Vital Perspective

Cable, Satellite Provider Reportedly Agree to Broadcast al-Jazeera in English

Much to the chagrin of groups like United American Committee, al-Jazeera will launch an English-speaking High-Definition TV channel on November 15. The company will also unveil a non-HD version of the channel on that day. An al-Jazeera spokeswoman says that at least one cable company and one satellite operator have agreed to carry the new channel. She did not specify whether the two providers would carry both the HD and non-HD versions, nor did she name the providers.

EchoStar's Dish Network, the nation's second leading satellite television company, now offers the Arabic-speaking al-Jazeera (DIRECTV does not). Asked if Dish would carry the English al-Jazeera, an EchoStar spokeswoman said: "We don't have an announcement planned at this time." Comcast cable yesterday denied that it would add al-Jazeera to its lineup.

Time Reporter with Bias, Credibility Issues Spreading Palestinian Propaganda

Honestly, we thought Time was better than this. Tim McGirk writes through his soft-on-terrorism lens how awful Israel is and how innocent the Palestinians are. He goes to great lengths to minimize the realities of terrorism in Gaza by decrying some of the extraordinary efforts that Israel takes to protect innocent Palestinian civilians.

Opening his article, McGirk writes about Palestinians who receive a phone call from the IDF warning their home will be targeted in an aerial attack. "But those warnings aren't enough to save the innocent," McGirk writes. Lest he forget, the people being warned are having their homes targeted because they harbor terrorists or are used for planning terrorist acts against Israel. Much like some in the press in their coverage during the war with Hezbollah this summer -- where Israel dropped leaflets in neighborhoods to warn of oncoming attacks -- McGirk doesn't put blame on the terrorists for operating with impunity amongst the civilian population, he puts the blame on Israel by charging it with violation of the principle of proportionality.

Another example of McGirk's minimization that's equally as striking is the naval blockade of Gaza, which was put into place after Israel "stopped arms smugglers and two suicide bombers trying to reach Israeli shores." While this justification is only briefly mentioned, McGirk bemoans the woes of the poor Palestinian fishermen, who "cannot venture more than a mile into the Mediterranean without getting shot at by Israeli warships."

We looked into McGirk and found some interesting material on him. It turns out that McGirk was previously the Delhi correspondent for The Independent, a liberal British daily, then went on to serve as South Asia bureau chief for Time. Then we found this gem via American Thinker. McGirk wrote about Haditha for the March 27 issue of Time and unsuccessfully lobbied his editors to use the term "massacre" in the story. He spent the first Thanksgiving after 9/11 in Afghanistan dining with the Taliban and concluding of this celebratory meal:

Our missing colleagues finally arrive, and I leave thinking that maybe this evening wasn’t very different from the original Thanksgiving: people from two warring cultures sharing a meal together and realizing, briefly, that we’re not so different after all.

In the words of Clarice Feldman, "Right, Tim. We all want to enslave women, bend the world to Sharia law, behead nonbelievers and otherwise carry on the honored traditions of the Taliban." In short, McGirk has plenty of credibility and bias issues to contend with, none of which seem to be concerning to the editors at Time.

Professors Sign with Publisher for Book-Length Version of 'Israel Lobby' Paper

According to the Forward, Profs. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of the infamous 'scholarly research paper' on the 'Israel Lobby' in U.S. foreign policy, are at work on a book-length version of their findings to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, one of the most distinguished publishing houses in the country.

Mearsheimer and Walt, who have argued that it "is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States" printing their findings, first published their paper in the March 22 edition of the London Review of Books. A longer version was posted on the Web site of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where Walt is a professor of international relations, though they later backed away from the paper by removing their seal from the cover and adding a large disclaimer.

The paper, which argues that America's "unwavering support for Israel… has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world," sparked a wide range of responses. We see it as political advocy in the cloak of academia -- a traditional, knee-jerk reaction by the realist camp in an attempt to regain primacy and roll back the global war on terrorism, roll back U.S. efforts for the democratization of the Middle East, roll back the U.S.-Israel relationship and end the post-9/11 foreign policy efforts of the Bush Administration.

In Memory of Firefighter Bruce Gary, Fallen Hero of the September 11 Attacks

Today, as part of Project 2,996, we remember firefighter Bruce Gary, 51, of Bellmore, New York, who served with Engine 40 and died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Bruce is survived by his three children: Jessica, Ricky and Tommy.

He was a selfless man with a record of heroism. After the first attack on the World Trade Center by Islamic extremists in 1993, Mayor Giuliani honored him for assisting in the rescue efforts.

Family and friends describe Bruce as a rock who devoted his life to others. When his older brother Ricky died in a motorcycle accident in 1970 after surviving two tours in Vietnam, "he was like the father of the family," in the way he carried on for his parents. In 2000, when his son was involved in a car accident that put him in the hospital for seven weeks, family members say you couldn't pry him away from his bedside.

After finishing his shift in Manhattan, Bruce would come back to Bellmore to work eight more hours as a plumber in order to make ends meet, then find time do draw up baseball rosters as Vice President of Bellmore's Little League, a position he'd held for 12 years. His sister, Donna Struzzieri, said that "Everything he did was with his children in mind."

Season after season he created good teams by focusing not on the all-stars but on the children other coaches would stick in right field and forget about. ''Every year there would be the really good kids, and some kids who weren't so good,'' said his son Tommy. ''But he worked more with those kids, and by the end of the season the team would be more equal.''

Clearly, Bruce was an inspiration to the people in his community. Louis Garcia Apa, a U.S. Marine, was a recruit in training at Parris Island when he told a reporter from Newsday earlier this year about why he signed up with the U.S. Marine Corps:

At the shooting range, where Marines learn to hit a target 500 yards away, recruit Louis Garcia Apa, 25, of Bellmore has weathered weeks of training, but it is a reporter's question about why he enlisted that struck a nerve.

"This recruit," Apa begins, following the Parris Island ban on the personal pronoun. He pauses. His voice cracks. "This recruit lost someone who was very close to him, a role model."

"It's something that stayed in my mind," he says. "It took this recruit a couple of years to get himself together before he could join."

Tears streaking his face, Apa explains that he worked in a law office and sold cell phones for Sprint before signing up. He pauses. "Sir," he asks an officer standing nearby. "Can I wipe my face?"

When his daughter Jessica's boyfriend proposed on Valentine's Day in 1999, Bruce had to be at the firehouse. Knowing of the plan, he left a card for her to open after the proposal. He wrote his daughter: "Letting go is not easy, and even though your hand may slip from mine, we will hold each other in our hearts forever."

As Jessica told Newsday in the days after 9/11, "He has been his family's hero their whole lives, and now he's a hero to the whole country."

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You: Green Helmet Guy Starring in 'Fauxtography'

Hat tip LGF. If you haven't seen it yet, we also recommend this video from Jawa.

Jawa Report to Mainstream Photographers: 'All Your Fakes Are Belong to Us'

Jawa Report sends a message to photographers from New York Times, Reuters, et al with this video inspired by doctored and posed photos from the war in Lebanon...

UPDATE 08/24 @ 13:40: Here's another example of fun with photos. The AP photos below taken are now being used as propaganda on a Hezbollah-run site out of Iran, but the situation isn't exactly as it seems. Israeli children weren't writing death notes to Lebanse children, they were drawing patriotic flags after their parents wrote notes to Hassan Nasrallah. Seeing children in the act of writing a message here is a powerful image. We wonder though, is it an image of the innocence that comes from being shielded from images of death so they only equate the weapon with defense, or is it simply an image of bloodthirsty children as Hezbollah would have us believe?

      

The AP photographer who took the photos doesn't want to speak publicly about it, but Shelly Paz, a Yedioth Ahronoth reporter who was also there spoke about the incident.

The children had been in underground shelters for five days. When a new army unit arrived in the town, they attracted a dozen photographers, and the people emerged. Some of the parents wrote messages to Nasrallah and then handed the markers to the children who started drawing Israeli flags on the shells. The photographers, looking for a powerful image, had found one. Again, we have no problem with it. It's patriotic. You know who else has put messages on their weapons? The United States.

Special Online Briefing Today on Regional Situation with Neil Lazarus

The Baltimore Zionist District is hosting an online event in just a few hours with Neil Lazarus, a leading expert on advocacy, for a briefing on he current crisis in the region. We've heard Neil in person once before, and highly recommend your participation (it's free, and it's better than work). That event starts at 16:30 (Eastern) today. If you're into it, click here by 16:00 (Eastern) -- note that for some reason, the program will only work if you have a PC. This will be interactive, so if you have a mic, you can participate. The email we received says that if you have any technical problems, call the WZO Department for Zionist Activities offices in Jerusalem: 011-972-2-621-6109.

PCHR, Funded by George Soros, Attacks IDF But Stays Silent on Hamas Attacks

Tom Carew of Dublin, Ireland, wrote an interesting letter to the editor over at The American Thinker that we just saw. Carew writes:

The Gaza-based “PCHR” – Palestine Centre for Human Rights – is funded by the Irish Goverment, to the tune of € 100,000 [ = £ 69,460 or $ 127,850 ] in 2005, and also by the EU, but its statement on the current crisis attacks Israel, but not the attack on the IDF by Hamas and two other armed gangs, or the kidnapping of 19-year-old Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, nor does it mention that this violates international law.

Should not urgent steps be taken by the Irish, U.S., and other Goverments to ensure that PCHR and any other bodies taking such a partisan and politicised stand, which make such a mockery of the "universal human rights" label, no longer receive public funds from EU or other Goverments, or via the EU itself?

This made us wonder, who else is funding the PCHR? A quick search led us to find that the PHCR receives contributions from the Ford Foundation, which is now independent of the Ford Motor Company, and the Open Society Institute and Soros Foundation Network, headed by none other than George Soros.

Israeli Teenager Murdered by Palestinian Terrorists Laid to Rest in J'lem

Eliyahu Asheri, the 18-year-old kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists, was laid to rest just moments ago at Jerusalem's Mount of Olives cemetery.

Just over twelve hours ago, Shin Bet agents and special IDF troops found the body buried in a field and determined that he had been shot in the head soon after he was kidnapped Sunday. Soldiers arrested a terrorist in connection with the murder early Thursday morning.

We continue to be appalled at the media coverage of Asheri's death. All we hear is "settler" -- though CNN is now using the phrase "18-year-old settler." What does this mean though? Does it make his life any more expendable, his death any less tragic because of where he lived? It's like blaming the rape victim. Is the sentiment that Asheri was 'asking for it' because of where his family lived?

Ghanian FM Sends Apology to Egypt, Arab League for Israeli Flag at World Cup

Xinhua reports that Egyptian FM Ahmed Abul Gheit received a letter of apology from his Ghanaian counterpart Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo over flag accident in the World Cup. This is frustrating to say the least for two countries with longstanding diplomatic relations. Ghana was the first African country to establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel in 1958. Ties were broken in 1973 but restarted in 1994.

Arab fans, including Egyptians, were angry when Ghana's defender John Pantsil, who plays for Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv, pulled out an Israeli flag and waved it before camera during celebrations for 2-0 victory over the Czech Republic on June 17.

Besides the apology from Ghana's government, both Ghana's World Cup team and Ghana's Football Association have apologized for the flag accident.

Earlier on Thursday, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa also received a letter of apology from the Ghanaian government.