Stop While You Are Ahead

One of the lessons most people never really learn is that it is better to stop while you are ahead…and, if you aren’t ahead, you should just stop anyway.

Well, Faisal is still at it, still trying to convince me of his credibility as a journalist in good standing. I don’t know what he is standing in, but I can assure you, it isn’t good. Here’s his latest missive.

Author: Faisal Assegaf
Comment: Dear Mrs Paula,

I am a journalist who works for Koran Tempo daily, Jakarta, Indonesia. U can see about me at English version.U can also ask about me with Amir Mizroch (editor at Jerusalem Post).

Off course I have connection with Hamas professionally. They’re my news source not more than that. I choose my blog’s name hamaslovers just to attract people.

I believe Faisal is indeed off course if he believes that you can have a professional connection with a terrorist organization and glorify them for the sake of attracting people. Of course, that doesn’t explain the things that he wrote on his site, accusing Israelis of all sorts of things; minimizing damages to Israel and the endless rocket attacks and so much more. By the way, Faisal, you might want to update your figures. You write that Israel has been hit with 6,000 rockets – in actuality, we passed the 10,000 mark several days ago.

To prove his ethical membership in the community of journalism, Faisal sent me a link to a Jakara e-paper. And there I found an opinion piece he’d written. It began by explaining that Israel was “very disappointed with the way the Indonesian media has reported the Zionist country’s aggression on Gaza.” Gee, I can’t really see a member of the Israeli government calling our action in Gaza as an aggression…that must be more of Faisal’s trying to attract people.

Faisal continues, “Under the pretext of fighting against Hamas, their war machines have killed almost 900 people, including 260 children and 100 women.”

Under the “pretext of fighting against Hamas“…Faisal, dear, I can assure you, this is no pretext. We are fighting Hamas. As for the numbers you offer, they are as questionable as the rest of your credibility. Perhaps you are trying to attract more people by inflating the numbers? Who can tell? See, that’s the problem with compromising your ethics to try so desperately to get someone to listen.

According to Faisal, Israeli Ambassador to Singapore, Ilan Ben Dov, “regards the Indonesian media as unprofessional.” You gotta admit, Faisal, the man might have a point. Let’s see, so far you have misrepresented yourself, tried to get confidential information in an underhanded way, stupidly assumed people are stupid, infringed on copyrighted material (once and I can see several other cases at a quick glance) and now admit to naming your blog using a controversial and wholly inappropriate name, in order to “attract people.”

If this is the link you sent me to try to establish your credibility, you are REALLY going to have to try so much harder. What this shows is indeed what the Israeli ambassador has charged. Much of the Indonesian press has an ingrained anti-Israel policy that is so natural, they dare to believe they still can offer some credibility in the world of journalism. Sorry, Faisal, if you are trying to convince me you are ethical, dedicating a site to glorifying a terrorist organization in order to “attract people” just doesn’t cut it.

By the way, do you have copyright permission to include the latest picture of the Israeli soldier you put up to replace the one of my son I demanded you remove?

5 Comments

  1. As you so rightly say, “Faisal” has NO credibility at ALL! And obviously less than zero ethics.

    Write on, and prayers will continue on from here, with love.

  2. I am so glad you had the picture removed. When i checked out his blog last night and saw the picture I got sick to my stomach. I can only imagine what he wrote since that post was not in english. My thoughts and prayers are always with you, Elie and all the soldiers.

  3. got this email from a friend. you don’t have to post this because it is long. just thought you might enjoy hearing how well the soldiers are being taken care of. only in israel.
    sharon (bailas friend from ny)

    Even though it’s almost 1 a.m. – I had to write to you before I went to bed and tell you what an amazing evening we just had here on kibbutz Sa’ad.

    But before I tell you about the evening; I will start with this afternoon.

    Around 4 p.m. all the kibbutz members received SMS messages saying that 200 soldiers were arriving on the kibbutz – right off the battlefields of the Gaza strip — and they were able to take a night off and rest in relative security. They were in need of showers since they hadn’t had the opportunity to wash up in a very long time (the foot soldiers have been inside for about 10 days now). We were asked to come “adopt” a soldier for the evening to give him a chance to freshen up , eat a home-cooked meal, etc.

    Well, within less than 5 minutes, no joke, we received an SMS message saying not to come to the school gym anymore, that there were no more soldiers left. People here baked, cooked dinners, offered their homes and showers to our brave IDF soldiers; such a good feeling to be able to give them back something after they risked their lives to protect us, the citizens of the south.

    ——-

    Now to the events of this evening…

    There was a three-hour concert. Famous singers and musicians, sound people, camermen, etc. etc. from all over the country came to give us a free concert. The evening sing-along was attended by so many people from neighboring kibbutzim. Both religious and non-religious, young and old. It was so heartwarming to have everyone sitting and singing together. Dancing together, laughing together, having a good time. A bakery donated cakes for the evening. A kibbutz in the north donated pomegranite juice. We were given small Israeli flags to wave, in between clapping. The soldiers who are our guests tonight joined in and we all danced and sang together and waved our flags; we didn’t want to stop. The songs were of peace, of happiness, patriotic songs, old-time tunes, and inspirational songs also like “Am Yisroel Chai”.

    All I can say is that for three wonderful hours, the only noice we heard was the sound of music – not helicopters, no sirens, no cannons, nothing. We all had a chance to unwind and smile and relax. Also, what I really loved was so many people coming together from across the political and religious spectrum — the UNITY was so contagious and an undescribable feeling to experience. Here in the middle of a war; we could be together, united and singing.

    As a contrast – the head of Hamas gave aninterview with Al Jazeera TV. He called for continued fighting at all cost; asked for more volunteer “shahidim” – martyrs – and is not willing to stop the agression. We again began a humanitarian cease fire for a few hours today so the citizens of Gaza could go out and get drinking water and food; who broke the cease fire? Hamas — as they have each time. They even took advantage of safe passage areas to transfer weapons. It’s difficult for me to even begin to comprehend their mentality.

    Now, back at home, with constant helictopers flying overhead and shooting — I wish we could still be in the middle of a concert. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon, I know this will end, our brave IDF soldiers will have completed their mission and the south of Israel will again be a quiet and beautiful place to live.

    Best regards from Sa’ad,

    Keep in touch,

    Sandi

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