By Limor Shiponi
Jonathan Littell – have you seen the name? Last week ‘Le Monde’ published five stories he wrote during the past months while reporting from Homs, Syria. The stories were translated to Hebrew by ‘Haaretz’ and you can still find them there. I wondered how it can happen that I’m not seeing them all over the place. Mr. Littell gives an explanation somewhere along his stories –
“The Syrians I meet during the journey try desperately to tell me what they have been through, showing me blurred videos on their cellular phones, exposing the horrors of the regime… western media don’t often take advantage of these resources, claiming that in the absence of their own reporters on the ground ‘there is no way to validate the truthfulness of these horror videos’. But these photographs – sometimes blurred and trembling – expose the horrible deeds of the Syrian regime and they are the fruit of an intelligence work difficult to evaluate; a work people risk their lives daily for”.
As usual, some people think they are in charge of re-writing history as it unravels. “This article was amended on 21 February 2012. Information that was inconsistent with Guardian editorial guidelines has been removed” (bottom of article). How convenient.