UPDATE "Hezbollywood" The Art of Staging Scenes for the Media

August 1, 2006

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Read new story on it here. Noel Sheppard’s take on Newsbusters here. Read about “The Schwinns of War,” here. See pictures below.
“What happened at Qana was, almost certainly, what happened at Jenin in 2002, what happened on a beach in Gaza a few weeks ago, and what has happened on innumerable other occasions. The Israelis are instantaneously accused and convicted of a monstrous and perhaps intentional act of butchery, by people quite incurious about the facts. The Israelis quickly released real-time aerial reconnaissance footage to show the Hezbollah firing rockets from between houses in Qana; then pulling the launchers immediately afterwards into civilian buildings. The Israeli military logged three air strikes around Qana in the course of the evening in question, including one next to the houses that were destroyed. So while it was possible the Israelis had dropped the bombs that killed 54 people — coincidentally all women and children — it was, at the worst, unintended “collateral damage” near a valid military target.”


“Sad Woman in Front of Wall With English Language Slogan: Take one” Watch the video.

Which brings us to this series of questions:
Was the Qana bombing an atrocity? A mistake?
What about the death count?
Who’s this guy and why does he change clothes and carry the same body around the whole day?
A sad prop?
What’s going on here and why do the media allow themselves to get ‘played’?
Brent Sadler of CNN reports that the Israeli ordnance did not even hit the building but landed “20 or 30 meters” from the structure.
“There are other mysteries. The roof of the building was intact. Journalist Ben Wedeman of CNN noted that there was a larger crater next to the building, but observed that the building appeared not to have collapsed as a result of the Israeli strike.”
From Israel Insider: What we do know is that sometime after dawn a call went [out] to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did, in droves. While Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there.
More from Israel Insider: There was little blood, CNN’s Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping — sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building. Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead. But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. While medical examination clearly is called for to arrive at a definitive dating and cause of their deaths, they do not appear to have died hours before. The bodies looked like they had been dead for days.
Here’s more info.
Here’s why we’re asking.


Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com