Regarding Mike's post: there are too many wrong statements and it would take
me hours to correct them all. And I've got to run in a couple of minutes.
Funny but just before I read Mike's post, I sent him the following article
which I just received, since Mike and I have this off-list discussion.
Seems to me the best and fastest way to answer Mike is to post the following
article. For some reason, Mike believes the propaganda from the opposite
side, and each of us thinks the other one believes the wrong propaganda of
course.
And no, I have no reason to think Mike is antisemitic. Perhaps the following
article explains in part why he feels the way he does.
By the way, I hear journalists in Spain do a terrific job since they have
access to places that U.S journalists don't.
Laurent
Stiff Right Jab: Time and Terror
Steve Farrell
Monday, Jan. 6, 2003
"The propagandist's purpose," wrote Aldous Huxley in "The Olive Tree," "is
to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human"
- to which we may add, "and to make one set of people remember that other sets
of people are humane and motivated by high and noble aims."
If this is the propagandist's purpose, it ought to be observed that the
propaganda mills are running at full tilt when it comes to "mainstream" media
depictions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The demons are almost always Israeli gunmen, Israeli settlers and an old
war-hawk general - the saints are almost always Palestinian men, women and
children, suicide bombers who give up their lives for the revolution, and
George Washington-like Yasser Arafats who lead the charge.
Time magazine is among the best at this ploy - and its Winter 2002 Special
Issue, The Best Photos of the Year, ranks as typical. In that colorful volume
there were seven award-winning photographs focused on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
Not one of them evidenced an ounce of support for Israel. Six of them,
rather, cast the Israelis in a demonic dim and the Palestinians in a holy
light. The one "neutral" photograph, if that is what it was, refused to
mention who 16 out of the 17 victims of a Palestinian suicide bombing were -
that is, Israelis - that is, Israeli men, women and children - that is,
civilians who were minding their own business riding a bus.
No crying Israeli mothers and children were depicted, no coffins hoisted
through crowds of mourners, only an anonymously extended blood-stained arm,
labeled simply "10," which for all we know might have been the arm of the
Palestinian heaven seeker.
Consider the list.
The Victims
Photo 1, titled "Mourning," is a two-page spread of three Palestinian women
in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank mourning over a dead body. What
caused their mourning? "Israeli tanks leveled the area," the text reads.
Photo 2, titled "Left Behind" (a subtle allusion to the hypocrisy of George
W. Bush's "No child left behind" campaign in America, which, apparently, turns
its back on Palestinian children overseas), shows a Palestinian child, who
lost his father and grandfather, standing on a bloodstained cement staircase.
The bloodthirsty killers? "Israeli soldiers."
Photo 3, titled "In the Bedroom," obviously a staged photo op, has
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat leaning over his debris-covered bed with his
eyes bugged out in absolute horror, as he "[surveys] the damage to his private
quarters on June 6." The words "bedroom" and "private quarters" were carefully
inserted for maximum effect, as if to say, that which is most sacred was
violated by the invading hordes.
And who were they? "Israeli tanks had besieged his compound in the West Bank
town of Ramallah." Nothing is said as to why the attack, nothing about the
mounds of evidence linking Arafat to the murder and injury of hundreds of
Israeli citizens, nothing about Palestinian maps that deny the existence of
Israel, nothing about Israel's remarkable restraint in not ending it there and
then for Mr. Arafat, which they surely could have.
The Villain
Photo 4, by contrast, "Old Man Alone," depicts Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon sitting alone, it appears, "at the Knesset in early November after
surviving three no-confidence votes and buying more time to repair his
tattered coalition." The message: Here is the villain - a stubborn old man,
with archaic values - alone against the world.
Get the point?
The contrasts continue. The next two pictures depict two kinds of soldiers,
those who defend the homeland and those who destroy homes.
The Defenders
Photo 5, "Walking The Beat" - as if these men were New York City cops! -
depicts masked "members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Yasser
Arafat's Fatah movement, patroll[ing] the Jabalya refugee camp to defend
against a possible Israeli incursion" - with guns pointing down.
The Aggressors
"No Safe Havens," photo 6, depicts three Israeli soldiers "stationed inside
a former Palestinian home that they had converted into a military stronghold"
- guns pointed up, ready to fire.
Not Taking Sides
"A Gruesome Tally," photo 7, as already noted, demonstrates perhaps more
than any other how slanted Time magazine and the "mainstream" media are. When
they finally might have given the Israelis a one out of seven chance for a
fair shake, they refuse to mention that the 17 victims are, all but one,
Israelis. The word Israeli is, in fact, hauntingly absent from the quote.
Lincoln on Deception
Abraham Lincoln observed: "You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all
the time."
Time magazine and the left, by making one set of people forget that certain
other sets of people are human, and by making one set of people remember that
other sets of people are by contrast high and holy, have decided to play the
propagandist against Israel and in favor of Palestinian terrorists.
But guess what - we caught you.
