Thursday, December 16, 2010
[The following, by Zach, is crossposted from Huffington Post Monitor.]
Remember those commercials which say that "we all do dumb things?" It was for insurance or somesuch? Anyway, countries do dumb things as well, it is just that usually it doesn't make front page news in the Huffington Posts' "World" section. That is, unless that country is Israel.
So what happened this time is that Palestinian firefighters were invited to attend an Israeli ceremony honoring them for their efforts, but due to what appears to be a technical error they did not receive security permits to cross from the West Bank into Israel. How did the Huffington Post headline this story? Palestinian Firefighters Barred from Israeli Fete. This headline is not even close to true: They were invited to the fete, but they were barred from entering the country. In fact because the Palestinians could not come the event was canceled and postponed to a later date. Is that the behavior of a country that wanted specifically to exclude the Palestinians? Now, let's take a look at how was interviewed in the Huffington Posts' version of this story:
"It's a theater of the absurd. This is a regular day-to-day practice of the occupation, and it exposes its ugly face," [Israeli lawmaker Ahmed] Tibi told The Associated Press.
Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib said the incident reflected Israel's mindset.
"The Israeli approach toward the Palestinians is about control rather than security," Khatib said.
Rizek, the Palestinian fire service commander, appeared resigned to the reality.
"They (the military) told me there is a mistake and that they didn't mean it," Rizek said. "I am not upset. I can understand there is something wrong. I don't know what it is, but I don't think they meant it."
Wow the PA was interviewed? And here I was thinking the Palestinian side of the story never gets told in the American mainstream media! Contrast this with the Ynet news version, in which it is made clear that it was a mistake that will be recified.
I shouldn't even need to tell you this, but naturally the Huffington Post readership assumed that not only was it an intentional snub but it was done because Israel is ungrateful/hateful/evil, etc. I would criticize them for not reading the article, but it seems this time the article and headline was spun a fair amount as well.
