AP Bias and a Dissident Israeli

The Counterterrorism Blog describes in detail why we shouldn't trust AP reports on the Israeli-"Palestinian" conflict. This was eye-opening even for me.

For years, it has been a dirty little secret that the Associated Press reporting from the West Bank and Gaza has been intellectually and professionally corrupt. The AP has been guilty of committing scores of DanRather-gates for years. As Andrew Cochran noted here on January 18, the AP's Muhammad Daraghmeh also works for the official PA news organ, as have numerous other so-called "journalists" whose obvious biases are never disclosed by the mainstream press. Will someone finally wake up?

The article is worth a full read, even for those of us who were tempted to hold a contest on when the "Palestinians" would, predictably, attack the Israelis after their foolish recent concessions.

I am of the same mind as Natan Sharansky on this one:

[H]e is one of the Likud "rebels" against Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw Israeli forces and settlements from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. In late February, Sharansky voted against the Israeli cabinet's historic decision to evacuate 26 settlements, citing the lack of demand for a Palestinian quid pro quo. More moderate Likudniks view Sharon's plan as a necessary evil. The left suspects Sharansky of using his democracy ideas as a pretext for holding onto the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

Sharansky argues that he belongs to neither political camp. "I always tried to say, but failed to convince [people], that I belong to neither the right nor the left by Israeli criteria," he says. "Here, it's all about the borders. To me, borders are between democracies and nondemocracies."

Or, at least mostly. The "Palestinians" need not just "democracy," but a society that respects individual rights before there is any talk of their being a sovereign state. Read the article. Sharansky sounds interesting, intellectually. He's also a favorite author of Bush's. The book sounds interesting.....

-- CAV