Thursday, October 07, 2010

New York Times on Hizbullah: more errors and mistakes

Cambanis has done good reporting in the past, but there are major errors in today's piece on Hizbullah.  "According to Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, Hezbollah has increased its missile stocks to 40,000..."  I mean, this is a major mistake because Nasrallah is known to repeatedly make the point in many speeches, that he would never ever confirm or deny a certain figure regarding the missile capability of Hizbullah.  So Nasrallah certainly never gave any figures and I wonder how can one make such an allegation when the record is straight here.  And then this:  "Its operatives roam strategic towns..."  I like the word "operatives."  Who are those operatives?  Those operatives are in fact residents of the those villages themselves.  Western media use the same language about Hizbullah in South Lebanon that they had used before about the PLO forgetting that Hizbullah members and fighters are part of the population landscape and not some "alien" force (of course, i never regard it PLO in Lebanon as an alien force and gave them the right to roam and operate as they wished notwithstanding my fierce opposition to the thuggery and criminality that characterized the behavior of some PLO organizations, namely As-Sa`iqah, Fath, Arab Liberation Front, etc).  To be fair the point is made by someone later in the article.  And then this:  "Several independent Lebanese military analysts, who do not support Hezbollah, say they have seen evidence that Hezbollah has armed, trained and expanded..."  Anyone who says that they have seen "evidence" are lying; Hizbullah is way too secretive to show the "evidence."   And this one is pure invention or fabrication:  "Now, however, Hezbollah leaders have declared that they will find it difficult to stand aside if Israel or the United States bombs Iran’s nuclear facilities."   This is outright false and some party leaders have in fat said that they would not be party to such a conflict.