AP Blares: "33 Palestinians Killed in Clashes" -- and, um, by the way, they started it [Andy McCarthy, national review]
Story, which broke a few minutes ago, is in the Times. It is the usual, pointing out in the first sentence that a 13-month-old Palestinian girl was killed. The Israelis, of course, are said to be shelling "civilians" — though, given that Hamas terrorists are indistinguishable from Palestinian "civilians" and launch operations from within "civilian" areas, one is left to wonder how the AP knows that.
If you wade some 23 PARAGRAPHS DOWN in the story, you find the following:
Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005, but militants proceeded to fire rockets from the abandoned territory. Militants raised the stakes significantly by firing Iranian-made rockets into Ashkelon, a coastal city of 120,000 people. While Ashkelon had been targeted sporadically before, it never suffered direct hits. The assault increased the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to protect a widening circle of people at risk.
Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005, but militants proceeded to fire rockets from the abandoned territory. Militants raised the stakes significantly by firing Iranian-made rockets into Ashkelon, a coastal city of 120,000 people.
While Ashkelon had been targeted sporadically before, it never suffered direct hits. The assault increased the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to protect a widening circle of people at risk.
The AP, moreover, studiously avoids any mention of the abandon with which Palestinians have attacked the border town of Sderot, less than a mile from Gaza. As Brett Stephens observed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, "Since the beginning of the intifada seven years ago, [Sderot] has borne the brunt of some 2,500 Kassam rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists." (The New York Sun posted a good editorial on Sderot, here.)
We are lectured a great deal about the importance of democratizing the Middle East as, somehow, a strategy to defeat terrorism. I do not want to reargue this issue or make too much (again) of the fact that popular elections have thus far succeeded in empowering terrorists.
Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 8:19:11 am PST
As usual, when Palestinian sneak attacks get too brazen and Israel strikes back, the brave jihad warriors turn into whiny crybabies.
And the media immediately start propagandizing for all they?re worth.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/crying_baby-sm.jpg" width=100>RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinians threatened Saturday to call off peace talks with Israel after 35 Gazans, at least half of them civilians, were killed in pitched battles between Israeli troops and rocket squads that escalated sharply. Israeli troops, backed by tanks and aircraft, went after militants who bombarded southern Israeli communities near Gaza with rockets and mortars. The 35 deaths pushed the Palestinian death toll to 65 since fighting flared Wednesday. More than half of those killed were civilians. The spike in violence came as Israel was threatening to launch a broad invasion of Gaza, and just days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to arri
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/crying_baby-sm.jpg" width=100>RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinians threatened Saturday to call off peace talks with Israel after 35 Gazans, at least half of them civilians, were killed in pitched battles between Israeli troops and rocket squads that escalated sharply.
Israeli troops, backed by tanks and aircraft, went after militants who bombarded southern Israeli communities near Gaza with rockets and mortars. The 35 deaths pushed the Palestinian death toll to 65 since fighting flared Wednesday. More than half of those killed were civilians.
The spike in violence came as Israel was threatening to launch a broad invasion of Gaza, and just days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to arri
