And the "Yasser" Award Now Goes To . . . Sophie Claudet of "France 24"

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Truth be told, we do miss Christiane Amanpour.

As the discredited ex-international C.N.N. journalist has faded from the world's media stage, there remain few truly Machiavellian pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic members of the international press, however Ms. Sophie Claudet of France 24 television is clearly nipping at Ms. Amanpour's heels in an effort to overtake and surpass the reputation for yellow journalism that Ms. Amanpour worked so hard to attain and perfect.

On Tuesday, February 10th, in an interview on the international media agency France 24, Ms. Claudet turned in one of the most breathtakingly virtuoso performances of disingenuous pro-terrorist propaganda this writer has ever seen. She actually raised the bar set by Ms. Amanpour by at least a couple of feet.

The vast majority of journalists who have made quite comfortable incomes through Israel-bashing and declaring "being anti-Israel doesn't mean I'm anti-Semitic", are mediocre at best and while, as the world has repeatedly witnessed, they continue to pump out undocumented and unverifiable statements by Arab sources, Ms. Claudet's interview went them one better.

Following the month-long anti-terrorist offensive launched by the Israeli Defence Forces against Hamas Ms. Claudet, who is allegedly based in Ramallah ( rather than in Gaza we might note . . .) but spends a rather inordinate amount of quality time in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, pounded Israel with an iron fist in a velvet glove during her interview.

For those who listened closely, a number of extremely interesting facts emerged about Ms. Claudet's journalistic style. First, while the world at large and the Israeli public as well as the entire Palestinian population were well aware of the impending military operation by the I.D.F against Hamas in the Gaza strip, the actual opening of hostilities found Ms. Claudet, surprisingly, among the hundreds of journalists who, by some odd coincidence, just happened to be caught off-guard outside of Gaza at the time.

During the Second World War, the most respected and dedicated American war correspondant was Ernie Pyle. A man who was always among the troops in the front lines, sending back both gut-wrenching photos and hard-hitting eye-witness descriptions of the naked truth of the war, his dedication to journalism ultimately cost him his life. Had Ms. Claudet been given the assignment of covering that conflict, one can easily imagine her being "caught off-guard" on the beach in Miami on the eve of the war and raging impotently against the U.S government for keeping her from being in the thick of the fighting.

As we watched the virtual traffic-jam of media vehicles, reporters ( Ms. Claudet included) and cameramen criticizing Israel for "forcibly excluding" them from Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, one wonders why they weren't in Gaza in the first place. They certainly had enough time and forewarning to scoot in there with all their equipment before the actual operation began and get up-close and on-the-spot coverage of the conflict. But, like Ms. Claudet, they seem to have been caught completely by surprise despite the stunningly massive build-up of tanks, troops, attack helicopters and other fairly obvious indications of an impending military operation.

Now, having been apparently duped by Israel's troop build-up, and finding herself "forcibly excluded" from the conflict zone by the Israeli military, Ms. Claudet began, apparently, frantically attempting to enter Gaza to cover the hostilities. However, despite her best efforts, and over a month-long operation, Ms. Claudet only managed to "sneak into" Gaza from the Egyptian side a bare two days before the operation ended. One can only imagine how disappointed she must have been to have managed to "sneak into" Gaza so late in the game.

By that time, what she coyly intimated in her interview must have been mountains of bodies of Palestinian women and children, all innocent victims of Israeli (read: Jewish) atrocities, had been removed so, unfortunately, she was unable to document the carnage. But she assured the world they had been there; she was just a bit too late to document it all. Oops . . .

Interestingly, this interview included a taped conversation with an Italian journalist who had actually stayed in Gaza during the hostilities and gave a graphic account of how the Israelis intentionally tried to kill him (omitting to mention that he was not wearing a "Press" jacket at the time) and showed the film crew bullet holes in a car to prove his accusation. The fact that it wasn't his car was beside the point. Our sources also turned up the interesting fact that this particular journalist has in the past acted as an eager conduit for undocumented and unverified accusations against Israel by Hamas officials. Somewhat like our dedicated Ms. Claudet.

While a cursory scan of Ms. Claudet's articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict show a dedication to "exposing" Israeli (again, read: Jewish) injustices, her attacks being somewhat comparable to a pit-bull attacking a small child, she has not, to our knowledge, spent any of her time covering the ex-judicial summary executions of innocent Palestinians by Hamas, the wide-spread practice of "honor killings" of Palestinian women, the rampant corruption of Palestinian politicians of all stripes, the kidnapping and torture of foreign journalists (which may explain her adorably coy reluctance to base herself in Gaza rather than West Jerusalem or Tel Aviv ), the indiscriminate firing of Kassam and Grad rockets into civilian centers in Israel, homicide terrorist bombings of Israeli civilians, the indoctrination of Palestinian children to consider "martyrdom" (read: homicide bomber) as the highest goal to which they can aspire, or any of the other more uncivilized aspects of Palestinian society.

While Ms. Christiane Amanpour's anti-Semitic journalistic vitriol was basically fueled by the financial advantages to be gained from accomodating Arab sources, Ms. Claudet's hatred of Jews seems to be so deeply rooted that it not only enables her to turn a blind eye to the most blatent examples of Islamic barbarism, it has actually driven her to become what Ms. Christiane Amanpour never was . . . an ideologically motivated terrorist collaborator and propagandist.

We also found it interesting to note that the France 24 interviewer never raised the question of why Ms. Claudet spent all but the last two days of the conflict safely ensconsed in Israel and well out of harm's way while other foreign journalists managed to stay in the danger zone and were able to cover the conflict first-hand. Nor did the interviewer bother to raise the question of what compelled Israel to launch this operation. Embarassing question, that . . . ?

And so . . . . we most respectfully and, with grudging admiration for her dedication to the Hearst principles of reportage, present Ms. Claudet with the coveted "Yasser" award for yellow journalism, bless her little heart . . .

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