- As’ad ‘Eissa Radwan Tafesh, 65, farmer.
- Marwan Sameer ‘Ouda, 22, farmer.
- Sa’id Mustafa al-Sammouni, 50, farmer.
- Ayman Fadel Malaka, 35, car trader.
- ‘Abdul Salam ‘Atiya Abu Laban, 19, student.
Melissa Block on Tuesday's ATC: "In the Gaza Strip today the Israeli military killed at least 18 Palestinians, most of them armed militants..."
Westervelt goes on to say, ""15 of those killed - Gaza hospital officials say - were gunmen...."
The names of the "militants," the "gunmen" were:
- Rami Talal Farahat, 30.
- ‘Aahed Sa’dallah ‘Ashour, 27.
- Mahmoud ‘Ata Abu Laban, 21.
- Hussam Mahmoud al-Zahhar, 22.
- Saleem ‘Abdul Haq al-Mdallal, 20.
- Mohammed Majdi Hejji, 20.
- Sakher Saleem Zwayed, 27.
- Mustafa Yahia Selmi, 20.
- Mos’ab Saleem Selmi, 21.
- ‘Abdullah Taleb Salem, 23.
- Mohammed Sabri Hana, 20.
- Khamis Abu Sawawin, 25.
At first I just wanted to scream at the radio. Stop calling them militants. Why don't you call all Israeli settlers "militants." Or every Israeli who is in the military or the reserves? Don't they shoot back when someone invades their homes, their cities? Then I just started thinking about the reality of 18 people killed in one day. Look at their names, their ages (14 are 30 years old or younger). Who are these people? I wondered what they have experienced at the checkpoints or in detention? How many of them were husbands, only sons, the sole breadwinner of the family?
Yes, most of them were armed "militants," except for a car trader, a student, and three farmers. But they were Palestinian and that doesn't count for much...
8 comments:
Good to see you back, Myt.
Just can't keep a promise to convalesce & stop tuning in, eh? - But aye, just a trifle of their reportage goes a long way to make one's blood boil with their cutesy tamping down of real flesh-and-blood issues.
With sympathy,
bunny
PS: My first purpose in stopping in was to edify you all on the VITAL NEWS that was aired during the last 10 minutes of the 1st hour tonight (Wed 1/16)... a report on UFO sightings as supposedly witnessed by denizens of some Texas villa (provided to us by Wade Goodwyn or a sound-alike to that 'poot no guff' drawwwwl) - TRULY ASTOUNDING (if this sarcastic bunny is to be believed). And jeepers, no polling to find out how many were Kucinich supporters (what happened to ... CRUNCH TIME?!?). Had enough, gang? Welll, hold onto your hats. What followed was a funeral for a 'brave hero' - a police dog. Missy-poo worked her darling Shirley Temple act for us once more (veg for nearly 2 decades, I can be as St. Francis of Assissi as anyone - but reallly?). Proud to be a freeloader, 'cuz this sure ain't worth nuttin' supportin'.
PPS: Had to laugh how the other day a "situation on the ground" report by our tuff-gal Garrells began with the field-recorded sound of an explosion; caught myself vexing whether she set that round off herself, on cue. FIRE IN THE HOLE!
"Foul Air" with hostess Terry Gross, the Philly Phoney, today devoted the entire show to getting out of Iraq, or so she said. Not once, not a single time that I heard, and I listened to the show twice, did she or any of her guests mention OIL. These were luminaries such as Ayad Alawi (sp?) and Peter Galbraith. Apparently, the over-riding question is "will we get out before a stable government is established?" Nothing about the OIL, for shame.
Boy, for a moribund blog, some pretty juicy stuff going on here! Cool!
I wish someone of 'consequence', that is, someone on the international scene who doesn't care about any agenda, would say, in a loud and memorable voice: 'Israel has forgotten the Holocaust. By their treatment of the Palestinians, Israel mocks the victims of the Holocaust'. Oh, they'd call that hitting below the belt, but sometimes the level of the belt has to be adjusted to fit the offense. NPR is an utterly worthless source for objective information about the Palestinian situation, don't we know.
This morning I heart Innscreep doing his ScottSimonizing moment: visiting a hapless unemployed fellow in SC who cares for his aged mom. Steev was properly low-key, perhaps because his interviewee was so well spoken, but I'm sure that after he closed the door he breathed, 'Man, am I glad to get the hell out of THERE!' For what they're paying him, I guess Our Morning Guy is obliged to go out amongst the Great Unwashed from time to time.
My good bunny, thanks for reminding me about CRUNCH TIME! How could I have forgotten?? We should all petition NPR for them to bring back this most beloved of features - and such a helpful one, too!
Speaking of mockery, MissyBlok mocks Miss Temple WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IT. She has obviously not seen 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm', one of Shirley's best. If she had, Missy would hold her head in shame, knowing that she could never aspire to such sincere adorableness. In the meantime, somebody, please, MAKE MISSY STOP!!!
Larry, I can well imagine that oil will remain the Great Unmentionable all throughout the current and oncoming Middle East nightmare. It's just too simple, too true, and too horrible for the media to deal with. Plus, the media has gotten the command from 'higher up' to lay off the oil 'thing'. That's an ORDER! It's a possibility that on the show Galbraith might have said something about oil, but it was snipped out by prudent and loyal NPR officials. I would add that, the one bone I had to pick with Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' was: the issue of OVERPOPULATION was scarcely touched upon, and that it might have the teensiest bit of a relationship to, uh, global warming. Sidestepping the obvious is one of the main tactics in media and politics today. You think?
Also, I heard (and not on NPR), that during Bush's Middle East carnival, Condi told the Arab nations to be 'more outgoing to Israel'.
No need to 'sarcasticize' that.
Additional thoughts about Innscreep's gentle visit with the unemployed caregiver in SC. The subjective message: this guy was laid off from his factory job, but he got nurse's assistant training, so now he can care for his Alzheimer's mom. As in: families can care for their elders with a little training. No need to subsidize them. Social security wasn't even mentioned as far as these peoples' income was concerned.
Also, they tried to discredit John Edwards by playing a clip about his dad working in the mills and now the mills have closed. NPR counters this by saying everything's OK now because new and hi tech industries have moved in. Typical distortion, plus subliminal propaganda to erase anti-corporate Edwards. Clever, huh?
Re: "Human Beings": BLESS YOU BLESS YOU
Somehow everyone who is killed in Palestine is a "militant". Even Dem-Now uses that word and I *hate* it. I always think - I want to know their names. Just like we do when someone is killed in Israel. In the latter case we read about their mother, and how they played the piano and the name of their dog.
When it's a Palestinian this ploy of calling everybody a militant is an obvious attempt to de-humanize them. And if the person has a gun, what does that make them? If I were a Palestinian I would carry a gun to protect myself and my family from settlers and the IDF. What do they want them to do - lay down and die?
ellenr
Sadly, Ellen, I think they do.
Port: thank you for the film recommendation, just put 'er on my library queue. No offense was intended to the child actress and her cinema legacy; merely ran out of nifty ad-hominem quips for Miss Helium-head.
Jolly all right, old bunny. Surely Shirley don't mind.
Such offensive shallowness as the type regularly shown by our NPR 'people' tries to be bright and breezy, but has no heart underneath. Thus their callow treatment of the repressed of the world, which is one step away from 'let them eat cake'.
With, say, Richard Perle as an inspiration, what else would make sense to them? With the exception of our good Zwerdling and a few others, NPR just doesn’t project humanitarianism.
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