Dear Honest Reporting Member,
We grieve with the American people and pray for the well being of the victims of the nefarious terrorist actions in New York and Washington. To the families of those who lost their lives, we extend heartfelt condolences.
HonestReporting presents a sampling of articles from this week. We urge members to write letters to the editor regarding this week’s tragedy.
A full list of U.S. newspapers is online HERE:
HonestReporting presents the following key points to use in writing letters:
a) There is a myth that radical Moslems are angry with America because of its association with Israel. In truth, as reported in The New York Times’ profile of Bin Laden, “One Man and a Global Web of Violence,” the global jihad is “against the corrupt secular governments of the Muslim Middle East and the Western powers that supported them.” (January 14, 2001)
b) In enduring months of domestic terrorism, Israel has been saying that no other country would tolerate such a horrifying threat to the safety of its citizens. But international voices decried Israel’s policies of pre-emptive defense. Now that the rest of the world better understands the problem, it will hopefully appreciate Israel’s need to take measures to protect its citizens from Palestinian terror. Indeed, Israeli targeted killings will look tame compared to the expected American military response.
This situation is mindful of world condemnation when Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981. Ten years later, when Western forces squared off against Saddam Hussein, there was great appreciation for Israel’s foresight in eliminating the Iraqi nuclear threat.
c) According to a CBS poll, two-thirds of Americans think the U.S. should retaliate even if innocent people are killed. Contrast this to world reaction when Israel surgically eliminates Palestinian terrorists, and an innocent bystander is occasionally killed as well. Why is Israel subject to a double-standard?
d) The strategic bond between Israel and the U.S. will now be stronger than ever, as they join in fighting the common enemy of Islamic terrorist fanaticism, which seeks to replace democracy as the reigning world system.
e) Upon hearing the news of the American carnage, Palestinians rejoiced, danced and handed out candies. This information has been largely suppressed in the media due to Palestinian intimidation of journalists. In order to protect the cornerstone of democracy, freedom of the press, these images must be published, and the Palestinians must be exposed for seeking to deny the free flow of information. (see accompanying communique)
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting.com
========================
FISK STOOPS TO NEW LOWS
The horrors of the terrorism could not be rationalized. Or so we thought.
Robert Fisk of The Independent (UK) defied the civilized world and blamed Israel, America, and even the defeat of the Ottoman Empire for the WTC terrorist attack.
Fisk’s September 12 column, “The Wickedness and Awesome Cruelty of a Crushed and Humiliated People,” proclaimed: “…This is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia paid and uniformed by America’s Israeli ally hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps.”
“…America has bankrolled Israel’s wars for so many years that it believed this would be cost-free. No longer so.”
Fisk claims that there will be an “immoral” attempt to “obscure the historical wrongs and the injustices that lie behind yesterday’s firestorms.” Who is the immoral one here — democracies such as the United States and Israel, or those who support the terrorists?
Fisk’s column can be read online at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=93623
Comments to: [email protected]
====================
THREE IMPORTANT COLUMNS
(1) After a two-month stint in Israel, The New York Times’ Clyde Haberman returned to New York and the fury of the mega-terrorism. His September 12 column is required reading: “When the Unimaginable Happens, and It’s Right Outside Your Window”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/nyregion/12NYC.html
“Do you get it now?”
“It is a question that many Israelis wanted to ask yesterday of America and the rest of the finger-pointing world. Not in a smart-alecky manner. Not to say, “We told you so.” It was simply a question for those who, at a safe remove from the terrorism that Israelis face every day, have damned Israel for taking admittedly harsh measures to keep its citizens alive…
“In Israel, there is no such thing as six degrees of separation. In a country that small, two degrees is more like it. If you don’t know a bombing victim personally, you almost surely know someone who does. You may safely bet that an extraordinary number of New Yorkers will have the same relationship to someone whose life was cruelly extinguished yesterday in Lower Manhattan.”
Comments: [email protected]
* * *
(2) Michael Gove – “The Spirit of Munich is Alive in the Middle East, The West should support democracy, not more concessions to terrorism” – The Times (UK), September 11
Gove warns: “The talks which the West demands that Israel continues to hold with the Palestinian Authority will only confer further legitimacy on a terrorist state. It is not just that Arafat’s territory harbours terrorists. It IS terrorist. Militarily, culturally, spiritually…”
* * *
(3) Michael Kelly – “When Innocents Are the Enemy” – The Washington Post, September 12
“Of all the uses of terror, none in the past several decades has been more faddishly popular (at least on the left), and none has been accorded more respectful media coverage, than that of the Palestinians. Yes, Palestinian terrorists and terrorists on behalf of the Palestinian cause murdered innocents — but that was understandable, the argument went. The Palestinians had been wronged. They were oppressed. They were weak. What else could they do?”
…[T]he monstrous evil of Sept. 11… rose, with hideous logic, directly from the philosophy that the leaders and supporters of the Palestinian cause have long embraced
and still embrace — a philosophy that accepts the murder of innocents as a legitimate expression of a legitimate struggle. If it is morally acceptable to murder, in the name of a necessary blow for freedom, a woman on a Tel Aviv street, or to blow up a disco full of teenagers, or to bomb a family restaurant — then it must be morally acceptable to drive two jetliners into a place where 50,000 people work. In moral logic, what is the difference? If the murder of innocent people is for whatever reason excusable, it is excusable; if it is legitimate, it is legitimate. If acceptable on a small scale, so too on a grand.”
Comments:[email protected]
======================================
CANCELLATION: The Israel solidarity rally scheduled for Sept. 23, 2001 in New York City, which was expected to draw 100,000 supporters from across North America, has been cancelled, due to the recent terrorist events.
More info: http://www.ujc.org
======================================
HonestReporting involves considerable research and manpower costs. Your tax-deductible donations would be much appreciated and will help Israel win the media battle. Please send contributions to:
Media Watch International
156 West 56th Street, Suite 1201
New York, NY 10019 USA
======================================
HonestReporting was founded by a group of individuals that affiliates neither to the right nor to the left. We are only interested in ensuring that Israel receives fair coverage in the media. We scrutinize the media for examples of blatant bias, and then inform our subscribers of any offending articles, asking to complain directly to the news organization concerned.
HonestReporting has nearly 20,000 members worldwide, and is growing daily. Now in Spanish, too!
http://reportehonesto.com/index.php
(C) 2001 HonestReporting – All rights reserved. E-mail: [email protected]
======================================
To subscribe to HonestReporting, double-click and send a blank e-mail to:
mailto:[email protected].
To UNsubscribe, double-click and send a blank email to: mailto:[email protected]. Or send a blank email to the address listed on the last line of this email message.
