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Monday, June 6, 2016

Another Big Lie

Remember Al Jazeera?  It's the Arab news agency centered in the Middle East.  It tried to start a cable news outlet in the USA called Al Jazeera America; in fact, it bought a network from Al Gore and his partners and was on the air for a few years.  It failed because no one watched it.  Nevertheless, Al Jazeera is a major news source across the Middle East.  It is also completely dishonest.

There's an editorial by Al Jazeera that really says all one needs to know about the dishonesty of this "news" network.  It's an editorial about the "assault" by Israel on the Palestinians.  Here's the first sentence:

On June 5, 1967, an unprovoked Israel invaded Palestinian, Egyptian, and Syrian territories at once.

This one sentence tries to rewrite history to suit the current political views of the people at Al Jazeera.  It's pretty amazing too that they think they can do this.  What actually happened in 1967 was quite different.  In May of 1967, president Nasser of Egypt moved massive armored and infantry forces into the Sinai peninsula bordering Israel.  That was a violation of the agreement that ended the war between Israel and Egypt in 1956; the Sinai was supposed to be demilitarized.  Next Nasser demanded that the UN peacekeeping force on the border between the two countries be removed so that Egyptian forces could have easy access to Israel.  In late May, Nasser had the Egyptian navy and forts on land stop all maritime traffic from going to the Israeli port of Eilat, a move that effectively cut off Israel's trade with Asia and Australia.  This was an act of war under international law, but the UN did nothing.  Meanwhile, in Syria, the army was moved onto the Golan Heights in great strength, a violation of other agreements.  Both Egypt and Syria announced that they were going to annihilate Israel.  By early June, Israel had gotten word to King Hussein of Jordan that in the event of war, Israel would not fight Jordan unless it attacked first.  Then by June 5, Israel struck back at Egypt for its naval blockade and the war began.  Almost at once, Jordan joined in the fighting and the war expanded.  The key here is that Israel was greatly provoked; it was not unprovoked.  The Arabs brought this war on themselves.

The sad thing is that nearly 50 years later, the Arabs still cannot honestly face what happened back then.  They tried to wipe out Israel and they lost.  Nevertheless, they portray themselves as victims rather than instigators of violence.  No wonder there's no peace there.

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