http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/31/israel.youtube/index.html
Apparently the Israeli government is so desperate for PR cover for their Gaza war that they have turned to Twitter and YouTube as marketing vehicles. Certainly an academic tool like Twitter facilitates high-level discussion of such a challenging issue, for example one of the Israeli consulate's responses to a user question: "we R pro nego...we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live".
They have even compiled footage from their bombing runs ("Shock and Awe: The IDF's greatest hits!" ... but what about the misses that kill kids?). As if favorable coverage by most major US TV news org's wasn't enough, I guess they wanted to connect to the plugged-in generation. Why bother really - since most young people are too busy or don't care about conflicts half the world away anyway. And apparently the bloodshed in eastern Congo is 10X more gruesome than Gaza. But John Travolta's son died - priorities!
From the BBC on the propaganda war:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7809371.stm
Israel released video of an air attack on 28 December, which appeared to show rockets being loaded onto a truck. The truck and those close to it were then destroyed by a missile. This was clear evidence, the Israelis said, of how accurate their strikes were and how well justified. A special unit it has set up to coordinate its informational plan put the video onto YouTube as part of its effort to use modern means of communications to get Israel's case across. The YouTube video has a large caption on it saying "Grad missiles being loaded onto the Hamas vehicle." As of Saturday morning UK time, more than 260,000 people had watched it.
It turned out, however, that a 55-year-old Gaza resident named Ahmed Sanur, or Samur, claimed that the truck was his and that he and members of his family and his workers were moving oxygen cylinders from his workshop. This workshop had been damaged when a building next door was bombed by the Israelis and he was afraid of looters, he said. The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem put Mr Sanur's account on its website, together with a photograph of burned out oxygen cylinders. Mr Sanur said that eight people, one of them his son, had been killed. He subsequently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "These were not Hamas, they were our children... They were not Grad missiles.".
The Israeli response was that the "materiel" was being taken from a site that had stored weapons. The video remains on You Tube. But the incident shows how an apparently definitive piece of video can turn into something much more doubtful.
It is reminiscent of an event in the Nato war against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999. In that case, a video taken from the air seemed to show a military convoy which was then attacked. On the ground however it was discovered that the "trucks" were in fact tractors towing cartloads of civilian refugees, many of whom were killed.
Major Avital Leibovich [of the IDF], said: "Quite a few [media] outlets are very favourable to Israel."
Israel has bolstered its approach by banning foreign correspondents from Gaza, despite a ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court. But the absence of reporters from major organisations has meant, for example, that Mr Samur's story has not been as widely told as it probably would have been, or his account subject to an on-the-spot examination.
Meanwhile Israel has received good coverage of the threats and damage to its own towns and communities.The problem is that foreign correspondents cannot get in to establish the exact situation for themselves.
----------
And below is a 2008 time line of the Gaza conflict, so you can see which side was more prone to violating the ceasefire. Hamas attacks on Israel are in red (not very many, though for the record the website is Iranian). As you can see, it wasn't much of a ceasefire at all, but the rockets did stop for much of the second half of 2008. And when rockets were fired, they were in response to an Israeli incursion and not spontaneous/unprovoked. The BBC said that while Hamas was generally standing down this fall, Israel maintained and even strengthened its blockade, so millions continued to starve within Gaza, with few foreign journalists permitted to enter and document the suffering. Yet a stipulation of the June truce was that Israel would ease its embargo to give the Gazans some relief! So who really violated the agreement? The Bush White House and much of the US media claim that Hamas "started" this war by re-launching rockets. But actually it was an Israeli military operation in Nov. to destroy a smuggling tunnel that set Hamas off. Whether that attack was justified is another story, but it's not like Hamas was eagerly waiting for the truce to expire and then launched all its rockets. Neither side is innocent.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=79964§ionid=3510304
June 19: An Egyptian mediated ceasefire begins between Hamas and Israel. The Palestinian movement agrees to stop firing rockets as Israel accepts to gradually ease its embargo on the Gaza Strip.
July 27: Israel kills Shihab al-Natsheh, a senior Hamas fighter, in his house in the West Bank city of al-Khalil.
August 2: Three Hamas police officers and six pro-Fatah gunmen are killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip, the worst of such since June 2007.
October 8: Israel prevents Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) from entering the embattled Gaza Strip.
November 5: Israel raids houses in the Hamas-controlled region and arrests seven Palestinians.
Israel attacks areas inside Gaza, killing at least six Palestinians. Ghassan el-Taramse, a nineteen-year-old Palestinian activist, is killed in an Israeli air raid in the northern parts of the coastal sliver.
Palestinians fire several dozen rockets and mortar shells at western Negev in Israel in retaliation. No casualties or property damage is caused, but three women are treated for shock.
November 8: Israel violates the ongoing truce as its tanks and bulldozers cross the southern border of the Gaza Strip.
November 14: Hamas fires a barrage of homemade rockets at the city of Ashkelon. Four rockets are also fired into western Negev after Israeli air strikes wounded two people in Gaza.
November 15: Israeli air strike kills two Palestinians in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza.
November 18: Israeli tanks backed by a bulldozer and a military jeep roll half a kilometer into Gaza. The Israeli army claims the incursion is "a routine operation to uncover explosive devices near the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip."
November 20: An Israeli tank fires shells, killing a Palestinian fighter east of Gaza City.
November 23: The Israeli army wounds two Palestinian residents while shelling homes in various cities in the strip.
November 28: Israeli forces backed by tanks enter the southern parts of the coastal region and kill two Palestinians.
November 29: Projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip wound eight Israeli soldiers in an army base in the town of Nahal Uz.
December 02: The Israeli army launches air strikes into southern Gaza and kills at least two civilians and wounding four others.
December 17: Five Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip injure two Israelis in the southern town of Sderot.
December 18: A Palestinian man is killed in Jabaliya as Israeli aircraft target metal workshops in the towns of Jabaliya and Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military claims the targets are used to manufacture rockets.
December 19: The six-month truce officially ends.
December 20: Israeli launches air strikes on the northern Gazan town of Beit Lahiya, killing one Palestinian and wounding two others.
December 21: Palestinian fighters fire rockets into Sderot and Negev and one Israeli is wounded.
December 22: A twenty-four hour truce is declared between Israel and armed Palestinian factions at the request of Egyptian mediators.
December 23: The twenty-four hour truce expires.
Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters leave three members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades dead along the border fence in northern Gaza.
Six Qassam rockets are fired into western Negev. The rocket attacks do not hit any targets in Israel.
December 24: Gaza fighters fire two dozen mortar shells at three different targets inside Israel.
An Israeli air raid kills a Palestinian and wounds two others in southern Gaza.
December 27: Israeli F16 bombers and apache helicopters carry out at least 30 simultaneous raids on various targets across the Gaza strip. The operation kills at least 230 and wounds hundreds of Palestinians.
Hamas responds with rocket fire from Gaza and kills one Israeli in the southern town of Netivot.
December 28: Israel begins a fresh wave of air strikes. Israel deploys tanks and troops along the Gaza border. Tunnels in and out of Gaza are bombed.
A Hamas missile strikes near the largest city in the south of the occupied lands, the deepest reach into Israel to the date.
Global protests against the Israeli attacks begin.
Palestinian death toll rises to 296; 900 are injured.
December 29: The third day of attacks on the strip brings the death toll to 340. At least 1,400 Palestinians are wounded.
Muslim world announces day of mourning.
Two more Israelis are killed and one is injured.
December 30: Israeli air operations continue as Tel Aviv declares the area around Gaza a 'closed military zone'.
Israeli floats the idea that a ground invasion of Gaza is imminent.
Palestinian casualties rise to 360 dead and 1,500 injured.
December 31: Israel continues tunnel attacks and civilian casualties increase.
Hamas says Gaza will be victorious.
The UN and Arab League find no solution to end the crisis.
Palestinian death toll rises to 400 with 1,600 injured.
January 1: Israeli bombardments continue; first senior Hamas official dies in air attacks.
Israel denies a 48-hour request for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza by rejecting an EU truce.
Hamas calls for Palestinian protests; it rockets hit several positions.
417 Palestinians and 6 Israelis dead.
January 2: Curfew imposed on West Bank and foreigners are told to leave Gaza.
Top Israeli ministers discuss ground invasion into the Gaza Strip. The United Nations condemns Israel and describes situation in Gaza as "appalling".
Kadima, Israel's ruling party, losses ground in polls ahead of elections.
Death toll continues to rise.
No comments:
Post a Comment