When they were giving him his journalism training, the good folks at Reuters must have forgotten to mention the whole “you have to report the news” thing to Nidal al-Mughrabi. But hey, why be a reporter when you can use an international newswire organization to convince yourself that you’re a freedom fighter. The following article is reproduced in full – there is, indeed, not a single redeeming word in the entire thing. Please keep in mind this is ostensibly a news article:
GAZA (Reuters) – Picking through the rubble of buildings blown up by Israeli soldiers on a mission to destroy weapons factories, Palestinians on Thursday recalled their only ray of light in two days of siege.
“News about the killing of six soldiers was our only relief amid all that horror,” Anwar Abed said about troops blown to bits on Tuesday by a land mine in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighborhood, a bastion of militant groups dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
“It cheered us up but we could not shout because there were soldiers outside.”
This pamphleteer reporter is celebrating this view – the phrase “blown to bits” is not meant to be read as an expression of horror, but rather with the same enthusiasm that a 10 year old takes describing his success at a video game. He’s not reporting these people’s glee in the murder, mutiliation, and attempted ransom of six human beings, he’s participating in it.
Abed and his 10-member family spent two days huddled in their kitchen, the only room in their house which they believed would be safe from the gunfire of fierce battles between soldiers and militants.
We had no food, no water, no electricity. Children wept non-stop. It was two nights of hell,” he said.
Reading this part of the article, you’d never know that the Israelis were there for those two days because of the murder, mutilation, and attempted ransom of their comrades!! You’d think, quite reasonably, that those things happened after the fact. In fact, you wouldn’t find out about “the fact” at all, because the whole “Gazans turned into barbaric primitives who hoisted a severed head to the cheering of women and children and then tried to blackmail Israel for the bodies” factoid somehow falls through the cracks. In fact, in this article about the two days of fighting, there is not even a gesture toward a hint of suggesting why it started.
Residents kept track of events outside their door by listening to the radio, with the volume kept low to avoid attracting the attention of the troops on the streets.
Because you know that if the Israelis found out that there were people in those houses they’d kill them all. Because that’s what the Israelis were there for – to kill civilians (they didn’t really get any – they must be really bad at their jobs!) Psst – don’t tell the Israelis that there are people living in those houses!! Hide, hide!!
Seriously, what the hell? What’s more pathetic – that Reuters published a story that pretty much openly implies that Israeli troops were actively looking for Palestinian civilians to massacre, or that Leftists in Europe and America believe that?
As Zeitoun residents searched through the rubble of dozens of destroyed buildings, a boy pulled a Mickey Mouse blanket from under the debris. Another youngster ran across the road carrying a chunk of metal from an armored personnel carrier that a powerful explosion reduced to scrap.
Yeah – that kid was only looking for his Mickey Mouse blanket because the Israeli army took away the limbs of their comrades, which were last week’s playthings on the Gaza street (but hey, they left behind the metal from the APC, so at least little Timmy can still play with that).
“At least it was some consolation that a price was paid for all that sabotage and destruction. We killed soldiers,” he said.
Remember – those two days of Israeli searches came because Palestinians killed those soldiers and then kept the bodies in the first place.
Sixteen Palestinians were killed and some 200 wounded during the two days of street battles, medics said.
Suleiman Hejje, 55, and his family of 11 had a particularly close call.
He said they got out just in time before soldiers blew up the seven-story building in which they lived.
Mommy, why did the mean old Israelis blow up those Palestinian houses? Because they were making bombs in their living rooms I just don’t know dear, I just don’t know…
