In an Op-Ed that was published in the Christian Science Monitor on August 1, 2006, Anders Strindberg turns truth on its head by blaming Israel for the current situation while exonerating Hizballah and Hamas, groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Israel. He echoes the terrorists' propaganda both in his underlying premise that Israel's very existence is invalid and in his unsubstantiated allegations and misrepresentations against the Jewish State.
A recent statement signed by two leaders of the United Church of Christ, including Rev. John Thomas, the denomination's president and general minister, called on Hezbollah to release Israeli captives and end "provocative attacks and hatred against Israel." This represents an improvement over previous statements, but problems remain with the denomination's public stance about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Jimmy Carter's latest newspaper commentary in the Washington Post features repeated errors of fact. Only Carter's "celebrity" status as an ex-president can account for their publication.
Since Hezbollah first attacked Israeli towns and troops on July 12, hundreds of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians have fled their homes. While the Associated Press reports in story after story about Lebanese displaced, the wire service has had little to say about Israeli displaced.
The following is a response by an Israeli citizen to an article that was published last Wednesday in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. The Ma'ariv article by an anonymous Lebanese writer described her perspective on the war.
BBC reports on the Israel/Hezbollah crisis link to a story about a Jordanian relief flight to Beirut with the false and misleading link headline "Mercy Mission: A Jordanian aid mission flies into Beirut airport, which has been destroyed." In fact, as even al-Jazeera reported, the Beirut airport has not been "destroyed" and has suffered relatively minor damage to its runways.
Early media coverage of Hizbullah's aggression against Israel presented a generally sound picture of cause and effect, of the terrorist group's agenda and of Israel's right to remove the menace to its people. The BBC, however, is a frequent exception.
A July 27 article in the New York Times about four UN officers killed in an outpost hit by Israeli fire ("U.N. Says It Protested to Israel for 6 Hours During Attack That Killed 4 Observers in Lebanon" by Warren Hoge), omitted crucial context about Hezbollah firing from or near UN positions.
Mainline Christian churches and their umbrella organizations have routinely characterized the Arab-Israeli conflict as a consequence of Israeli intransigence and have ignored Arab refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish State in the Middle East. This trend persists in the face of recent attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah.
In a July 19 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, UCLA English professor Saree Makdisi minimizes Hezbollah's provocation of the crisis with Israel by distorting the chronology of events.
