When Rioters Of A Third Intifada Are Just 'Protesters'

Remmber this?

Translation: Attention The countries neighboring Palestine will start to advance on Palestine on May 15, and a while after that all the Islamic countries will advance. Our time is near. Palestine will be liberated, and it will be we who liberated it. Our aim at present is to reach millions of friends with this page before May.

That's from the Facebook page that called for a 3rd Intifada.

So what happened yesterday?

If you are the media, and work according to a limited number of Middle East templates, the Israeli border was overrun in 4 areas by 'protesters': the Arab spring has arrived in Israel.


Thus, `Christian Science Monitor:

Nakba protests bring Arab spring to Israel's doorstep

The unprecedented Arab protests on Israel's borders, pegged to the 63rd anniversary of Israel's declaration of statehood, resulted in at least 10 dead and hundreds wounded.

and

Karl Vick of Time Magazine:

Palestinian Border Protests: The Arab Spring Model for Confronting Israel

Left unexamined is

• Since when do uncontrolled mobs of people are allowed to stream across another country's borders?
• Exactly where did the rioters plan to go and what exactly did they plan to do once they got there?
• As opposed to aiming to reform or overthrow their own regime--yesterdays rioters want to eliminate a country.

The media, however, is above such fine distinctions.

So protesters they are called--supposedly sharing a common heritage with both the "Prague Spring" of 1968 and the more recent overthrow of Communist regimes in Europe as well as the current "Arab Spring"--of course.

Now Syria will get a break for a few days while it continues to shoot its own people--and no one will make a fuss over Egypt firing live ammo to break up a protest outside the Israeli Embassy.

Neither will anyone pass attention to the how odd it is that on this occasion, Syria took the day off from shooting its people to busing them its Israeli border. Mordechai Kedar notes:

the involvement of the Syrian and Lebanese regimes in events, since bus upon bus of disgruntled Palestinians could not have reached the border with Israel on Sunday without those governments’ knowledge and consent.

Instead of killing their own people, regimes have decided to make them Israel's problem--a cynical move worthy Castro sending his refugees to the US. After all, Middle East regimes know that they can control the general media just as well as they do their own. All that is required is make Israel the focus and let the press do the rest.

Which the media predictably and reliably will do.

Technorati Tag: Nakba.and Third Intifada.