A lifetime of experience. Let me ask you this: Do you agree that the kind of person who would deliberately launch mortar shells targeting civilians is probably the kind of person who is willing to hide behind civilians?
I would say that it depends on the costs and benefits. Every war the United States has been in in the past 100 years has resulted in the deaths of civilians. Are you saying that none of those wars were justified? If not, then what does justify killing of civiliians?
Actually I understand better than most. If information is worthy of skepticism, I am skeptical even if it supports my side in a debate.
I know full well they are not a disinterested news site. They have a point to make. That doesn’t bug me, because they make no secret of it.
They present little in the way of “spin”, because what they do is simply translate stuff other people wrote. What they do is not “spin”, but “cherry-picking”.
Now, cherry-picking can be really misleading, if what is cherry-picked is really not representative of the whole - say, one obsure editorial somewhere says something offensive, whereas hundreds are saying reasonable stuff.
Is there evidence that this is what they do - post artcles and videos that provide a misleading and false picture of journalism in the ME? If not, simply dismissing them because they are ‘for the other side’ is an ad-hom.
I suppose there is a loose correlation. So what? Right now it is Israel who is killing civilians by the dozen. Where are we going with this? That people who kill civilians are bad people? Yes. So? . . . .
The problem with the MEMRI is that they present, baldfaced and in all it’s ugly truth, documentation of attitudes and actions that most of the people on the left like to pretend don’t exist. It’s very much a “truth hurts” kind of thing. While I admit they have specific POV, and tend to present things that support that POV, I have never, ever seen any proof that they falsify in any way what they release. That leaves the terror apologists with the uncomfortable task of explaining away the ugly truth.
Even cherry picking is not necessarily dishonest – it depends on the circumstances.
For example, suppose David Duke makes 100 statements along the lines of “I’m not an extremist, I just think affirmative action is unfair to white Americans” and 2 statements along the lines of “I think we need to kick blacks and Jews out of America.” One could reasonably conclude that David Duke is probably a racist and an extremist.
Similarly, I’m inclined to believe that Hamas really does hide behind civillians, even if they usually deny it.
An example or two of these painful truths that “most of the people on the left like to pretend don’t exist.”
Some names of “the terror apologists,” just to give us an idea of who you’re talking about, with some for-instances of their acting as apologists for terror.
Otherwise that’s just a bunch of self-satisfied noise.
Well, you have to admit, RT, that stereotypes usually don’t just come out of nowhere. I think the far left worked very hard to earn its repuation for tree-hugging, hand-wringing denial — especially when it comes to things like human conflict. There does tend to be a certain doormat nature to far left diplomacy, a willingness to give up the farm to avoid confrontation. I think that sort of mentality just segues naturally to an irrational trust of nefarious people, with the eternal hope that they will come around after proper education and patient tolerance. I think the exercise of naming names is rather pointless since anyone taking the counterpoint view can always disclaim with nothing more than a declaration that “Mr Smith doesn’t impress ME as the sort of person you’re describing.”
That cite’s analysis of MEMRI veracity in translation:
In short, the allegation here is that Israel is planting the stories and videos that MEMRI is translating. It is all a big conspiracy …
I’m sorry but that is just not credible. Israel planting rabidly anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli pieces in Arab and Persian media - some of which is state-run? For the purpose of making Arabs look bad? And not just one or two, but hundreds or thousands?
Does it not occur to anyone writing for that site that Arab editors, government and public read this stuff - and if they don’t approve, would say something to that effect?
I think the far right worked very hard to earn its repuation for being heartless and ruthless and for not caring in the least about anyone but themselves to the point of sacrificing human lives if it suits their interests.
Hey, this game of painting with a broad brush is fun!
Hopefull, what you will do next is come to an understanding of one another, realizing that much of what you dehumanize each other about is exaggerated nonsense.
"So is MEMRI, which translates articles from the Arabic press into English for thousands of US subscribers, in any way involved in all this? Its director formerly served in… Israeli military intelligence. How much of what we “know” from “Arab sources” about “Hizbullah terrorism” was simply made up by this fantasy factory in Tel Aviv? "
The first section of emphasis is the work of whoever wrote the site’s text. They then quote with approval this Prof. Cole, who says the same thing - in the form of a rhetorical question.
The message is obvious: Israel is planting stuff, MEMRI translates it. You can’t rely on their translations, not because they are bad translations of real articles, but because the articles themselves are “…made up by this fantasy factory in Tel Aviv”.
As I’ve said, this is quite absurd given that MEMRI translates literally hundreds if not thousands of articles, I’m amazed that they expect anyone to seriously believe it (or that this cite could be posted here as a serious refutation for the veracity of MEMRI as a source).
Do they have any examples of direct quotes in Arabic from one of these press sources, a biased MEMRI translation, and a more correct translation? Showing a problem would be more compelling than hinting there might be a problem.
Touche.