up with their own definition.
There are entire new boundaries open for what's considered legitimate debate; but as HonestReporting's Alex Margolin argues in today's Jerusalem Post, you have to be online, actively contributing to the discussion, in order to make a difference.
2:29 p.m. Just got off the phone with Yarden Frankl, HonestReporting's special projects producer. He along with David Ehrlich of Gili's Goodies and several volunteers, are delivering messages of support, baked treats and more to soldiers.
"We have a 15,000 baked goods from Gili’s Goodies, 500 flannel undershirts, HonestReporting fleeces, and 12,000 messages of support from our readers. We're at a staging base for soldiers heading to Gaza, and I can tell you morale is high. Soldiers are finishing eating, so we’ll start giving them dessert."
Send a Soldier a Smile today. When we delivered smiles last week, Col. Bentzi Gruber explained the significance of the support.
1:47 p.m. Worth reading as the LA Times gets it right: Israelis Living Near Gaza Can't Let Their Guard Down
1:21 p.m. The war's hitting home for the MSM — literally. The Washington Post writes
A high-rise building housing journalists was also struck. The Reuters news service, which has offices in the building, reported that at least one journalist had been injured and that multiple media organizations had to evacuate the building.
Did you really think that terrorists operating among civilians would care about the presence of reporters at at the Shourouq Tower?
1:08 p.m. Heh. Pro-Gaza demonstration in Ramallah cancelled for lack of protesters. Are Haaretz and the NY Times reporting from the same Ramallah?
1:02 p.m. Forget Al-Jazeera. The MSM's real eyes and ears in Gaza is the Ramattan News Agency. The Media Line explains:
The Gaza City facility’s “corps-of-30” is directly responsible for bringing the sights and sounds of the battles in Gaza to untold millions. It is the Ramattan television feed that is being seen beneath the imprimaturs of CNN, NBC, CBS, FOX in the United States, and the BBC, TV2 Denmark, NOS Netherlands, Quatro Spain, Uno Italy, ITN U.K. and TFI France in Europe. And while one might expect Ramattan to service Al Jazeera, as it does, it might surprise some to learn that Ramattan also provides the television feeds or services to Channels 1, 2 and 10 in Israel.
When asked if Hamas had a problem with Ramattan servicing Israel, one employee, speaking anonymously, said, "We're a private company trying to provide news from Gaza. We don't have a problem with Israelis. We're trying to convince them that we are the victims."
12:53 p.m. Frank Furedi, Martin Peretz and Soeren Kern all aghast at the anti-Semitism on display at world protests.
12:25 p.m. Now that we know Hamas uses phosphorus mortars, it's worth asking: were Mads Gilbert's patients in fact burnt by Hamas armaments?
I suspect yes. Here's why.
11:41 a.m. And thank you too, Monkey In the Middle.
11:19 a.m. I have quite a few emails from readers wondering why HonestReporting's web site was briefly down yesterday. Hackers using an Algerian ISP gave us their best shot — our webmaster counted 2,000 hack attempts in a two-hour period. At one point, we briefly took the site offline ourselves as a precaution.
No damage was done and everything's running smoothly.
11:15 a.m. Pajamas TV, the people who brought Joe the Plumber (Joe Wurzelbacher) over to Israel interviewed HonestReporting editor Simon Plosker. You can watch Simon discuss media coverage with Joe Hicks by clicking here (registration and subcription fee necessary).
After the interview, Simon bumped into Joe the Plumber.
10:39 a.m. Pakistan Daily lists HonestReporting along with McDonalds, Starbucks and Adam Sandler as Zionist conspirators.
10:24 a.m. HonestReporting is really making its voice heard. In today's Jerusalem Post, HR's social media editor, Alex Margolin, writes that its up to the public to support Israel online.
With all this activity, it's tempting to believe that government officials and organized activists have the situation covered. In reality, however, these efforts only address half the equation. The second half belongs to the public. Because of the "social" nature of today's Internet – where content is increasingly generated by users, not the sites themselves – quality content is not enough. It is also vital to maximize the quantity of people spreading Israel's message.
In other words, state agencies can do great work providing videos, images and information and activists can organize the material and create channels for public participation, but success in the media war will largely be determined by what the masses of supporters do with the information.
