Showing posts with label Bilin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bilin. Show all posts

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Mr. Mackey - The Map

Robert Mackey has cast doubt as to the authenticity of a map showing the locations of both the IDF and the demonstrators at Bilin village last Friday.  He posted this comment (between 16 & 17):-

Robert Mackey, Reporter, January 7th, 2011, 12:57 am

Thanks, but can you tell us where you found that on the Web and are you sure this is from Haaretz? That newspaper is in Hebrew and this is in English, and I haven't seen any reference to this chronology - stones were thrown first - in any of the reports I've read on Haaretz's English-language Web site.

You'll notice two things:  (a) he casts doubt that stones were thrown first.  in other words, Macjey believes that it is a possibility that the IDF soldiers, without provocation or a first-move act of violence by Arabs, simply fired off tear-gas cannisters;  (b) that becuase something didn't appear at the Wed edition site, it could possibly not exist, which would be a disease of a post-Internet category similar to people believing that phones with fingerwheels never exited.

I had the map posted (here) but the date doesn't appear which, for a doubting Thomas, could be cause for suspicion (although how I could create that map by myself, I don't know).

Unfortunately, it seems I threw out the paper after scanning it.  Luckily, I am also subscribed to the Hebrew edition of Haaretz (don't ask).

So, from Wednesday's edition this past week, here it is, in Hebrew:


The date, for Robert, is January 5, up there in the top left-hand corner.

Exisit.

__________

And catching up on the Shabbat mail, I have discovered that my comment went up and Mackey's response to my words as well:

27.
Yisrael Medad, Shiloh, Israel, January 7th, 20119:00 am
The map appeared in the Haaretz hardcopy edition only. There is a real world where newspapers are still printed rather than onlione editions. I also scanned it and have it in color.

Recommended by 1 Reader .

Robert Mackey, Reporter, January 7th, 2011, 9:00 am
Thanks for your effort to answer my question about the source of the graphic another reader posted a link to, though your sarcasm about print still existing is of course unnecessary when addressing someone who works at a newspaper. My question was about whether Haaretz is published in English as well as Hebrew in a print version. That was a genuine question, not an argument that required a cutting response.


Although it has become common across the Web, I would appeal to all readers to try to avoid adopting a hostile or mocking tone in their comments here..


(Sigh)

We continue:

42.Yisrael Medad, Shiloh, Israel, January 8th, 20115:33 pm

To Robert: I am sorry that my mocking tone annoyed you. I was not aware that you would assume the map was made up or that Haaretz publishes editions in two languages. Or that you would doubt Haaretz's claim that the rocks came first.

To #33: actually, as a result of the Supreme Court's decision, the security barrier is being moved and is under contruction as we write (and as stones are thrown, which means that there is no necessity for stones to be thrown), see: "Israel has begun work to reroute a section of its West Bank security barrier at Bil'in - two and a half years after the Supreme Court ordered the state to return land to Palestinian farmers, Army Radio reported on Thursday. Once completed, the newly routed fence will skirt agricultural land to hand some 700,000 square meters of arable back to the village, long the site of often violent weekly protests." (source: Haaretz - http://www.haaretz.com... from almost a year ago)


Robert Mackey, Reporter, January 8th, 2011, 5:33 pm

I'm afraid you have misunderstood what I wrote in my response to the other reader and to you. I simply did not, as you state, "assume the map was made up or that Haaretz publishes editions in two languages," or "doubt Haaretz's claim that the rocks came first." You seem to have assumed that my attempts to get the the reader who submitted the map with absolutely no explanation of where it was posted online was an indication that I was doubting that Haaretz publishes on paper in two languages (I have since learned that it does so) and assumed that by trying to establish for certain what the newspaper reported that I was actually arguing with the other reader and you. I was not. I am attempting to be accurate and to call a halt to mud-slinging and sarcasm as common features of discussions on this blog.

You are perhaps so used to reading, and writing, blog posts that are essentially arguments that you did not recognize that I was merely making an honest attempt to establish factual accuracy here. People have in the past on several occasions submitted material to this blog in comments threads that was not what they said it was. My reaction, to ask questions and request some sort of verification that this map was what the reader said it was is ordinary journalism in the pursuit of the truth, not sarcastic punditry.

So, all I do is argue?

P.S.

We keep up the dialogue.
^

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Throwing Stones Is Just Practice UPDATED

From the NYTimes' sympathetic treatment of the Bilin riots:

The protesters chant and shout and, inevitably, a few throw stones. Then just as inevitably, the soldiers open fire with tear gas and water jets, lately including a putrid oil-based liquid that makes the entire area stink.

It is one of the longest-running and best organized protest operations in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it has turned this once anonymous farming village into a symbol of Palestinian civil disobedience, a model that many supporters of the Palestinian cause would like to see spread and prosper.


a) it need not be inevitable to initiate stone-throwing;

b) stone-throwing is not a peaceful protest, nor civil disobedience; it is violence.

c) moreover, stone-throwing is but practice and preparation for tossing molotov cocktail firebombs and grenades - that is the real inevitability.

and I first missed this idiotic statement by some bishop-or-other who calls himself an "Elder":

The retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, also on the visit, said, “Just as a simple man named Gandhi led the successful nonviolent struggle in India and simple people such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King led the struggle for civil rights in the United States, simple people here in Bilin are leading a nonviolent struggle that will bring them their freedom.”


UPDATE


Palestinian teenager shot in clash, dies of wounds

An Israeli hospital says a Palestinian teenager shot in a clash with Israeli troops has died of his wounds. Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center says the youngster died of gunshot wounds. His name and exact age were not immediately known, but the hospital said Tuesday he was born in 1994.

The Israeli military said the boy was one of three attackers who on Monday night hurled Molotov cocktails at a guard post near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.


See what I mean?

================

Ruthie L. suggested I seek out previous reports on the Hareidi demonstrations recently in Jerusalem to compare.

For example, AP:

27/06/2009

Police turned water cannons on a raucous demonstration by Ultra-Orthodox Jews Saturday...Police said they made 24 arrests and one 6-year-old boy was slightly hurt by a stone thrown by protesters. Four officers were lightly hurt as well.

In a major standoff near City Hall, several hundred Orthodox protesters in traditional black suits hurled rocks, garbage and glass bottles at police for several hours.
ABC:

11/7/09

Police, Ultra-Orthodox Jews Scuffle in Jerusalem

On Saturday, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators flooded an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood near the parking lot, screaming "Shabbes," the Yiddish word for Sabbath, and occasionally lobbing rocks at police. Officers, some in riot gear, shoved them back as they tried to break through a security cordon...



And VOA:

04/7/09

Religious Jews have rioted in Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabbath for the second straight week. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets of Jerusalem, throwing stones and scuffling with police.



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And in case you want to practice your civil disobedience, or just your stonethrowing, here:

Register for Transportation to Friday September 4th Demonstration Against the Wall

Bil'in

Contact Ilan preferably by phone 03-6482749 and only if you must - try 052-4-655520 (but not by SMS!)

For a ride from Tel Aviv:

Departing 11:30 from Levinsky park (North West of the central bus station) near the green container at the Hagdud Haivry parking lot Please come a few minutes earlier. We may not be able to accommodate late registrants and late arrivals

!! IMPORTANT !!

Please let us know as soon as possible if you can bring a car and take into consideration cultural differences in the choice of clothing

Newcomers and those requiring more information are invited to contact Dan at 050-7851465


Transportation from Jerusalem requires additional coordination after registration

Please register as early as you can to ensure a place in the organized transportation and ease the organizing process

New! A consultation hotline has been established concerning sexual and gender harassment within the framework of political activity. We'd be happy to listen, consult, provide information and think together about every uncomfortable incident or experience.
If you are not sure, call! 0543479616
The hotline is intended for women, men and others, and operates every day 17:30-19:30

To arrange a personal support and listening session on activist trauma, burn-out and recovery:
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