Media Bias

And I was so sure that - per this characteristic Times of London description from last December - "Gaza is a secular society where people listen to pop music, watch TV and many women walk the streets unveiled." I was even considering acceding to the headline's demand that I "adjust my distorted image of Hamas."

And now I find out they're a pack of political Islamists driven by a fetishistic obsession with the unclean flesh of their Christian enemies. Who knew:

"Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth," said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities. During their visit to Israel the delegation will hold a conference on human rights and persecuted minorities at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. The conference will provide new statistics on the persecution of minorities in Muslim countries.

Hamas has also recently banned women from dancing, imposed a conservative dress code on professional women and schoolgirls, and now there's even a "Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" security force.

In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don't like their political style and what they've got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.

Remember that Hezbollah warehouse / living room from last week where they were very unsafely storing explosives? Having moved everything out after it detonated - an IDF drone caught the entire clean up, video below - Hezbollah's been going out of their way to fabricate evidence of an IDF conspiracy. Today's update involves the discovery of a super-secret explosive laden Zionist spying device. I have no idea what that means, but I put the picture up above and here's caption, both courtesy of the AP's Mohammed Zaatari:

A suspected Israeli spying device is seen in the southern village of Houla, near the border with Israel, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009. Lebanese-Israeli border was rocked by an explosion Saturday night which a Lebanese official said was caused by Israel detonating two Israeli spying devices planted on the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Houla. A third one was set off in the same area by Lebanese troops, the official added. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Nice to see the media bringing a critical eye to bear on Hezbollah's feverish fantasies. This is in addition to the elaborate mock-up Hezbollah staged and videotaped after the explosion, where they pretended to demonstrate that there were no weapons in the warehouse. It was also dutifully picked up by Reuters, because who can argue with video?

"A moment of truth is arriving on the Iran Issue. Western countries will have to face up to the fact that there are only really two choices with Iran: one, a military strike, effectively preventing the country from continuing to expand its nuclear capacity; or, secondly, learning to live with such a capacity."

Alternative MR headline: "Oh Please:"

Girl, 15, seeks justice for Gaza in world court (AFP) - Aug 31, 2009 - THE HAGUE -- A 15-year-old Palestinian girl who says Israeli troops killed her father and two siblings in Gaza in January, sought justice from the International Criminal Court on Monday. "I am here to lodge a complaint against the occupying army," Amira Alqerem told journalists in The Hague, seven months after her family was killed in an early-morning assault in the Tal Al Hawa neighbourhood that also left her severely injured. "I hope this complaint will succeed because it is the truth," the soft-spoken teenager said, seated next to her lawyer on his way to the ICC to file the complaint with the office of the prosecutor...

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in February he had begun a "preliminary analysis" of alleged crimes committed by Israel during the Gaza offensive... Amira, meanwhile, is undergoing physical and psychological rehabilitation in France. "I am doing this for all the children of Gaza," she said through an interpreter. "I want to do something to change the situation."

The headline for this oh-so-conveniently timed ICC prosecution, as it appeared on the blog of anti-Zionist activist Kawther Salam: "A Palestinian Child Against Israel at The ICC." Which means that an unedited blogger writing for a froth mouthed audience still