The Syrian Skyscape 1

Heard this morning on ABC Radio National's Breakfast program:

"... in the airspace above Syria you've got the US-led coalition, including Australia, bombing targets. You've got the Russians, and occasionally, the Israelis..." (Matt Brown reporting from the Syrian border, AM, abc.net.au, 25/11/15)

WTF?!

Israel's Sock Puppet at the ABC

A more blatant display of Israeli propaganda than last night's 7.30 Report's Gaza conflict - one year on would be hard to find:

"The aim of the attacks was to end the rocket attacks being made on Israel by Islamic militants." (from the introduction on the website)

"The aim was to end the barrage of crude rockets being being constantly fired by Islamic militants towards Israeli towns." (from presenter Chris Uhlmann)

"Operation Cast Lead was launched to put a stop to years of Hamas rockets on Israel's southern towns and cities." (from ABC Middle East correspondent Ben Knight)

That's our (Zionised) ABC for you, folks. It doesn't get much more mantra-like than that.

Well, why did Israel attack Gaza? Quite simply, to get its mojo (aka deterrence capability) back after losing it to Hezbollah in 2006. Don't believe me? Well, just listen to the war criminals behind the Gaza Holocaust:

"The recent military operation in the Gaza Strip against Hamas has restored Israel's deterrence among its enemies and in the perception of the whole world, Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert said." (PM: Gaza op restored Israel's deterrence, Etgar Lefkovits, Jerusalem Post, 26/1/09)

"Hamas was dealt a blow that created 'the deterrence that is now enabling calm'." (Barak says deterrence enabled calm, Hanan Greeberg, ynetnews.com, 19/1/09)

"[Tzipi Livni] said the Gaza offensive had restored Israel's 'deterrence' against militant factions seeking to attack it... Hamas now understands that Israel will act 'wildly' to any attacks against it, she said regarding the 'deterrence'." (Livni: Only Israel will decide when to end Gaza offensive, Deutsche Presse-Argentur, jewishfederations.org)

No, it wasn't about rockets, rockets, rockets - that was just the fiction decided on by the warmongers to sell Israel's wilding to the world - it was about deterrence, deterrence, deterrence.

Then there's this gobsmacking exchange where Ben Knight throws all pretense of journalistic objectivity to the winds and becomes a mere sock puppet for the Israelis:

"Yohanan Plessner, Knesset EU Relations Committee: The laws that govern warfare today are in many ways not so relevant to security challenges.

Yohanan Plessner is a former Israeli army commando who now maintains Israel's relations with Europe.

Yohanan Plessner: In the new kind of warfare today, civilians are more likely to get hurt as long as terrorist organisations and their sponsors are... situating the centre of gravity of their forces within the civilian population.

Ben Knight: That's exactly what Hamas did in Gaza, so did Hezbollah in South Lebanon a few years ago."

And, incredibly, he does it again:

Ben Knight: Israel's problem is not just where it fought in Gaza, but how. White phosphorus burns down to the bone. It's not supposed to be used in built-up civilian areas. Jumaa Al Najar was one of those hit with a white phosphorus shell.

Jumaa Al Najar, Victim: All over my legs, it felt like I was on fire.

Ben Knight: Before the war, Jumaa Al Najar was a textile salesman. He can now barely walk and his right hand is paralysed and he can't get out of Gaza for treatment.

Jumaa Al Najar: Before I was wounded I was the breadwinner in my home. Now I sit at home wondering how to support my family.

Ben Knight: Israel knows it's not the only nation faced with the problem of fighting enemies who operate in civilian zones.

Knight seems blissfully unaware that reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Dugard Committee and the Goldstone Report have found no evidence to back Israel's claim that Hamas is using human shields. Nor does he appear aware that such claims were retracted by the Israeli military when they were first used to cover its crimes in Lebanon in 2006. Israeli newspaper Haaretz, for example, had this to say on Israel's massacre of dozens of Lebanese civilians at Qana in south Lebanon: "As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident. It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time. The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday." (Livni: Qana attack led to turning point in support for Israel, Yoav Stern, 1/8/06)

And back when Israel was "punishing, humiliating and terrorising" (to borrow Justice Goldstone's exact words) the people of Gaza, Ben Knight was blithely reporting - I kid you not - on how Arab television was punishing Israel with footage from Gaza. (See my 14/1/09 post Choking on My Falafel) And before that, in September 2008, Knight was busy parroting the argot of the Jewish cowboys who rule the range in the Wild West Bank. (See my 6/10/08 post The Media is the Message)

No wonder the local Israel lobby's given the tick to Knight and his equally clueless ABC colleague Matt Brown*: "On the ABC, both radio and television, the standard of Israel coverage has... depended on the quality of the correspondents. Early in the decade, with Tim Palmer and then Jane Hutcheon, the coverage was at times deplorable. More recently, however, correspondents such as Matt Brown and Ben Knight have delivered more thoughtful and even-handed reporting on the whole." (Bias & Balance in the noughties, Jamie Hyam, The Australian Jewish News, 18/12/09) [*See my posts Sleepless in Sderot, Legless in Gaza (16/1/09) & The Beat-Up Goes On (27/7/08)]

Sleepless in Sderot, Legless in Gaza

The corporate media's slavish subserviance to the Israel lobby's demand for 'balance' degenerated into farce on the ABC's 7.30 Report of 15/1/09. The item, ABC sheds some light on Gaza carnage, began by promising a rare look inside Gaza. As presenter Mark Bannerman put it: "Israel banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza to provide independent reports. The ABC gained access to Gaza's main hospital where doctors struggle to cope with the continuing carnage."

ABC television's man-on-the-mound (you know, the one from which you've been observing those smoke plumes in distant, down-there Gaza these past weeks), Middle East correspondent Matt Brown took it from there: "It's been a stunning display of raw power. The Israeli military machine, amongst the most powerful in the world, has gone to war against Hamas, the Islamist militants that rule the Gaza Strip."

After first relieving himself of the regulation Israeli Talking Point - "It's determined to stop Hamas launching rockets into Israel" - Matt takes us to Gaza's "ground zero" of suffering, Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where we meet Dr Mohammad Elron who has "barely slept or seen his family since the crisis began." Matt is amazed at the toll the attacks have taken on the children of Gaza. "It was predictable, given more than half the population is under 18," he comments sagely. Why, even Dr Elron's own son was "hit in the face by shrapnel 2 weeks ago." To our immense relief , and no doubt to Matt's great surprise, the good doctor "isn't a member of Hamas," is "not even a supporter," and "wants an end to the violence." Which must be what makes him good, unlike, say, your bad doctor who is either a member/supporter of Hamas, and therefore, wants "the violence" to go on, and on, and on, and... Not that we actually heard Matt ask Dr Elron about his political affiliations and/or sympathies, mind you. The good doctor explains how overwhelmed and under-resourced they are at Shifa. We need "everything," he says.

Matt marvels: "The scale of the attacks is unprecedented. And so are some of the injuries. Israel's been firing white phosphorus to light up the sky and hide its troops on the front line... [but] militants and civilians alike are turning up at Shifa with terrible white burns or phosphorus poisoning." At which exact half-way point, before we can even get a close up of the phosphorus as it burns and smokes its way through human flesh all the way to the bone, Matt, who has spent most of his time in Israel either standing on his mound overlooking Gaza or reporting on the traumatised citizens of the Israeli town of Sderot, switches from sauteed Palestinians to, yes, you guessed it, Sderot!

As the camera pans in on a slight indentation in the road*, Matt tells us that "the roads bear the scars of many a near miss and the bus stop is equipped with a bomb shelter." We meet ambo Gil Asiskovitz who has "gone out to a rocket strike... thousands" of times. Of course, Matt doesn't ask about the number killed [9 in Sderot in 8 years**] and injured [433], or about the nature of their injuries. We're just left with the general impression that thousands [actually, 2,383] of rockets means thousands of killed and wounded and that poor old Gil must be as sleep-deprived as Dr Elron attending to them. And then, as if on cue - you're not going to believe this - another bloody Qassam on the way! Scene of running medics: "Inside, inside. It's now directed to Sderot. We are going to the safety room. Medics must take shelter until the rocket falls. But then they'll rush straight to the scene."

"Despite the drama," Matt informs us, "the mission is kept as low-key as possible." Ambo Gil explains: "All the cases where ambulance going, we don't operate sirens because this is a stress indicator for the people... here, we just going with a red light." And, at the (presumed - we don't get to see it) impact site? "The only casualty... was a woman suffering an anxiety attack. Her symptoms get worse every time a rocket falls." Explains Gil again, "The stress syndrome is a wide range. They are trembling. They are not cooperating. They got chest pains. They hypertension rises up to 200 and more." Yes, pretty bloody uncomfortable alright. But there's more: "The government says it's not just the number of people who have been killed that matters [19 according to Matt], but the fact that more than a million*** are within range of the rockets and they shouldn't have to live their lives in fear that at any minute they'll need to take shelter."

And that's the last we see of ambo Gil. Seeing as Matt didn't bother to ask him if he was a member/supporter of any of those Zionist extremist outfits, Kadima/Likud/Labour/etc, that have been occupying, shelling, strafing, bombing and rocketing Gaza since time immemorial, we unfortunately don't know whether he was a good or a bad ambo.

The sleepless in Sderot want a "permanent fix," Matt tells us. Says one such, "The military operation is good. I hope it continues and and destroys them, leaving them dust in Gaza." Comments Matt somewhat infelicitously: "Some of Gaza's neighbourhood's dust is almost all that's left."

[*Contrast with Amira Hass' description of Gaza City's main throughfare: "... Nasser Street which has been closed to traffic for over a year. Its asphalt is torn out and it is riddled with potholes and mounds of sand." (This is Gaza, Haaretz, 30/12/08)][**mfa.gov.il] [*** See my 6/1/09 post Go Figure 2]

Undercover Embed

"Throughout the two-week bombardment of the Gaza Strip most journalists have been kept out by the Israeli government on the pretext of security. And the Israelis are pleased with the result. Foreign journalists have been forced to report without getting to the detail of what is going on. That meant, at least in the early days of the bombardment, that reporters who would have been in Gaza were instead reporting from Israeli towns and cities under fire from Hamas, and Israeli officials found it easier to get themselves in front of a television camera. An Israeli official told me they were delighted at a BBC TV correspondent broadcasting from Ashkelon in a flak jacket, reinforcing the impression that the Israeli city is a war zone when there is more chance of being hit by a car than a rocket. The notable exception is al-Jazeera TV, which has a bureau in Gaza City and has been broadcasting live from there. Danny Seaman, head of the Israeli government's press office, who has described foreign journalists as a 'figleaf' for Hamas, says the exclusion of reporters from Gaza has worked in Israel's favour as it has forced a greater focus on Israel's side of the story. 'When you have hundreds of journalists coming in, most haven't the faintest idea about the war or the situation'*, he said. 'Take the UN school [where 42 people were killed by an Israeli shell] for example. There's a lot of questions as to what actually happened. If the foreign media had been there it would have had much more of an impact on the conflict than it does at the moment. For the first time, when Israel raised questions, journalists had to address these issues and not get caught in a feeding frenzy of reporting the story'... The BBC has two Palestinian producers in Gaza who have supplied material. But its Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, is among those unable to enter Gaza." (Ban on foreign journalists skews coverage of conflict, Chris McGreal, The Guardian, 10/1/09)**

One who has been given the nod by the Israelis to enter Gaza is New York Times*** reporter Taghreed El-Khodary, whose reports have begun popping up in The Sydney Morning Herald. Why Taghreed, when so many others were deliberately kept out? Could it be because she has an agenda? Here's the first of her 'reports' (Stench in the air: scant resources stretched to exhaustion, 6/1/09) to appear in the Herald (with my comments in square brackets):-

"Another woman found only half of the body of her daughter, 17, in the Shifa morgue. 'May God exterminate Hamas', she screamed... [Of course, that's exactly what you'd scream if an Israeli shell had sliced your daughter in half, no?] ... in a curse rarely heard these days during a conflict in which many Palestinians praise Hamas as resisters." [But certainly not The New York Times!] "Israel contends that Hamas has purposely endangered civilian lives by fighting in and around population areas." [While you're in the thick of the Gaza genocide, always make sure you raise an Israeli talking point.] "A week ago, after Israel began its air assault, hundreds of Hamas militants were taken to the hospital. [Says who?] Yet on Sunday, the day Israeli troops flooded Gaza and ground battles with Hamas began, there appeared not to be a single one. The casualties at Shifa on Sunday... were women, children and men who had been with children... " [Maybe, just maybe, your "hundreds of Hamas militants" are a figment of your imagination. Maybe, the heroes of the IDF really are just operating on the principle of 'I shot an arrow in the air, where it landed I know not where'.] "The Israeli Army has repeatedly emphasised that its operation is not aimed at Gaza's residents. But for Gaza's 1.5 million citizens the advance [blitzkreig!] of thousands of troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships means no place in the densely populated 140-square mile enclave is safe." [This is perilously close to Condoleezza Rice's "it's hard" for those poor Israeli troops to avoid killing civilians because the tiny strip is so densely populated.]

Then there was this: Matter of life & death for those caught up in a martyr's battle, 10/1/09, which received front page treatment in the NYT. Taghreed's back 'reporting' at Shifa Hospital:-

"On Thursday [the emergency room] was also a lesson in how ordinary people are squeezed between suicidal fighters [Suicide bombers to a man!] and a military behemoth. Dr Awni al-Jaru, 37, a surgeon at the hospital, rushed in from his home here, dressed in his scrubs. But he came not to work. His head was bleeding and his daughter's jaw was broken. He said Hamas militants [So he speaks corporate journalese then?] next to his apartment building had fired mortar and rocket rounds. Israel fired back with force [Yeah, we know, the heroes of the IDF only ever return fire], and his apartment was hit. His wife... and his one-year old son were killed. 'My son has been turned into pieces', he cried. 'My wife was cut in half. I had to leave her body at home'... A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile. [As you would with shrapnel in your leg] 'Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting', he told the doctors. He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. 'We are fighting the Israelis' [Oh, really?], he said. 'When we, fire we run, but they hit back so fast. [Taghreed, we've got the message!] We run into the houses to get away'. He continued smiling. [This nonsense is wiping the smile off my face. Maybe the Israelis could promote a shot of shrapnel as a Prozac substitute.] 'Why are you so happy?' he was asked. 'Look around you'. A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. [Now I'm confused. Is this because it was painful, or because she was being deprived of her shrapnel-Prozac? And why was this shrapnel victim given priority over Smiley, also a shrapnel 'victim'? I thought there "were more serious cases."] An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out of his skull. His family wailed at his side. 'Don't you see that these people are hurting?' the militant was asked. 'But I am from the people too', he said, his smile incandescent. [Enough already! Shrapnel in his leg, getting the bum's rush from the hospital staff, and he's more than smiling, he's positively beaming!] 'They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too'." [Taghreed, how could you possibly have ended your report without reference to the 72 virgins?]

See what I mean?

[*Two of our own examples: the ABC's Matt Brown and Channel 9's Peter Stefanovic.]
[**See my 4/1/09 post Black is White.]
[***"In his memoirs, Max Frankel, the head of the New York Times editorial page in the 1970s and 1980s, admits that his editorials on the Middle East were written 'from a pro-Israel perspective'. The Times has continued to cover Israel from this same perspective, not only in its editorials but even in its news coverage." (Muting the Alarm over the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: The New York Times vs Haaretz, 2000-06, Jerome Slater, International Security, Fall 2007, pp 84-120)]

The Beat-Up Goes On

How to Do It by Michael Leunig

Take a woman. Take a child. Take a man.
Treat them with contempt. Drive them off their land...
Kill their loved ones & their respected elders.
Take away their rights & their defences.
Destroy their homes, their trees, their sacred places
And all that they hold dear. Call them mad.
Slander those who pity them.
Malign them. Degrade them.
Torment & exclude them.
Make them poor.
Make their lives impossible.
Persecute and oppress them.
That's how you do it.
That's how you do it!

"A children's television program regularly features disturbing topics such as death, destruction and martyrdom.* It's broadcast by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip... " That was the 7.30 Report prattler Ali Moore introducing Kids TV causes a stir in Israel on 17/7/08. Apparently, it's OK for Israel to blockade, starve, shell, rocket and shoot up the people of the Gaza Strip on a daily basis, but not for their elected government to reflect any of this on kids' tv.

[*1,050 Palestinian children killed since September 2000; 72 in 2008]

Ali prattled on, "Israeli soldiers fire into the air whenever a Palestinian gets too close to the border fence." Now that will have been some consolation to the 3 Palestinian famers who got "too close" last month and were shot in the legs. And on, "Meanwhile, critics have accused Hamas of using its television arm to prepare children to be suicide bombers." Critics, eh? Now who could they be?

The prattler then introduced the ABC's Middle East correspondent Matt Brown, who led off with: "Sarah [sic] Barhoum is no ordinary 12-year old. This straight A student is already a television star, hosting her own program on a TV station run by the Islamist militant group Hamas. Every Friday after prayers Sarah [sic] Barhoum presents 'Pioneers of Tomorrow' on Hamas' Al-Azhar TV." Brownie's confused Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV with Egypt's Al-Azhar University, but that's a mere bagatelle.

'Sarah' was quoted saying, "I want to tell the whole world that Palestinian children live with the effects of a siege, killing and destruction." As you would if you lived in the world's largest concentration camp and were old enough to string 2 words together. But Brownie couldn't help himself, cutting in with "Al-Azhar TV's childrens' program comes with a hard propaganda edge." It was a real 'Bah, humbug!' moment. "In this skit," he continued, "Nahoul the Bee is desperately ill and pays the ultimate price for the Israeli blockade and Egypt's decision to cooperate with it. After his death, Nahoul was replaced on the show by his rabbit brother Assud, which means lion. Assud's fate, according to Hamas, will reflect the fate of the Palestinian people." When Assud was asked why he was called Assud, he explained that although a rabbit is a coward, "I, Assud, will get rid of the Jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up, Allah willing, right?" Jeez, Louise, you're supposed to think. Brownie's right. This bunny's a bloomin' anti-Semitic, jihadist cannibal! No wonder those "critics" are a-tremble. So this is what Hamas are dishing out to the kiddies of Gaza! Or is it?

I hate to be picky, but 'bee' in Arabic is nahla, not nahoul, and 'lion' is asad, not assud. So where is Brownie getting 'nahoul' and 'assud' from? Then there's the bit about getting rid of the Jews. If Israel proclaims itself to be a 'Jewish' state, and its armed forces are raining death and destruction on your people, you're going to want to get rid of... the French? And as for eating them up, what else would you expect a lion to do? Finally, Allah willing (inshaa'allah) just happens to be what most Muslims tack onto the end of just about any sentence, as in, 'I'll see you tomorrow, Allah willing'. It's not peculiar to your spittle-flecked, sabre-wielding, infidel-hating jihadi in full flight. There, Assud doesn't look quite so scary now, does he?*

In terms of where this was all going, the penny finally dropped when an Israeli "critic" from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) was trotted out. The smell of Hamas bees and bunnies was immediately overwhelmed by that of Israeli rat.

Described coyly by Brownie as a "private think tank", MEMRI is a Zionist propaganda arm which parades (on its website) as an "independent, nonpartisan" organization that "explores the Middle East through the regions media." A reference to "the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel" was reportedly deleted some years ago. One critic has dubbed it selective MEMRI.

MEMRI was co-founded by Yigal Carmon, an Israeli intelligence agent and counter-terrorism advisor to former Israeli PMs Shamir and Rabin, and US neocon Meyrav Wurmser. Its modus operandi is to cherrypick the Arab/Iranian media for anything that can be used (or construed) to paint the Arabs (and Iranians of course) in the worst possible light, translate it, and disseminate the product to politicians, academics and journalists such as Matt Brown. You'll find an English translation of the above program, for example, on MEMRI's website, but interestingly, you won't find the original Arabic to enable a cross-check of its accuracy. Nor, tellingly, will you find any nasties from the Hebrew press. Any journalist worth his salt would take MEMRI with, well, a grain of salt. Brownie, however, seems to be on a salt-free diet.

What really caught my attention, though, was the MEMRI "critic" himself, one Menahem Milson, telling us that "[Hamas TV] idolises death and killing and what they call martyrdom." Talk about a blast from the past. This guy has the kind of form that makes all that blather on MEMRI's website about its independence and nonpartisanship positively risible. Back in 1981 Milson had been hand-picked by then defence minister Ariel Sharon to head up a new civilian administration in the occupied Palestinian territories, the centrepiece of which would be a confederation of villages, known as the Village Leagues, which Sharon hoped would dance to Israel's tune as collaborationist 'moderates' in opposition to the 'radicals' of the PLO. Sort of today's Fatah 'moderates' vs Hamas 'extremists'. Milson at the time was a professor of Arabic literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Like his master, he was of the view - still heard today on the Israeli right - that Jordan is really Palestine, while the West Bank, rebadged as Judea and Samaria, is an integral part of Eretz Yisrael. All talk of a Palestinian state in the territories was verboten. And while the settler movement took root in the occupied territories, Sharon and Milson diverted international public opinion with talk of autonomy for the Palestinians while suppressing those who advocated Palestinian statehood. As it happens, Milson's Quisling quest fizzled and he was succeeded as civilian administrator in 1982 by Colonel Yigal Carmon, who had no better luck. Yes, that Yigal Carmon - the co-founder of MEMRI. What a coincidence!

Second "critic" off the rack was a Palestinian, Hazem Abu Shanab, from Gaza's Al-Azhar University. Brownie introduced him thus: "Al-Azhar [sic] TV is not only raising the ire of Israelis, but of many Palestinians as well." Two questions here. Is there anything pertaining to Palestinians that doesn't raise the ire of Israelis? And just how many Palestinians is he referring to? Abu Shanab's soundbyte was singularly unenlightening: "He is not a child anymore, he's something different. He's a person with hatred, with different emotions, with a different way of thinking." For starters, who the hell is "he"? Assud, we assume. So is it too much to expect Brownie to have told us that Gaza's Al-Azhar is - ahem - Fateh-aligned?

Sharon's former offsider then chimed in to tell us that Saraa's "program is aiming at very young children with messages that are filled with images and expressions of death, martyrdom, killing... It's the repetition of certain cliches: the filth of the Jews. The Jew is not to be trusted. He is murderous. He is deceptive." OMG! We Israelis fill their lives with death and destruction, and they have the gall to talk about it, and even call us murderers! Some people have no gratitude.

Prattler Moore signed off with the comment, "Extraordinary program." And she's right. Extraordinary for its failure to provide any kind of historical context (the majority of Gazans were ethnically cleansed from what is today called Israel by Zionist forces in 1948 and have been denied the elementary right of return, accorded all refugees by international law, for over 60 years), its sloppiness (Al-Azhar/Al-Aqsa, etc), and its provision of a platform for Israeli propagandists to malign and misrepresent their brutalised victims without let or hindrance. In sum, Kids TV causes a stir in Israel came with a hard propaganda edge.

[*To see just how far this kind of thing can be sexed-up, you might like to check out the UK's Daily Mail. Here's the DM header: Hamas launches TV Bugs Bunny-lookalike who declares 'I will eat the Jews' (12/2/08). Saraa Barhoum is described as a "sweet looking girl in a headscarf" and "winsome Saraa". She is said to have hailed Nahoul as a "martyr" - "in the style of Hamas suicide bombers who are promised they will marry 72 virgins in paradise". In the MEMRI transcript, Saraa agrees with Assud that "We are all ready to sacrifice souls and everything we own for our homeland," but there is no talk of suicide bombing or 72 virgins. Assud, dubbed "the Bomber Bunny," is described as "swearing to devour the Jews with his bare rabbit teeth," but the fact that he's playing the lion is omitted. The program is alleged to have "ended with the catchy song: 'We will never recognize Israel'", but there is no mention of this in MEMRI's transcript. Saraa and Assud are alleged to have "urged their young audience to liberate Tel Aviv," and to "liberate our homeland from the Zionist filth." The MEMRI transcript, however, mentions only liberating Al-Aqsa mosque "from the filth of those Zionists." Assud's return to Palestine with the "Key of Return" to "liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque," present in MEMRI's translation, is absent from the DM story. Finally, there's a huge difference between the DM's "Zionist filth" and MEMRI's "the filth of those Zionists." Not to mention the difference between that and the probably more accurate translation, 'the defilement of those Zionists'. The DM, incidentally, supported both Mussolini and Hitler right until the outbreak of war in 1939.]