Monday, January 02, 2006

Smuggler's Blues

Yassir Sharon has been telling all the sheep who blindly follow him that Israel is now safer and more secure because of the unconditional capitulation of Gaza he orchestrated. Well, the facts that are piling in suggest Sharon's assertion is a bald-faced lie.

This from Debka:

Shin Beit 2005 Report confirms vast scale of war materiel smuggled from Egypt to Gaza since Sept. 12, the day of Israel’s pull-back. Listed are 5,000 automatic rifles, a million bullets, anti-air and hundreds of anti-tank missiles, mortars and 5 tons of explosives. The anti-air weapons in terrorist hands place Israeli air force counter-operations over the Gaza Strip at risk. If conveyed to the West Bank, they will imperil civil aviation in Israeli skies.

Since the Israeli evacuation, the Palestinians are engaged in a massive effort to extend their terror infrastructure to the West Bank and manufacture high-trajectory weapons. Egyptian border troops and Palestinian security forces are partners in the gunrunning operation into the Gaza.

The report presented by Israel’s domestic security agency paints West Bank and Gaza Strip security in the form of dry statistics updated to mid-December 2005. Its contents confirm the revelations DEBKAfile began publishing around the pivotal September date. They starkly refute the arguments offered by prime minister Ariel Sharon and his spokesmen, defense minister Shaul Mofaz and senior IDF officers, in defense of Gaza’s handover to Palestinian control as producing an improvement in Israel’s security situation. The last two weeks of the year not covered in the report saw a further grave decline.


I think you have to either be dumb as a rock or a total anti-Semite to believe concessions and good will gestures are good for Israel. Oh, I forgot, you could be a liberal, too.

-MZ

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, because we can trust debka not to invent stuff.

Mad Zionist said...

I'm a bit confused. Is liberal David suggesting the Shin Bet Report is a fraud because it appears on Debka? Maybe Al Jazeera would have been a more believable source? I can't get over how far the extreme left grasps at straws to support their ridiculous arguments.

nanc said...

i'm wondering where the left gets truth? have been lately thinking of going on a cyber diet - that is no cyber in my diet. i have been watching two of my favorite cyber people go at each other at fpm like nobody's business and am surely losing faith. if you do not see me in the next couple of days, you'll know why. i must put on five more pounds to get up to my ideal 125!

good to see you, kuhnkat, and madze, of course that goes without saying.

Mad Zionist said...

nanc, you're having trouble gaining weight? Oy, I put on five pounds at dinner.

Anonymous said...

To translate david: "I refuse to believe it."

It could be on Al Jazeera or BBC and lefties would just chalk it up to the media caving to the right lol.
Heck it could come from the lips of Michael Moore and they'd just call him a traitor.

Anonymous said...

I'm a bit confused mz. I've never said I'm liberal...what makes you assume that I am?

kuhnkat, read what Howard Kurtz has to say: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200303/msg00316.html Hardly scandalous, but enough to be wary that they may not be the most conscientious of journalists. Also, a quick google news search turned up just them for this story (although I may have missed it somewhere, or debka might actually be ahead of the pack). I'm holding off judgement until such time as a news agency with a decent reputation publishes this.

Again nanc, I've never said that I'm on "the Left", so why assume that I am? Because I disagree with you and therefore must be polar opposite? I wouldn't be getting my truth from a security agency report (we all know how trustworthy they are these days) published solely by a little known news agency who have been described as biased.

rwm,
i'm not really sure what you're trying to say, but that's not your fault. hours of fox news (or other right wing propaganda mongers) have clearly left you with an inability for rational thought, and a case of a right wing tourette's-like syndrome, which causes you to spew the usual "al jazeera bad" "michael moore traitor" stuff. Moore, o'reilly and co are the epitome of what's wrong with the world today.

nanc said...

david - i never said you are on the left - go read my statement again - methinks you protest toooooo much - which is a common trait among the left. careful or you'll show your hand.

now i must go eat some more waffles and maybe a quart of ice cream, oh and a bowl of blackeyed peas, yeah and some bread with butter...

Anonymous said...

ok, obviously i misunderstood. It's just that considering the discussion i thought your comment "i'm wondering where the left gets truth?" was referring to me. If it wasn't then fair enough.

Mad Zionist said...

Liberal David said: I'm a bit confused mz. I've never said I'm liberal...what makes you assume that I am?

David, whether or not you choose to identify yourself as a liberal is really of no importance to me. The fact is, I believe you are.

This is based on a number of reasons, most notably that every comment you've ever made at this site has been in opposition to me and the conservative commentators who frequent this blog, and the fact that you have previously sided with far left commentator Dana (who I actually respect more than you because at least she doesn't play coy about the fact that she's a leftist). This is all I really need to form an opinion about you David.

You also dropped the ball on any pretense of your politics by attacking Debka and Fox news as you did. It was right out of the liberal manifesto.

Sorry David, but I could care less whether or not you think you are a liberal. My opinions are being challenged by you in the same exact manner as all the other liberals who oppose me, therefore I have concluded that you are a leftist until you begin making conservative comments to the contrary.

-MZ

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter to me whether you beleive I'm a liberal or not. I don't take offence at being called a liberal, and I sure wasn't playing coy. What I don't like however is the way you attempt to garner support for your beliefs by polarising the discussion into "lefties" and "righties". The fact that I'm liberal had nothing to do with the discussion. It was merely an attempt to discredit me, because well if you agree with a leftie then you must be a leftie. Which is complete nonsense by the way.

MZ: "You also dropped the ball on any pretense of your politics by attacking Debka and Fox news as you did. It was right out of the liberal manifesto."

I questioned Debka's legitimacy as a source for information. It hardly has the reputation of organisations such as Reuters, or the BBC. When you're dealing with news reports you need to be careful who it's coming from. As for Fox News, well you'd need to be incredibly naive, dysfunctional, or disillusioned, depending on your circumstance, to beleive that it's not biased. You don't have to be liberal to realise that.

Mad Zionist said...

Liberal David said: I questioned Debka's legitimacy as a source for information. It hardly has the reputation of organisations such as Reuters, or the BBC.

Why not just throw in the Guardian and Al Jazeera to your list of "reputable" news sources while you're at it, David? I rest my case.

As for polarizing, I'm glad you brought that up, as I am a firm believer in polarizing the Left. I do not go for political correctness or diplomacy here, nor do I have any desire to make black and white situations grey.

Other sites may focus on finding common ground and making friends with those of different political beliefs, but this is not one of them. I am only intersted in exposing and debunking leftists, particularly as it relates to Israel, and if that bothers you, well, so be it.

Anonymous said...

The fact of the matter is, mz, that neither Aljazeera nor The Guardian have ever (as far as I know) released a story that wasn't true. Debka, and Fox News, on the other hand, both have.

You said that you respect Dana more than me, because "she doesn't play coy about the fact that she's a leftist", but Fox News play coy about the fact that they're, for the most part, rightist with their "Fair and Balanced" slogan. Do you have less respect for them as a result?

I'm not asking you to make friends with anyone, or be diplomatic, or anything you don't want to do. However, if your arguments are as solid and correct as your posts assume then you should have no need to polarise, and your dissenters' political leanings should be irrelevant.

Mad Zionist said...

Liberal David astonishingly says: The fact of the matter is, mz, that neither Aljazeera nor The Guardian have ever (as far as I know) released a story that wasn't true.

All I can say, David, is WOW! Are you really this blind and naive or are you just looking for reaction?

Now, regarding your arch-enemy, FOX News, I would agree that they have a pro-Republican bent in their news coverage. However, when it comes to Israel they are nearly as liberally biased as CNN in their field reporting, particularly the insufferable Palestinian apologist Jennifer Griffin.

I have no idea why you think I'm such a Fox fanatic, David, since I almost never site them in my posts.

As far as Debka, if you have to reach as far as you did to find a single technicality mistake you've only confirmed that they are indeed a very reliable news source. Thanks for unwittingly making that point for us, David.

As for my dissenters political leanings needing "to be irrelevent", well, I think I've made it perfectly clear that the fact that liberals disagree with me is my whole point. I welcome it. I'd be more concerned if liberals started agreeing with me, actually.

-MZ

nanc said...

i love seeing kuhnkat in a good mood! tells me all is well in his world. some people never disappoint, do they kuhnkat?

now i must go have a couple of sandwiches, a claussen dill and maybe another helping of ice cream. oooooh, almost forgot the chocolate dipped ruffles tater chips - beamish would like that recipe.

nanc said...

omg kuhnkat! heaven forbid at almost fifty! no, i'm on a diet. see my earlier post.

now, i've got to go eat again - hmmmm, what sounds good.......?

Anonymous said...

Kuhnkat,

it's rich that you demand sources of me when, firstly, I already gave you the link to mine, and secondly you don't give any sources for *anything* you present as fact.

If you have a specific problem with Reuters or the BBC then please outline them here. I don't dispute the fact that they don't contain bias, since it's almost impossible to write articles without betraying some level of bias. However, I've never heard of the BBC, nor Reuters releasing obvious fabrications. Fox News have with the whole John Kerry metrosexual story, for instance. Yes they retracted it later, and the excuse they gave is that it started as an internal joke that somehow got released as news. While I could understand a news agency, which reports something that a source has presented as fact, a news agency that reports an internal joke is clearly really incompetent, or decided to report it out of malice. (This isn't the first or last time it happened, they also at one stage reported he's French).

I'll admit that I haven't read all that much of Aljazeera, but I've never personally come across or heard of stories which have been fabricated. If you can show me some then please do.

Yes, CNN did suppress negative reports about what was going on in Saddam Hussein's regime, because they didn't want to endanger the lives of their staff there. Read "The News We Kept to Ourselves" and tell me you'd have done differently. I would indeed suspect that they're not the only ones who haven't released reports, however their reasons were altruistic, not malicious.

It's rich calling me a "putrid little mind that needs to grow up" when you're the one who's resorted to name calling.

MZ,

I don't think you're a Fox News fanatic. You said that my Fox News statement revealed me to be a liberal, and I was merely justifying that statement, and why it didn't in fact necessarily mean that I'm liberal.

I didn't have to go very far to find the Debka "technicality mistake" as you like to call it. The fact of the matter is however that I'm not the only one who doesn't trust Debka. Look at the comments on this site for instance -> http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/11167

MZ: "As for my dissenters political leanings needing "to be irrelevent", well, I think I've made it perfectly clear that the fact that liberals disagree with me is my whole point. I welcome it. I'd be more concerned if liberals started agreeing with me, actually."

The reason why I said that your dissenters' political leanings need to be irrelevant, is that people who disagree with others solely based on political leaning (for example), and not for logical reasons, are known as bigots. I'd hate to find out you're one of those MZ.

Mad Zionist said...

David, with all do respect I'm bored with this dialogue. Let's just leave it like this: I don't like liberal ideology, I feel very strongly that it is a suicide cult of deviance, and nearly every post I make confirms this point with opinions based on real facts and links so you can discuss it with me and the other commentators.

If you disagree and believe liberalism is healthy and wonderful than by all means continue posting, but if you are trying to discredit stories because they aren't found in BBC, Al Jazeera or The Guardian than you will be talking to yourself.

I don't have rational discussions with irrational people, and anyone who is trying to sell me the story that these blatant leftwing media outlets are truly reliable, while any others that don't share their liberal bias are unacceptable, my answer is the same as the one I give to Holocaust deniers, Stalin apologists and village idiots: Bite me, because I'm not going there.

By the way, I strongly recommend you go to www.honestreporting.com if you really want to read some stinging examples of errors and bias in the BBC's and Reuters news reporting.

-MZ

Anonymous said...

Kuhnkat,

you know...it wasn't getting through but then you put it in capital letters and you know what...I get it! You really don't have a clue what I'm talking about do you? I'm not even sure that you know what *you're* talking about.

You said that CNN were propagandists for Saddam? I hardly think so. They admit to suppressing stories, because they claim that it would have endangered their journalists lives. To my knowledge this claim has never been disputed. If it really is the reason then they weren't doing it for Saddam and so weren't propagandists.

I'm not quite sure how what CNN do implies anything about other news organisations, but I'm sure you're just bursting to tell me.

I don't know whether you've noticed, but using copious amounts of capitals doesn't make people want to listen to you more.

Oh, by the way, a source is the place that you heard something. Telling me that the head of CNN said something is not helpful. The "head of CNN" that I *think* you're talking about is no longer the "head of CNN". Something like a link to a news article would be helpful. That's what I'd call a source.

nanc said...

kuhnkat, some lozenges are due for that sore throat you're going to have from all that YELLING!

also a great spot to check the media is newsbusters - a relatively new and informative site on media bias. i like it.

nanc said...

kuhnkat - when you're typing in your links be sure to hit the return key as sometimes they end up way over there---------beyond the margin

and don't post properly, for some strange reason.

Freedomnow said...

David you are intellectually dishonest. You said, "...Again nanc, I've never said that I'm on "the Left"..."

However, you later went on to say, "The fact that I'm liberal had nothing to do with the discussion. It was merely an attempt to discredit me..."

So you have been hiding behind a deception because you feel that the term liberal is derogatory.

How can anyone believe a word you say if you are willing to be so deceptive? ...And then you talk about how deceptive Fox news is?

Please dont talk about honesty and insult everyone around you.

Anonymous said...

Kuhnkat,

I haven't seen either of those videos, so I can't comment. So Reuters decide not to use the term terrorist? So what? Let them report the facts and the people can decide whether the perpetrators were terrorists. That's the way it should work. Reuters are right when they said that the word terrorist is emotive language. I hardly think that disclosure warrants the headline "Reuters Admits Appeasing Terrorists".

MZ,

I didn't find any mentions of story fabrication on the honestreporting.com site. Ok, some of the articles they posted contain biased phrases, but I think any reasonably intelligent person can spot those. It's not quite the same as just making things up though.

I don't care what bias the news agency has, what I do care about is their reputation. As far as I can tell Debka doesn't have a good reputation anywhere, which is what provoked my scepticism in the first place. I beleive in getting a story from a few different diverse locations, so for example if Fox News, Aljazeera, and the BBC agree on something then I know that it's probably true. That wasn't possible with this story since Debka are the only ones who are running it. That doesn't mean that it's not true, it just means that it's really hard to verify. Even if it had been the BBC reporting it, and only the BBC, I'd have wondered why.

Freedomnow,

I wasn't being deceptive at all. The term doesn't insult me in the slightest. What I meant was that, because I disagreed with the post, I was labelled as being a liberal. This was an attempt by MZ to create a polarised atmosphere. A "Look he disagrees with us, he must be a leftie". This was an attempt to distract from any points I might have had and instead reduce the conversation to a let's ridicule the leftie type affair. As I said my political leanings had nothing to do with this discussion, and yet they were made a part of it.

nanc said...

i'm glad david had the good sense to come back - i miss some of the ones we scared away permanently - besides, sometimes another point of view is good, even if it is wrong!

Anonymous said...

Kuhnkat,

I didn't say that the suppressed news wasn't an issue. I said that the reasons they gave for it, if true, are reasonable.

"And if the MSM DOESN'T carry it you just toss it out cause it is a single UNTRUSTED source."

Not toss it out, but treat it with the caution it deserves. Would you trust a single source?

I didn't say that the media suppresses negative stories all the time. Last time I turned on the television there was nothing but negative stories on the news, and the time before that...etc. Clearly they don't, but the case of CNN was a special one, and if what Eason Jordan says about protecting his staff is true then I can empathise.

nanc said...

david - please, okay guys, time for some nancanalogy:

if you had a wife who cheated on you, i pray you would forgive her THE FIRST TIME. if awhile later you found her cheating on you, i pray you would kick her to the curb - she's a cheater, liar, and covetous!

this is how most of us feel about the media who continually lie to us on a regular basis (not to be redundant). once could possibly be a faux pas, IF apologies are made - more than once you wonder if you should trust them ever again. we're leery. you should be leery too.

continual lying, misleading stories, tactics, all are to be scrutinized and that is why network news is dying, newspapers are dying and word of mouth is dying. we have the internet and have met people we can trust to tell us the truth.

please don't get kuhnkat stirred up - he's...you know...well...um...ours, yeah, he's ours and we don't like to see him stirred up - shaken, not stirred!

nanc said...

oh my Lord - now david's gone and done it - stirred, not shaken kuhnkat - not over, but room temp - i believe i'll stand back for a moment or six...

Anonymous said...

Nanc:"continual lying, misleading stories, tactics, all are to be scrutinized and that is why network news is dying, newspapers are dying and word of mouth is dying. we have the internet and have met people we can trust to tell us the truth."

I too distrust the media. We agree there. They've let me down many times as well. However there is no alternative. Bloggers who see themselves as pretenders to the throne of the so called "Mainstream media" however really do have delusions of grandeur. Bloggers are dependent on the media. Perhaps I'm wrong (I really hope I am), but there's not a single blog, that I've ever seen, that does good quality original journalism. For all their failings the media are still the only real source of news, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. When I got to the BBC website I know that there's a chance that what I'm reading may not be 100% factually accurate, but I also know that the BBC stake their reputation on their news. The day they stop providing best effort trustworthy news and start making stuff up is the day they become irrelevant. Perhaps blogs will evolve into something capable of replacing the current media down the line. For now, I wouldn't count on it. Don't get so hung up on biases in the media. Yes they exist, we all learnt that in school. Everyone has an axe to grind, but you really can't argue that blogs are any better. Sure it may be easier to find a blog, which consistently shares your bias, but that's hardly trustworthy news.

OK, I realise that my posts are turning into preachy rambling streams of consciousness. That's what no sleep does to you. I really have spent way too much time on this. Contrary to what you may think I actually do have a life to be getting on with ;)

nanc said...

david, i already said i'm glad to have you here, jeez - what do you want - a kiss?

two people in my life i love and respect beyond words are sooooo far to the left you cannot see them without binoculars. however, they are misguided and my consensus is they were put in my life for a reason or i was put in their lives for a reason. my belief is the latter.

of course, i am far more forgiving than some here, but i am also apologetic when the need arises. it is about give and take with me. i may afford you opportunities the others will not, but that is probably because i am one of the only females who post here, a wife, a mother, and grandmother. there is one thing you should remember: i don't give a crap; i don't take any crap; i'm not in the crap business.

many have tried to cozy up to me because i am a hot female, many have failed. and if you're trying to cozy up to me because you think i have a soft side, you are sorely mistaken - my soft side is reserved for the people i love. ask anyone here - i'm meannanc. rrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

nanc said...

p.s. david - i'm sure madze will keep you on board as long as you speak NO hate toward anyone here, or toward the people or nation of israel. he is, afterall, madzionist - the name enough should tell you where he stands. bring ideas, not the idea of an idea - i do enough of that and for some strange reason he keeps me around - hey, maybe i'm the tardo grandma, whom everyone just nods and smiles alot at....heads will roll!

Mad Zionist said...

I apologize for giving our disengenuous liberal friend David way too much attention, but because I just caught him red-handed telling a whopper of a lie I've decided to nail him to the wall for your viewing pleasure.

Liberal David said: I didn't find any mentions of story fabrication on the honestreporting site.

Madzionist delivers the knockout blow:

The BBC was actually named Honest Reporting's Most Dishonest News Agency of The Year.

Check it all out here, or just enjoy my little excerpts.

Here are a few of the top 10 reasons (listed in chronological order) why the BBC is HonestReporting's Dishonest Reporter of the Year.

9. Every morning, listeners can tune into BBC for an uplifting "Thought of the Day." One February morning, Rev. Dr. John Bell used the feature to describe an Arab-Israeli acquaintance only identified as "Adam." According to Rev. Dr. Bell, this acquaintance was "conscripted" into the Israeli army, where "he was also imprisoned for refusing to shoot unarmed schoolchildren." See the full transcript here.

After HonestReporting pointed out that Israeli-Arabs aren't required to serve in the IDF and that the allegations that soldiers have orders to shoot unarmed kids are wholly unfounded, the BBC apologized - but only for not fact-checking Adam's age and the issue of conscription. We still await a retraction about the non-existent orders to shoot kids.

8. In March, the BBC apologized to Israel for reporter Simon Wilson's handling of an interview with Mordechai Vanunu. A former technician at the Dimona nuclear plant, Vanunu is prohibited from talking to foreign reporters, but Wilson, in 2004, was caught trying to smuggle tapes of his interview out of the country. Although the apology - which paved the way for Wilson to return to Israel - was supposed to remain confidential, it was inexplicably posted on the BBC's own web site for several hours.

6. In May, BBC correspondent Orla Guerin reported that construction linking Maale Adumim to Jerusalem would split the West Bank in two, destroying any possibility of a viable Palestinian state. HonestReporting noted that construction in the area known as E-1 doesn't take away territorial contiguity. A map produced by our colleagues at CAMERA highlights how the Palestinians would have continuous territory, which, at its narrowest, would be nine miles (or 15 km) wide - which also happens to be the width of Israel's "waistline" between the Green Line and the Mediterranean.

Sorry to have to do that to you David, but you just kept pushing until I had to lay down the hammer. I would suggest all of you go to the above link for the full report of all the examples of bias and dishonesty in reporting.

********************

David, you are welcome to come back and keep posting despite this terrible humiliation, but I suggest you change the subject because I have more ammunition times a thousand on this topic, though I will only use it if provoked.

Rather than try and prove Al Jazeera and BBC are reputable, why not defend your political positions instead? It makes for much more interesting discussion.

nanc said...

madze - that had better not be you nodding and smiling alot at me!

Anonymous said...

Everything is verifiable - or not - and selective reporting can skew the view.

When the only news about something is bad when most of the reality is good, a bias is evident.

In the case of the MSM, it is a callous, deadly, treasonous bias.

Aside from outright lies, they magnify anything they can find if it will help the cause of our enemies and bury anything that will show them for what they are or show the unprecedented good we have accomplished.

Who is trying to get a legislated headlock on the internet and talkradio?
Hint: It's not the right.

Why does the left try to do this?
Because that is where their lies are exposed and it has cost them every election since it became commonly available.

How?
By simply providing verifiable information (for those actually interested) that they dont control.

It's no secret that the MSM, like academia, is almost fully staffed by lefties.
It's quite literally a job requirement.
Small wonder that they refuse to report the results of socialism (marxism) and multiculturalism (racism) or even acknowledge the 100 million+ people murdered by their own socialist govts in 1 century.

They even try to put a shine on jihadis - no matter how horrible their acts.

To miss it, you must refuse to notice.

Freedomnow said...

David,

Why cant you be honest? You stated, "As I said my political leanings had nothing to do with this discussion, and yet they were made a part of it."

It was you who made it an issue out of the term liberal.

You come to this website in an attempt to create doubt in the minds of the readers of this blog. You do so by trying to confuse people with dishonest rhetoric.

Before 9/11 I was farther leftwing than you are (my beliefs really havent changed, I am more committed to anti-fascism than political opportunism). Therefore, I have seen "modern day dissent" from the other side and I know just how immature and short-sided it is.