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She needs to watch Al Jazeera and compare it with ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ or Fox News. Then she will get a better picture of bias. Fox News is a sick joke: basically it's the victim's fault. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ tries to be even-handed but it sanitises the suffering. Al Jazeera shows it as it is. And it is appalling and a crime against humanity.

Linda McCartney was right: "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian".
Similarly, seeing the real consequences of war on innocent men, women and children would make us all pacifists.

The sanitisation by the western media is disgusting. It enables people to trot out the nonsense that it's their fault and that one of 'our' (Israeli) deaths is worth 100 of their (Palestinian) deaths.

I believe that the suffering is deliberately imposed on the Palestinians in Gaza and that it has been deliberately timed: post-Christmas, pre-Obama and pre-Israeli elections: a cynical insult to all those in the west who talk about peace and goodwill at Christmas time.

I was one of them. I wrote a letter to the Belfast Telegraph, saying that "If Christmas makes us more aware of the earth's appalling inequalities, the intense loneliness of some people and the fact that millions do not have a roof over their heads, then it does, on balance, serve a useful purpose. And it does allow to to hope for peace in the world".

Some hope! Some peace! Some awareness! This criminal assault was launched the day after Boxing Day.

Brian, if we're not careful I may have to agree with you about something.

It's an absolute scandal that journalists should nonchantly say "of course, we're not allowed into Gaza, so we're here 40 miles away showing you what tanks look like when they're NOT running people over"

What a disgrace to journalism.

Brian
I don't trust tele-journalism at all. But I have to agree - a nation may have a right to defend itself, but that doesn't give it a blank cheque. This is a criminal assault, not a just war.

GV

(PS - I noticed you're from the Shankhill. My grandfather used to work with a Davy McClinton at Linfield Mills. No relation perchance?)

Graham:

I doubt it. I did have a grandfather Davy, who lived in the Oldpark, but he died in the early 1960s.

That might fit. Harry Veale died 1987. If they worked in the Linen Mills they would have been contemporaries.
My Dad happened to mention the two were friends when I mentioned your name as someone I discussed with online.

My Dad seems addicted to finding out what happened to any family he can remember living in that area. Maybe it's something to do with living in that part of Belfast in the 60's.

GV

The Arab world has done nothing to help the Palestinians and is quite content to leave them in perpetual misery and victimhood for the sake of their propoganda value.

I think the only solution long term is for Gaza to join Egypt and the West Bank Jordan and the Palestinians do their best to integrate. After all, they haven't really been there that long - they're the remnants of the Islamic invaders which provoked the Crusades.

Graham:

I'll check with my aunt but you could be right.

Peter Preston takes a different perspective on the media bias from Melanie Phillips ('Israel barks; the US media wags its tail'). He asks: why is mainstream American journalism so timid and one-sided in its support for Israel?

gveale, does a nation not having a blank check to defend itself include the RAF's fire bombing of Dresden after the Germans launched their V1s and V2s on London? Should Churchill have been tried as a war criminal? How about the Soviets pounding the city of Berlin at the end of the war in Europe with 23,000 pieces of artillery firing at civillian occupied buildings day and night before the final assault? Was this in retribution for Leningrad? We know Stalin was the worst mass murderer in history but was he a war criminal too?

Technically, yes, MA. There's always the argument over "victor's justice". And, it should be noted that Karl Doenitz got out of some of his troubles at the war crimes trials by calling as witnesses US naval personnel who did the same thing to Japan as he did to Britain and the USA.

It's also worth noting that deterrence is a wonderful concept, if frightening. A powerful nation facing a nation with similar power can be deterred from doing something very damaging by pointing out that your opponent can do so as well. (Examples include Henry A. Wallace convincing FDR not to use force against rioting Japanese internees, out of fear the Japanese could use that as an excuse to kill Americans.)

It's when you have one big guy beating up on a little guy that reciprocity becomes meaningless.

(Disclaimer: I may have previously used an illustration here or elsewhere on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ blogs in which Hermann Goering argued with Hitler against executing all the recaptured prisoners who escaped from Stalag Luft III based on possible Alleid retribution. Based on reading files from the Nuremberg Trials, I'm now unsure if this is true.)

I wonder what the British government's response would be if the government of the Irish republic sanctioned and supported the firing of six thousand rockets into the UK.
Tell me dear Hamas apologists do you think it would be wrong in the circumstances outlined above for the British government to respond militarily?
Brian Mclinton over to you.

What all journalists fail to mention is that the Palestinians brought their problems upon themselves, pretend it isn't true, lie about it, and the world goes along with it. Just voting Hamas, a terrorist organization whose one goal is to destroy Israel was action enough to justify what is happening to them but it's only the tip of the iceberg of what they've done. How do you live in peace with people who stood on the roofs of their houses cheering Saddam Hussein's scud missles hoping they had chemical weapons warheads even though they knew they'd die too because it would kill Israelis? These are the people who cheered al Qaeda's attack on America on 9-11-01. I for one have no sympathy for them.

Rev Hall:

You are the one who allegedly follows the philosophy of 'turning the other cheek', though there's not much evidence of it in your comment.

I know that the British government didn't bomb Divis flats when IRA fired from them or bomb Dundalk when it discovered many IRA men lived there.

I do know also that by most civilised standards it is wrong to bomb schools where children are likely to be studying.

If you kidnapped children and held them in a building, should the police blow up the building?

Firing rockets at Israelis is wrong, but this onslaught on Gaza is completely disproportionate. 15 dead Israelis does not equate with 800 dead Palestinians, including at least 300 women and children. It is collective punishment, which is in contravention of the fourth Geneva convention.

I have said that Hamas's action is wrong. Are you prepared to say that the Israeli action is wrong?

Brian,
No country in the world is going to allow the government of another place sanction and support the firing of 6,000 rockets into its territory without a military response.
No sovereign nation should be expected to put up with this continual and deliberate attempt to murder its civilians.
What is particularly nauseating in this instance is how the left is falling over itself to support an organisation that deliberately plots, executes and rejoices over the murders of Jewish children.
Shame on those who have become the apologists for the mass-murderers of Hamas.

Rev Hall

Let's imagine that we knew that Al Quaeda's leaders were hiding with sympathetic tribes in North West Pakistan, and that they were plotting an attack on New York.
Would the US be justified in nuking every town and village in Waziristan to prevent the attack.
The issue is proportionality, not the right to self-defence.

Nice to hear from you again, though.

GV

Rev Hall:

Is that what Jesus would have thought? In which case, you have a lower opinion of him than I have.

The issue is partly, as Graham says, one of proportionality. But it is also an issue of collective punishment. You seem to subscribe to this ethic. Because Hamas are fascists (hardly a term to be used by a Hamas apologist), you seem to imply that it is OK to kill innocent civilians.

Suppose that, instead of Palestinians, Hamas had captured 100 Israeli children and used them as human shields in a school. Would Israel still argue (and would you agree) that it is right to blow up the school and kill 40 of the Israeli children?
Or suppose that Christian children were kidnapped and being used as human shields in a church. Would it be right to blow up the mosque? The Israelis have destroyed 13 mosques in Gaza since this turkey shoot began carnage

I am sure that the Israeli government would not for a contemplate blowing up a school containing 100 Israeli children, and the reason is obvious: they are precious lives, but Palestinian children are expendable.

Since 1967 almost 18,000 houses have been in the occupied Palestinian territories, usually to punish the family of someone suspected of being a terrorist. This is the same tactic in the Gaza carnage, and it is a blatant breach of international law and the fourth Geneva convention of 1949, which explicitly states that "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation and terrorism are prohibited".

I have already stated that Hamas rockets fired into Israel are wrong. They are intended to terrorise Israeli civilians. Are you prepared to accept at all that any of the Israeli actions in Gaza are also terrorist? If not, then I think your pro-Israeli is blinding you to the truth.

brianmcclinton, the only law of war is that there are no laws, no rules except that if you want to win, you find the enemy and kill him faster than he can find and kill you, period. That's why the RAF fire bombed Dresden and why the US fire bombed Tokyo and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In war, the enemy's lives are worthless. It's been NATO policy since WWII. NATO was prepared to blow away one third of the human race to prevent the spread of Communism. In war, references to proportionality and war crimes are ludicrous. What war crime could compare with annihilation of the entire human race.

If al Qaeda ever did nuke New York City, a lot more than Pakistan would be blown away as a consequence. I'd say the entire Islamic world would be nuked. Don't underestimate what America could do during war if attacked. Hiroshima was a demonstration and a payback for all the Pearl Harbors it suffered in the Pacific theater of operation.

Marcus:

Your attitude to war is persistently far more surreal than that of Dr Strangelove, and in such a mode I cannot see the point in engaging with you.

First off, while she criticizes the "Western Media" most US media outlets are equating Hamas with Israel when it comes to suffering (While that is inaccurate, it's far from defending them), or attacking Hamas. (There are a few exceptions, such as Pacifica Radio on the Left or the American Conservative on the Right.

Second, MA, your argument just makes me want to disband NATO even more. After all, the USSR didn't have a first nuclear use policy, while NATO had one. In addition, NATO continues to threaten Russia, with its continued expansion to Russia's borders, not to mention the US's basing ABM's in Poland and the Czech Republic (supposedly to defend against Iran, when Iran's missiles can't reach said countries, and the missiles based there are too far away to hit any Iranian missiles they would fire (Of course, the Russian-offered base in Azerbaijan would have worked much better...but then the US couldn't try to counter Russian missiles...)), and the US's transporting Georgian troops on US military aircraft, thus de facto supporting the Georgian invasions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

NATO should disband now. It serves no military purpose an EU, or ad hoc UN force couldn't do. Its continued expansion only agonizes Russia and provokes it further, when they could instead try for peaceful relations or cooperation. Finally with three NATO members having possible plans to attack other NATO members, how long can the alliance last? (Greece vs. Turkey, Turkey vs. Greece and USA vs. The Netherlands (See the American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA) of 2002))

brianmcclinton, I am telling you reality. President Kennedy learned during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 that the US had only one nuclear war fighting strategy, to burn down everything from the Danube River to the Pacific Ocean. The policy isn't called MAD (mutually assured destruction) for nothing. While American policy is more subtle and sophisticated today, the basic thrust of it is still the same, to destroy any potential enemy who could attack the US after it has been attacked. There is no doubt that should NYC or any other major American city be the target of a successful nuclear attack by anyone, the response will be immediate, massive, probably resulting in the extinction of the human race. We won't have to wait around for global warming to take its toll.

Orvillethethird, I'd also disband NATO. I saw no reason for America to suffer nuclear annihilation to prevent a Soviet takeover of western Europe. BTW, a nuclear first strike was the only effective strategy and credible threat that kept the USSR from attacking and overwhelming Western Europe with conventional weapons during the cold war. Were you worth it? Not in my opinion.

While I have no problem with antagonizing Russia (they are at war in many ways although not militarily with Britain already) I think a massive first strike against Iran is far better than trying to install anti-missile missiles in Poland and Czech in anticipation of them developing nuclear weapons and long range missiles to deliver them on American targets.

"Are you prepared to accept at all that any of the Israeli actions in Gaza are also terrorist?'

No I do not accept that. The Israelis are responding militarily to the ongoing attacks on their civilian population.
If during the course of that military action war crimes are committed I would argue that those crimes should be investigated and the culprits brought to justice.
Sadly in wartime atrocities are always likely to happen but that does not mean fanatical islamist regimes should be allowed with impunity to murder the civilians of another nation. Hamas plans and dreams of a second holocaust. They must be stopped.
Hopefully the IDF can do the job and the Israeli gov. will ignore the western liberal elite long enough to allow them to do it.

Rev Hall:

Where on earth did you get your Christian morality from, two weeks after Christmas? Is this is the sort of language you spout in a church?? I pity your congregation.

You haven't addressed any of my specific issues and instead just launched into a hateful, one-sided rant. Are you equating all Palestinians with Hamas? Would you equate all Loyalists with the UDA? Or all Catholics with the IRA?

Terrorising a civilian population is not terrorist?? If Hamas have been terrorising Israelis (15 dead in 8 years), then Israel is now terrorising Gazans 500 fold. Is that what Jesus taught? Don't turn the other cheek; instead seek revenge 500 fold (Answer this question, please: which Gospel is this?).

Causing widespread fear and panic is not terrorist?? Deliberately trying to starve the people by creating widespread shortages of food, fuel, water and heating is not terrorist?? Blowing up 13 mosques and three schools is not terrorist?? Killing MOSTLY civilians and children is not terrorist??

There was a June 2008 ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas. Israel violated this ceasefire before Hamas did. It was Israel who attacked Gaza on 8th November, killing 6 Hamas members.

If you actually follow the events in the area, you will know that Israel has repeatedly broken truces, ceasefires and peace talks. It is clearly part of Israel's strategy to provoke its opponents and obtain pretexts for further attacks. The latest carnage is the most bloody in a long line of such assaults. But of course this timeline is not part of the template presented by the western media, which only go to town on world events when they become really dramatic and 'newsworthy'.

As with the Iraq War, pro-war spokesman/women have rehearsed the words for months and provide the 'rational' justification to a compliant media.

The women who kidnapped her daughter and the Soham murderer are proof positive of how easy it is to fool journalists by appearing 'rational' in front of a microphone. It wasn't journalists who exposed these two phoneys but the police. The journalists are often less interested in the truth than in a sensational story, and of course it helps if the people you interview speak the language well. Palestinians often have difficulty in this area.

brianmcclinton

"Are you equating all Palestinians with Hamas?"

Hamas was elected. Even if the election process wasn't entirely democratic, it seems to be the overwhelming choice of the Palis, especially now. Yes it would seem a reasonable assumption that most Palestinians are in close agreement with Hamas. This is hardly surprising. When Arafat said on American television in English in 1993 that Israel has a right to exist, virtually choking on his words, most Arabs wanted to kill him. That is until he explained to them in Arabic that this was just a tactic and that he was still committed to the ultimate destruction of Israel. Every action he took from that point on showed this was his real position from the importation of arms especially on the ship that was siezed by the IDF which led to the quaratine, to the suicide bombers which led to the wall, to his rejection of Israel meeting nearly every demand in the 2000 negotiations at the end of Clinton's administration when he brought up the new demand for the return of 5 million Arab refugees to Israel, walked out of the talks, and started his second intifada (terrorist war.)

His successor Abbas was rejected in favor of Hamas which is openly sworn to destroy Israel. There are no political settlement possible when you are in a cage with someone insane determined to kill you, it's either you or him. So the solution is not political but military because the Palestinians have insisted on making it that way. The only question is whether the Israelis have the political will to use their current advantage and end their problem once and for all or leave the job unfinished for another day when they will no longer have the upper hand.