The Gaza Tragedy: Adding Insult to Injury
Gaza has been destroyed. Israel says it won. Hamas said it won. Gazans are trying to take sense of it all as they emerge from their homes. I am trying to understand what Israel achieved, besides death and destruction.
As I assessed the post-mortems, I was extremely disappointed in how MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Richard Engel discussed Gaza. When Richard Engel mentioned media interest, he neglected to mention the fact that he meant U.S. media. He neglected to mention that Al Jazeera was reporting almost every hour on the hour on the insanity they had set forth. Israel did indeed plan this to play to the U.S. Media and the U.S. Public. U.S. Media obligingly played along. I suppose if that is in fact what the Israelis had planned, they succeeded. After what happened with Iraq, I thought that somehow Israel would be subject to a bit more scrutiny. Well, I was wrong. This exchange proved it:
As this media war continues, the Arabs have another "meeting". Saudi Arabia has pledged one billion dollars to rebuild Gaza. The good news is that it will create jobs. The bad news is that the Arabs have to figure out how to knock sense into the thick skulls of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and all the other Palestinian players who need to understand that they have to be united to counter this onslaught. As the Israelis continued their withdrawal, though, supposedly they have destroyed buildings and other infrastructure according to reports Al Jazeera complied from eyewitnesses.
There has to be a better way.
As I assessed the post-mortems, I was extremely disappointed in how MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Richard Engel discussed Gaza. When Richard Engel mentioned media interest, he neglected to mention the fact that he meant U.S. media. He neglected to mention that Al Jazeera was reporting almost every hour on the hour on the insanity they had set forth. Israel did indeed plan this to play to the U.S. Media and the U.S. Public. U.S. Media obligingly played along. I suppose if that is in fact what the Israelis had planned, they succeeded. After what happened with Iraq, I thought that somehow Israel would be subject to a bit more scrutiny. Well, I was wrong. This exchange proved it:
As this media war continues, the Arabs have another "meeting". Saudi Arabia has pledged one billion dollars to rebuild Gaza. The good news is that it will create jobs. The bad news is that the Arabs have to figure out how to knock sense into the thick skulls of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and all the other Palestinian players who need to understand that they have to be united to counter this onslaught. As the Israelis continued their withdrawal, though, supposedly they have destroyed buildings and other infrastructure according to reports Al Jazeera complied from eyewitnesses.
There has to be a better way.
Mike Pouraryan
