Monday, May 16, 2011

AP Is Not Only Biased But Wrong

So, this is AP history:

Palestinians were marking the "nakba," or "catastrophe" — the term they use to describe their defeat and displacement in the war that followed Israel's founding on May 15, 1948.

So, no war started on December 1, 1947?

Well, since Wikipedia is quite available to journalists, what does it say there?

This:-

Soon thereafter [the Partition recommendation of November 29, 1947 - YM], violence broke out and became more prevalent. Murders, reprisals, and counter-reprisals killed dozens on both sides.

In December 1947 and January 1948 an estimated nearly 1000 people were killed and 2000 injured. By the end of March, the figure had risen to 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.

Jewish soldiers take up positions at Mishmar Ha'emek, a settlement whose defenders repulsed repeated Arab attacks and inflicted a significant defeat on the Arab Liberation Army. From January onwards, operations became more militaristic, with the intervention into Palestine of a number of Arab Liberation Army regiments which divided up around the different coastal towns and reinforced Galilee and Samaria. Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War. At the time, military assessments were that the Palestinian Arabs were incapable of beating the Zionists.

Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organized the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem...

And how does an Arab source report the history of the 1947-1949 war? How about PASSIA?

In Nov. 1947, the UNGA voted...for the majority scheme (UN Res. 181), recommending the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state with an international enclave comprising Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Palestinians (two-thirds of the population and owning most of the land) rejected the resolution. The ensuing disturbances culminated in the first Arab-Israeli war, after the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948 in the part of Palestine allocated to the Jews in UN Res. 181. The balance of power was very unequal with a wellequipped and trained Zionist army fighting against poorly armed Palestinian resistance groups, and many Palestinian civilians fled in panic after Jewish forces committed a series of massacres in their villages. Before the entry of the Arab armies, the Zionist forces launched two offensives - one from Tel Aviv and one from Jerusalem itself (Dec. 1947-May 1948) - which resulted in the conquest of West Jerusalem and the corridor leading to the coast - in violation of the UN Partition Resolution.

That's quite a revisionist version. But we do have there Arabs fighting Jews pre-May 1948.

Here are some random items:

JERUSALEM, Saturday, Dec. 27 -- An immigration official of the Jewish Agency for Palestine was shot dead yesterday by Arabs in an attack on a convoy in which Mrs. Golda Meyerson, acting head of the Agency's Political Department, was traveling. Mrs. Meyerson was unhurt.

and

PALESTINE KILLINGS JUMP TO 16 IN DAY; FIGHTING STIFFENS; Haifa Is Worst Trouble Spot With 4 Arabs, 5 Jews Slain -- Wounded Total 51

That was December 1947 from the New York Times.

Yes, AP. A war actually preceded Israel's founding.



(k/t = BT)

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