There is an excellent article on Jewish World Review on how the PLO uses intimidation to distort the truth of what goes on in Israel and dthe Palestinian territories.
Arafat's "security forces have made more than 30 arrests of journalists and editors," the Columbia Journalism Review noted in 1996. "Although they have been almost completely freed from the Israeli yoke of military censorship, Palestinian journalists are being fettered in new ways. Reporters Sans Frontieres, a watchdog group based in Paris, released a report . . . deploring the Palestinian Authority's policy of suspending newspapers and employing threats and violence against journalists. . . . The result is a tame, compliant press that . . . rarely engages in investigative journalism and publishes only . . . 'vegetarian' criticism of the regime."
Frightening, but what can be done about it? How can the truth be brought out, especially to an audience that has less and less time to search for the answers and is waiting, unfortunately, to have the news spoon fed into their mouths?
I can't tell you the number of people who simply "don't know much about the situation" and other's who add "I don't understand why they (Israel and the Palestinians) can't just get along."
If I come over to your house, destroy your property, pee in your pool and hit your kids are you going to give me half the house to live in?
I can recommend books; I can't make people read them. I can express my feelings of anger and fear; but I can't make other's feel them. Danger is always right there, just out of sight; any nut job could ruin my life or the life of one of those I hold dear; child, friend, loved one. And there are times I just feel so helpless.
A father of 7 is murdered. An entire family wiped out. A young mother wakes to find her little boy is gone. What else can I do? What else should I do?
Posted by Rachel Ann at August 16, 2004 11:25 AMYou're doing all you can do. You're putting the truth out there. Little by little, you fight the good fight. That's all you can do and you're doing it.
Posted by: RP at August 17, 2004 02:21 AMOsama bin Laden called, he said he'd stop the terrorism if the U.S. would only let him have a sovreign state (complete with an armed military) where North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, and Lousiana used to be. See how nice he's being, leaving us Arkansas and Oklahoma? Now *that's* a defensible corridor.
Oh, yeah, but he wants Washington D.C., too. And in order to get safely to and from D.C., he needs Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia. He's upset that those states are bordered by Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, and Maryland, so those have to stay demilitarized.
But if the U.S. agrees to all that, he promises to stop trying to blow us up.
Why are you laughing? Because that's ridiculous.
Unless it's the PLO making demands on Israel, in which case the Jews are being difficult again.
Posted by: FrumDad (Orthodox Jewish Father) at August 17, 2004 11:10 PM