Saturday, August 05, 2006

Playing Into Hezbollah's Hands

Has anyone noticed that (besides the hard left and those that seek western civilization's destruction) there is little being said about what was said to be a horrendous massacre in Qana, last weekend? Last weekend, the Qana story saturated the headlines. Today, it's back off of the front page and very few news outlets are giving it much attention.

Journalists Fail To Explain Qana by David Warren, helps us understand the reasoning behind this.
My reader may be wondering what happened to all the coverage from Qana. As usual, when the "liberal" media begin to realize they've been had, the story disappears. But it is never properly corrected. We get a few days of blazing headlines, and round-the-dial TV coverage of an "Israeli massacre", laden with innuendos, and then --the fade-out. This will not do.

What happened at Qana was, almost certainly, what happened at Jenin in 2002, what happened on a beach in Gaza a few weeks ago, and what has happened on innumerable other occasions. The Israelis are instantaneously accused and convicted of a monstrous and perhaps intentional act of butchery, by people quite incurious about the facts. Their pathological hatred of "Zionism" is all the proof they need. These are people who seldom bother to shed even crocodile tears when Jews are blown to pieces by suicide bombers, or rockets are fired indiscriminately into their homes; but become tremendously excited when the news breaks that some Israeli retaliation may have gone wrong.


Hezbollah's Psych-Ops by Clifford May, helps shed even more light on the subject.
Hezbollah and its foreign sponsors deserve credit: They understand the perverse psychology of the Middle East. They knew they could launch a war against Israel and then have Israel get the blame for the devastation that inevitably would follow.

They knew also that if Israel failed to respond forcefully to their ground and missile attacks, they could say Israel was cowardly. And if Israel did respond forcefully, they could say Israel was a bully, its response “disproportionate” – even while insisting that Israel was doing them no serious damage.


They knew they could target Israeli civilians and hide combatants and weapons behind Lebanese civilians -- in homes, hospitals, schools and mosques. Even so, whenever Lebanese women and children were killed, they could accuse Israel of “war crimes.”


Give Hezbollah, Syria and Iran credit for this, too: They understand the equally perverse psychology of Europe,
the U.N. and the “international community.” Two years ago, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 demanded that Hezbollah disarm. Hezbollah refused to comply. In response, the international community shrugged its collective shoulders.


All this I understand. And I suppose that some of you that read PYY, do too. But what I do not understand is how educated journalists (some with advanced degrees) can allow themselves to be fooled by the calculated deceptions that Hezbollah, al Qaida, Iran, and other radical jihadist entities are bent on promoting, as facts.

Like any other degree program, a typical journalism degree does require some electives in social sciences. History being considered a social science, you'd think that some of them would have taken a class or two. Frankly, it amazes me that more journalists cannot put two and two together and recognize some things that are plain to so many people. Take the Soviet Union for example. They were masters at propaganda, they staged many things over the course of that empire's existence. The picture painted of Soviet life was that of law and order and the successes of communism, worldwide. We now know that it was anything but, successful or orderly.

Hezbollah has learned well from that model and is using the media to advance their lies and deception, today. Yet many in the MSM can barely recognize that they are being had. And when they do, they change the subject by changing the lead story. They re-focus the attention on something new, something more outrageous, or they just downplay it quietly, hoping that no one will notice.

So give Hezbollah and the entire jihadist movement some credit. They have done what many at one point in time, would never have believed could happen. They fused elements of Soviet ideology with Nazi ideology and have become masters of manipulation, through their staged scenes. They have developed an intense hatred of Jews, so much that they seek their annihilation from the planet; and have used old communist propaganda techniques to get their message out.

And until this past week, it was working pretty well. Until the stories about Pallywood surfaced, many people have been content to eat up whatever has been served to them. But now there's a wrench that has been thrown into all of this. But instead of dealing with the allegations, the MSM is more than content to move forward without offering any explanation.

In fact, it can be seem here at PYY, as well.

If I post an essay on why I think France is wrong in a specific instance, I have French readers pounding me for what they perceive is wrong information and flawed opinion. If I have posted the slightest error as far as the media is concerned, Mean Gene hammers me. But in this case I have noticed, the critics are silent. Opposing view comments have been sparse through all of this. I guess that means some of my critics just might agree with me on this.


(Hat Tip to RCP for both articles.)

2 comments:

All_I_Can_Stands said...

LA, you have been doing a great job covering Hezbollah and the related issues. Bloggers need to keep hammering on this because the world body (yawning at thousands of rockets being fired into the civilian population to try to kill civilians yet screaming at Israel when they fire back at Hezbollah and civilians are caught in the mix) cannot be allowed to continue without a challenge. Liberals are always concerned legally about precedents, yet they have no problem with the precedent being set by not bringing strong anger and pressure to bear against these terrorist groups.

The world needs to extract who they are, why they are doing this, and to whom they are doing this. Simply look at the actions themselves. Targeting civilians with rockets cannot be condoned, understood, apoligized for, or reacted to with ambivalence. It must be denounced at all times with vigor and resolution! This keeps a precedent from being set that if only the circumstances are dire enough, this behavior can be excused and tolerated. It will come to every doorstep including ours if not squelched.

LA Sunset said...

AICS,

The actions committed by terrorist groups like Hezbollah are greatly overlooked by most of the world, because of the dependency on Iranian oil. They deny because they are afraid of even higher oil prices. Like I said in an earlier post, the Arab states can always offer to step up production to compensate for any loss of oil. But it would requitre some courage on the part of Europe, Russia, and China to make it happen. Unfortunately, the Arab states cannot step up the production of courage for them.