Here's a comment I've seen regarding these pictures. Hard to tell what the situation really was, but a reminder of the power that a fleeting image can have nowadays.

Sorry mate, ain't no proper excuse or explanation at all. Even taking the excuse making at its own value, it's still quite fucked, and did not find the chat terribly enlightening.

I don't get excited about blame games, so I don't really care about excuses. The relationship between images in the media and the real world has some interest beyond that, I think. I agree that the chat was not particularly enlightening, though. It's just hard to tell much from it. I was curious what this Lisa was going to post about it, but nothing yet.

once again, we've been shown why everyone (ESPECIALLY AMERICANS) should have a damned good exit strategy that doesn't involve normal transport routes. at the very least, make some friends so you can stay in their bomb shelter when shit hits the fan.

then again, i suppose many of the stranded fatties were there on short vacations...

L: does the Titanic have evac plans for the expat staff?

Michael,

that was so lame. Go wear a mickey mouse mask.

Lisa Goldstein has her explanation up and it's pretty weak. Apparently, contra the brief sandmonkey item, it was the parents of the kids (and not the "mostly foreign" photographers) who encouraged them to decorate the shells. The photographers were just there to take pictures. (And yeah, they were feeling stress, had been in shelters for a week, etc etc. Doesn't change the fact that the picture is basically accurate).

Also, I'm sure that there will be many people on the right end of the blog-o-sphere who link to Goldstein's explanation with a "that settles that" attitude. I wonder how many of them have been witheringly derisive of similar explanations of eg Palestinian kids dressed up as suicide bombers or whatever.

Dr. F

does the Titanic have evac plans for the expat staff?

I'm sure, but I'd be fucked if I depended on them.

As I thought, unworthy even of the pretension of respect. Tom's got it right (although let's say the delusional American whanker Bolshy right, as I ain't no bloody Lefty mate).

Tom,

Sure, that's how point scoring works. I haven't come across stories behind Palestinian pictures, although they might be interesting. The dilemma of Palestinian society, as far as I can tell, is not that some kids get involved in jongoism, as will always happen to a degree in a conflict (although not always in front of a camera), but that the voices expressing distaste at the idea are being marginalized.

By the way, I've been informed elsewhere that I've been misspelling Lisa GoldMAN's name. Grr.

Israeli Russians via a Ukrainian blog:

"But do you know that in Israel there is such an army profession as a military clown? It's a person who entertains children in bomb shelters. And there's also such a branch of child psychology as the psychology of stress. And a child on whose house fall Katyushas, who hears sirens ten times a day and has a class on "how to hide from missiles" at school, is taken to paint missiles, by psychologists."

""But do you know that in Israel there is such an army profession as a military clown? It's a person who entertains children in bomb shelters. And there's also such a branch of child psychology as the psychology of stress. And a child on whose house fall Katyushas, who hears sirens ten times a day and has a class on "how to hide from missiles" at school, is taken to paint missiles, by psychologists."

"Military clowns?" Give me a break. It's an appalling picture much like Palestinians dressing toddlers up in explosive belts was appalling. Less jarring, same intent.

Israeli children can draw the appropriate conclusions about who their enemies are by the falling rockets themselves. Scrawling messages of scorn and hatred was a black humor ritual once left for pilots and air crews. That's where it should be left.

Mark - it's hard to say, especially given that it's a translation, but that "military clown" thing reads to me like Russian-style black humor.

Mark, quite right.

In the case of the Israeli girls, they've got a proper military to play with. Different tools, similar thoughts.

The take away is not that they're evil but rather the ill effect of this conflict