Conflict Blotter

17 responses so far ↓

• 1 Lisa Goldman // Jul 22, 2007 at 12:09 pm

  Hi Charles -

  Thanks for the link. One small correction: I did not report from the southern suburbs (dahiyeh), but rather from downtown Beirut.

  Also, my response to the hatchet job in the Daily Star is here.

  Cheers,

  Lisa

• 2 Lisa Goldman // Jul 22, 2007 at 12:10 pm

  Hmmm… hyperlink not working?

  Try this: http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/07/lebanons_daily_star_does_not_s.php

• 3 Kebz // Jul 22, 2007 at 12:25 pm

  It’s your word against M’s. You can protest your innocence but your story has an undoubted pro-Israeli angle rather than being balanced. Frankly I would rather believe M. There is nothing anti-semitic about accusing you of putting people in danger. There are two sides to every story.

• 4 Linda Grant // Jul 22, 2007 at 2:34 pm

  Why doesn’t Lebanon give press credentials to Israelis and indeed why is it illegal for Lebanese to have contact with Israelis? That’s the real scandal in terms of press freedom.

  I know Lisa Goldman. She has been the subject of attempts at censorship by the Israeli authorities and now the Lebanese.

  As for Kebz’ allegations that her story is ‘unbalanced’ I am assuming that you would not level that accusation at anyone who wrote the story from the ideological angle you support. Complaints of lack of balance, whether from supporters of Israel or the Palestinians, have a heavy stench of hypocrisy about them.

• 5 rina // Jul 22, 2007 at 2:47 pm

  Kebz:
  “… Frankly I would rather believe M.”

  Of course you would. You refer to Israelis as “Zionist bastards” of your website (which I deeply regret visiting), so what else can one expect from you? Obviously, when one of those “bastards” dared to sneak into Lebanon and report fondly about it, you went on the offensive because you perceived “an undoubted pro-Israeli angle”. You would’ve excused Lisa if she had an ANTI-Israeli angle, right?

  Keep up the good work of keeping the hatred alive, buddy.

  My understanding is that it’s been Lisa’s life work to try and break through the mutual mistrust and engage people “on the other side” on personal, human level. Both sides have a meta-narrative (this kind of reasoning goes) which is often contradictory and incompatible with one another, but in the end, both side are just human, both just want to live their lives in peace. Furthermore, both sides may and may not approve of what their politicians are doing, but they are mostly unable to do anything about it. Why, then, not forget about all the big narratives and politics and what-not for a minute and just behave humanely to each other – and see where it leads? Surely, if enough people on both sides saw each other as human being (and not as “Zionist bastards” or some other kind of “bastards”), peace would have a better chance in the end.

• 6 Kebz // Jul 22, 2007 at 5:51 pm

  Keep up the work of misrepresenting other people ‘buddy’. I have no need and no want to encourage hatred. In fact my approach is just the opposite. In this case, I would prefer an approach that uses sources who can back up the story written as it is, rather than sources who allege misquotation. Engaging people on the other side is a good start but acknowledging the real harm done by one side to the other is important too. Downplaying the damage done to families and real people and putting spin on the story does not achieve this. Yes, I do refer to zionist bastards on my website, out of real anger at what the occupation is doing, but I never ever use the term to describe Israelis in general, only to those people who evict Palestinians from their homes, discriminate against them, refer to them as terrorists just because they are arabs, continue to steal their land and destroy their olive groves etc etc. If you defend this kind of action or are unable to condemn it, then perhaps that shows your ideological inclination and your problem. I do agree with the live and let live approach as you would find out if you actually bothered to read my blog properly. It is the zionists settlers who carry out such inhuman actions that do not behave humanely. You cannot ignore the dire effects of the occupation or fail to acknowledge it, if peace is to progress. Peace means cessation of acts of malice on BOTH sides be it suicide bombs or cruise missiles. I am always ready to condemn acts that maim and kill Israeli civilians whatever their faith or colour. The problem is people like you are always there to misrepresent and smear people like me.

  Linda - see my earlier remark. I describe balance where I see it and you yours. I have no problem with Lisa as a journalist or a person. In this case though, her source does not back up her story. Excuse me, if I show some reluctance to accept a story that cannot be backed up . The media in general (and this is not aimed at Lisa personally) show on a regular basis that they will exploit and misquote people to get a ’suitable angle’ for their story. Not knowing Lisa’s work previously, how can I just accept her word for it over ‘M’? In my experience ordinary people are far more trustworthy than journalists who seek to manipulate them. Perhaps I am wrong in this case, but I would maintain that I am using critical judgement based upon experience of how journalist operate (not only Israelis but Arabs, Americans and others).

• 7 Linda Grant // Jul 22, 2007 at 6:18 pm

  So to clarify, Kebz, there are Zionists who are not ‘bastards?’

• 8 Kebz // Jul 22, 2007 at 6:55 pm

  There are those who would describe themselves as zionists who disagree with taking further territory from the Palestinians and who would happily trade land for peace along the 1967 borders. I have no issue with them for they don’t seek to pile injustice upon the injustice that has been done already. What I object to is those zionists that you yourself describe as thinking of Palestians as losers, or something subhuman to be kicked around and eliminated if they irritate. They are the ones that actively work to destroy any notion of Palestinians rights and seek to dehumanise them. I have no hesitation in describing them as bastards. Why is this about me Linda. In your own guardian article you say

  “Not yet another photo of a murdered child, nor even a whole album, but only peace itself will do it, which is why the Israeli left felt so badly let down by the new intifada. Instinctively, they knew that the mass of Israelis can only begin to respect the Palestinians when the threat from them is not to their borders but to their computer industry.”

  To me is seems as if you are subtly trying to shift the blame from the cause of the intifada to the intifada itself. The intifada did not arise spontaneously due to an inbuilt hatred of jews but was a response to the failed hopes of a desperate people. How can the Palestinians develop anything when their very possessions including their houses are being taken from them? How do expect the Palestinians to ‘compete’ or act normally under the occupation. Have you seen a map of the West Bank lately and who control what? What chance has peace if Israel continues to go in militarily and assassinate those with whom it should be negotiating. To the Arabs it seems like the impossible is always asked of them. Perhaps you should consider the Palestinians psyche for as long as you have considered the zionist one. Perhaps your accusation of me having an ideological angle is due to you misunderstanding my writing. Misunderstanding is what it is all about, perhaps. Maybe you should work to inform the Israeli public that they only way the Palestinians will only be threat to the computer industry, is when the occupation stops. It all depends on your slant on what is the cause and effect.

• 9 sean // Jul 22, 2007 at 7:08 pm

  In addition to having put Lebanese people in danger, Lisa’s report includes several errors of fact, including the following:

  1. There is no Hezbollah checkpoint to enter the Dahiyeh where foreigners are googled.

  2. The security square is not the only area of Dahiyeh that was hit by the Israelis last summer. A quick trip to the suburb will clear that misconception up for anyone.

  3. There are plenty of residential areas that have Hezbollah flags and pictures of Nasrallah in Beirut. But one wouldn’t know that if you spent all of one’s time in neighborhoods like Gemayzeh (Christian) and Hamra (mixed/Sunni). It doesn’t sound like Lisa went to any Shi’a neighborhoods at all.

  4. This is a very minor point, but Torino is not, by far, the only café that stayed open during the war.

  And for the record, Israel does not allow any Lebanese correspondents from al-Manar either in Israel or in the occupied territories. Al-Manar journalists in Palestine are Palestinians.

  I would like to ask Lisa if she thinks her story was worth the trouble she caused the Lebanese people whom she spoke to under false pretenses.

• 10 Linda Grant // Jul 22, 2007 at 7:53 pm

  Al Manar ‘journalists’ are the original source of the anti-semitic conspiracy theory about the 4000 Jews ‘warned’ to stay away from the World Trade Centre on 9/11. They are a propaganda outfit directly linked to Hizbollah, or as the London bureau chief of Al Jazeera told me, ‘Al Manar is Hizbollah tv.’

  I don’t work to inform the Israeli public of anything because I don’t write for the Israeli press.

• 11 Kebz // Jul 22, 2007 at 8:18 pm

  The world is full of propagandists outfits including virtually all western MSM outlets. Perhaps I should read something into your failure to engage with the discussion, but it seems a pointless waste of time as you seem to have have your own ideological slant on things.

• 12 rina // Jul 23, 2007 at 12:40 am

  This is Charles’s blog and I don’t feel comfortable carrying on and on with another commenter, so apologies to Charles and a promise that this will be my last post on the matter.

  Kebz
  “The problem is people like you are always there to misrepresent and smear people like me.”

  Er, I don’t know who “people like you” are, and you sure as hell know nothing about “people like me”. Your position, as represented in your response to me, is a perfect example of what Lisa (and many others) are fighting against: mutual mistrust and unwillingness to reach beyond the current argument and see the other person as a person – not as a carrier of this or that ideology.

  Kebz again:
  “It is the zionists settlers who carry out such inhuman actions that do not behave humanely. You cannot ignore the dire effects of the occupation or fail to acknowledge it, if peace is to progress.”

  If you chose other tactics than verbal aggression you may’ve found out that, in fact, you and I hold very similar views on settlers - and quite possibly on many other things too. Likewise, it’s quite possible that Lisa Goldman would agree with some of what you said about it in your previous post. Is it wise to put an ideological barricade between “people like this” and “people like that” without knowing anything at all about them? Animosity is already plentiful in the ME . It fuels and refuels the violence (pardon me for stating the obvious), and anyone waxing hostile about “Zionist bastards” or “Muslim bastards”- and thus implicating every Zionist or every Muslim - is only adding oil to the fire.

  There are many ways for people to go about a conflict. Some might start screaming and hurtling accusations at each other at the onset, so a rational dialog never has a chance to develop (sadly, the preferred modus operandi on all sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict). Others might try and understand the adversary’s position (though not necessarily accept it) and see what compromises are possible. Yet others (case in point: Lisa Goldman, if I understand her correctly) attempt to put politics aside for a moment and reach out in friendship to the other side, in the hope that trust and understanding can be built between a few people, then a few more, and a few more, and that one day, if enough people forged such connections, it’ll sufficiently change the political climate in the region to make peace process more likely.

  One may or may not accept this approach as workable, but I fail to see how it can be viewed as anything but honorable.

  I would in fact agree with you, Kebz, that in the end, the injustices and the violence on all sides would have to be acknowledged and denounced (Truth and Reconciliation Committee, perhaps, once there are two sovereign states living side-by-side, or a confederate state, or some other equitable solution). But it’s not going to happen in the current climate where “people like you” and “people like me” (who most likely are on the same side of many issues) can’t even have a civil conversation, let alone people who truly have diametrically opposite viewpoints. One has to start somewhere, you know.

  Back to Lisa’s visit to Lebanon: of course she is telling the truth. Just watch the video clip on her website.

  Also, even though I don’t know Lisa personally, I’ve been following her blog for a very long time and I believe I can discern certain traits in it. Dishonesty is most certainly not one of them. I don’t always agree with her interpretations of event or her political stance, but I have never ever had any reason to doubt her integrity. I’m sure that if you read some of what she writes (and were willing to open your mind to someone whose worldview does not neatly align with yours) you’d have to agree.

• 13 Kebz // Jul 23, 2007 at 7:47 am

  “If you chose other tactics than verbal aggression you may’ve found out that, in fact, you and I hold very similar views on settlers - and quite possibly on many other things too.”

  Thanks rina. Just for the record - it was you that started slinging accusations in the form of me ‘keeping hatred alive’ in your first post here.

  Secondly you automatically assumed that I hated all Israelis/Jews/zionists because I used the term bastards on my blog and reproduced it here without the context. That is what I mean by misrepresentation and smears. Here again you accuse saying:
  “I’m sure that if you read some of what she writes (and were willing to open your mind to someone whose worldview does not neatly align with yours…”.
  Now, just because I make an objection to a particular set of reports does not make for a closed mind. As I said in my reply to Linda, I don’t know her personally; all I commented on was her report and the way journalists work in practice.

  Now you also choose to take the phrase ‘people like you’ and interpret it with a wider meaning than I gave it. I find it quite common that people do not think about what I have written and automatically jump to conclusions just as you have done. Those are the people I was talking about. Perhaps you do have an open mind as you claim but it doesn’t seem open enough to not misrepresent what I am writing. I am willing to have a civil conversation with you or anybody and address specifics. What I object to is being bracketed, labelled, misinterpreted, having particular parts of what I have written taken out of context. That is in essence what i find a lot of journalists do all the time. Again, I don’t know you so I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt because what you write about the need for truth and reconciliation is good. I would just advise you to follow you own advice and keep an open mind about those with whom you are discussing rather than jump to conclusions about what they are saying. This is a difficult medium with which to communicate. It is very easy to misunderstand and bracket people. Best wishes.

• 14 Lebanon » Blog Archive » Israeli journalists sneak into Lebanon // Jul 24, 2007 at 6:48 pm

  […] Lebanon is fuming after two Israeli journalists with dual nationality reported from Beirut and the Shiite south. Canadian-Israeli blogger Lisa Goldman filed TV spots for Channel 10 news from the Beirut’s Shia suburbs while … …more […]

• 15 Lebanon » Blog Archive » Man struck by car in Lebanon // Jul 25, 2007 at 8:21 am

  […] Lebanon is fuming after two Israeli journalists with dual nationality reported from Beirut and the Shiite south. Canadian-Israeli blogger Lisa Goldman filed TV spots for Channel 10 news from the Beirut’s Shia suburbs while … …more […]

• 16 Roashvopusa // Nov 27, 2007 at 11:42 pm

  Hi, hello, privet
  animated

• 17 Idetrorce // Dec 16, 2007 at 7:01 am

  very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
  Idetrorce

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