Middle East conflict and selective amnesia [View All]

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2006/August/opinion_August27.xml§ion=opinion&col=

THE guiding rule in this tsunami of drivel apparent in the mainstream network news media, is that the viewers should be denied the slightest access to any historical context, or indeed to anything that happened prior to June 28, which was when the capture of an Israeli soldier by Hamas hit the headlines, followed soon thereafter by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.

Memory is supposed to stop in its tracks at June 28, 2006.

Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extra-judicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extra-judicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32. That’s just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of 20 dead and 47 wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.