This AM was something out of Spring 2002. A friend of T.'s called just as I was on my way out to work, and then we read about the bombing at Haaretz. I left for work as usual and tried to think of how to avoid the consequent traffic (I couldn't, since my commute crosses Derech Aza where the bus was bombed).

The latest news is 10 people killed.

I lived in an apt. very close to today's bombing from '96-'99. One morning In 1998 I went into a shop around Aza/Arlozorov and a woman told me that Pres. Clinton's motorcade had passed by 1 hr. earlier (and that he waved).

People abroad don't seem to notice much of a difference between the Camp David, Taba, and Geneva plans. In the same way they don't notice the difference between the situation in early 2002 (when the PA controlled most of the West Bank and these things were happening about 3-4 times a week) and the way they are now.

This summary of the findings of the Hutton inquiry is striking to me in that the inquiry actually attempted to make an objective evaluation of the interpretive and editorial mechanisms of a major news organization. I thought that noone aimed at objectivity anymore, but just at portrayal of the different "narratives".

Now if only some well-respected non-partisan body would do the same thing to the reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian situation from Reuters, NYTimes, BBC, Guardian etc.

I'm still here The New York Times ran a report a while ago suggesting that the new security fence (combined with the IDF policy of raids against "militants") was preventing Palestinian suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.

Apparently the possibility that the fence is actually a good thing was disturbing to the editors at the International Herald Tribune, so when they ran the NYT report, they added a nonsensical paragraph postulating that the terrorists had declared an unofficial cease-fire. Turns out that the IHT regularly does this sort of this thing with Israel-related news(article)