Press and Media Suffer From a Bias Virus!

The press and media are not likely to print this but this is factual.

The only way to stop Hamas is to stop Hamas, by bringing them on their knees. When your adversary is on his knees he becomes more amenable to logic.(See 1 below.)

Mississippi wins a questionable prize. As I wrote earlier, more unwed preganancies and births will send the divorce rate south and now it has landed in Missisippi. Every cloud has a silver lining!

Mississippi has gone from Klan murders to teen pregnancies- quite a feat in a half century.

The report states officials cannot explain the sharp and sudden rise in teen pregnancies. One explanation might be that Mississippi girls are dreamy beautiful.(See 2 below.)

No doubt you have seen this and it is a bit of an overstatement but it does put things in somewhat of a numerically humorous perspective. (See 3 below.)

Response from a dear friend and fellow memo reader regarding yesterday's memo. No doubt culture is at the root of the Arab problem and their misguided obeisance to religiosity that has been manipulated to evoke hatred (See 4 below)

Poignant article written as Israel began its offensive against Hamaas: 'Why Israel is Damned if They do and Dead if They Don't.'

The article is correct in regard to Israel being unable to resolve the issue of terrorists seeking to destroy it until there is an Arab cultural change. In the menwhile, Israel is faced with the reality that a dead terrorist is a good terrorist and it must continue to pursue them vigorously and turn them into martyrs.(See 5 below.)

Thoughts from a friend and fellow memo reader who was posed some questions about Palestine and other matters and his response. And then a further clarification by the person to whom he initially responded (See 6 and 6a below.)

A Stratfor article regarding Hamas and Arab Nations. In the article the reader is provided additional insight as to why Iran's surrogate, Hamas, is viewed a pariah by most Arab nations who silently hope Israel will be allowed to 'kick ass!'(See 7 below.)

As I pointed out in a previous memo the hyped reporting of casualty numbers and commentary pertaining to them, reveals the bias the press and media continue to exude. It is amazing that you can even read or see the news as written or shown with all the red blood oozing from the pores of those bleeding heart reporters and journalists. They have spinned themselves out of control(See 8.)

A fellow memo reader and friend knowing of my deep affection for Sen Reid sent me the following. The response geneologist Wallman received is marvelous. Apparently Reid has trained his staff well in the art of spinning.

Like the fisherman who returneth late at night, breath reeking of alcohol and the truth not in him, Harry Reid is generally dour and always there is just something fishy about him. (See 9 below.)

Dick


1)The head of Israeli's intelligence reported today that Hamas terrorists are
hiding in hospitals and maternity wards, wearing the clothes of doctors and
nurses. They are moving rocket launchers into crowded residential
neighborhoods, and thus their success in shooting over 45 rockets into
Israeli towns this morning alone.

The difficulty of rooting out terrorists who hide behind newborn babies and
cancer patients is hard for a civilized country like Israel to deal with. Israel allowed 100 truckloads of medical supplies and basic food items to enter Gaza yesterday, along with five new ambulances donated by Turkey.

This morning, the Gazans requested Israeli hospitals take in two small children injured in the hostilities. Israel allowed them in, even as Hamas continued to bomb.

Mr. Olmert and Ms. Livni have reportedly overruled our Defense Minister's
desire to cave in and give a 48 hour respite for "humanitarian" purposes.
In what war did you ever hear of such a proposal? Where were the
humanitarian requests for "respites" from Hamas rockets on our population
centers from France in the last six years?

Ehud Barak, our former wishy-washy noodle of a Prime Minister, who was
practically begging to sign the country away to Arafat, has a nickname in
Israel. He's known as Ehud "Barach" meaning "to run away." He ran away in
Lebanon, leading to the last Lebanese War, and now he is getting to run away
from Gaza.

2) Mississippi has highest teen birth rate, CDC says


Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen pregnancy rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, according to a new federal report released Wednesday.

Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The teen pregnancy rate in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher.

The three states have large proportions of black and Hispanic teenagers — groups that traditionally have higher birth rates, experts noted.

The lowest teen birth rates continue to be in New England, where three states have teen birth rates at just half the national average.

It's not clear why Mississippi surged into first place. The state's one-year increase of nearly 1,000 teen births could be a statistical blip, said Ron Cossman, a Mississippi State University researcher who focuses on children's health statistics.

More than a year ago, a preliminary report on the 2006 data revealed that the U.S. teen birth rate had risen for the first time in about 15 years. But the new numbers provide the first state-by-state information on the increase.

The new report is based on a review of all the birth certificates in 2006. Significant increases in teen birth rates were noted in 26 states.

"It's pretty much across the board" nationally, said Brady Hamilton, a CDC statistician who worked on the report.

About 435,000 of the nation's 4.3 million births in 2006 were to mothers ages 15 through 19. That was about 21,000 more teen births than in 2005.

Numerically, the largest increases were in the states with the largest populations. California, Texas and Florida together generated almost 30 percent of the nation's extra teen births in 2006.

Some experts have blamed the national increase on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that does not teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception. They said that would explain why teen birth rate increases have been detected across much of the country and not just in a few spots.

There is debate about that, however. Some conservative organizations have argued that contraceptive-focused sex education is still common, and that the new teen birth numbers reflect it is failing.

Other factors include the escalating cost of some types of birth control and their unavailability in some communities, said Stephanie Birch, who directs maternal and child health programs for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.

Glowing media portrayals of celebrity pregnancies don't help, either, she said. "They make it out to be very glamorous," said Birch, who cited a calculation by Alaska officials that teen pregnancies were up 6 percent in that state in 2006.

In Mississippi, there were about 68 births for every 1,000 women, ages 15 through 19 in 2006. The New Mexico rate was 64 per 1,000; Texas was 63.

The national birth rate for females in that age group was about 42 per 1,000. New Hampshire, with a rate of 19 per 1,000, was the nation's lowest.

A variety of factors influence teen pregnancy rates, including culture, poverty and racial demographics. For those and other reasons, kids in mostly white New England likely would delay child birth, said David Landry, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based organization which supports abortion rights and gathers research on sexual and reproductive health.

"It's more costly for youth in the Northeast to have a teen birth than for youth in the South, in terms of opportunities they'll miss," he said.

3) We are in trouble...


The population of this country (USA) is 300 million.

170 million are retired.

That leaves 130 million to do the work.

There are 85 million in school.

Which leaves 45 million to do the work.

Of this there are 30 million employed by the federal government.

Leaving 15 million to do the work.

2.8 million are in the armed forces preoccupied with killing Osama
Bin-Laden.

Which leaves 12.2 million to do the work.

Take from that total the 10.8 million people who work for state and city
Governments. And that leaves 1.4 million to do the work.

At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals.

Leaving 1,212,000 to do the work.

Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prison.

That leaves just two people to do the work.

You and me.

And there you are, sitting on your chair, at your computer, reading jokes.

4)Just a couple of quick comments on your extremely informative columns of the last few days:

1) the problem in the Arab world, in the entire Muslim world, is culture : a culture driven by a dark-ages political system, posing as a religion. I have been from Morocco to Mindanao, and have seen nothing but filth, poverty, and ignorance. At some point these people must lay aside the paranoid Quran , with its incitements to violence and hatred, and start to live in the 21st century.

2) in re Rockefeller and torture; remind me when we get together.

5) DAMNED IF THEY DO BUT ISRAELI'S DEAD IF THEY DON'T

DEAD Jews aren't news, but killing terrorists outrages global activists. Israel has struck back powerfully against its tormentors. Now Israel's again the villain.


How long will it be until the UN General Assembly passes a resolution creating an international Holocaust Appreciation Day?

Israel 's airstrikes against confirmed Hamas terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip were overdue, discriminating and skillful. So far, this retaliatory campaign has been a superb example of how to employ postmodern airpower.

Instead of bombing empty buildings in the dead of night in the hope of convincing bloodthirsty monsters to become peace-loving floral arrangers - the US Air Force version of "Shock and Awe" - the Israeli Defense Force aimed to kill terrorists.
Israeli aircraft appear to have accomplished that part of the mission. As I write, some 300 terrorist dead have been reported in Gaza , while the propaganda-savvy information office of Hamas has struggled to prove that 20 civilians died.

Given the fact that Hamas adheres to the terrorist practice of locating command sites, arsenals and training facilities in heavily populated areas, the results suggest that the IDF - supported by first-rate intelligence work - may have executed the most accurate wave of airstrikes in history, with a 15-to-1 terrorist-to-civilian kill ratio.

The bad news is that it still won't be enough. While Israel has delivered a painful blow against Hamas, it's still not a paralyzing hit. The only way to neuter such a terror threat - even temporarily - is to go in on the ground and scour every room, basement and underground tunnel in a region.

That would mean high Israeli casualties and, of course, condemnation of Israel 's self-defense efforts by every self-righteous, corrupt and bigoted organization and government on earth, from Turtle Bay to Tehran .

What have been Israel's "crimes?" Not "stealing Palestinian land," but making that land productive, while exposing the incompetence and sloth of Arab culture.
Israel 's crime isn't striking back at terror, but demonstrating, year after year, that a country in the Middle East can be governed without resort to terror. Israel 's crime hasn't been denying Arab rights, but insisting on human rights for women and minorities.

Israel's crime has been making democracy work where tyranny prevailed for 5,000 years. Israel's crime has been survival against overwhelming odds, while legions of Arab nationalists, Islamist extremists and Western leftists want every Jew dead.
But Israel's greatest crime was to expose the global cult of victimhood, to prove that hard work, fortitude and courage could overcome even history's grimmest disaster.

Was it a crime to hand Gaza back to Palestinian authorities, to give peace a chance? Look what Israel received in return for trading land for peace.

Let us never forget the fundamental truth that, while Israel longs to live in peace with its neighbors, those neighbors openly profess the desire to eliminate Israel and exterminate its people.

Indeed, Arab and regional jealousy toward Israel is so all-consuming, so necessary to excuse the Arab art of failure, that even these judicious airstrikes will hardly make a dent in the terrorist threat.

Unless Israel sends in ground forces for the long haul - and thousands of IDF reservists are being mobilized - there will be, at best, a temporary respite from terror attacks. Even a new occupation of Gaza would not fully solve the problem.
A crucial point about interfaith and interethnic conflicts that we sheltered Americans refuse to understand is that, all too often, there's just no good solution - and not even a bad solution, short of acts of barbarism.
It's a rare conflict that results in an enduring peace. Unintended consequences abound. At times, you fight just to buy time, to gain breathing space - or merely to frustrate an enemy's designs for a limited period.

That's the situation Israel faces: No hope of an ultimate victory, but a constant fight to survive. Enemies who believe their god ordains their actions can't be placated. For faith-fueled terrorists, such as the core members of Hamas, the struggle with Israel's a zero-sum game. Compromise is, at most, an expedient tool, never an acceptable end state.

What will we see in the coming days? Much depends on Israel's resolve. The most probable scenario is that Hamas will continue launching terror rockets for a few weeks to salve its wounded vanity and maintain the image of "resistance," but will ultimately reduce its attacks against Israel - while it rebuilds its cadres and restocks its arsenal.

Israel will have bought time, not peace.

What might Israel have done better? It's essential to take out the top terrorist leaders. But Israel's government remains reluctant to target the cowardly Hamas leaders hiding in Damascus - or even the top terrorists remaining in Gaza .
For terrorist bosses,the rank-and-file are disposable and replaceable. You can't just kill the gunmen. You have to kill the names.

We may sympathize with the average Palestinian family, exploited by generations of corrupt leaders and now caught in yet another round of violence. But let us never forget that Israel hasn't fired thousands of blind rockets into Palestinian cities, that Israeli suicide bombers don't attack Arab restaurants and bus stops, and that Israel seeks to avoid harming civilians - while Hamas seeks to kill as many civilians as possible.

In a world where there are no good answers, Israel just answered as best it could. The world's response? "How dare Jews defend themselves."

Humanity doesn't progress. It just changes clothes.

6) I had some questions posed to me in the past couple of days re Gaza, Israel, and a place once called Palestine. Here are the questions and my answers. I wrote my answers from recollection of things I think I know.

Q: Why are people so reluctant to deal with the terrorists?
A. Timidity? Indifference? Complacency? If this were happening to member of anyone's family, reactions would be different.

Q: Where did the name Palestine come from? Wasn't Palestine the name of the Jews ancient home?
A. Up to the year 131 of the common era, Palestine was call Israel by the Jewish inhabitants. When the Bar Kochba revolt against Rome was suppressed in the year 131, Jerusalem was sacked, the Temple of Solomon destroyed, and Jewish inhabitants killed, taken captive, or exiled. The Romans changed the name of the region to Palestine, as in Philistia, to deny any Jewish claim of legitimacy over their former sovereign country. There were no Muslims until Mohammed invented this fine religious faith in the eighth century and there were no Arabs until the inhabitants of Arabia, speakers of Arabic, set out to conquer the world by sword in accordance with the will of their new deity. In 70 AD the Romans destroyed the Kingdom of Israel and to severed the ties of the Jewish people to their country. They were exiled and the Romans gave the name Palestina Prima, Secunda and Tertzia (1st, 2nd and 3rd Roman administrative districts).

Q. Wasn't Israel established in 1939?
A. There has never been an independent country called Palestine. Palestine, was the Jewish region conquered by Rome more than two millennia ago and named Palestine by Romans to deny Jewish people any legitimate claim to their homeland for nearly four thousand years.

Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Empire for four hundred years up to the end of WWI. After Turkey was on the losing side of WWI, the League of Nations gave a Mandate for administration of Palestine to Great Britain in 1922 with the expectation that the English would follow-through on the Balfour Declaration of 1917"favoring the establishment of a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish People." The Brits did not keep their promise and since the 1920's the Arabs have been doing their best to kill or expel Jewish people living in what was once Palestine and is now, once again, Israel.

Israel was established along with the plan for an Arab country in the former Palestine in 1948 by partition of the Mandate by the UN. The Arabs refused to accept the participation and they have been waging war with Israel ever since.

The partition plan was voted in by the UN on November 29 1947. People in general have no knowledge of this history and make all kinds of outrageous comments. You can quote me on this: NO ONE IS MORE ARROGANT THAN THE IGNORANT.

6a) To be even more precise... the Romans, bent on destroying the association of the land with the people of Israel and their god, renamed Judaea "Syria Palestina" and Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina". The first name, "Palestine", stuck.

The name "Palestine" was not mentioned in the Quran, as Muhammed was a G-d-fearing man who would not support the pagan attempt to take away the land of Israel from Allah. Instead the Quran speaks of the land as the land given to the people of Israel by Allah through Moses.



7) Hamas and the Arab States
By Kamran Bokhari and Reva Bhalla

Israel is now in the 12th day of carrying out Operation Cast Lead against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has been the de facto ruler ever since it seized control of the territory in a June 2007 coup. The Israeli campaign, whose primary military aim is to neutralize Hamas’ ability to carry out rocket attacks against Israel, has led to the reported deaths of more than 560 Palestinians; the number of wounded is approaching the 3,000 mark.

The reaction from the Arab world has been mixed. On the one hand, a look at the so-called Arab street will reveal an angry scene of chanting protesters, burning flags and embassy attacks in protest of Israel’s actions. The principal Arab regimes, however, have either kept quiet or publicly condemned Hamas for the crisis — while privately often expressing their support for Israel’s bid to weaken the radical Palestinian group.

Despite the much-hyped Arab nationalist solidarity often cited in the name of Palestine, most Arab regimes actually have little love for the Palestinians. While these countries like keeping the Palestinian issue alive for domestic consumption and as a tool to pressure Israel and the West when the need arises, in actuality, they tend to view Palestinian refugees — and more Palestinian radical groups like Hamas — as a threat to the stability of their regimes.

One such Arab country is Saudi Arabia. Given its financial power and its shared religious underpinnings with Hamas, Riyadh traditionally has backed the radical Palestinian group. The kingdom backed a variety of Islamist political forces during the 1960s and 1970s in a bid to undercut secular Nasserite Arab nationalist forces, which threatened Saudi Arabia’s regional status. But 9/11, which stemmed in part from Saudi support for the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, opened Riyadh’s eyes to the danger of supporting militant Islamism.

Thus, while Saudi Arabia continued to support many of the same Palestinian groups, it also started whistling a more moderate tune in its domestic and foreign policies. As part of this moderate drive, in 2002 King Abdullah offered Israel a comprehensive peace treaty whereby Arab states would normalize ties with the Jewish state in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal to its 1967 borders. Though Israel rejected the offer, the proposal itself clearly conflicted with Hamas’ manifesto, which calls for Israel’s destruction. The post-9/11 world also created new problems for one of Hamas’ sources of regular funding — wealthy Gulf Arabs — who grew increasingly wary of turning up on the radars of Western security and intelligence agencies as fund transfers from the Gulf came under closer scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Egypt, which regularly mediates Hamas-Israel and Hamas-Fatah matters, thus far has been the most vocal in its opposition to Hamas during the latest Israeli military offensive. Cairo has even gone as far as blaming Hamas for provoking the conflict. Though Egypt’s stance has earned it a number of attacks on its embassies in the Arab world and condemnations in major Arab editorial pages, Cairo has a core strategic interest in ensuring that Hamas remains boxed in. The secular government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is already preparing for a shaky leadership transition, which is bound to be exploited by the country’s largest opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB).

The MB, from which Hamas emerged, maintains links with the Hamas leadership. Egypt’s powerful security apparatus has kept the MB in check, but the Egyptian group has steadily built up support among Egypt’s lower and middle classes, which have grown disillusioned with the soaring rate of unemployment and lack of economic prospects in Egypt. The sight of Muslim Brotherhood activists leading protests in Egypt in the name of Hamas is thus quite disconcerting for the Mubarak regime. The Egyptians also are fearful that Gaza could become a haven for Salafist jihadist groups that could collaborate with Egypt’s own jihadist node the longer Gaza remains in disarray under Hamas rule.

Of the Arab states, Jordan has the most to lose from a group like Hamas. More than three-fourths of the Hashemite monarchy’s people claim Palestinian origins. The kingdom itself is a weak, poor state that historically has relied on the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States for its survival. Among all Arab governments, Amman has had the longest and closest relationship with Israel — even before it concluded a formal peace treaty with Israel in 1994. In 1970, Jordan waged war against Fatah when the group posed a threat to the kingdom’s security; it also threw out Hamas in 1999 after fears that the group posed a similar threat to the stability of the kingdom. Like Egypt, Jordan also has a vibrant MB, which has closer ties to Hamas than its Egyptian counterpart. As far as Amman is concerned, therefore, the harder Israel hits Hamas, the better.

Finally, Syria is in a more complex position than these other four Arab states. The Alawite-Baathist regime in Syria has long been a pariah in the Arab world because of its support for Shiite Iran and for their mutual militant proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah. But ever since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Syrians have been charting a different course, looking for ways to break free from diplomatic isolation and to reach some sort of understanding with the Israelis.

For the Syrians, support for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and several other radical Palestinian outfits provides tools of leverage to use in negotiating a settlement with Israel. Any deal between the Syrians and the Israelis would thus involve Damascus sacrificing militant proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas in return for key concessions in Lebanon — where Syria’s core geopolitical interests lie — and in the disputed Golan Heights. While the Israeli-Syrian peace talks remain in flux, Syria’s lukewarm reaction to the Israeli offensive and restraint (thus far) from criticizing the more moderate Arab regimes’ lack of response suggests Damascus may be looking to exploit the Gaza offensive to improve its relations in the Arab world and reinvigorate its talks with Israel. And the more damage Israel does to Hamas now, the easier it will be for Damascus to crack down on Hamas should the need arise.

With Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria taking into account their own interests when dealing with the Palestinians, ironically, the most reliable Sunni patron Hamas has had in recent years is Iran, the Sunni Arab world’s principal Shiite rival. Several key developments have made Hamas’ gradual shift toward Iran possible:

Saudi Arabia’s post-9/11 move into the moderate camp — previously dominated by Egypt and Jordan, two states that have diplomatic relations with Israel.

The collapse of Baathist Iraq and the resulting rise of Shiite power in the region.

The 2004 Iranian parliamentary elections that put Iran’s ultraconservatives in power and the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose public anti-Israeli views resonated with Hamas at a time when other Arab states had grown more moderate.

The 2006 Palestinian elections, in which Hamas defeated its secular rival, Fatah, by a landslide.

When endowed with the responsibility of running an unrecognized government, Hamas floundered between its goals of dominating the Palestinian political landscape and continuing to call for the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamist state. The Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had hoped that the electoral victory would lead Hamas to moderate its stance, but Iran encouraged Hamas to adhere to its radical agenda. As the West increasingly isolated the Hamas-led government, the group shifted more toward the Iranian position, which more closely meshed with its original mandate.

The 2006 summer military confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, in which Iranian-backed Hezbollah symbolically defeated the Jewish state. Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli military onslaught gave confidence to Hamas that it could emulate the Lebanese Shiite movement — which, like Hamas, was both a political party and an armed paramilitary organization. Similar to their reaction to the current Gaza offensive, the principal Arab states condemned Hezbollah for provoking Israel and grew terrified at the outpouring of support for the Shiite militant group from their own populations. Hezbollah-Hamas collaboration in training, arms-procurement and funding intensified, and almost certainly has played a decisive role in equipping Hamas with 122mm BM-21 Grad artillery rockets and larger Iranian-made 240mm Fajr-3 rockets — and potentially even a modest anti-armor capability.

The June 2007 Hamas coup against Fatah in the Gaza Strip, which caused a serious strain in relations between Egypt and Hamas. The resulting blockade on Gaza put Egypt in an extremely uncomfortable position, in which it had to crack down on the Gaza border, thus giving the MB an excuse to rally opposition against Cairo. Egypt was already uncomfortable with Hamas’ electoral victory, but it could not tolerate the group’s emergence as the unchallenged power in Gaza.

Syria’s decision to go public with peace talks with Israel. As soon as it became clear that Syria was getting serious about such negotiations, alarm bells went off within groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, which now had to deal with the fear that Damascus could sell them out at any time as part of a deal with the Israelis.
Hamas’ relations with the Arab states already were souring; its warming relationship with Iran has proved the coup de grace. Mubarak said it best when he recently remarked that the situation in the Gaza Strip “has led to Egypt, in practice, having a border with Iran.” In other words, Hamas has allowed Iranian influence to come far too close for the Arab states’ comfort.

In many ways, the falling-out between Hamas and the Arab regimes is not surprising. The decline of Nasserism in the late 1960s essentially meant the death of Arab nationalism. Even before then, the Arab states put their respective national interests ahead of any devotion to pan-Arab nationalism that would have translated into support for the Palestinian cause. As Islamism gradually came to replace Arab nationalism as a political force throughout the region, the Arab regimes became even more concerned about stability at home, given the very real threat of a religious challenge to their rule. While these states worked to suppress radical Islamist elements that had taken root in their countries, the Arab governments caught wind of Tehran’s attempts to adopt the region’s radical Islamist trend to create a geopolitical space for Iran in the Arab Middle East. As a result, the Arab-Persian struggle became one of the key drivers that has turned the Arab states against Hamas.

For each of these Arab states, Hamas represents a force that could stir the social pot at home — either by creating a backlash against the regimes for their ties to Israel and their perceived failure to aid the Palestinians, or by emboldening democratic Islamist movements in the region that could threaten the stability of both republican regimes and monarchies. With somewhat limited options to contain Iranian expansion in the region, the Arab states ironically are looking to Israel to ensure that Hamas remains boxed in. So, while on the surface it may seem that the entire Arab world is convulsing with anger at Israel’s offensive against Hamas, a closer look reveals that the view from the Arab palace is quite different from the view on the Arab street.

8) As before, media depicting Israel as the 'bully'
By Chad Groening

A media watchdog organization says no one should be surprised that media coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists has been overwhelmingly pro-Hamas.


In his first public comments on the conflict since Israel launched a ground offensive over the weekend, President George Bush recently said the Jewish nation is justified in protecting itself against Hamas terrorists. He told reporters that the situation "was caused by Hamas."

The mainstream media, however, continues to point out the civilian casualties inflicted upon the Palestinians in Gaza while ignoring stories about Israeli casualties at the hands of Hamas terrorists.

Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, argues that liberal media outlets portray Israel as the "bully" in the conflict.

"You can see the bias in the way they present the deaths," he offers. "For example, on the front page of the Washington Post you saw this story about a [Palestinian] man who lost five of his daughters in a missile attack -- and that's very heart rending.

"[But] on the other hand, when Israelis lose brothers and sisters and mothers and children in Hamas attacks, they're not [considered to be] newsworthy. Why? Because apparently the numbers aren't quite as impressive."

Graham says the incursions of Hamas missiles have been portrayed by the media as almost harmless attacks because, in comparison, they are not very deadly.

9) Remus Reid

Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher here in southern California, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Harry Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.


The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory.

On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: 'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'

So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle.

Believe it or not, Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:


'Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.'





















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