For the children

I've known for years that the kids page of the Sunday newspaper, a Knight Ridder production, is unabashedly leftist and propagandist. Today's KidNews (Here's the best online copy I can find.) tries to indoctrinate the kids early into Jew-hating.

As per Rantingprof's suggestions, I took the trouble to look up the author of this hit piece. Amanda Rogers normally writes fluff for parents on how to make bedtime easier, and how to keep the tweens busy during the summer break. This foray into international politics has not been a successful one for her, but I really don't see that she's any worse than most of her colleagues who actually do report on foreign affairs.

Since the end of World War I, Arabs and Jews have disagreed over boundary lines in the area of the world that was ancient Palestine, with bloody and fatal results. Suicide bombs and military and terrorist attacks have killed thousands on each side.

Now, Israel is building a barrier to separate the Palestinian area of the West Bank. Built to protect the Israelis, the barrier has increased the tension.

Actually... ancient Palestine was a Roman puppet state. The same area was previously ancient Israel, which was, for considerable spans of time, an independent kingdom. Arabs and Jews have mostly disagreed over the right of Jews to exist at all. And homicide bombs and terrorist attacks have certainly not killed thousands on both sides. They've killed thousands of Israelis, and a rather smaller number of suicidal murderers and terrorists.

On May 14, 1948, Israel announced that it was an independent Jewish nation. The next day, Arabs attacked. After the fighting was over in 1949, Israel was in control of some of the land the U.N. had designated for the Palestinian Arabs. The rest of the area the United Nations had intended for Palestinian Arabs was taken over by Egypt and Jordan.

I love that approach. "The next day, Arabs attacked." Arabs? Which Arabs? (The Lebanese, Syrian, Transjordan, Iraqi, and Egyptian armies, in fact.) How many Arabs? (A bunch.) Why were they attacking? (Well, because they wanted to push the Jews into the sea.) The fighting was over by 11 June 1948, but the armistices weren't signed until 1949. That's just a bad job of researching. "Israel was in control of some of the land the U.N. had designated for the Palestinian Arabs." Oops... how did that happen? Did the Israeli army actually capture some land while defending itself against a massive war of aggression? Uh-huh. Did that land just happen to be strategically significant? Why yes, yes it was. And what happened to the rest of the land? The majority of it, in fact? Ummm...Egypt and Jordan took it. No further comment.

A brief discussion of various peace efforts follows. It's not specific, but that's okay. It's also not too slanted. Rogers does conveniently fail to mention that the PLO was the main Palestinian terrorist organization. Actually, so far she's forgotten to mention that it's the Palestinians who have been fronting the terrorists all along, and the Israeli army that has been confronting them.

What is the Barrier?

Israel has begun building a 450-mile fence around the Palestinian areas of the West Bank to stop terrorist attacks on Israelis.

The barrier, which is made of concrete in some areas and wire in others, encroaches on the Palestinians' area of the West Bank. In some places the barrier separates farmers from their crops and divides families. The barrier is manned by soldiers, and the Palestinian Arabs are sometimes not able to get through, which is making it hard for them to get to jobs, their farms and their relatives.

Oh, so we've finally noticed that Israelis face terrorist attacks. It's about time. Unfortunately, this article came on a very inopportune day.

Now let me get out my squinty eyes - There's some small print. Ms. Rogers cited her sources. (I'd like to commend her, by the way, for doing so.)

http://www.un.org/depts/dpa/ngo/history.html
http://palestinehistory.com/palst.htm
http://www.palestine-net.com/history/bhist.html
http://hejleh.com/countries/palestine.html
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_3238.shtml
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1114/p08s01-wome.html
http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gz.html
Aaaand, her only two hard-copy sources: the Associated Press, and the World Book Encyclopedia.

Go ahead, visit those pages and tell me if you think Ms. Rogers's research was balanced and unbiased. Not counting the two hard copy sources, I count one purely factual source in the CIA World Factbook, and one legitimate NGO source, namely the United Nations. The Christian Science Monitor is a perfectly reputable source. But palestinehistory.com? Palestine-net.com? Heljeh.com is a website devoted the the Arabic family name, Heljeh. Their family website includes such delightful links as this one: "The Truth About Israel: Israel, the Palestinians, the US Zionism, the Gulf war & facts largely ignored by US media," and even a link to Al Aqsa. Charming. And my personal favorite, axisoflogic.com. C'mon, she honestly thought that a website with a name like that was going to be a reliable source? A website that reprints articles with titles like this: "Is your Religion Unsanitary? Is God telling you to love war? Loathe gays? Restrict women? Join the godless throngs now!"? Sure. Right.

Welcome to real journalism, Ms. Rogers. You're fired.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. The UN source is a lousy one too.

One of the two States envisaged in the partition plan proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war expanded to occupy 77 per cent of the territory of Palestine. Israel also occupied the larger part of Jerusalem. Over half the indigenous Palestinian population fled or were expelled. Jordan and Egypt occupied the other parts of the territory assigned by the partition resolution to the Palestinian Arab State which did not come into being.

Ummm... care to mention that Israel didn't start the 1948 war? They do the exact same thing with the 1967 war. The war begun, Israel took some land. The bridge built, Caesar crossed it.

Important note for the real world outside grade school. It does matter who started the fight.