M
Meccano
Guest
Tonight while driving home I listened to a NewsTalk 106 repeat of a Carol Coleman broadcast which appears to have first aired during the week.
I missed it then.
Perhaps you heard it.
In this program - a special from Israel - Miz. Coleman was heard browbeating an Israeli Government Minister about his governments decision to withold funds from the newly elected Palestinian government, constituted of the HAMAS party.
HAMAS are a self proclaimed group of terrorists created in 1987 from the Gaza wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is known chiefly for its suicide bombings and other attacks directed against Israeli civilians. Hamas's charter (written in 1988 and still in force) calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamist State.
The Israeli minister kept his cool rather well under Miz Colemans angry interview technique. He repeatedly asserted that Israel would not fund HAMAS in its declared war of extermination against the Jews of Israel.
Incidentally - the EU has also withdrawn funding from the Palestinian government since it fell into HAMAS' hands.
The thing which struck me most about the interview was the vehemence with which Coleman defended the murderers of HAMAS, and the manner in which she asserted their right to funding as they were a democratically elected government. To say she was passionate in their defense would be a gross understatement!
I had to contrast this with the situation here in Ireland, where Sinn Fein - a democratically elected party which has declared its commitment to the peaceful resolution of the conflict in NI - receives a rather different welcome from Miz Coleman and her journalistic colleagues.
Sinn Fein representatives are usually vilified or mocked on the radio, in Newspapers, and (admittedly less often) on TV.
Now, before I'm accused of being a 'Shinner' (there we go!) I pose this question in a completely PHILOSOPHICAL vein, not as an apologist for either party....can someone PLEASE explain to me how the media in this country can castigate one set of (ex) terrorists, while actively defending another set of (active) terrorists? Is the IRONY utterly lost on them?
What is going on???
I missed it then.
Perhaps you heard it.
In this program - a special from Israel - Miz. Coleman was heard browbeating an Israeli Government Minister about his governments decision to withold funds from the newly elected Palestinian government, constituted of the HAMAS party.
HAMAS are a self proclaimed group of terrorists created in 1987 from the Gaza wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is known chiefly for its suicide bombings and other attacks directed against Israeli civilians. Hamas's charter (written in 1988 and still in force) calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamist State.
The Israeli minister kept his cool rather well under Miz Colemans angry interview technique. He repeatedly asserted that Israel would not fund HAMAS in its declared war of extermination against the Jews of Israel.
Incidentally - the EU has also withdrawn funding from the Palestinian government since it fell into HAMAS' hands.
The thing which struck me most about the interview was the vehemence with which Coleman defended the murderers of HAMAS, and the manner in which she asserted their right to funding as they were a democratically elected government. To say she was passionate in their defense would be a gross understatement!
I had to contrast this with the situation here in Ireland, where Sinn Fein - a democratically elected party which has declared its commitment to the peaceful resolution of the conflict in NI - receives a rather different welcome from Miz Coleman and her journalistic colleagues.
Sinn Fein representatives are usually vilified or mocked on the radio, in Newspapers, and (admittedly less often) on TV.
Now, before I'm accused of being a 'Shinner' (there we go!) I pose this question in a completely PHILOSOPHICAL vein, not as an apologist for either party....can someone PLEASE explain to me how the media in this country can castigate one set of (ex) terrorists, while actively defending another set of (active) terrorists? Is the IRONY utterly lost on them?
What is going on???