Nie Trink Wasser
17th April 2003, 02:21 PM
"At the time of his injury, Tom Hurndall was armed, wearing tiger fatigues, and shooting at a Israeli Defense Force outpost, taking cover behind a nearby building between shots.
Those of you reading about Tom Hurndall in the American or British media might start at this last sentence. After all, you read a dramatically different version of events in your weekend papers, which probably went something like this:
At the time of his injury, Tom Hurndall was unarmed, dressed in the bright orange jacket of the International Solidarity Movement, and steering two Palestinian children away from a firing Israeli tank-mounted machine gun.
That sound better? The first story, which cast Tom Hurndall as an armed combatant, was based on a Sunday, April 13th report of the Israeli Defense Forces. The second story, which cast Tom Hurndall as a heroic rescuer of defenseless children, was based on 'eyewitness' reports from Tom's fellow activists in the International Solidarity Movement. This second story got picked up by Reuters, who wrote that the Israeli Defense Force critically wounded a "British peace activist helping Palestinian children cross a street under gunfire." It also got picked up by the Associated Press, who also claimed Hurndall was helping "children out of the line of fire." With the aid of these two newswire services, the second story made its way into almost every major American paper by Saturday, the day after. "
- Brian Sayre (http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7361)
Those of you reading about Tom Hurndall in the American or British media might start at this last sentence. After all, you read a dramatically different version of events in your weekend papers, which probably went something like this:
At the time of his injury, Tom Hurndall was unarmed, dressed in the bright orange jacket of the International Solidarity Movement, and steering two Palestinian children away from a firing Israeli tank-mounted machine gun.
That sound better? The first story, which cast Tom Hurndall as an armed combatant, was based on a Sunday, April 13th report of the Israeli Defense Forces. The second story, which cast Tom Hurndall as a heroic rescuer of defenseless children, was based on 'eyewitness' reports from Tom's fellow activists in the International Solidarity Movement. This second story got picked up by Reuters, who wrote that the Israeli Defense Force critically wounded a "British peace activist helping Palestinian children cross a street under gunfire." It also got picked up by the Associated Press, who also claimed Hurndall was helping "children out of the line of fire." With the aid of these two newswire services, the second story made its way into almost every major American paper by Saturday, the day after. "
- Brian Sayre (http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7361)