In Gaza today, the convoy of the French Foreign Minister was
attacked by an angry Palestinian mob following her meeting yesterday with the father of kidnapped Israeli, Gilad Shalit. Palestinians were reportedly incensed that the French Minister had the audacity to call for Hamas to release Shalit or at a minimum, to allow the Red Cross to visit him, which, in violation of every tenet of international law, Hamas has refused to do. During the meeting, Shalit's father apparently referred to the kidnapping as a "war crime" and Palestinians were immediately driven into a frenzy mistakenly thinking the French Foreign Minister had made this comment.
The Palestinians have nothing to fear however, as the government of France immediately
rolled over issued a statement indicating that the Foreign Minister had been "misquoted by Israeli media".
In the mean time, Reuters correspondents
Nidal al-Mughrabi and
Crispian Balmer writing about the ongoing attempt by German mediators to broker a deal with Hamas to release Shalit refer to the...
wait for it... "liberation" of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners Hamas has demanded in exchange. One of those prisoners incidentally, is Marwan Barghouti, sentenced to five life terms for murder, whom Reuters has in the past,
characterized as "an activist... seen by some as a Palestinian Nelson Mandela".
As usual, Reuters peculiar choice of language reveals everything one could ever wish to know about the personal political views of its correspondents and editors.
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