THE SOUND OF MEDIA SILENCE

Tom Gross Mideastdispatches

29^th Sept 2014

See full article at: http://tinyurl.com/lx9zovj

The same western media that criticized Israel in sensational terms this summer (“Israelis are a nation of child killers” said one British paper) have barely a word to say about all the many civilians their governments are now accidentally killing in airstrikes on Iraq and Syria. Photos of dead and distressed civilians have appeared in Arab media in recent days but I could hardly find any in the Western media I scrutinized. (In some of the cases reported in Arab media, Western warplanes hit the wrong targets and only civilians died.)

By contrast, The New York Times on Friday yet again published a weeks-old photo of the destruction last summer in Gaza on its main international news page (top of Page A4) (and a sports photo from a baseball game at the top of page A1), but nowhere could I find the New York Times showing photos, or even providing details, of any of the civilians dying in U.S. led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. (Of course, if it was a Republican president ordering the strikes, rather than President Obama, it might at least mention the civilian deaths…)

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Past analysis has shown that the U.S., which has worse intelligence on the ground than Israel, has inadvertently killed a higher proportion of civilians than Israel:

Israel’s record on civilian casualties compares well to America’s

BBC NEWS ANCHOR SUDDENLY SOUNDS LIKE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON

BBC Radio’s flagship Today program interviewed the Baghdad-based Reverend Canon Andrew White (who is a long standing subscriber to this email list). He spoke of the civilians being killed in Western and Arab airstrikes in Iraq.

The BBC presenter replied in some exasperation, saying they are sophisticated, targeted strikes, and are “essential” for fighting terror.

As a friend of mine points out, did it not occur to the BBC news anchor that he sounded exactly like the Israeli government spokesperson who he so furiously attacked only a month ago.

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UNLIKE MOST WESTERN MEDIA, REUTERS HAS REPORTED ON CIVILIAN DEATHS

Unlike most Western media, Reuters has reported on civilian deaths. For example, its report today (September 29) gives one such example. It begins:

U.S.-led raids hit Syria grain silos, killing civilians

REUTERS - U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians… “The aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij for an Islamic State base, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There was no immediate comment from Washington.

The strikes in Manbij appeared to have killed only civilians, not fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory which gathers information from sources in Syria. “These were the workers at the silos. They provide food for the people,” he said…

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Tom Gross adds: Not only the Western media, but Western human rights groups and the UNHRC, which seem never to tire of attacking Israel when Israel is defending itself from thousands of rockets fired at its cities, is also now strangely silent.

And unlike the IDF, which made considerable efforts to minimize civilian casualties ahead of every attack – making phone calls to homes in each targeted area, sending text messages to cell phones in Arabic, and dropping leaflets from aircraft into the targeted neighborhoods days in advance, warning residents to leave for their own safety, and calling off airstrikes it if spotted civilians in the locality – those countries currently bombing Iraq and Syria (including the U.S., UK and France) don’t appear to be doing as much.

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Tom Gross adds: Fresh on the ground analysis by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – which has proved itself to be a reliable organization these past three years (and if anything has been too conservative in its estimates) say that coalition airstrikes killed at least 28 civilians on Saturday, and 26 civilians on Friday.

These are in addition to the airstrikes on Sunday that hit grain silos instead of ISIS bases. The number of casualties in that attack has not yet been determined, only that strike killed many civilians – the exact same people who had already survived bombing raids by the murderous President Assad.

The aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Minbej for an ISIS base.

The double standards of government spokespeople and the media are remarkable.

“It’s slaughter” as Juan Williams called Israel’s actions in Gaza on Fox News several weeks ago. “It’s indiscriminate, asinine,” said Joe Scarborough on MSNBC.

Lessons on hypocrisy from Syria

By DAVID M. WEINBERG 11/10/2013

http://tinyurl.com/pzzbx9j 

All the human rights moralizers are ignoring the frightening plight of Palestinians and Christians in the Syrian civil war. There is, alas, no anti-Israel angle to the story.

The fighting in Syria once again proves the sad old adage that human rights organizations and their advocates in the mainstream Western media are essentially anti-Israel. There is no other way to explain the fact that all these high-and-mighty moralizers are ignoring the frightening plight of Palestinians and Christians in the Syrian civil war.

You see, there is no anti-Israel angle to the story of Palestinian or Christian suffering in Syria.

That suffering can’t really be blamed on the Jews. So nobody cares.

a) UNWRA  reports 250,000 Palestinians have been displaced in Syria since the start of the conflict

b) In May, for example, some 6,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in Ein al-Tal, a refugee camp near Aleppo in northern Syria.

The response from the world: Nothing. - SILENCE

c) more than 55,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Syria to Lebanon and Jordan

d) In Lebanon, the Palestinian refugees join more than 500,000 other Palestinians who live in refugee camps.

International uproar  - ZERO .

IN ISRAEL If six (never mind 60, 600, or 6,000) squatting Palestinian families were forced to move two kilometers out of an IDF firing zone in the southern Hebron hills. There would be UN investigations, international tribunals, condemnations from Western capitals, and much handwringing and moralizing by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and more.

Actually, this has happened exactly. A grand total of 10 Palestinian families were evicted by an IDF evacuation order. AND THE WORLD WENT BERSERK.

e) At least 2,000 Palestinians have been killed in Syria, by both the rebels and the Syrian army.

BUT OF COURSE, YOU WOULDN’T KNOW ABOUT THIS FROM THE WESTERN PRESS.

IN ISRAEL Now imagine if IDF troops killed 150 terrorists, and inadvertently also killed a few civilians behind which the terrorists were hiding, during a raid meant to destroy enemy missile launchers. There would be UN investigations, international tribunals, condemnations from Western capitals, and much handwringing and moralizing by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and more.

Actually, this has happened exactly.

The two Palestinian governments – Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank – have said or done nothing to draw global attention to the plight of their brethren in Syria. No emergency UN Security Council session to discuss the new Palestinian tragedy. They are more worried about construction of a few homes in Israeli settlements in the West Bank than the lives of thousands of Palestinians in Syria.

f) Syria’s Christians, more than 600,000 of whom have been displaced or fled Syria since the rebellion began. It seems that their fate will be similar to that of the Christians in Iraq, half of whom emigrated, fled or were killed.

In March 2012, Islamist militants went door to door in neighborhoods of Homs, expelling local Christians. Of the more than 80,000 Christians who lived in Homs prior to the uprising, approximately 400 remain today. In May 2012, Christian residents of Qusayr received an ominous warning: Either join the opposition against Bashar Assad or leave.

Soon after, thousands of Christians fled the town.

The Vatican News Agency Fides and Catholic Online magazine reported this week that 45 Christians were recently massacred and thrown into mass graves by Islamists in Sadad, a town of 15,000 mostly Syriac Orthodox Christians located 160 km north of Damascus.

The 4,000-year old Assyrian town’s 14 churches and monastery were defiled and looted. According to Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama, about 2,500 families have fled from Sadad. “

Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human consciousness? Where are my brothers?” But of course, you wouldn’t know about this from the mainstream Western press or from Western leaders.

IN ISRAEL Now imagine that a few Jewish hooligans were to vandalize a monastery or two in Israel.
There would be howls of protest worldwide.

The attack would be covered extensively in just about every newspaper in the world, with a lot of buzz about the supposed brutalization of Israeli society and a radicalization of religious Jewry. There would be UN investigations, condemnations from Western capitals, and much handwringing and moralizing by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and more.

Actually, this has happened exactly.

When persecution against Palestinians and Christians doesn’t come from the Jews, nobody cares. And this tells me that international howls of protest against Israel related don’t stem from real concern for Palestinian or Christian “victims” of Israel’s heavy hand.

Egypt: Christians Killed for Ransom

Raymond Ibrahim September 2, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3601/egypt-christians-killed-for-ransom

Not only are the churches, monasteries, and institutions of Egypt's Christians under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters—nearly 100 now have been torched, destroyed, ransacked, etc.—but Christians themselves are under attack all throughout Egypt, with practically zero coverage in Western media.

Days ago, for example, Copts held a funeral for Wahid Jacob, a young Christian deacon who used to serve in St. John the Baptist Church, part of the Qusiya diocese in Asyut, Egypt. He was kidnapped on August 21 by "unknown persons" who demanded an exorbitant ransom from his impoverished family—1,200,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $171,000 USD). Because his family could not raise the sum, he was executed—his body dumped in a field where it was later found. The priest who conducted his funeral service said that the youth's body bore signs of severe torture.

In fact, kidnapping young Christians and holding them for ransom has become increasingly common in Egypt. Last April, 10-year-old Sameh George, another deacon, or altar boy, at St. Abdul Masih ("Servant of Christ") Church in Minya, Egypt, was also abducted by "unknown persons" while on his way to church to participate in Holy Pascha prayers leading up to Orthodox Easter. His parents said that it was his custom to go to church and worship in the evening, but when he failed to return, and they began to panic, they received an anonymous phone call from the kidnappers, informing them that they had the Christian child in their possession, and would execute him unless they received 250,000 Egyptian pounds in ransom money.

If those in Egypt being kidnapped and sometimes killed for ransom money are not all deacons, they are almost always church-attending Christians. Last April, for example, another Coptic Christian boy, 12-year-old Abanoub Ashraf, was also kidnapped right in front of his church, St. Paul Church in Shubra al-Khayma district. His abductors, four men, put a knife to his throat, dragged him to their car, opened fire on the church, and then sped away. Later they called the boy's family demanding a large amount of money to ransom child's life.

The hate for these Christians—who are seen as no better than dogs—is such that sometimes after being paid their ransom, the Muslim abductors still slaughter them anyway. This was the fate of 6-year-old Cyril Joseph, who was kidnapped last May. In the words of the Arabic report, the boy's "family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body into the toilet of his home, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed."

As for Christian girls, they are even more vulnerable than Christian boys and disappear with great frequency. As an International Christian Concern report puts it, "hundreds of Christian girls … have been abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and forced into marriage in Egypt. These incidents are often accompanied by acts of violence, including rape, beatings, and other forms of physical and mental abuse."

Thus, while it is good that the nonstop attacks on Egypt's churches have received some media attention, let us not forget the many, often young, Christian lives quietly being destroyed in Egypt, by those who would have the Muslim Brotherhood return to power.

Footnote – News You will not see in the international media

Since late March, almost 100 Syrians have arrived at two hospitals in Galilee. Forty-one severely wounded Syrians have been treated here at the Western Galilee Hospital, which has a new neurosurgical unit as well as pediatric intensive care facilities. Two of them have died, 28 have recovered and been transferred back to Syria, and 11 remain here.

An additional 52 Syrians have been taken to the Rebecca Sieff Hospital in the Galilee town of Safed. The latest, a 21-year-old man with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, arrived there on Saturday. A woman, 50, arrived Friday with a piece of shrapnel lodged in her heart and was sent to the Rambam hospital in the northern port city of Haifa for surgery.

Little has been revealed about how they get here, other than that the Israeli military runs the technical side of the operation. The doctors say all they know is that Syrian patients arrive by military ambulance and that the hospital calls the army to come pick them up when they are ready to go back to Syria.

The Israeli military, which also operates a field hospital and mobile medical teams along the Syrian frontier, has been reluctant to advertise these facilities, partly for fear of being inundated by more wounded Syrians than they could cope with.

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said that “a number of Syrians have come to the fence along the border in the Golan Heights with various levels of injuries.” He added that the military has, “on a purely humanitarian basis, facilitated immediate medical assistance on the ground and in some cases has evacuated them for further treatment in Israeli hospitals.”

Now, efforts are under way to bring over relatives to help calm the unaccompanied children. When the 13-year-old arrived, she was in a state of fear and high anxiety, according to Dr. Zeev Zonis, the head of the pediatric intensive care unit here. “A large part of our treatment was to try to embrace her in a kind of virtual hug,” he said.

Days later, the girl’s aunt arrived from Syria. She began to care for the Syrian children here, living and sleeping with them in the intensive care unit. The staff and volunteers donated clothes and gifts. The aunt, her face framed by a tight hijab, said a shell had struck the supermarket in their village suddenly, after a week of quiet. A few days later, she said, an Arab man she did not know came to the village.

“He told us they had the girl,” she said. “They took me and on the way told me that she was in Israel. We got to the border. I saw soldiers. I was a little afraid.”

But she added that the hospital care had been good and that “the fear has passed totally.” She was reluctant to speak about the war back home, saying only, “I pray for peace and quiet.” Sitting up in bed in a pink Pooh Bear T-shirt, the niece, who was smiling, said she missed home. She and her aunt were expected to return to Syria later this week.

Asked what she will say when she goes back home, the aunt replied: “I won’t say that I was in Israel. It is forbidden to be here, and I am afraid of the reactions.” 

Syria's True Objectives - Not in your papers!!

Why have the media ignored the following report by RPS (The Syrian Reform Party)?
Whether or not the opinion makers agree with RPS, its existence and activities are highly relevant to understanding the news.

RPS reports that the Assad regime has paid hundreds of farmers $1,000 each to show-up in the attempts to breach the Israel border and $10,000 to their families should any of them succumb to Israeli fire.

RPS states that it "strongly believes in ownership and title of the Golan Heights. But unlike a regime bred on the use of violence, the Syrian people, demonstrating how peaceful they are as they endure one massacre after another, believe in peaceful negotiations to repatriate our land"

Who and what is RPS? Their mission statement includes inter alia the following worthy objectives

a) to build a true democracy in a New Syria where multiple parties are represented and elections are held free from fear, intimidation, and repressive measures.

b) to help pass laws to prohibit the establishments, in a New Syria, of any political parties whose charter calls for violence against other countries or people and to disassociate itself from any other group whose aim, through violence or otherwise, is to impose their ideologies unto others.

c) moderate, in the “New Syria”, our armed forces to protect rather than threaten and to educate our internal police force to safeguard human rights and to respect human dignity.

to vacate from Lebanon and repair the damage done from years of occupation by supporting and helping all Lebanese willing to espouse transparency and accountability and to do so in an environment free from pressure.