[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Hezbollah and the media

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Hezbollah and the media
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1210617283.shtml


   At [1]MJT's, Lee Smith conveys a report from a friend and colleague in
   Lebanon, Elie Fawaz, who says:

     The War for Lebanon has not even begun yet in earnest and
     Hezbollah's âvictoryâ in Beirut is not all it seems:

     âSo, we know that Hezbollah's well-trained fighters are in control
     of most of west Beirut. The decision taken by Walid Jumblat and
     Saad al-Hariri not to fight back in Beirut, but rather hand most of
     their positions to the army ended any illusion regarding the
     sanctity of the âresistanceâ â that it would never turn its weapons
     inward, for now its hands are dripping with the blood of innocent
     Lebanese. But it's different in the Chouf where Jumblatt's forces
     bloodied Hezbollah.

   However, according to [2]Associated Press reporter Bassem Mroue,
   Hezbollah's show of force in Beirut was only temporarily marred by
   fighting between "government supporters and opponents in Lebanon"

     Near Beirut, paramedics said at least 16 people were killed in
     fighting Sunday in the mountains overlooking the capital. More than
     20 people were wounded, they said, also on condition of anonymity
     because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

     The fighting in the town of Chouweifat calmed late Sunday after
     Druse leader Walid Jumblatt called on his Druse opponents, who are
     allied with Hezbollah, to mediate a cease-fire and hand over the
     region to Lebanese troops.

     Iran's state-run Press TV reported on its Web site that 17
     opposition fighters were killed in the mountain clashes. It did not
     elaborate, and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia refused to
     comment.

     Officials could not immediately provide casualty figures from other
     mountain towns where fighting also raged a day earlier. But the
     latest deaths pushed to 54 the number of people killed since
     violence erupted Wednesday, in the worst internal clashes since the
     end of the 1975-90 civil war.

   The AP report features this photograph and caption, which give the
   impression that the Druse lost the battle.

     druse_woman

     A Druse woman, Yessra Halawi, reacts after her house burned Sunday
     during clashes between pro-government supporters of Druse leader
     Walid Jumblatt and Shiite gunmen and their allies in Chouweifat,
     south of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday May 12, 2008. Lebanese soldiers
     deployed across mountains overlooking the Lebanese capital Monday
     after at least 11 people were killed in fierce clashes between
     pro-Syrian gunmen and government supporters entrenched in the hilly
     plateau, security officials and paramedics said. (AP Photo/Hussein
     Malla)

   But [3]Fawaz reports that:

     âThe Chouf is calm now after fighting over the weekend in which
     forces belonging to Talal Arslan, part of the Hezbollah-led
     opposition, jumped sides and joined alongside Jumblatt's men. As
     the Progressive Socialist Party website reports: 'The free people
     of the Shouf roll back an attack by the Iranian militias causing
     severe casualties in lives and equipment.'..

     ..âAfter taking over West Beirut, Hezbollah tried to move to the
     Shouf, where there are two Shiite towns, Kayfoun and Qmatiyye.
     Hezbollah is trying to link them up to the Dahieh through the
     Karameh road, which links Dahieh to Choueifat-Aramoun-Doha-Deir
     Qoubel-Aytat-Kayfoun and Qmatiye, so that it can make
     encroachments, maintain access routes and not allow the Druze to
     surround the two Shiite towns.

     âThat was the plan, but Hezbollah got a severe beating in the
     Shouf. They were not able to penetrate anything, relying instead â
     for the first time in the current fighting â on artillery/mortar
     fire. To no avail. Yesterday alone we heard that seven Hezbollah
     fighters who tried to infiltrate got killed.

   Gee, I wonder why Iran's state-run Press TV and Hezbollah militia
   didn't want to go into the details...

   AP reporter [4]Mroue boasts that:

     ...Hezbollah's show of force in Beirut served a blow to Washington.
     The U.S. has long considered Hezbollah a terrorist group and
     condemned its ties to Syria and Iran. The Bush administration has
     been a strong supporter of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's government
     and its army for the last three years.

   In contrast, [5]Fawaz concludes:

     âAnd so, the Party of God has achieved the 'great victory' of
     conquering a few Beiruti streets, terminating the credibility of
     the army, hastening the prospect of its disintegration, and
     damaging beyond repair for the foreseeable future, the Shiites'
     ties to the Lebanese social fabric.â

   Fawaz does not claim to be presenting the news from a completely
   unbiased point of view. But AP does. Thousands of media outlets
   present these AP reports to their readers, as if they were written and
   photographed by unbiased journalists. They're not.

   It's no secret that Hezbollah has a history of [6]orchestrating and
   blatantly staging media reports. Looks like they're doing it again. I
   wouldn't be surprised if [7]Flat Fatima is getting a call from her
   agent right now.

   flat_fatima

   Brian Ledbetter at Snapped Shot has been [8]keeping track of
   Hezbollah's media manipulations. He [9]says:

     One wonders why Hezbullah feels it needs to even bother with
     censorship of the press, considering how friendly to the group the
     media already are.

   In an insightful article written for Reason Magazine, [10]Michael
   Young says:

     âWriters and scholars, particularly Westerners, who lay claim to
     Hezbollah sources, are regarded as special for penetrating so
     closed a society. Thatâs why their writing is often edited with
     minimal rigor.â

   If Western journalists are telling their editors that Hezbollah
   sources are 'closed', or hard to reach, they're telling more tall
   tales. I traveled to Beirut in Dec. 2006 (when Hezbollah was just
   threatening to take over the airport). I had never been to the Middle
   East before, it was my first hour there, and I looked every bit like
   the American soccer mom I am. Although I told the taxi driver who took
   me to my hotel I was a tourist, he told me that I was a reporter and
   he offered to take me on a guided tour of the Hezbollah-controlled
   areas in the south.

   When we drove past a poster of Nasrallah, the taxi driver proudly said
   âthereâs the manâ. I assumed he was working with, or at least friendly
   to, Hezbollah. I didn't go on his tour, partly because he overcharged
   me for the ride to my hotel.

   In my experience, Hezbollah is about as âclosedâ to western reporters
   as City Line double decker tours are to tourists arriving in JFK.
   Check it out, check it out.

References

   1. http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/05/jumblatts-men-s.php
   2. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5io5o7HAtI7mmO0Cz0gCQA9-xZCoAD90K5QKG0
   3. http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/05/jumblatts-men-s.php
   4. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5io5o7HAtI7mmO0Cz0gCQA9-xZCoAD90K5QKG0
   5. http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/05/jumblatts-men-s.php
   6. http://newsbusters.org/node/6574
   7. http://thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=798
   8. http://www.snappedshot.com/categories/23-Lebanon
   9. http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/2062-Embedded-with-the-Enemy.html
  10. http://www.reason.com/news/show/125203.html