Donald Johnson writes:
Today the New York Times has a big article on the first page of its world news section, “Hamas Turns Back 37 Gaza War Orphans From a Bridge-Building Trip to Israel.”
Thirty-seven young war orphans from Gaza set out on Sunday for a rare visit to Israel. They got as far as the Erez border crossing at the northern end of the Palestinian coastal enclave. There the Hamas authorities turned them back, barring the visit at the last minute.
The Israeli organizer explicitly says that the purpose of the trip was to give the 37 Gazans a positive view of Israelis because they will some day be leaders.
“In 20 or 30 years, these children will be the leaders in Gaza,” Mr. [Yoel] Marshak [of the Kibbutz movement] said. “The idea was to give them a positive experience in Israel…”
The unspoken assumption in both his statement and in the article itself is that the conflict is caused because Palestinians have hostile feelings towards Israelis, and this has nothing to do with anything that Israel does, and so the solution is to let a few of them out of this open-air prison for a brief time when they are children so that they will like Israelis. Apparently everyone on both sides favors this wonderful idea, except the stupid Hamas bureaucrats (and actually, I don’t doubt that Hamas bureaucrats are as stupid as any other), and so Hamas is solely responsible for the hatred that Gazans will feel for Israelis.
A summary of the Gazan war is given, which gives the Israeli view and doesn’t mention the fact that Gazans are united in their loathing of the prison sentence that Israel and Egypt have forced on them.I used to favor the form of activism where children on both sides get together, and I still don’t oppose it, but it’s clear that its main function is to make liberal Zionists feel better about themselves. Unless Israel changes its behavior it won’t accomplish anything except that main function.
And while I’m sure everyone at the NYT would deny it, including the public editor, the NYT is acting like an organization doing everything in its power to protect the liberal Zionist brand and put the blame back on the Zionist right and the Palestinians for the conflict.
James North adds:
They’re giving big prominence to this story in the New York Times, but when activists from Europe and America are turned away at Ben Gurion airport by Israeli authorities and bundled on to planes to fly home, there’s no story.
Marshak is characterized as a leftist. He is a member of the Kibbutz movement and a Labor supporter. I’d question his leftist bona fides. No kibbutz ever accepted Palestinian members, as leftists Jeff Halper and Tzvia Thier have said on this site.
In the fifth paragraph, the article says, “Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and is sworn to its destruction.” Technically this is true– though, what is destruction? Moreover, as Jerry Slater has meticulously documented, there is plenty of information suggesting that this Hamas position has shifted in a practical direction. No one should cover up for Hamas, but any story that includes the line about Hamas’s stated position ought also to say: “However, independent observers say that Hamas is willing to have a longtime truce that de facto recognizes Israel as part of a peace agreement.”
Let me see if I get this right. These 37 war-orphans from Gaza (and I have to assume their parents were killed by the IDF) were to be “treated” to a sightseeing trip to the very country responsible for making them orphans . And the purpose was to give them a “positive” view of the Israelis??
With all respect, this is like inviting some jewish children out of a concentration camp in Nazi Germany for a tour of some nearby towns to show them how great the German people are.
Is this someone’s idea of a sick joke, or am I missing something here?
either way this went it was exploiting palestinian child victims of the war for hasbara purposes. it would have been a big story whether the kids went or didn’t. me, i wouldn’t let my child out of my site for a trip to the other side that just bombed and killed my mate (all of the kids lost at least parent in the last slaughter). if israel was interested it showing a good side they could send their own innocent children to gaza.
Say ….. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.634140
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday closed the Erez border crossing indefinitely
Some mind twisters in the cheerleading NYT.
Among the Israeli casualties was a 4-year-old boy killed by a mortar shell in a kibbutz along the border with Gaza. Why mention? That does not count as an orphan. Is NYT saying: you know, that one will not become a leader?
Why tour the West Bank? To threaten Palestinians: look what we’ll do to your children? Like hostages standing for a window, at gunpoint?
the safari park in nearby Ramat Gan. What safari? Wild Palestinians in a cage? Or for treatment in the animal hospital? Stroll the Jarisha remainings?
Mr. Abbas’s Fatah party and Hamas signed a reconciliation pact in April (…) That pact appears to have changed little so far in Gaza. Eh, nothing changed in Gaza since? It was bombed to rubble because of this agreement. Ask the orphans.
Jerusalem is not in the itinerary. That would be spoiling.
“Marshak said Tuesday evening that the humanitarian effort was meant to ease the orphans’ suffering and not aid terrorists. “The Kibbutz Movement educates its sons to be the first on the battlefield and kill the enemy before being killed, but …” (btw, he said this in 2009. And the number of children was 48, not 11. Did they survive 2012 and 2014?) http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3663039,00.html
Saw this dishonest accounting all over the mainstream media.
This was nothing but propaganda by Israel. They are really sick; nothing is ever done out of the goodness of their hearts. All is done to advance their agenda.
Less vicious but a good example of this is when they rushed a team of doctors to Haiti following the earthquake a few years back and pulled them out after a week and then spent months bragging about how Israel was the first nation to provide medical help for Haiti (leaving out the part about how short a period of time the medial team was there).