Thursday, April 15, 2004
"Guardian" forgets nothing and learns nothing
You know that the left is getting desperate when it starts using an old and discredited myth to support a new and currently-being-discredited myth. This is the case with the "Guardian" leader, where the Jenin "massacre" morphs into the Fallujah "massacre", which in turn is part of the new "Iraq as the new Vietnam" paradigm.
"A more recent parallel to the events in Falluja is the bloodletting in Jenin almost exactly two years ago, when Israeli forces destroyed a Palestinian refugee camp in the middle of the town," writes the esteemed Brit lefty propaganda machine.
A parallel alright, but in the way the anti-American hysteria spreads through world media.
There was no Jenin massacre, but why spoil a good story with facts? Hence the only qualifier in the "Guardian" piece is appropriately disingenuous: "[a]lthough the first casualty figures in Jenin were overestimated, the Israeli action was condemned worldwide." This is as close as the left will come to actually saying outright that the massacre didn't happen but it was good anyway as it provided the left with lots of shit to throw at Israel. So it was a lie, but it had served its purpose.
So what actually didn't happen at Jenin? According to the leftie mythology, the Israeli army had laid a siege to a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin on the pretext of trying to root out terrorists allegedly operating from there. After a few days of bloody street fighting most of the camp was said to have been reduced to rubble and 500 innocent Palestinian civilians were said to have been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces.
In reality, the official Palestinian study afterwards admitted that only 56 Palestinians died in the two weeks of fighting, about half of them armed fighters (around 1000 Palestinian fighters surrendered at the end of fighting). By contrast 33 Israeli soldiers died during the operation. No mass graves, no hundreds of bodies buried under the rubble were ever discovered. But while the shitstorm had lasted it allowed the left to once again potray Israelis as callous, brutal and murderous occupiers. You can read the facts, as opposed to the spin here and here.
The Fallujah stories so far tell of hundred of dead civilians, many purposefully targetted by the American troops. Methinks we would be wise to wait until the fighting stops before we see how many of the innocent civilians died with AK-47s and rocket launchers in their hands.
But methinks also that the left has already made up its mind. Now why should I be thinking that?
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"A more recent parallel to the events in Falluja is the bloodletting in Jenin almost exactly two years ago, when Israeli forces destroyed a Palestinian refugee camp in the middle of the town," writes the esteemed Brit lefty propaganda machine.
A parallel alright, but in the way the anti-American hysteria spreads through world media.
There was no Jenin massacre, but why spoil a good story with facts? Hence the only qualifier in the "Guardian" piece is appropriately disingenuous: "[a]lthough the first casualty figures in Jenin were overestimated, the Israeli action was condemned worldwide." This is as close as the left will come to actually saying outright that the massacre didn't happen but it was good anyway as it provided the left with lots of shit to throw at Israel. So it was a lie, but it had served its purpose.
So what actually didn't happen at Jenin? According to the leftie mythology, the Israeli army had laid a siege to a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin on the pretext of trying to root out terrorists allegedly operating from there. After a few days of bloody street fighting most of the camp was said to have been reduced to rubble and 500 innocent Palestinian civilians were said to have been killed by the Israeli Defence Forces.
In reality, the official Palestinian study afterwards admitted that only 56 Palestinians died in the two weeks of fighting, about half of them armed fighters (around 1000 Palestinian fighters surrendered at the end of fighting). By contrast 33 Israeli soldiers died during the operation. No mass graves, no hundreds of bodies buried under the rubble were ever discovered. But while the shitstorm had lasted it allowed the left to once again potray Israelis as callous, brutal and murderous occupiers. You can read the facts, as opposed to the spin here and here.
The Fallujah stories so far tell of hundred of dead civilians, many purposefully targetted by the American troops. Methinks we would be wise to wait until the fighting stops before we see how many of the innocent civilians died with AK-47s and rocket launchers in their hands.
But methinks also that the left has already made up its mind. Now why should I be thinking that?
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