Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Every day, Israel is assailed with false accusations from the
media. And every day, CAMERA is on the front lines in the battle for
accuracy and fairness.This year, our researchers and analysts tackled
many of the worst offenders. Among them, ourā¦
Top Ten MidEast Media Mangles for 2012: 1. "60 Minutes" Indicts Israel for Suffering of Christians During a segment entitled, "Christians of the Holy Land,"
Bob Simon, ā60 Minutesā and CBS deceived viewers by downplaying Muslim
hostility toward Christians and falsely portraying Israel as an
oppressor ā instead of an island of safety in a region where Christians
are increasingly under siege. In addition to launching a letter writing
campaign, CAMERA Board Members attended a May CBS Shareholders meeting
to raise concerns directly, distributing a letter to the CBS Board
detailing the falsehoods in the report. When Jeffrey Fager, Chairman of
CBS News and Executive Producer of 60 Minutes, disregarded the
substantive concerns raised claiming the broadcast "was fair and
accurate reporting about a newsworthy subject," CAMERA ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal laying out the facts and calling for public action.
2. Washington Post Photo Coverage of Gaza Conflict Grossly Biased Alongside text coverage of āPillar of Defenseā and its aftermath, The Washington Post
published 28 photographs in less than two weeks; nineteen featured
Palestinian Arabs, four of them on page one, and nine featured Israelis,
none of those on page one. Even prior to the recent operation, however,
the newspaper demonstrated a pattern of unbalanced photo coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Rather than addressing this issue, Post Ombudsman Patrick Pexton wrote a column
defending the newspaper's photographic coverage and saying, memorably,
that āthe overwhelming majority of rockets fired from Gaza are like bee
stings on the Israeli bear's behind.ā
3. Ha'aretzDrives the Apartheid Canard With the publication of a front-page news story and accompanying commentary
by Gideon Levy falsely claiming that a poll showed a majority of
Israelis advocated anti-Arab policies, (a headline declared that āmost
Israeli Jews support an apartheid regime in Israel,ā) Ha'aretz
promoted the message, as Levy neatly put it, that "We're racist ...and
we even want to live in an apartheid state." The incendiary story
quickly inspired headlines in mainstream international media outlets
including the Guardian, The Independent, TheSydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph, The Globe and Mail, Agence-France Presse, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Calgary Herald, as well as Al Jazeera and fringe anti-Israel outfits. Presspectiva,
CAMERA's Hebrew site, was the first to publish an in-depth analysis in
Hebrew demonstrating how Levy misrepresented the poll results and was
the first Hebrew site to provide the complete poll results. The analysis
was cited by every major Hebrew blog that discussed the Ha'aretz "apartheid" poll scandal. Ma'ariv's Ben-Dror Yemini, who also wrote a detailed piece critical of the Ha'aretz "apartheid" poll coverage, cited CAMERA/Presspectiva extensively. Five days after the deeply flawed articles first appeared, Ha'aretz
issued clarifications, but the clarifications did not address all of
the problems with the newspaper's coverage, and did not begin to douse
the flames ignited by the false front-page stories. The newspaper
eventually published critical op-Eds as well as a partial and
disingenuous "apology" by Levy himself. Following the "apology," CAMERA noted that Levy has a long history of deceiving the public.
4. Media Misconstrue E-1 Facts. Israeli Building Would NOT "Bisect" West Bank The media, led by The New York Times but also including The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, the Jewish Daily Forward
and many others, have dramatically misinformed the public about Israeli
construction in the area known as āthe E-1 corridor.ā Among the false
allegations are that construction of new homes by Israel would bisect
the West Bank, cut off Palestinian cities from Jerusalem, make a
contiguous and viable Palestinian state impossible, and destroy any
chance for a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Communications from CAMERA prompted The New York Times to issue several corrections. Many other media outlets have not yet corrected their misrepresentations. CAMERA's new monograph, Indicting Israel: New York Times Coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, details how The New York Times treats Israel with a harsher standard, omits context, and shows a clear preference for the Palestinian narrative.
5. The Guardian's Ever-Changing Israeli Capital Originally, The Guardian
correctly stated in the caption of a photograph that Jerusalem is the
capital of Israel. Days later, they issued a ācorrectionā saying they
had āwrongly referred to the city as the Israeli capital. The Guardian
style guide states: āJerusalem is not the capital of Israel; Tel Aviv
is.'ā Nearly four months after that, following many complaints, The Guardian
re-corrected, sort of, writing āA correction to a picture caption said
we should not have described Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. It went
on to relay the advice in our style guide that the capital was Tel Aviv.
In 1980 the Israeli Knesset enacted a law designating the city of
Jerusalem, including East Jerusalem, as the country's capital. In
response, the UN security council issued resolution 478, censuring the
āchange in character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem' and
calling on all member states with diplomatic missions in the city to
withdraw. The UN has reaffirmed this position on several occasions, and
almost every country now has its embassy in Tel Aviv. While it was
therefore right to issue a correction to make clear Israel's designation
of Jerusalem as its capital is not recognised by the international
community, we accept that it is wrong to state that Tel Aviv ā the
country's financial and diplomatic centre ā is the capital. The style
guide has been amended accordingly.ā Got it?
7. Spanish Newspaper El Pais Claims Gilad Shalit āInvolved in a Gaza Massacreā In
the sub-headline of an article about kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit being invited to a Barca-Real Madrid football (soccer) match,
influential Spanish newspaper El Pais falsely claimed that Shalit
was āinvolved in a Gaza massacre.ā The paper also wrote that he was
eventually freed in exchange for 477 Palestinian prisoners. The
newspaper published a letter from ReVista de Medio Oriente, CAMERA's Spanish-language Web site, and one from the President of the FederaciĆ³n de Comunidades JudĆas de EspaƱa (Federation
of Jewish Communities of Spain). The newspaper also published a
correction, saying āCorporal Gilad Shalit was not involved in any
killing in Gaza,ā and continuing on to state āShalit was apprehended by
Hamas on the Gaza border in 2006 and was held captive for five years
until he was exchanged for 1027 Palestinian prisoners, not 477 as stated
on Wednesday and yesterday.ā
8. AFP āFauxtographyā Picked Up by Global Press A
January 25 Agence France-Presse photograph, in which a Palestinian
construction worker is said to be screaming in pain after he was run
over by a trailer driven by an Israeli soldier, prominently appeared in
the print editions of the International Herald Tribune (January 26) and The Washington Post (January 27), and was featured on the Web sites of The Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and MSNBC
(slide 13), among others. At worst, this incident was staged and the
man pretended to be run over and injured, while neither happened. At
best, there was zero independent confirmation that he was injured. After much work by CAMERA's Israel office highlighting the dubiousness of the claims, the Journal commendably clarified, though AFP regrettably defended the photograph despite the lack of credible evidence that such an incident occurred.
Can
we expect 2013 to be a better year for Israel and media coverage? While
CAMERA is gratified at the many instances of responsible action by
members of the media, it's also obvious there will be many challenges!Camera
