Alphecca

Oh! That International Arms Trade...

I wonder what Oxfam and IANSA will think of this:

Two thousand weapons and two million bullets have been sent through Israel into Gaza, the most tangible evidence yet of efforts by Jerusalem, London and Washington to reinforce President Abbas against his Islamist rivals Hamas.

The delivery, with Israel’s co-operation, comes ten days after Tony Blair backed publicly the “moderate” Fatah leader in his power struggle with Hamas. Britain promised £1 million to bolster Mr Abbas’s Presidential Guard.

But the US-led policy to undermine Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel, has prompted concern among international mediators that supplying guns and fighters amounts to backing one side in a civil war.

Israeli security officials confirmed that Wednesday’s shipment consisted of 2,000 automatic rifles, 20,000 ammunition clips and 2 million bullets, sent from Egypt into Israel. They then went through the Israeli-controlled Karni crossing into Gaza in four trucks accompanied by a military escort.

Notice the bias of this London Times piece with the lead: "Israel allows guns across border..."

Here's how The Guardian titles it: "Israel allows 6 million pounds arms delivery to Abbas..."

In both cases, it's as if Israel is doing something wrong when in fact they are simply escorting a shipment. If you only scan the headlines you'd never know that it's Egypt that sent the guns! At least the Guardian mentions that within the next sentence but you'd have to read all the way into the fourth paragraph of the Times story to learn that tidbit.

How much you wanna bet that the critics of Israel will focus on Israel's part and leave Egypt blameless? Come to think of it, will IANSA and Kofi jump on this -- putting the blame on Israel? Or will they come down on an Arab nation, Egypt, for actually sending the arms? Or, again, since it's a shipment from and to Arabs will they remain silent?

Again, I'm all for the shipment to Fatah but it's the hypocrisy of the spectators that drives me nuts.