Monday, November 15, 2004
Arafish
Reading much of the print media, watching BBC and CNN, listening to the even more partisan coverage of BBC World Service Radio (which attracts over 150 million listeners daily) it was as if these acts of terror had never happened.
It was as though those Olympic athletes had never been killed, those airliners never hijacked, those schools never bombed, those passengers in airline terminals at Rome, Vienna and elsewhere, never machine-gunned down.
It was as if the Ma'alot school massacre (of mostly 15-year old girls) had never occurred, or a bazooka had never been fired into a school bus from Moshav Avivim wiping out an entire class and their teachers. It was as if an American ambassador and a Jordanian prime minister had never been murdered, or a wheelchair-bound American pensioner had never been shot and dumped into the Mediterranean because he had a "Jewish-sounding name." And as if an 8-month pregnant mother, Tali Hatuel, hadn't been shot in the head by Arafat's Fatah, execution-style with her four young children, only last May.
In many reports these victims were simply airbrushed from history.
When the time comes, will the BBC run 48 hours of virtually non-stop coverage of Colonel Gaddafi's death without mentioning Lockerbie? Will they devote 48 hours to IRA leaders with barely a mention that they killed anyone?
It was as though those Olympic athletes had never been killed, those airliners never hijacked, those schools never bombed, those passengers in airline terminals at Rome, Vienna and elsewhere, never machine-gunned down.
It was as if the Ma'alot school massacre (of mostly 15-year old girls) had never occurred, or a bazooka had never been fired into a school bus from Moshav Avivim wiping out an entire class and their teachers. It was as if an American ambassador and a Jordanian prime minister had never been murdered, or a wheelchair-bound American pensioner had never been shot and dumped into the Mediterranean because he had a "Jewish-sounding name." And as if an 8-month pregnant mother, Tali Hatuel, hadn't been shot in the head by Arafat's Fatah, execution-style with her four young children, only last May.
In many reports these victims were simply airbrushed from history.
When the time comes, will the BBC run 48 hours of virtually non-stop coverage of Colonel Gaddafi's death without mentioning Lockerbie? Will they devote 48 hours to IRA leaders with barely a mention that they killed anyone?
