When Al Jazeera meets B'Tselem

The folks in B'Tselem are very nice, I am sure. Their souls bleed for every person hurt in this world, only on one condition - that the person not be Jewish. You see, Jooz are out of scope of this nice Jewish organization. Of course, there are some other outfits that worry about Jooz, so B'Tselem naturally leaves this angle to them.

And now B'Tselem issued another yearly report about the misdeeds of their fellow (?) Jooz. I have chosen to use the rendition of their report by Al Jazeera - for a better lighting, if you catch my drift.

From January to December 2006, the Israeli military killed 655 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem - a huge rise on last year.

The defining moment was the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 26, after which the number of Palestinian civilians killed increased greatly.

Sarit Michaeli, communications director of B'Tselem, said: "Following the kidnapping of Corporal Shalit, Israel staged several operations inside Gaza where Israeli forces killed 405 Palestinians over six months."

There is that elusive something in the passage above that didn't ring any bells in the collective minds of Al Jazeera / B'Tselem scribes. Let's see another example:

One issue relating to the rise in the number of Palestinians killed has been the increased Israeli military activity against Qassam rockets fired from the Palestinian territories.

"Most Palestinians were killed during military operations, of which Israeli military fire, attempting to hit Qassam rocket launchers in the territories, ends up killing civilians," Michaeli said.

Still not a bell? even a tiny jingle? I am helpless then. And trying to preach something to Al Jazeera people who are blaming the Jooz for any shortcoming and any problem in the Arab world is difficult to useless. So let's leave it at the hint level.

There is one more thing worth a mention in that Al Jazeera piece:

No, it is not the picture above, it is the caption to the picture that stopped my breath:

Civilians often pay the price in so-called targeted killings of activists [EPA]

And why did it make me so excited? Simple: on May 1, 2006 I have offered the term "activist" as one of the operating nouns for the euphemistically bound mass media, for whom even the term "militant" seems too strong a replacement of the politically incorrect "terrorist". And here we can observe it already in use. Will wonders ever cease?

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

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