Comments on: Reporting is a crime http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/2008/06/29/reporting-is-a-crime/ Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:47:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Peter http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/2008/06/29/reporting-is-a-crime/#comment-427137 Peter Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:10:21 +0000 http://antonyloewenstein.com/?p=5429#comment-427137 Sol, your invaluable work and insights are an important contribution to informed dialogue about Israel/Palestine and so you do yourself an disservice by choosing to score cheap points against Antony with such utterly trivial matters and inflating them to appear as if some major journalistic lapse is involved. This is unworthy and debases the serious issues at stake. At worst, Antony's account is ambiguous and permits a correct reading, but your concern to make a point of this - gives enormous pleasure to adversaries of our common cause - the faithful, uncritical Zionist lobby bloggers (http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2008/06/author-and-journalists-fact-checking.html) who are delighted at your pot shots as evidence of the spurious split on the Jewish 'left' that you were yourself so concerned about. You may feel that such trivial gestures is a useful way to dissociate yourself from Antony's views but you are doing yourself and your own cause more harm than good. The critics are only too pleased to use your "case" against Antony as evidence that he is unreliable on factual matters and you are, with them, guilty of diverting attention from the overwhelming, serious and tragic matters that deserve attention. In this case, the treatment of Omer is so appalling that you might have better used your talents to help these Jewish critics question their own allegiances and support of such crimes. Instead, you are playing into their hands and helping to undermine the enormously valuable contribution that Antony has been making to the goals that you share. By the way, the spelling is "Allenby" not "Aleenby"! Sol, your invaluable work and insights are an important contribution to informed dialogue about Israel/Palestine and so you do yourself an disservice by choosing to score cheap points against Antony with such utterly trivial matters and inflating them to appear as if some major journalistic lapse is involved. This is unworthy and debases the serious issues at stake. At worst, Antony’s account is ambiguous and permits a correct reading, but your concern to make a point of this - gives enormous pleasure to adversaries of our common cause - the faithful, uncritical Zionist lobby bloggers (http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2008/06/author-and-journalists-fact-checking.html) who are delighted at your pot shots as evidence of the spurious split on the Jewish ‘left’ that you were yourself so concerned about. You may feel that such trivial gestures is a useful way to dissociate yourself from Antony’s views but you are doing yourself and your own cause more harm than good. The critics are only too pleased to use your “case” against Antony as evidence that he is unreliable on factual matters and you are, with them, guilty of diverting attention from the overwhelming, serious and tragic matters that deserve attention. In this case, the treatment of Omer is so appalling that you might have better used your talents to help these Jewish critics question their own allegiances and support of such crimes. Instead, you are playing into their hands and helping to undermine the enormously valuable contribution that Antony has been making to the goals that you share. By the way, the spelling is “Allenby” not “Aleenby”!

]]> By: Sol Salbe http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/2008/06/29/reporting-is-a-crime/#comment-426762 Sol Salbe Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:46:55 +0000 http://antonyloewenstein.com/?p=5429#comment-426762 Does not it stuck you odd that Omer would have been attacked by the Israeli security forces upon his return to Gaza? There are no Israeli forces in Gaza and any incursion would have been such a mnajor violation of the ceasefire that even the Australian media would have reported it. Omer was set upon at the Aleenby Bridge while crossing the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank from Jordan. With the Rafah crossing closed someone with a permit need to travel via the West Bank into Israel and from there in to Gaza. If bloggers would like to be treated as journalists then fact-checking of obviously impossible assertions is not an option but a necessity. Does not it stuck you odd that Omer would have been attacked by the Israeli security forces upon his return to Gaza? There are no Israeli forces in Gaza and any incursion would have been such a mnajor violation of the ceasefire that even the Australian media would have reported it.

Omer was set upon at the Aleenby Bridge while crossing the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank from Jordan. With the Rafah crossing closed someone with a permit need to travel via the West Bank into Israel and from there in to Gaza. If bloggers would like to be treated as journalists then fact-checking of obviously impossible assertions is not an option but a necessity.

]]>