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Deja vu — Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Judith Apter Klinghoffer

MSM CHANGES ZARQAWI'S "WEDDING TENT" TO "MOURNING TENT"

In Zarqa, Zarqawi's clan erected a shamiana, a large decorated wedding tent and his relatives were handing giving out sweets, reported BBC's Martin Patience. After all, they believe he was a shahid, a groom, and this was his wedding day.

Sounds familiar? This is the way Palestinians of all ages are expected to rejoice and celebrate the "shaheda" of suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories. The Chief Mufti of the Palestinian Police, Sheik Abd Al-Salam Skheidm described the rewards according to Islamic tradition:

From the moment his first drop of blood spills, he feels no pain and he is absolved of all his sins; he sees his seat in heaven; he is spared the tortures of the grave; he is spared the horrors of Judgment Day; he is married to [70] black-eyed [virgins]; he can vouch for 70 of his family members to enter paradise; he earns the crown of glory whose precious stone is worth all of this world.

But since Zarqawi came after them (and not only after Jews, Americans or Shia) and blew up those weddings in Amman, some Jordanians even in his hometown are no longer so enamored with this tradition. They share the views of 32 year old designer, Riad Mohammed:

Zarqawi was a good man and all Jordanians know he was a good man. He was afraid of no-one but God.
But my view of him changed after the bombings of hotels in Amman, Jordan. After that I thought he deserved to die.

Consequently, the family tried to limit exposure to the "wedding celebrations" and so did the Jordanian authorities who anxiously trumpeted the role their intelligence services played in Zarqawi's demise.

BBC's Martin Patience reports:

Journalists who tried to get close to the grey breezeblock house were pelted by stones from young boys and teenagers keen to protect the family. Some had their cameras smashed.
Plain-clothed Jordanian intelligence officers also swarmed the area monitoring people's movements.

The BBC was obliging as ever. While the oral report correctly identified the tent as a wedding tent and the treatment of Zarqawi as that of a groom, the article misleadingly referred to the tent as a mourning tent. It also dropped any mention of the sweets though not of Zarqawi's martyr status. Martyrs, of course, cannot be mourned but the BBC trusted its readers not to know that.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC News website that men and young boys emerged from the house to clear a dirt-laden pitch of land close to the building of stones and litter.
They then erected a red and white mourning tent on the strip. On the tent they placed a placard that read: "Martyr Abu Zarqawi".

NBC's Martin Fletcher report from Zarqa joined in the same cover up as did the rest of MSM. Apparently, they believe the truth to be too prejudicial.

For Shame.

Posted on Friday, June 9, 2006 at 12:11 AM | Comments (0) | Return

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