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Reuters today has admitted that it doctored a photograph of Beirut to intensify the effects of Israeli bombing. The caption:"Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs." The same photographer had snapped pictures for Reuters at Qana last week.
Little Green Footballs has an easy-to-follow photo summary of the affair--which raises some troubling questions. We know the BBC and Arab media are biased against Israel. CNN coverage can occasionally get on the unusual side, especially in its International channel. (I recently saw an interview with a reporter for the Lebanese Broadcast Corporation, in which the CNN anchor asked him how he verified his stories. His response: from his personal knowledge of events in Lebanon, from the official statements of Hezbollah, and from the official statements of Lebanese security. The obvious follow-up question--"is there a reason you speak only to one side?"--went unasked.) Now Reuters joins the list. I wonder what steps the organization will take to guard against such bias in the future.
Over at the JAWA Report, they're asking if Adnan Hajj and Issam Kobeisi aren't the same person. Seems either the same photo was submitted by two people, or the same person under two names, or one or more of the photos is mislabelled. Seems Kobeisi also hasn't filed a picture since Hajj was fired. Maybe there is something fictional going on after all.
Hank Bower -
8/8/2006
I'm not sure why you look at a blog written by historians with the expectation of finding brilliant legal analysis. When I want to get other lawyers' thoughts about legal issues, I go to the Volokh Conspiracy, Ann Althouse or Professor Bainbridge; I don't look here.
It seems to me that UN Security Council Resolution 1559 applies. That resolution essentially required the elimination of Hezbollah from Lebanon. Obviously, that was not done.
This failure should serve as a warning to all those who want countries to surrender their right of self-defense to the UN. The UN passed a nice resolution then watched passively as Hezbollah arm itself and build massive fortifications for the ultimate attack on Israel.
The Lebanese government also failed to disarm Hezbollah. Instead, it surrendered its sovereignty over the southern part of the country to Hezbollah.
As I understand international law, every country has a right of self-defense. As the UN Charter states, "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, ...."
Hezbollah's attack on Israel in which it killed 8 soldiers and kidnapped 2 others constituted an act of war. Israel had the right to defend itself just as fully as the US had the right to defend itself when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
Hezbollah's use of extremely inaccurate rockets in attacks on Israeli civilians constitutes a violation of international law and a war crime. Its siting of its rocket launchers in civilian areas constitutes a violation of international law and a war crime.
Israel has a right to respond to Hezbollah's rocket attacks to knock out rocket launchers even when they are located in civilian areas. Israel is not required to sit back while Hezbollah hides behind civilians to murder Israeli civilians. Unfortunately, Hezbollah's use of civilian shields has led to the death of innocents. That is Hezbollah's war crime, not Israel's.
Israel has a right to interdict the supply of war materiel by destroying bridges and damaging roads and airport facilities. International law does not require Israel to allow Hezbollah to get more and even larger rockets from its Syrian and Iranian masters.
That provides a thumbnail sketch of international law as it relates to the issues at present. It is not based on ideology, but law. Of course, my personal view is that "international law" has little meaning when national existence is seen to hang in the balance; but that is more of a public policy, "ideological" viewpoint.
Your emotional, personal attacks on sincere people indicate a lack of professionalism. People may disagree with positions taken by others, but that gives them no right to attack their good faith. We have far too much heat and too little light in too much of our political discourse these days. If you have serious points to make that advance peoples' understanding, you should make them in a rational manner, rather than screaming epithets.
Cheers.
Jonathan Dresner -
8/8/2006
Is Chris Pettit still pretending to be the final arbiter of all things intellctual and moral?
Is there anything Israel could do to defend itself which you would consider legitimate?
Do you have an historical point to make? Even a political one?
chris l pettit -
8/7/2006
Is KC still a fountain of hypocrisy and ideological filth?
Is the Israeli response still collective punishment and disproportionate?
Is international law being violated on all sides?
Is the media complicit in supporting both sides (I haven't seen KC say anything about the cheerleaders of the Israeli side or the lack of a US response, or the disgracefully worded UN Resolution)?
Are innocent people being killed...and is KC (among others) ok with it as long as his sick ideology is being promoted?
Does anyone at Clio want to actually take a law and rights based position instead of their own little ideological viewpoints?
Will Dr. Luker actually have the guts to excoriate KC one of these days instead of defending him?
CP
Ben W. Brumfield -
8/7/2006
I'm not especially suspicious of the photographer's name, but feel I ought to point out that Mr. Redfern's comment is about the name "Hajj" equating to "Pilgrimage", both of which are rare surnames. "Haji" or "Hajji", like the many variations on "Pilgrim" ("Pelegrino", etc) are quite common, as we all know, but have little to do with Mr. Redfern's suspicions.
Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs -
8/7/2006
I have a friend who lives in Indonesia. After she made a pilgrimage to Mecca, she became known by the name of Haji, an honorific.(Whether Haji is spelled with one or two J's is probably irrelevant, being a transliteration.)There are thousands of people who, following such a pilgrimage, use that name.
Ralph E. Luker -
8/7/2006
Actually, "Pilgrim" was occasionally used as a given name in both England and Germany. Pilgrim Marbeck, for example, was one of the most important anabaptist writers in Germany.
William Redfern -
8/7/2006
I just thought it interesting that his last name is the name of the pilgrimmage that is one of the pillars of Islam. It's been years since I've been in the Middle East, so my memory can't be fully trusted, but I don't remember many people carrying that name (as opposed to Hajji, an honorific attached to people who have completed the Hajj).
I looked up the name Hajj in the British Telecom phone directory, and there are only two people named Hajj in all of London. How many people in the world do you know named Pilgrimmage? Is Hajj a common name, or might it be an assumed name? Just wondering.
Ralph E. Luker -
8/7/2006
You'd prefer that photographers of Arab descent have non-Arab names?
William Redfern -
8/7/2006
PS
LGF seems to have found another case of photoshopping the war by the Reuters photographer Hajj Interesting name, no?).
William Redfern -
8/7/2006
Well, it didn't say Lebanese government officials, and since Hezbollah controls internal security in the area ...
In any case, it's a matter of some speculation to what extent the Lebanese government is free to operate at any level without a nod from Hezbollah (particularly in the South, around Qana), and the extent to which it would make different choices without Hezbollah present. The fact that Saniora is demanding the return of Kuntar suggests to me that he has a gun to his head. I think if you track these things as I have, you'll see that when Hezbollah puts out a press release, the Lebanese government has been immediately reporting its assertions as facts.
Give CNN some credit, inasmuch as it saw that some sourcing was necessary for a putative fact they could not directly confirm themselves. It would have been better had they gone the whole hog and reported the figure as speculative, and the basis for the speculation. We should, I guess, make thanks for small favors.
Ralph E. Luker -
8/7/2006
Mr. Redfern, If you insist that "Lebanese security officials" is a euphemism for Hezbollah, you're near conceding that this is an Israeli/Lebanese war. I'd have thought you'd prefer not to put it that way.
William Redfern -
8/7/2006
One might not reasonably expect a reporter to be able to talk to both sides before filing a story, but one should require a baseline of honesty on sourcing.
In the Qana atrocity, the BBC reported that 56 were killed, and reported it as fact, without sourcing. CNN put the figure at over 60, and sourced it to "Lebanese internal security officials" (A CNN euphemism for Hezbollah).
Human Rights Watch rushed to print, claiming as fact that at least 54 had been killed (no source apparently needed). When it, to its credit, followed up days later claiming that 28 had been killed and 13 still missing, it explained the earlier figure as an estimate based on the number of people registered in the building with local officials (read 'Hezbollah').
Neither the speculative basis of the higher counts, nor their ultimate source in Hezbollah, seems to have been a matter of concern to most news media, nor a datum they felt they needed to communicate to their viewers or readers to help them weigh the credibility.
It's one thing to report from one side only, it's another to airbrush the fact that you are taking dictation from one side. Whether to attribute that practice to bias or concern for reporters' safety is an open question. What shouldn't be open to question is that it is a fundamentally dishonest journalistic practice.
Ralph E. Luker -
8/7/2006
Unless you expect reports from the front of any war to be at least dual-authored, it seems to me ridiculous to expect a reporter to "speak to both sides." Do you want them all to be killed or be imprisoned as security risks? How is it more reasonable to expect a reporter on this war to consult both sides than it would have been to have expected a reporter on any earlier war to have "consulted both sides." Can't you just see an American reporter in WWII checking with the German or Japanese war machines to make sure that he wasn't exaggerating their atrocities?
Robert KC Johnson -
8/7/2006
I fully support getting news from multiple sources--even Fox has had surprisingly good reporting coverage at certain stages of this conflict.
Andrew Sullivan, in 2002, summarized some of the BBC's problems well:
"THE BBC'S ISRAEL PROBLEM: You have to go to Britain to really appreciate it. But the sheer viciousness and slant of the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Palestinian dispute permeate every item of news. The London editor of the Jerusalem Post finally decided to stop being interviewed by the BBC. He's a journalist; he's not uncritical of many Israeli policies and actions. But he knows anti-Semitism when he sees it:
Since September 11, I have refused all invitations to appear on BBC radio or television. The reason is not that I wish to avoid a debate, but rather that I believe that the BBC has crossed a dangerous threshold. In my judgement, the volume and intensity of this unchallenged diatribe has now transcended mere criticism of Israel. Hatred is in the air. Wittingly or not, I am convinced that the BBC has become the principal agent for reinfecting British society with the virus of anti-Semitism. And that is a game I am not willing to play."
The investigation earlier this year into specific acts of anti-Israel bias at the BBC hardly provided much reassurance on this matter.
Jonathan Dresner -
8/6/2006
I've never been terribly convinced by the arguments about bias -- pro- or anti-Israel -- in mainstream news media like BBC. It's always worth getting news from multiple sources.
There's good arguments to be made about unconscious selection and cognitive filtering, but most of the arguments I've seen are pretty well canceled out by the arguments on the other side.
What I do see clearly is a strong tendency to sensationalism, a selection bias towards death, destruction and chaos (and heartwarming heroism and other irrelevancies) and against competency, dialogue, pragmatism, and context. It's a business, with a distinctive rewards system.
