Sunday, February 24, 2013

Anne Barnard on Syrian refugees in Lebanon: from the Hariri family with love

This is a bad piece of reporting.  1) it makes it sound that if it wasnt for the incompetence of the Lebasnese government Western aid would have bern pouring into Lebanon.  2) she has the dubious honor of being the only Western reporter who refuses to mention the role of Hasriri family in arming with Saudi intelligence of asrmed gangs in Syria.  3). she focuses ob racism asnd hostility by christian allies of hizbullah toweards Syriasn refugees while ignoring similar hosility and racism by Christian elements in March 14 movement.  4) she mischaracterizes the stance of hizbullah when she said it was a poisition of denial about syrian refugees when Nasrallah publically broke with his ally Awn and called for separating the humanitarian issue from the political issue.  5) she cites an Arabic expression when she admitted to me that she does no know Arabic. 6) she singles out certain hariri run Sunni villages for praise in their treatment of refugees without informing readers thst those villages are also Qaidah affliated and are allies of Nusrah front.  7) she ues Zionist language in referring to the expulsion of Palestinian refugees in 1948 and falsely talks about a flight from "the arab- israeli conflict" as if the Palestinins are bystandards.  Oh finally, Ms barnard has just been appointed Beirut bureau chief for New York Times. 
p.s. sorry for typos.  I am on the road and using a sony xperia tablet.