November 19. I admired NBC TV’s Richard Engel’s coverage of Egypt during the revolt against Mubarak, less so his coverage of Libya. Yet his comments about Gaza, as reported by As’ad AbuKhalil, are downright repulsive.
On Nov. 18 AbuKhalil wrote, “… Take, for example, Richard Engel, the award-winning NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent. In his report aired 16 November, he assured viewers that ‘so far Israel has been using surgical strikes.’ Never mind that news reports had already revealed the heavy toll in Gaza among civilians and especially children (including the eleven-month-old baby of a Palestinian who works with BBC Arabic). We were told that ‘civilians are dying too,’ but we are shown ample footage of Palestinian rockets being fired from Gaza.”
AbuKhalil continues “In its 2009 assault against Gaza alone, Israel killed 960 Palestinian civilians, including 288 children and 121 women. None of these figures are worthy of inclusion. The main thrust of the report focused instead on the ties between Hamas and the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and how the former is emboldened because the Arab revolts brought the latter to rule Egypt. The icing comes at the end when Engels tells Brian Williams: ‘An Israeli incursion [read: invasion] could be very bloody and could risk inflaming the entire region, but that, Brian, could be just what Hamas is hoping to do.'”
“Surgical Strikes”. That is linguistic vomit. Take a look at the baby burned to a crisp and talk about “surgical strikes”. Look at the faces of the survivors of the al-Dalou family who lost four children in one bombing. Hamas is hoping for an invasion? Hoping? Sure, just like Poland wanted to be invaded by Nazi Germany.
stanthestruggle 