Israel, Zionism and the Media

Day: 2 July 2010

The hypocrisy of the Lebanese flotillaniks

Richard Millett makes an excellent point on his blog about the hypocrisy of the Lebanese sending flotillas ostensibly to aid the beleaguered Gazans whilst the Palestinians in Lebanon are in such a bad way that they are actually out on the streets protesting.

On Sunday outside the United Nations building in the Lebanese capital some 6,000 Palestinians demanded basic civil rights 62 years after they first arrived in Lebanon.

The 400,000 Palestinians that live in Lebanon are not allowed to own property and are excluded from 72 different forms of employment.

It is ironic that while there are more flotillas destined for Gaza to try to alleviate a non-existent humanitarian crisis, Palestinians living in Lebanon in dire conditions are virtually forgotten by the international community, including the flotilla activists.

As ever, Palestinians killing Palestinians or Muslims killing Muslims (“According to B’Tselem 660 Palestinians have been murdered by Palestinians in the last ten years. No doubt these atrocities are also pinned on Israel.” [same article]) is hardly worth a mention in the media and certainly not at the UN.

Why is this?

Answers on a postcard to, inter alia: The Guardian, Ban Ki Moon, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Red Cross.

Erdogan through the eyes of a fellow Turk

Brilliant article at the IPT website wherer an American-Turkish citizen wipes the floor with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Congratulations, Mr. Prime Minister.  You have accomplished in eight years what no other contemporary Turkish politician could achieve. You have successfully entered the final stages in your efforts to transform Atatürk’s Turkey into an Arab-style Islamist dictatorship. Some people had warned the world 20 years ago about the likely Islamist outcome of the September 12, 1980 military coup—a momentous point in Turkey’s history that “masterfully crushed” the Turkish left. They were right. You are here. Today.

How proud you must feel. After all your hard work, some of the Islamist Turks that you encouraged to sail to Gaza have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. You and your fellow Islamists have been celebrating this like nothing I can recall. You have immediately declared them as şehitler (shuheda, the martyrs). With this Arab-style “martyrdom” discourse, you have surely strengthened your image in the entire Arab world and among the Ahmadinejad followers in Iran. Not surprisingly, you have even managed to nourish most of your citizens’ anti-Jewish and anti-American sentiments. Your fellow Turkish Islamists, the great majority of the Turkish liberals, and, unfortunately, the many manipulated but otherwise ordinary, beautiful, innocent Muslims joined you and your not-so-strategically-deep brothers.

Erdogan is painted as a demagogue vying to be the leader of the Muslim world, intoxicated by his successes in turning the only Muslim democracy towards Islamism and, at the same time, turning on one of its best friends, Israel.