I took a look at the J Street website and it really seems to strike the right cord for me. Thanks for posting it.
Posted by CG at January 9, 2009 06:56 AMSend a white rose to Obama. It will only cost you $5, and he will be surrounded by reminders to call for an immediate ceasefire (this campaign is inspired by the White Rose Society, a group dedicated to peace in WW II Germany).
Posted by Shirin at January 9, 2009 08:00 AMSend white roses to this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0wJXf2nt4Y
Posted by Rockabilly at January 9, 2009 06:02 PMHey Rockabilly..
FYI...MEMRI (the source of that video) is a notorious pro-Israeli "new service" (read propaganda outlet), headed up by former Israeli intelligence personnel.
It is well known for offering wide distribution to some of the most inflamatory rhetoric that the Muslem world has to offer. It has also been caught offering mistranslations of Arabic to enhance the offensive nature of the presentation.
Posted by brisa at January 9, 2009 07:01 PMThanks, Brisa, for your accurate description of MEMRI. And by the way, their mistranslations don't always enhance offensive nature, sometimes they create it from thin air.
One of the more egregious ones I have seen was the famous children's show with the Mickey Mouse character. By changing a word here and a word there, MEMRI transmogrified that clip into something incredibly sinister that bordered on child abuse, and of course, it was played over and over and over again for days on the mainstream media, and of course discussed at length on talk radio, and no one took the responsibility to confirm that the translation was accurate. They bought it hook, line, and sinker. Jon Stewart even did a bit on it.
What they should have done, of course, is to confirm the translation with a neutral party conversant in Arabic, discussed with someone knowledgeable how the clip might relate to children's lives in Palestine, and presented it that way, instead of blindly going along and falsely presenting it as something it was not.
Posted by Shirin at January 10, 2009 12:41 AM