Thursday, July 10, 2014
From: Gary L. Bauer
The Media’s Anti-Israel Bias
Today’s Washington Post provided more proof that the media deliver the news with an anti-Israel bias. Above the fold, on the front page was this headline: “Israel Hits Gaza Homes,” with the subtitle: “Children And Women Killed.” The headline contained a second, smaller subtitle: “Netanyahu Blames Tactics Of Hamas.”
But the bias is clear: A quick glance of the headlines would lead one to believe that Israel was indiscriminately bombing Palestinian homes, killing women and children.
To reinforce the point, here’s how the article opens: “Israeli aircraft are targeting houses in the Gaza Strip as never before, firing precision-guided missiles into family living rooms.”
In a fair and balanced media, the headline would have been: “Hamas War Crimes Kill Women And Children.” It is illegal under international law to hide rocket launchers near homes, schools, hospitals and mosques. That is what Hamas is doing.
What is not against international law is for the country being attacked to strike back in self-defense. That is what Israel is doing — defending itself against Islamic terrorists sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Finally, Hamas is firing rockets into Israeli communities where there are no military targets. It is targeting civilians, while Israel is doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties.
Define Reform
Yet another poll was released this week showing that overwhelming majorities of people in both parties think our immigration system is broken and in need of reform. Of course Americans want to reform our immigration system. Who could be happy with the current situation?
But while most Americans say they support “comprehensive immigration reform,” there is little in the legislation that the White House and some in the GOP are pushing that would actually prevent the current crisis at the border from happening again.
What the left means when it talks about comprehensive immigration reform is the legalization of an additional ten million liberal voters made up of people who have illegally entered the country in recent years. They want to spend billions of additional dollars providing welfare services to millions of additional illegal immigrants who will continue to pour across the border.
Every time conservatives try to secure the border, liberals in Congress use every parliamentary maneuver they can to stop it. What about the Secure Fence Act? It was passed in 2006, but clearly the border is anything but secure. Talk about irony. In an era when the president says we need to fund shovel ready jobs, there’s one shovel ready job that just doesn’t seem to get done. The promise of border security is always part of the liberal bait and switch.
If the president were serious about stopping the massive influx of women and children coming into the country, you would see much more activity than simply saying on MSNBC, “People have to stop coming here.” There are not a lot of people watching MSNBC in Central America.
What does affect people in those countries are the tens of thousands of phone calls made from the United States to relatives in Central America telling them that we have a president and political establishment committed to amnesty, so “Get up here fast!”
I Am Worried About The Children
We need to be honest here — children are suffering. The gangs are so bad that thousands of children live in fear. Some won’t even risk going to school. To make matters worse, many are living in households with only mothers to protect them. Their fathers have abandoned them. In some cases, grandparents are taking care of them.
In one city 82 people were shot in one weekend. Whose heart would not break for children living in such conditions? A decent America would do something about it. A president who really cared would make sure the problem was addressed.
Oh, by the way, I’m not talking about the kids crossing the border, but certainly they are suffering too. I am referring to the children of Chicago, and Chicago is not alone.
In our great nation, we have been unable or unwilling to bust the gangs, reform the schools and rebuild families to save the children of Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles to name just a few. If we spend $4 billion more to help the children of San Salvador, Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa, why not a few billion more for the children of Chicago? In fact, Jesse Jackson called for exactly that!
There are millions of people in Central America living in abysmal conditions. We are still borrowing $500 billion a year, spending that much more than we take in through high taxes. How is it biblical to invite millions of people into the country, which will require us to borrow even more, saddling future generations not yet born with unimaginable debt?
How is it compassionate to increase burdens on our own citizens, creating the possibility of further economic dislocation?
Even liberal House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) gets it. He told reporters Tuesday, “We have an immediate humanitarian crisis that confronts this country, we also have a crisis in terms of this country cannot continue to absorb, nor should it, a limitless number of people who … want to cross our border.”
Your Response
Yesterday I asked readers whether they felt Barack Obama should be impeached. Impeachment is a constitutional process that is initiated in the House, and the final “verdict” is decided by the Senate.
Now, I want to be clear that this was an unscientific survey of predominately conservatives. A narrow majority of you (53%) said “Yes, Obama should be impeached.” But 47% of you said the opposite. If conservative activists are divided, then a narrowly-divided country is clearly not ready for such action.
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