Propaganda Watch

I'd remind the London Times that they're supposed to be in the news business, not acting the role of proxy flack for the State of Israel. In this article they "report" that "Israel vetoes peacekeepers from countries that do not recognize it." Alas, there's no definition of the word "veto" within the article, and its context is quite mushy, leaving most readers to assume that somewhere Israel has the authority to veto peacekeepers it doesn't want. Wrong. There's nothing in UNSC Res. 1701 remotely like that, the closest thing being in para 11(c) which says the UN will "coordinate" with the governments of Lebanon and Israel. "Coordinate" as used in Res. 1701 means whatever the UN wants it to mean. For the London Times to imply otherwise indicates that they're bought or dupes, or both. And they're not always like that—to make the point it might be worth holding their feet to the fire. Note that the Washington Post, amazingly, got this story right. Not so surprisingly the NYT didn't even try to report it—despite it's actually being news—probably on the (correct) assumption that their lying about it would become too complicated.