Tuesday, October 07, 2014

The First Casualty

All wars require a propaganda war to justify them and the object is to dupe people. We expect our seasoned experienced journalists in the BBC to be on guard for such manipulation but alas they are often in collusion.

This article on the Gaza invasion by Israel on the BBC website for instance depicts Israeli families as victims. It writes “ a vast underground network with numerous shafts, many of which led from inside Gaza to Israeli communities in southern Israel. A tunnel opening was even found near a kibbutz dining hall and kindergarten.” This despite the tale already being discredited. 

The tunnels do not appear to be targeted at civilians and they come out more than a mile from any kibbutz, let alone the kindergartens. In short, the tunnels fear was hysteria, drummed up by the Israeli government to heighten war fever. In reality, every tunnel so far has been used against military targets alone, a fact  published in Hebrew on “Local Call,” and written by Emanual Yelin, who lives in Be’er Shevar. Yelin is a full-on Israeli patriot, but he has no truck with the lies and propaganda disseminated around the tunnels.

The BBC article describes the extensive bomb shelters built to protect Israeli civilians but omits to mention that similar facilities are denied to Palestinian civilians endangered by the far more destructive Israeli missiles, bombs and shells. Accusations of BBC bias do seem to have just cause.

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