The RIAA, the MPAA, Palestine, bias and the rest

Paul,

You have some serious errors in the piece titled "Palestinian P2P service declares war on RIAA, MPAA". Seriously wrong and seriously interesting.

"The service is based in Jenin refugee camp, scene of a pitched battle between the Israeli army and Palestinian refugees in April last year."

Refugees? Some refugees were definitely in Jenin, but the battle was not with them, it was with the terrorist thugs who have for decades turned Jenin into a hell hole for those refugees you cited. Israel has not controlled Jenin for some time, in fact it's been under UN supervision. Your characterization of the incident is completely misleading.

"It also has offices in Gaza, scene of last night's assassination of Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader blown up by Israeli missiles in a retaliatory strike that also destroyed the flimsy ceasefire in operation as part of the US-sponsored "roadmap" to peace."

Hamas leader? Try terrorist leader. Is it so hard to call a spade a spade?

And your suggestion that Israel's strike was retaliatory, as opposed to preventive is also … strange. If Britain or the US were to launch a missile into a house where Bin Ladin was staying, would that too be retaliatory?

Furthermore you suggest that this strike is what destroyed the cease fire? Could it be that the cease fire was doomed at the outset when Abu Mahzen openly declared to a Western media that he would not do anything to physically crack down on the Hammas/Hezbollah/Al Aqsa Brigade, etc., a key responsibility defined in the roadmap?

And lastly, we in America always find it amusing that everyone now refers to the roadmap as "US-backed" or "US sponsored".. It was just a short time ago that it was the "Quartet" sponsored roadmap.. Remember the EU, Russia and Britain?

I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, however there's nothing more revolting than reading an IT website and having to endure ignorant equivalency arguments on Middle East affairs and thinly veiled Jewish blood libels. For that I can read the New York Times or The Guardian.

Perhaps they were just errors though, and can be easily fixed. The news item itself was quite interesting. I'm so glad to know that the world puts so much energy in defending and rebuilding a society that brazenly brags that it is above any manmade law. Seems like that $3 billion dollars that the EU pumped into Arafat's bank accounts, oops, I mean the Palestinian Authority, has really paid off, not to mention the money and weapons that came from the US and Israel itself.

It's all quite sickening, and I'd just as prefer to not read a misguided (at best) interpretation of it when I'm catching up on the latest IT news.

Best of luck with your future stories.

Sharpie

Paul Hales replies

Hello Sharpie

Sorry if the article caused offence. Any mention of anything going on in the "Holy Land" normally does somewhere along the line.

I wonder how you know who took part in the, erm, battle of Jenin. I once talked to an Israeli soldier who told me about it from the inside, so to speak. Anyhow, I called the inhabitants of a refugee camp refugees. Since the UN was, er, unable to investigate, (http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/) I suggest your characterisation is rather wider of the mark than mine.

"Hamas leader" is less loaded than terrorist leader and therefore more accurate, I'd suggest.

A "preventative" strike? As opposed to retaliatory? Not a retaliation for the horrific bus bombing then? Rather a strike in the attempt to make sure it doesn't happen again? Or to guarantee that it does?

Abu Mazen publicly agreed to all the principles of the roadmap and to try to end terrorist attacks. I don't know what you're referring to in this point.

I could have referred to the roadmap as quartet-backed, and agree with you that this would have been more accurate.

And, finally, "Jewish blood libels"?

Sorry, but I reject that entirely.

Mr. Magee,

I read the Inquirer often, and greatly enjoy both the information and the style of its presentation; I know that the Inquirer has often been accused of a bias against Microsoft and Intel and in favour of Linux and AMD, but until recently I believed that even if there exists such a bias, it does not degrade the value of the information you supply. However, after reading your article "Palestinian P2P service declares war on RIAA, MPAA" I seriously doubt that, as it shows how your political bias affects your writing. You take the time to mention (totally without relevance to the article's subject) that Gaza was the scene of the assassination of the Hamas leader "in a retaliatory strike that also destroyed the flimsy ceasefire". The flaw in the logic is obvious: if there really was a ceasefire, then what was there to retaliate for? You don't really care to enlighten your readers on the fact that a day earlier, in a Hamas suicide bombing of a Jerusalem civilian bus, 21 people were killed and over 130 wounded; that among the victims there were many infants and children, women and old men; that all victims were civilians - actually, most of them belong to the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect, whose members do not enlist in the Israeli army at all. So, either the ceasefire has already been broken by Hamas (in which case you mislead your readers), or you accept the bus bombing as a natural part of a ceasefire, while assassinating a terrorist who sends his men on suicide mission (and who praised the bus massacre as an act of heroism) destroys the ceasefire.

In other words: either your professional integrity is such that you deliberately mislead the readers, or your moral integrity is such that you accept murder of civilians, but not the killing of those who send the murderers to their mission. If that kind of integrity also characterizes your writing about Microsoft/Intel/AMD/Linux, maybe your readers should think of finding a more reliable source of information.

Worse still: in writing the way you did, you help and encourage the terrorists, while the moderates in Palestinian society are weakened. When you (and others) don't blame the radicals and hold them accountable for their actions, how can the moderates restrain them? Those who would like to see a stable (and hopefully just) solution to the situation in the Middle East must avoid that. The Palestinian prime minister, Mr. Abbas, had invested a great effort in bringing some stability and trying to rebuild the Palestinian Authority, and managed to achieve a period of stability that benefited Palestinians and Israelis alike.

This stability has been shattered - possibly beyond repair. In many instances during this conflict, Israel was the one to blame for escalating and complicating it. However, this time it was the Palestinian radicals who wouldn't give a chance to Abbas and his government, and who believe that any solution that is based on two states, Palestinian and Israeli, is a betrayal of Islamic values. Your writing - though I do not doubt the good intentions behind it - encourages them and weakens Abbas.

Those who want peace can not afford that.

Regards,

Micha Magen

Paul Hales writes

Yes. As an aside, the mention of Abu Shanab's death was unecessary and, without reference to the horrific bombing, incomplete. You have my apologies.

Paul Hales

Mike Magee adds

I'm the editor-in-chief of this magazine. The INQUIRER is not biased against AMD, Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Linux, HP, Dell, IBM or any other vendor you care to name.

Nor are we biased in favour of them either.

To that you can add all operating systems, football teams, political parties, flags of different hues, clothes with designer labels on, types of cars, sweets made of liquorice, different banks, different supermarkets, the weather or any other object or condition you care to think of.

I trust that I've made myself sufficiently clear.