CNN

Timeline of Alan Johnston Captivity
AP, July 4,2007
published on FOXnews.com

British Broadcasting Corp. reporter Alan Johnston was held the longest of any foreigner in the Gaza Strip.

— March 12, 2007: Johnston is captured outside his Gaza City apartment street by gunmen. No group takes responsibility.

— April 5: A senior British diplomat and BBC officials meet Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas to push for Johnston’s release, the first of several meetings between British diplomats and Hamas officials about Johnston. It is the first time British officials hold talks with Hamas officials in the Palestinian unity government, despite a Western boycott of the Islamic militant group.

— April 15: A previously unknown Palestinian group called “The Brigades of Tawheed of Jihad” says it killed Johnston. The BBC and Palestinian government say there is no evidence to back up the claim.

— April 17: Palestinian journalists in Gaza demonstrate to demand Palestinian security do more to win Johnston’s release.

— April 19: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says his intelligence services confirmed that Johnston is alive and that he knows which group is holding him.

— May 9: A shadowy militant group calling itself “The Army of Islam” says it is holding Johnston and posts a photo of his identity card on an Al Qaeda-linked Web site. The group demands the release of a militant Islamic cleric linked to Al Qaeda who is held in a U.K. jail.

— June 1: Johnston appears in a video posted on an Islamic militant Web site, saying he has been treated well, and calling for the lifting of international sanctions against the Palestinian government.

— June 14: Hamas routs forces linked to Abbas’ Fatah Party and completes a military takeover of Gaza.

—June 15: Abbas fires Haniyeh. The Hamas rulers in Gaza refuse to relinquish power and pledge to release Johnston.

— June 25: A video shows Johnston wearing what appears to be an explosives belt and warns it will be detonated if an attempt is made to free him by force. He says the “situation is very serious.”

— July 2: Hamas arrests the Army of Islam’s spokesman to put pressure on Johnston’s kidnappers.

— July 3: Hamas forces surround the hideout where Johnston is held.

— July 4: Johnston is released.

CNN

It was all so predictable, actually it was predicted.

from The Nation:

In February, 2006, former President Jimmy Carter, who expertise with regard to the Middle East is respected almost everywhere but the United States, warned that, “My concern is that in order to try, on behalf of the United States and Israel, to punish Hamas, we’ll actually going to be punishing the Palestinian people who are already living in deprivation. And it’s going to turn the Palestinian people even more against the West and against Israel, against us and make Hamas seem to be, you know, their only friend. So this will strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian people. I think it’s a counterproductive ploy to try to punish Hamas.”

Don’t Punish the Palestinians
By Jimmy Carter
Monday, February 20, 2006; Page A21
The Washington Post

CNN’s Cristianne Amanpour

Gaza: Another Mess Made in U.S.
Tony Karon a journalist from Capetown, South Africa

Everyone following the conflict in Gaza knows full well that the reason for the violence is not that Palestinians have not “sorted out their politics” — they’ve made their political preferences abundantly clear in democratic elections, and later in a power-sharing agreement brokered by the Saudis. The problem is that the U.S. and the corrupt and self-serving warlords of Fatah did not accept either the election result or the unity government, and have conspired actively ever since to reverse both by all available means, including starving the Palestinian economy of funds, refusing to hand over power over the Palestinian Authority to the elected government, and arming and training Fatah loyalists to militarily restore their party’s power. Unfortunately, after three days of some of the most savage fighting ever seen in Gaza, that strategy now lies in tatters. Fatah is, quite simply, no longer a credible fighting force in Gaza, where it has long been in decline as a credible political force.

Another case of blowback

In it’s comparison CNN leaves out the some basic similarities and some very important differences. For example, te fact that both live under a brutal Israeli occupation is never mentioned. Neither is the fact that Israel supported the creation and funding of Hamas. It’s another case of blowback.

CNN’s comparison

By Richard Sale
UPI Terrorism Correspondent
06/18/02 “UPI”

Active in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas wants to liberate all of Palestine and establish a radical Islamic state in place of Israel. It is has gained notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other acts of terrorism.

But Sharon left something out.
Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.

Israel “aided Hamas directly — the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),” said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel’s support for Hamas “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,” said a former senior CIA official.

According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were “weak and dormant” until after the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab enemies.

After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood was due to their activities among the refugees of the Gaza Strip. The cornerstone of the Islamic movements success was an impressive social, religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da’wah, that worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian refugees, confined to camps, and many who were living on the edge.

“Social influence grew into political influence,” first in the Gaza Strip, then on the West Bank, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement’s spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association by the name Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social work.

According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted to set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like Khomeini’s Iran.

CNN’s Zain Verjee examines the role of the US in the battle between Fatah and Hamas. Clearly the US has supported Fatah with arms and military training. At the same time the US has supported an Israeli blockade of the Palestinian Authority which has resulted in wide scale poverty among Palestinian people. The US then blackmailed EU and Arab countries to honor the blockade. All but Norway have obeyed.

CNN International

Aaron David Miller points out the very low credibility of the US in the region. He has never seen the situation more grim than it is today. “Everything in every corner of this region is heading south which will damage US interests”.

When the state department was asked about whether the 60 million dollars in military aid to Fatah contributed to the current violence they responded “we are not going to pay the rent for terrorism or for the rejection of Israel”

John Stewart should have a field day with that.

CNNI notes Palestinians fleeing Gaza will harm a future “Palestinian state.” Have they been drinking formaldahyde?:

CNNI fails to mention in its analysis that it’s Israel that closes the Rafah crossing.

Amira Hass notes in Ha’aretz:

Now [Hamas] will have full `military` control of the Gaza Strip. Will this bring relief to Gaza`s 1.4 million residents? Will it improve the health system and ensure employment for university graduates? Will it remove Israel`s land and sea blockade?

It may be assumed that the military takeover of Abbas` symbols of `sovereignty` will serve as an excuse for Israel to sever once and for all the remaining civilian and economic ties between the Gaza Strip and West Bank - a political process Israel started in 1991. Because Hamas, like its mirror image Fatah, has no coherent liberation or independence plan for Palestinians in this lifetime.

Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld writes in the Forward, “Let Palestine Split into Two:”

Neither Fatah nor Hamas would be able to speak - or even claim to speak - for the Palestinian people as a whole. Unable to speak for the Palestinian people as a whole, each of the two will find it easier, if not to stop insisting on the right of return, at least to put it aside for the time being.

The fighting in Gaza is not pretty; divorces rarely are. In the long run, however, it is at least conceivable that the war of Palestinian against Palestinian will lead to the removal of the single most important obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace. If so, then perhaps the blood currently flowing is not being shed altogether in vain.

30 Hamas Officials, including the education minister, arrested overnight by Israeli army.

According to CBS News

Israel Chooses Arrests Over Bloodshed

(CBS/AP) Israel extended its offensive against the ruling Palestinian militant group Hamas to the West Bank Thursday, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger, arresting more than 30 senior officials, including a Cabinet minister, parliamentarians and mayors.

Unfortunately, the CBS headline is wrong.

CNN International

Even by CNN’s Ben Wederman’s account, there have been at least 18 Palestinians killed in the latest assault by Israel. The way he puts it is:

“Israeli air raids have left more than two dozen militants dead but they’ve also killed nearly half that many civilians.”

Notice the passive language. “have left”

When reporting Israeli casualties from qassam rockets, Wederman says:
“the crude locally made rockets from Gaza have killed one Israeli and wounded more than 15.”

CNN coverage of Gaza

Gaza breaking down

Journalists under siege

Attack on PM house

It just continues.

Ignored almost entirely by the US media have been significant events concerning the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. An occupation which is never mentioned in any of the reports on the “mouse”.

Israel plans Jerusalem settlement
By Laila El-Haddad in Gaza , Al Jazeera

Israel has announced plans to build 20,000 new settler units on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem, prompting condemnation from Palestinians.

World Bank criticises Israel over Palestinian economy
by Mark Tran, Guardian Unlimited

In a harsh report (pdf), the bank criticised Israel for extending legitimate security measures to expand and protect settlement activity and the relatively unhindered movement of settlers and other Israelis in and out of the West Bank.

Shot West Bank woman ‘loses baby’
BBC

A pregnant Palestinian woman lost her baby after being shot by Israeli troops during a raid in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian officials said.

The Latest installment from CNN:

Wolf Blitzer opens by describing the mouse as a

“menacing lead character on a kids show in Gaza”

which

“raised eyebrows around the world”

and in one episode

“mimics shooting Israeli’s with AK 47’s”

All of this may be true and the cartoon may be despicable but it is still a far cry from the reality of hate that the children of the West Bank and Gaza experience every day from the Israeli army, Jewish settlers, the US imposed blockade and subsequent starvation etc.

Evidently the Palestinian Minister of Information, Moustafa Barghouti, acted to suspend the show until it could be revised. Hamas responded Friday by continuing the show and adding some context.

They showed the video of the aftermath of a Palestinian family being blown up on a Gaza beach last summer. This is the incident which led ultimately to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

In his usual style of reporting everything from an Israeli perspective, Ben Wederman never mentions the word “occupation” and states that Palestinians blame Israel for the incident on the beach but that Israel denies it.

There were reports by objective third parties which clearly asign blame for the incident to an Israeli artillery shell. Chris Mcrgreal, writing for the Guardian, and Human Rights Watch, investigated the denials of the Israeli army and demonstrated them to be rediculous. Any responsible journalist would have noted this.

However, in US media, once Israel denies something, that is the end of the story. It happened with Rachel Corrie, it happened with Mohammad Dura and it happened with the family of Huda Ghalia.

Mr. McGreal notes the effect of Mohammad Dura on the Gaza Beach incident.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, initially apologised for the killings but the military swiftly realised it was confronting another PR disaster to rival that of the killing of Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old boy who died in his father’s arms amid a barrage of gunfire six years ago and became the first iconic victim of the intifada.

The army quickly convened a committee to investigate the deaths on the beach and almost as swiftly absolved itself of responsibility.

The Guardian and Human Rights Watch carefully go thru the evidence including the timing of the incident and army records of shelling. They were able to identify the shell

From the number of shells counted beforehand by the survivors, Mr Garlasco believes the killer shell was one the army records as fired at 4.34pm.

The Israeli’s have made very good use of the US media’s proclivity to just report what they say. So the lesson learned by the Israeli government and the Bush administration has been to just keep repeating something, no matter how easy it is to disprove it, and the media will keep reporting it. Whatever it is then becomes part of the dialogue. The media make it so.

Finally Mr. Wederman closes his Mickey Mouse segment with the very sad acknowledgement :

Hamas TV may be exploiting the trauma of Gaza’s children but the ground was already fertile, If anything, this weeks program underscores a simple reality. Hamas is set on teaching a new generation of Palestinian children that co-existence is simply not an option.

Isn’t that precisely the message of the occupation?

Since Paula Zahn’s show last night, CNN has been running a video clip provided for them by MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch, two pro-Israel propaganda groups. The clip is of a new cartoon airing on Al Aqsa TV in Gaza.

CNN never even bothered to get independent verification of the translation and of course it is disputed. Every CNN show ran the clip with different commentary, though each expressed equal outrage.

The most disappointing however was CNN International. Rosemary Church seemed particularly upset by the message as described by Jim Clancy as a “powerful message of HATE, RESISTANCE and DEFIANCE”, being received by children.

Does Jim Clancy or Rosemay Church really believe that it takes propaganda to teach Palestinian children to hate the occupiers? On a daily basis these children see their homes demolished their friends killed their parents arrested or killed and all humiliated.

What they see on a daily basis is real hate being paid for by the American people, protected by the American government and demonstrated to them through the use of F16 fighter jets, Blackhawk helicopters, tanks and M16s.

They don’t need a cartoon to teach them hate, they have the Israeli army. YET, most do not. They wear baseball caps of US sports teams, they talk of visiting the US and they ask everyone who visits “why we do this to them.”

I did not see CNN and Fox and Huffington Post and America Blog asking why 9 Palestinians were killed over a two day period just a week and a half ago.

What do you think their children felt? Do you think they wanted to bring flowers to the occupiers?