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Does anybody else think that this is all going a little far now? Not content with kidnapping half of the freely and democratically elected Palestinian cabinet, Israel have now kidnapped the Deputy Prime Minister.

As much as I would love to see Prescott out of government, even I would not like to see a foreign invading power kidnap him and take him to who knows where to do who knows what to him and for those of you that simply will not or cannot see it, that IS a valid example whether you want it to be or not.

You only have to read the article to understand that the press are aware that this is wrong. The protective language alone is a dead giveaway. Where normal people use the word "kidnapped" they use the word "seized". Drugs and Ill-gotten gains from a life of crime get seized, not people. People are kidnapped when they are illegally removed from their home and taken to another country for interrogation and imprisonment.

Another "choice" phrase is used when referring to the death of an Israeli soldier who was killed by a Palestinian gunman...Why is it not a Palestinian soldier or an Israeli gunman? After all, Israel are in Palestine and not the other way around. The article even goes on to say that nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack...and why should they? Is this not a war? Do we have Dubya and Blair on the television claiming responsibility for the death of an opposition solider in Iraq or Afghanistan? Ok, al-Zarqawi excluded!

The next paragraph tells us in no uncertain terms who is to blame for all of this violence and human suffering. You guessed it...It is those pesky Arabs with their violent religion and loony jihadists!

"..after it launched an offensive in response to the kidnapping of a soldier in a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip"

...just does not quite make it all the way to the point though does it? Israel had, just prior to the kidnapping (note that this is a KIDNAPPING and not a SEIZURE) launched a gun boat attack onto a beach in Gaza killing almost an entire family who were spending their afternoon trying to leave the troubles of the region behind.

Also note that this is an "offensive" and not an invasion...They may well be called the Israeli DEFENCE Force but they seem to spend very little of their time actually defending anything other than Israeli policy!

Next we are reminded that Israel and Lebanon have recently been involved in a war so riddled with reasons for the entire Israeli cabinet and military to visit The Hague for a War Crimes Tribunal that the newspapers appear to have all but completely forgotten that it even happened. Thankfully, they have not forgotten that it was all Lebanon's fault after two Hezbollah guerrillas (not soldiers) abducted (again, no seizures here) two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. There is no mention whatsoever of the fact that the Israeli troops were actually in Lebanese territory that they have occupied for 24 years. Were Israel not illegally occupying land then there would be no use for the term cross-border here at all. As it is, Lebanon and Hezbollah in particular have NEVER ceded the land to Israel and have ALWAYS demanded that the Israeli troops leave their lands and not return.

I guess the phrase, used so often in these pages, that comes to mind here is "What did you think was going to happen?"

Next we are told of the ceasefire but not of the constant Israeli breaches of it.

We are then told that the Deputy Prime Minister of Palestine has been "taken into custody due to his membership in a terrorist organisation".

Odd...But I have just checked with the United Nations and they are not under the impression that Hamas are in any way a proscribed terrorist group. Quite the opposite in fact, they seem to think that there was a genuine hope, for the sake of the politics of the region, that Hamas may take their election victory and convert it into a new type of understanding of and dealing with the Israeli illegal occupation of their lands. So to take anybody into custody for being a member of a terrorist organisation, according to Israel anyway, you simply need to say that they are terrorists and the rule of law no longer applies.

I wonder if the Palestinian government has ever considered their occupiers to be terrorists? one must assume that they have so, by Israel's own reasoning, the soldier that was "kidnapped by guerillas" was actually "seized for being a member of a terrorist organisation."

Did you hear that? By their own determination Israel have illegally invaded Gaza and the West Bank because a terrorist from their country was arrested and taken into custody by the Palestinians. I bet you won't see THAT perfectly decent piece of logic used anywhere in the mainstream press!

We then wind our merry way through the fact that the Palestinian Prime Minister (the freely and democratically elected Palestinian Prime Minister that is!) is a Hamas leader, just in case anybody forgot that we are supposed to regard him as a terrorist too. According to the article he condemned the "arrest" but I have a sneaking suspicion that those were not the exact words that he used! No, my money - and the smart money for that matter - is very much on him saying something more like "the illegal kidnapping of the Deputy Prime Minister of the freely and democratically elected government of Palestine (sorry if I am overstating that point but it is in keeping with the style of the article and seems only fair!) is a terrorist act by an invading aggressor who comes and kills our people whenever they see fit for whatever reason regardless of provocation and proportionate response". Something like that, anyway!

Strangely they quote the Deputy Prime Minister's wife word for word when she points out that the kidnappers let her husband say goodbye to his children first, although they do not elaborate on the untold damage that those children will have suffered from seeing their father escorted away by soldiers with large guns at the crack of dawn. Maybe they will one day decide to become suicide bombers out of the sheer frustration and desperation they will undoubtedly feel if their father is not returned safely and uninjured back to their family home in the near future...And who could blame them?

No I am NOT endorsing suicide bombers as I believe it to be both callous and pointless. It kills mainly innocent people and changes very little, if anything at all, other than the rest of the world's opinion of the nation from which that person originated from. What I am saying is that, well, "What do they think is going to happen?" But maybe that is the point. Keep oppressing and hurting an entire nation and, eventually, they will commit some sort of extreme atrocity which can then be replayed over and over again through the incredibly supportive news media as an example of why these people should be "wiped off the map". I think that this article alone tells us all that we need to know about the world media and its leanings.

What comes next is just priceless:

Saeb Erekat, the top Palestinian negotiator, condemned the arrest and said "this complicates" a recent bid by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to forge a Palestinian unity government, to ease a Western aid embargo against the Hamas government.

The boycott is designed to push the militant group to recognise Israel's right to exist, renounce violence and accept past peace accords.

So, the MILITANT group has to recognise Israel's RIGHT TO EXIST and accept past peace accords (that Israel have always been the first to break) and this is being presented as a perfectly rational piece of thinking by Israel. Ask yourself, if you were the Prime Minister of Palestine and your Deputy was kidnapped during a period where you were engaged in talks to effectively bow to Israel's every whim, would you even consider making those changes now? Or would you become yet more militant and more angry and less likely to give in to Israel's demands?

Israel seized dozens of Hamas cabinet ministers and lawmakers after militants abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25. Many were later freed. Al-Shaer had been on the wanted list but had not been found, Palestinian sources said.

So, still SEIZING them and it is still all the Palestinian MILITANTS own fault for ABDUCTING an Israeli soldier and no mention is made again of the beach murders.

Finally, we are treated to a little piece of journalistic hackery:

Israeli troops killed three Palestinian militants on Friday, and three Hamas members died in the town of Jenin when a bomb they were preparing exploded prematurely, local security officials said.

Israeli TROOPS killed three Palestinian MILITANTS and three Hamas members died in Jenin when a BOMB they were preparing exploded prematurely, LOCAL SECURITY OFFICIALS said...

Local security officials? Would they be local to Jenin or local to Israel?

Place your bets ladies and gentlemen!