Snapped Shot

If this isn't the freaky-deakyest wallpaper I've ever seen, I don't know what is.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrives to greet his Greek counterpart Carolos Papoulias (not seen) at Al-Shaab Palace in Damascus on June 24, 2009. Papoulias is on an official visit to Syria. AFP PHOTO/LOUAI BESHARA (Photo credit should read LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images)

How bout you out there in Snapped Shot Land? You guys seen any wallpaper worse than this monstrosity?

I'm thinking anything from the 70's would barely qualify. The 60's, on the other hand, might be a different story entirely.

Thanks to the AFP's Louai Beshara for the laugh.

Those dastardly fellows in the IDF, all of whom I respect and admire, have created quite an international incident. It would seem that they've fired across an international border, which is an outrage! of proportions totally unequaled—at least, if you were to believe the fire and brimstone press, that is.

Of course, when one looks at what the soldiers were aiming at (Daylife link pending), well, you just can't help but to agree with the mindless media demonization of the Jewish State, now can you?

UN soldiers inspect bullet holes on a mural after an Israeli soldier patrolling along the border with Lebanon opened fire in the southern Lebanese village of Adaisseh. An Israeli soldier patrolling the border with Lebanon opened fire at a pro-Hezbollah mural painted on a wall at the entrance to a Lebanese village. (AFP/Ali Dia)

Update: For the record, I "predicted" an incident like this more than two years ago. And the IDF went and out-awesome'd my predictions by leaps and bounds.

I'm guessing that Patrick Baz/AFP would readily identify this guy as a "civilian", judging by the caption:

A members of the Palestinian National Guard affiliated with Hamas, walks on the rubble of the bombed National Guard headquarters in Gaza City on January 21, 2009. The last Israeli soldier withdrew from the Gaza Strip today, the fourth day of a ceasefire that ended a 22-day blitz on the Islamist Hamas movement in which 1,300 Palestinians were killed. AFP PHOTO/PATRICK BAZ (Photo credit should read PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Question: How does one determine the difference between a civilian holding guns who is "affiliated" with Hamas, and one who is Hamas?

The wonders of guerilla warfare—in which a quasi-military force refuses to wear a uniform, in order to blend in with the population from which they spring—will endlessly escape the idealists in Gay Paree, it seems.

If we are to believe the media in this Gaza offensive by Isreal, then there is a vast majority of children killed in this battle. How?

Image here, the caption follows:

Israeli left-wing activists protest against the ongoing military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza has now killed more than 1,000 people, as hopes were raised that Hamas may accept a ceasefire to end the offensive in the Palestinian territory. (AFP/Gali Tibbon)

Image here, the caption follows:

An explosion is seen where the Israeli military is bombing an area around alleged smuggling tunnels in Rafah southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009. Israel showed no signs of slowing its bruising 19-day offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers, striking some 60 targets on Wednesday. Israel launched the onslaught on Dec. 27, seeking to punish the Hamas militant group for years of rocket attacks on southern Israel. The offensive has killed more than 940 Palestinians, half of them civilians, according to Palestinian hospital official. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)

Image here, the caption follows:

A Palestinian child wounded in the Israeli offensive arrives at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The UN Children's Fund has warned that children caught up in the Israeli offensive in Gaza are bearing the brunt of the crisis, with over 300 killed since December 27. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)

So, if we are to believe CR(ap), then 1,000 "palestinians" have been killed in Israel's offensive onslaught of the innocents. Half of those deaths have been "civilian" with over 300 being children.

THAT MEANS THAT OVER 2/3 OF THE CIVILIAN CASUALTIES ARE CHILDREN??!?!

Does that sound right to you? I know that there is a larger than average number of kids in this region due to the willingness of young adults to kill themselves off, but, you would think that the kids, and especially their parents would take them AWAY from the war zone. Right? riiiight??

Ok, granted in a normal society they would. But still. Think about this some more. You have 500 terrorists killed, over 300 kids, and only 200 civilian adults (according to the media) that were in an active war zone and ended up dead. In other words, there were almost as many children as terrorists killed while Israel was taking out terrorist targets.

Now, shouldn't these numbers be raising questions by the media as well?

Meanwhile, Hizballah continues to fire their rockets in to Israel and the U.N. terrorist-keepers have even found rockets prepared to launch as well. So, who wants peace?

The wire services are genuinely rallying to Hamas' support in this latest Israeli offensive. Case in point is this photo, filed by Reuters with the immediate storyline-following caption:

A student holds an Israeli flag during a protest at Hebrew University in Jerusalem against Israel's offensive in Gaza December 29, 2008. Israeli aircraft destroyed a bastion of Hamas's rule over the Gaza Strip on Monday, the third day of an offensive that has killed more than 300 Palestinians in the deadliest violence in the territory in decades. Hamas fired a rocket salvo into the Israeli city of Ashkelon, killing one person, the second such fatality since Israeli bombing began on Saturday. REUTERS/Nikola Solic (JERUSALEM)

Now, it's not too far beyond reason to suspect that muttonhead university students would be rallying against the Israeli military, but it did seem a little bit odd to see her holding the Israeli flag sans fire.

To my surprise, Reuters issued an update mere moments later:

REFILE - CORRECTING REASON FOR DEMONSTRATION A student holds an Israeli flag during a rally at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in support of Israeli troops and residents of the Gaza border December 29, 2008. Israeli aircraft destroyed a bastion of Hamas's rule over the Gaza Strip on Monday, the third day of an offensive that has killed more than 300 Palestinians in the deadliest violence in the territory in decades. Hamas fired a rocket salvo into the Israeli city of Ashkelon, killing one person, the second such fatality since Israeli bombing began on Saturday. REUTERS/Nikola Solic (JERUSALEM)

Would it be too much for me to suggest that the Reuters Middle East desk needs to slow down a bit, and stop trying to shove events into their predetermined narratives quite so fast?

Update: Soccer Dad sends along a similar Reuters photo, which has not been corrected yet, as far as I can tell.

He also sent this AFP photo over, which may help explain some of Reuters' confusion:

Israeli right-wing students hold Israeli flags (top) and left-wing students hold a Palestinian flag (bottom) during simultaneous demonstration for and against the military operation on the Gaza Strip on December 29, 2008 in front of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip has sparked protests across the occupied West Bank and the world, with demonstrations held in European capitals, Turkey, Egypt and Syria AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI (Photo credit should read AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images)

Again, my advice to Reuters would be to slow down. The world can wait, if it means having access to a more accurate caption.

It's nice to see that, despite the preponderance of evidence suggesting that Palestinians seem to take a singular enjoyment out of the old-fashioned art of "burnin' stuff," my mortal enemy sees fit to assume a somewhat different culprit in today's pictures:

A Palestinian youth looks from a rooftop at smoke rising from a Palestinian area after a fire was allegedly set by Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron, Wednesday Dec. 3, 2008. Tensions have been high in the divided West Bank city and unrest has taken place around a house where Jewish settlers have holed up in defiance of an Israeli Supreme Court eviction order. There have been clashes between Jewish settlers, Palestinians and Israeli security forces in recent days(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

So:—Did those dastardly Jewish "settlers" start this proverbial fire?

All signs point to no.

I wonder if the Associated Press will see fit to clear up their prior misconceptions?

Call it a hunch, but I suspect the answer to that question reads, "See above."

Why bother hiring your own PR firm, which would mean having to spend your easy-earned dollars, when you can just use the largest "news" agencies in the world as your advertising firm, free of charge?

The Associated Press doesn't seem to mind being used in the least.

Agence France-Presse seems to surrender to their every whim.

But Reuters, of all, seems to be the most adept at meeting today's terrorist group's needs, serving up photos that are worthy of gracing any terrorist's den.

Notice that not a single one of those photographs is original. In other words, the agency photographers are doing nothing more than taking the pictures that the terrorists are ordering them to take.

Once again, I'm left to wonder why it is that the largest news organizations in the world have become content with being nothing more than the unpaid public relations arms of the world's terrorist regimes.

Of course, judging by the fact that all of these agencies' revenues are collapsing due to declining readership—Yeah, the public notices that y'all aren't actually delivering any news—maybe it's time these companies start charging Hamas for their services.

Update: It would seem that all P.R. work is not equal.

Can you guess what kind of P.R. work the Associated Press hates?

See-Also:

Dhimmi Watch

I'm betting that Abbas Momani/AFP had to twist himself into literal knots to get this particular composition.

Never let it be said that contorting onesself into odd positions to make a tiresome point with silhouettes doesn't pay off at the end of the day. Because I'm confident that we've never seen photos like that before.

When one of Reuters' own photojournalists was assaulted by Hezbullah thugs, the news agency didn't express a whole lot of interest in bringing you the story.

The agency showed just as much disinterest when an Agence France-Presse photographer was roughed up by Hamas goons.

The agency treats the beating of EPA photojournalist Abdul Hashlamoun (possibly a relative of a Reuters stringer) to be a far more newsworthy event.

Can you guess why?

Heart-wrenching photo coverage here.

Update: Abdul's photographic work can be found here

... the terrorist masses, that is.

My new friend Pritt Stift over at Geenstijl has more (auto-translated).

Hamas has apparently issued a call for photographers to come and "observe" its smuggling operations underneath the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Despite the fact that such an operation is in flagrant violation of international law, a handful of stringers do appear to have heeded the call, and as such, have provided us with a propagandists' view of the Hamas humanitarian corps. Continue reading »

Here's yet another shining example of culture from the Palestinian terror-tories, in which an Islamic Jihad militant displays the latest in funeral fashion for audiences worldwide:



Of course, perhaps my Magic Sarcasm Generator is working a bit too hard lately.

In all seriousness, is Agence France-Presse really trying to pass this off as a "news" photograph? Or could it be that they are vying to become the next official source of Hamas propaganda?

From the continuing Communist protest against high gas prices—Because, as everyone knows, the only proven way to reduce prices is to walk around in the streets with a bunch of poorly-spelled signs—we see reference to Commonman, the world's most powerful superhero:



The Communist Party in India seems to be the world leader in Protest Sign Stinkage these days. That's okay, though—They make up for it by being somewhat better looking than their American counterparts.

Incidentally, I hear that giant frickin' muppets are twice as effective at lowering prices, in case anyone from CPI happens to be reading this site.

Blast from the past: I don't think Superman is going to take this challenge sitting down.

Or standing up on a sound stage, as the case may be.

Update: Dpud sends in some suggested superpowers for our new superhero via e-mail: Continue reading »

If Mohammed Abed/AFP would have happened to have been killed by the IDF while filming this Hamas rocket crew in action, how loud do you think the international press would've howled?

My guess is that it'd be a somewhat louder protest than what these guys got.

[Picture]—DayLife link pending

Palestinian militants take position in the early hours on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Three Hamas gunmen were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was set to meet top ministers to weigh up a possible military offensive on the territory in a bid to stop militant rocket fire. (AFP/Mohammed Abed)

Full series here.