Sweetness & Light points to this article in the New York Times which heaps on the praise for Hezbollah:
As stunned Lebanese returned Tuesday over broken roads to shattered apartments in the south, it increasingly seemed that the beneficiary of the destruction was most likely to be Hezbollah.
A major reason — in addition to its hard-won reputation as the only Arab force that fought Israel to a standstill — is that it is already dominating the efforts to rebuild with a torrent of money from oil-rich Iran.
Nehme Y. Tohme, a member of Parliament from the anti-Syrian reform bloc and the country’s minister for the displaced, said he had been told by Hezbollah officials that when the shooting stopped, Iran would provide Hezbollah with an “unlimited budget” for reconstruction.
In his victory speech on Monday night, Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, offered money for “decent and suitable furniture” and a year’s rent on a house to any Lebanese who lost his home in the month-long war.
“Completing the victory,” he said, “can come with reconstruction.”
On Tuesday, Israel began to pull many of its reserve troops out of southern Lebanon, and its military chief of staff said all of the soldiers could be back across the border within 10 days. Lebanese soldiers are expected to begin moving in a couple of days, supported by the first of 15,000 foreign troops.
While the Israelis began their withdrawal, hundreds of Hezbollah members spread over dozens of villages across southern Lebanon began cleaning, organizing and surveying damage. Men on bulldozers were busy cutting lanes through giant piles of rubble. Roads blocked with the remnants of buildings are now, just a day after a cease-fire began, fully passable.
It’s as if the New York Times was writing about the Red Cross.
Hey all you PC LLL appeasers (you know who you are-don’t have to name names) let me spell it out for you. Wonder what the situation would be right now if old “hez” did not have women and kids to hide behind like you libs hide behind your mouth? HMMMMMMM.
Maybe you should break the pills in half from now on, jhow.
You’re arguing that because the NYT article uses the weasel word “reputation”, that the factual basis of the reputation itself is irrelevant. Saying someone or something has a reputation is the same as saying some people have an opinion without citing any source.
Using that technique it’s just as valid to say Intelligent Design proponents cite the fact that Science has a reputation of being proven wrong. To support that I could just cite some ID folks who hold that opinion, but I’ll go one better and cite a recent case here.
Many posts back you admonished another contributor to “try substance once in a while”, but it seem you have abandoned doing so yourself.
Cheerleaders for Hezbollah???
For all you NYT haters here’s a little ditty from al jezeerah in October 2003:
“One-sided reportage on terrorism, in which cause is never related to effect, was assured because the most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control. It is well known that American public opinion molders have long been largely influenced by a handful of powerful newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the St Louis Post-Dispatch – owned respectively by the Sulzbergers….”
So, the publisher(s) of the NYT, a well known Jewish family, who consistently give to Jewish charities, are cheerleader for terrorists who want to destroy Israel?
The rabid dogs foam and bark and display their utter and complete ignorance.
It would be laughable were it not sad.
The NYT is a source of information for many other news organizations around the world, so their readership by proxy likely includes many Arabs. Simply repeating Hezbollah propaganda with no critical analysis only fuels the conflict. Apparently doing so serves the interests of the NYT.
The lesson Israel and hopefully the U.S. learned from this exercise is that high tech weapons alone can’t defeat a gorilla army that uses civilians as shields. It takes troops on the ground in sufficient quantity to control the territory. Even then, you’re at a great disadvantage if you can’t identify combatants among the civilians. The Arabs know this and likely plan to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child they come across should they ever be able to overrun Israel. Does anyone think the international outcry would restrain them?
The west has made an number of mistakes in dealing with the middle east. Here are some of them.
1) Thinking war could somehow be sanitized. That you can use precision weapons to win without taking control of the territory. War needs to be the terror everyone wants to avoid, not a game.
2) Accepting the idea that even if a country starts a war and subsequently loses, it gets to retain it’s original borders. That means there’s no risk to a nation’s territory if they start a war.
3) Accepting the idea that a nation is not responsible for the actions of a military organization that it allows to openly operate within it’s territory. Lebanon has already said it won’t try to disarm Hezbollah. The UN should then insist that Hezbollah is an official unit of Lebanon’s military. Next time Hezbollah launches a rocket into Israel, it should be considered an act of war by Lebanon.
I wonder what the NYT printed 65 years ago when rockets rained down on London and Dresden was bombed out of existence?
Hugh,
The statement you cite is factually wrong. The NYT is a corporation that’s publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. If you look at the insider trading document you’ll see that Arthur and Cathy Sulzberger own about 214,000 shares while Janet Robinson owns about 223,000 shares and Jacqueline Dryfoos owns over 468,000 shares. Over 85% of all shares are held by Institutional and Mutual Fund Owners. Arthur Sulzberger is the chairman, but he and his family don’t own the NYT by any stretch of the imagination.
Apparently that applies to you.
Seems odd that the NY Times will report on Hezbollah rebuilding — but not on the US military doing the same thing in Iraq.
I guess it’s only newsworthy if it hurts Jews or something.
-=Mike
Mac Lorry
Sheeesh….do you folks read posts? I posted a quote from al jezeerah for the point that the NYT is seen as one-sided in its reporting of terrorism by Arabs. Which is it? pro-terrorist or ant-terrorist? You see it as pro and Arabs see it as anti.It can’t be both.
You failed to respond to the fact that the publisher is Jewish.
It’s ludicrous to me that you folks would believe the publisher, who is Jewish, would allow the papaer to be pro-terrorist. It’s simply absurd to believe that.
Hugh,
It’s anti-Zionist or more specifically, anti-Israel.
While Arthur Ochs Sulzberger is Jewish, there’s no evidence that he’s a Zionist. In fact his father, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, refused to join a Jewish fraternity at Columbia and refused to join the American Jewish Committee. He wrote in 1934,”I am a non Zionist because the Jew, in seeking a homeland of his own, seems to me to be giving up something of infinitely greater value of the world. … I look askance at any movement which assists in making the peacemaker among nations merely a national warrior.” He refused to donate to the United Jewish Appeal or the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, favoring instead the National Missions of the Presbyterian Church. In 1948, he wrote, “I know of no difference in my way of life than in that of any Unitarian.” More here.
The evidence is that the NYT under Arthur Ochs Sulzberger is still anti-Israel.
We all make errors, but when you add unnecessary insults to your posts chiding others for their alleged ignorance you had better make sure you have your own house in order.
Mac Lorry:
So, terrorists killing Jews (Zionists or not) is ok with the NYT and the Sulzbergers?
Hmmm.
@ Hugh
1.
Actually it can be, because it’s based on perception.
It’s the same process that allows a DU/Kos member to proclaim their disdain for how “in the tank” the MSM is for Republicans. It’s because however a particular publication or news channel is biased, it’s simply not biased enough for that person.
So in this case the NYT is percieved, correctly, as being biased towards Hezbollah by us it is being percieved as not biased enough by Hezbollah partisans.
2. Quite a few American jews are anti-Zionists. Which probably explains why the Republican party can’t get more than a fraction of that voting block no matter how vast the difference between Republicans and Democrats in their treatment of Israel.
3.
*shrug* probably a qualified “no”.
The killing of jews, as just the killing of jews, probably, but not definitively, isn’t something that either the NYT or the Sulzbergers want to have happen.
But the killing of jews as a means of eliminating Israel, then that’s simply the cost of doing business for the NYT or the Sulzbergers. Keep in mind that the Sulzbergers have been in control of the NYT for a very long time. Keep in mind that the NYT buried the few stories that came out about the Holocaust, prior to the discovery of the death camps, deeply in the newspaper. Keep in mind that many stories of jewish oppression and pogroms by the Nazis were scrubbed clean of jewish identities.
http://www.acpr.org.il/English-Nativ/08-issue/silverman-8.htm
Also keep in mind that when many jewish refugees were scrambling to escape Europe before it became a death trap it was the New York Times, and it’s prestige, that argued against allowing these jews entrance into America.
There’s a long history of the NYT acting directly against even the most reasonable jewish interests.
Why that is, I have no idea.
Using that technique it’s just as valid to say Intelligent Design proponents cite the fact that Science has a reputation of being proven wrong. To support that I could just cite some ID folks who hold that opinion, but I’ll go one better and cite a recent case here.
Has a reputation among religious folks who don’t understand science, yes. But a reputation among scientists, no way. The point is that they do have that reputation in the Middle East, and it is widespread. Also, in that part of the world reputation is very important; as many have noted, in the Arab world “perception is reality”. This is not at all true in science. In any case if you haven’t noticed Israel is withdrawing, which many people, and not just Hezbollah supporters, consider a victory for the terrorist group. Intelligent design proponents don’t have anything like that to back up their claim. Btw the article you linked has absolutely nothing to do with evolution.
Many posts back you admonished another contributor to “try substance once in a while”, but it seem you have abandoned doing so yourself.
You were asking for direct quotes, something to back up the claim. I gave it to you. I did not propose that it was proof that Hezbollah was victorious militarily, only that that perception is widespread, which is of course the point of the article. Your argument, which seems to be that the NYTimes writer used the “weasily” word reputation when he really meant that Hezbollah had in fact fought Israel to a standstill, doesn’t really hold up. One wonders why he would bother with the “reputation” part if that is what he meant. You have to ignore the whole point of the article, which is Hezbollah’s reputation and support amongst the Lebanese and other Shia, in order to arrive at your reading. You guys are so anxious to demonize journalists that you will grasp at anything, any interpretation, that will enable you to do so. It’s weak and pointless, IMHO.
The NYT is a source of information for many other news organizations around the world, so their readership by proxy likely includes many Arabs. Simply repeating Hezbollah propaganda with no critical analysis only fuels the conflict. Apparently doing so serves the interests of the NYT.
But of course you’re right. The NYTimes is in the employ of Hezbollah as a propaganda arm. Or they merely like to “fuel the conflict” to sell newspapers. Whatever.
The lesson Israel and hopefully the U.S. learned from this exercise is that high tech weapons alone can’t defeat a gorilla army that uses civilians as shields. It takes troops on the ground in sufficient quantity to control the territory.
And once you “control the territory” what do you have? Iraq, that’s what. How’s all that going?
The Arabs know this and likely plan to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child they come across should they ever be able to overrun Israel. Does anyone think the international outcry would restrain them?
I certainly don’t, but Israel’s massive military might, combined with our own, would. Overwhelming military strength is good for defense, especially in Israel’s case. That’s why all Hezbollah can do is lob rockets in, and the idea that any group or nation in the Middle East could “overrun” Israel is absurd. They’d like to, but it won’t happen.
1) Thinking war could somehow be sanitized. That you can use precision weapons to win without taking control of the territory. War needs to be the terror everyone wants to avoid, not a game.
After all that has happened you still believe we can move in with ground troops and “control the territory”? Are you completely out of touch with reality?
2) Accepting the idea that even if a country starts a war and subsequently loses, it gets to retain it’s original borders. That means there’s no risk to a nation’s territory if they start a war.
Agreed, though peace agreements in the region have often been more complex than this.
3) Accepting the idea that a nation is not responsible for the actions of a military organization that it allows to openly operate within it’s territory. Lebanon has already said it won’t try to disarm Hezbollah. The UN should then insist that Hezbollah is an official unit of Lebanon’s military. Next time Hezbollah launches a rocket into Israel, it should be considered an act of war by Lebanon.
This takes you down a long and bloody road with no end. Btw, in the recent conflict Israel basically did declare war on Lebanon for the actions of Hezbollah. Half of the country is destroyed. If they left the Lebanese military intact, it was only in the hope that that military would try to control the south. Also, using this strategy we can justify war with Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Iran, and several other countries for allowing terrorists to operate within their borders (and sometimes funding them outright), and attack us (Cole, WTC, Khobar Towers, Kenya & Tanzania, etc). Those should all be considered acts of war, correct? Let’s invade and “control the territory”!
If you read the article I linked to you would find many lines that support the very thing you find absurd. Here’s just one part
The lesson is that just because someone is Jewish doesn’t mean they support Israel or will even speak out against the killing of Jews in Israel. What’s telling is that you seem surprised that a person’s background doesn’t always correlate with their politics. Are all blacks democrats? Are all white businessmen republicans? Of course not, and not all Jews are pro-Israel.
Thanks for the quote from 1942…it really bolsters your argument about the current publisher. The rest of you r response doesn’t even digny a response it’s so absurd.
I knew this is a hot button issue with you, so I used it to make a point. That point is that what I wrote is correct in the same way that what the NYT wrote is correct. Instinctively you go after the substance and ignore the “reputation” weasel word that allows any unsupportable opinion to be reported as fact.
I agree that “perception is reality”, but not just in the Arab world, but in all the world. My complaint is that the NYT is feeding that misinformed perception, which only serves to embolden Arabs to continue their decades old war against Israel. What would it hurt for the NYT to add a little balance to such stories?
Your point was that because the NYT publisher is Jewish, that the paper must be pro-Israel or at least anti-Arab. What the quote from 1942 shows is that the father of the current publisher was Jewish, and yet, anti-Israel. The second link I supplied is evidence that the Son holds the same anti-Israel bias as his father.
I have debunked your original contention of the NYT being owned by Jews and I have provided links that support the anti-Israel bias of the current and former publisher of the the NYT. Perhaps you can show where I’m wrong with some links of your own. Otherwise, I believe I have made the case that you are both ignorant and bigoted, at least in relation to the NYT and Jews.
Hmmmm.
@ Hugh
Sorry man but you’re completely and utterly wrong.
Here’s a test for you:
Find an article in the NYT that praises Israel for defending itself.
Let’s hope you don’t have to go back to 1942 to find one.
And yes I know Israel was founded in 1948. Normally I’d hope people would recognize the sarcastic humor, but I assume nothing on this blog.
Controlling territory is and has been a fundamental principle of war for thousands of years. The problem in Iraq is not one of war, but of nation building.
Had Israel taken control of southern Lebanon early in the conflict by poured in thousands of troops they could have controlled the territory to the degree that few rockets could have been launched into Israel. Playing at it for two weeks with air strikes was a bad mistake.
Given the effect Iraq has had on this nation, I’m not too sure the U.S. would come to Israel’s defense should it be in danger of being overrun. Particularly if an anti-war candidate wins the white house in 2008.
Sure we can move in with ground troops and control the territory. It’s been done for thousands of years, but to make it work we have to come not as liberators or even occupiers, but as destroyers. You know, like the allies (particularly Russia) did to Germany in WW2.
Certainly Israel did attack targets in Lebanon, but only for the purpose of destroying the ability of Hezbollah to rearm and fortify it’s positions in the south, and also to try to cut off escape routes in an attempt to keep the captive Israeli solders from being taken out of the country. Had Israel declared war on Lebanon, there would be much more damage done. One of the Israel officials said in an interview with Bill O’Reilly that if the current UN plan for southern Lebanon fails, then the next time Israel will completely destroy Lebanon as a nation and maybe Syria for good measure. Then again, maybe it’s a bluff.
The problem is that we have allowed this ruse to proceed too long in hopes that such countries would mature. Apart from using the same tactics ourselves we need to continue to enforce national responsibility one country at a time. Afghanistan was the first and I think Iran should be next followed by Syria. If Rice becomes number 44, then maybe we’ll get to Syria and by then Lebanon, Jodan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia will change their ways.
Mac Lorry
For someone who obviuosly considers himself intellectually superior you missed the boat entirely. The post I quoted was to demonstarte that al jezeerah considers the NYT ant-terrorist and that many here on this post argue that the NYT is pro-terrorist. My question was, how can it be both? I;m not sure where you stand in that regard.
I do find it absurd, illogical and uttlerly stupid for someone to believe that the NYT is “pro-terrorist.” But then mere mention of the name NYT sends righties off the deep end, so I guess I should not be surprised.
I suppose the truth is that neither of know what Mr Sulzberger’s view is about killing Jews. I’m content, however, to find it hard to believe that he approves of it. Maybe that’s too touchy feely for you but I am satisfied with my belief.
I make no such claim. If it’s obvious to you that may be because of your own bias. I simply know how to use Google.
I demonstrated that the al jezeeral post was factually wrong in saying the Sulzberger family owned the NYT. In your next post you said “You failed to respond to the fact that the publisher is Jewish.” You then go on to say “It’s ludicrous to me that you folks would believe the publisher, who is Jewish, would allow the papaer [sic] to be pro-terrorist. It’s simply absurd to believe that.”
So it’s not just jezeerah’s statement as you now contend, but your own words. You now state that “I do find it absurd, illogical and uttlerly [sic] stupid for someone to believe that the NYT is “pro-terrorist.” And yet I have offered evidence that both the prior and current publisher are anti-Israel. Is that really all that much different than being pro-terrorist?