Sigh. Are shameless photo-ops like this really necessary? Do they tell us anything newsworthy that we didn't already know—other than the fact that Syria has been completely ignoring the Golan Heights until it found that the territory could be used to weaken Israel? Was it really appropriate to put the girl next to such an emotional construct as barbed-wire, which could as easily have been placed by the Syrians as by the Israelis?
A girl tastes berries grown on barbwire on the Syrian side of the Golan heights November 18, 2007. After decades of neglect, Syria is pouring money into services in frontline Golan territory to draw back residents -- and help raise the profile of an issue it wants back on the international agenda - the renewed Syrian diplomatic push to regain the plateau. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri
It's almost as if Reuters wants to be the official propagandists for the Syrian dictatorial regime.Interesting: I can't be 100% certain of it, but the odds are fairly good that this is the car that the girl (and possibly her photojournalist friend) used to get to the Golan Heights. Notice anything peculiar about it?
A Syrian car with a poster of Syrian President Bashara al-Assad parks opposite an Israeli military post on the occupied Golan Heights September 6, 2007. Under the gaze of an Israeli tank, Syrian bulldozers slice through rocky terrain to build roads just inside a ceasefire line separating the occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria. (Khaled al-Hariri/Reuters)
Far be it from me to suggest that the dictatorial government of Bashar al-Assad coerces people into acting for the international press to observe.
And farther be it from me to point out that we've seen propaganda like this before.
As the world turns, Reuters burns. Or something like that...
