“Rejoice” with the NY Times–part II

I mentioned that I’d read two articles in the NY Times. If you haven’t already, please read my other post first. Here’s the second one:

August 15, 2005
Gazans Harbor Modest Dreams Amid Concerns
By JAMES BENNET

“Modest Dreams” — almost touching, isn’t it? That’s just the headline, care to guess how the rest of the article reads?

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip, Aug. 14 – Militants have done so much of the dreaming for Gaza’s Palestinians for so long that others seem almost to have lost the habit.

No terrorists there, note, only “militants.”

Now, on the eve of the scheduled departure of Gaza’s other highly ambitious residents – the Israelis settlers who hoped to hold the land forever – Gazans are tentatively contemplating an unfamiliar possibility, new freedom. Most have what might seem modest notions of what do with it.

What a blow it will be when they find out that with their precious new freedom, they will be just as poor and squalid as ever.

“To go upstairs,” said Muhammad Bashir, 12, when asked Sunday what he dreamed of after the withdrawal. His home here in central Gaza is about 70 yards from an Israeli military base guarding the settlement of Kfar Darom. At the start of the last Palestinian uprising almost five years ago, the Israeli Army took over the upper two floors.

Whose fault is it that Israeli soldiers had to guard Kfar Darom? What happened first, do you think ? Did the Israelis shoot at Bashir’s home, or did Bashir’s dad shoot at the Israelis, hm?

To the west, the Mediterranean horizon looks limitless, an open invitation to dreamers. But an Israeli naval blockade keeps Gaza’s fishing boats within a few miles and its fishermen’s ambitions in check. Citing a danger of arms smuggling and terrorist attack, Israel for now plans to maintain its cordon around Gaza.

Weasel words again, “Citing a danger….” — as if the Israelis are just making excuses to keep the poor Gazan Palestinians bottled up.

“To go farther,” said Nasser Bakr, a 40-year-old fisherman, when asked his own hopes for life after the Israelis leave Gaza. “To fish wherever we want”

Such modest dreams, melts your heart, doesn’t it? All he wants is to be able to take his little fishing boat out and get some fish for his poor family, and the dastardly Israelis thwart his modest dreams.

Reminds me of that old saying, “Give a Palestinian a fish and you feed him for a day. Give him a fishing boat and he can bring in guns and bombs for a lifetime.”

On Sunday in Gaza City, Hamas strung blazing green banners: “Resistance wins,” read one, “so let’s go on.” Around the corner was a banner from the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by a more secular faction, Fatah. “Gaza today,” it read, “the West Bank and Jerusalem Tomorrow.” A tag line said the banner was paid for by the United Nations Development Program.

What a bombshell of a paragraph! (Excuse the crude humor.)

“Gaza today, Jerusalem tomorrow.”

There it is again, the wish shared by the Palestinians and the NY Times. And did you get a load of who paid for those banners? Let’s read that again: “paid for by the United Nations Development Program.”

(Remember the guy Bush appointed as US Ambassador to the UN? John Bolton? The NY Times opposed him because he didn’t have much faith in the United Nations! hahaha, what a screwball, a guy with no faith in the UN!)

On Friday evening , the Palestinian Authority held a rally by Gaza’s small seaport to mark the withdrawal…..”Today is the beginning of the fishermen’s journey to Jerusalem,” declared Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.

Does this sound like the NY Times expressing sympathy for Israel and hope for the future of the Jewish people? Hm?

Not to be ignored, Hamas replied on Saturday with a news conference featuring the largest public gathering of its leaders in years. Several of the men had been hunted by Israel.

Hamas “leaders.” Their leaders had been “hunted by Israel.”

Why? Please tell us, oh New York Times, why were their leaders hunted?

The men were introduced by a tape-recording of machine-gun fire and the voices of leaders killed by Israel.

Oh lookee here, some of their “leaders” were “killed” by Israel.

I am reading this, and writing this, and trying to maintain my composure, and meanwhile I find that I hate the NY Times with a passion I normally reserve for the Arab “leaders” who are “hunted” by Israel after they murder Jewish babies in their strollers.

“Jihad is continuous,” declared one of them, Abdel al-Rantisi.

Asked if the intifada was over, Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, replied: “It’s not over. We’re going to continue as long as the occupation continues.”

The NY Times is quite blatant about its sympathies.

From her farm in the northern Gaza Strip, Madeha Abu Nada, 46, has watched the residents of the settlement of Elei Sinai pack up….On Oct. 1, 2001, Bilal Rayan, a son of the Hamas leader, joined in a suicidal attack on Eli Sinai in which an Israeli couple was killed. The Israelis responded in part by bulldozing Ms. Abu Nada’s orchards of orange, lemon and guava trees.

Did you notice that Bilal Rayan (son of a *leader*) joined in a SUICIDAL ATTACK? Did you catch that? Note the subtle difference between “a suicide attack” and “a suicidal attack.” Why this fellow was positively heroic!

What did the Israelis do in response to this fellow’s heroic attack? They bulldozed the orchards of an innocent bystander. yeah, mm-hm

In his office at Roots, Mr. Eleiwa has hung an embroidered verse by a Palestinian poet:

Gaza came to me in the dress of a hungry woman.
She laid her tired head on my arm, and we both cried.
And the black trees got wet in our eyes.

I guess the era of great Arabic poetry is well and truly over.

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Today I saw a picture of a Jewish child being evicted from his home by a young Jewish soldier. The boy hung his head on the arm of the soldier. And they both cried.

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1 Response

  1. ralphie says:

    Anyone who thinks the Palestinian people are going to have it any better now are fooling themselves. The majority of their employers just left voluntarily or otherwise. The thugs are coming in to rule. They won’t be getting any better living quarters – the newly vacated areas will be populated by well connected autocrats and their flunkies. The “free” borders and ports will be used for free import of weapons and little else.

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