An article on what they get right would be a lot shorter… Just sayin’…
David > On Dec 2, 2014, at 10:15 AM, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote: > > The Atlantic > What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel > > The news tells us less about Israel than about the people writing the news, a > former AP reporter says. > > Matti Friedman <http://www.theatlantic.com/matti-friedman/> Nov 30 2014 > During the Gaza war this summer, it became clear that one of the most > important aspects of the media-saturated conflict between Jews and Arabs is > also the least covered: the press itself. The Western press has become less > an observer of this conflict than an actor in it, a role with consequences > for the millions of people trying to comprehend current events, including > policymakers who depend on journalistic accounts to understand a region where > they consistently seek, and fail, to productively intervene. > > An essay I wrote for Tablet > <http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183033/israel-insider-guide> > on this topic in the aftermath of the war sparked intense interest. In the > article, based on my experiences between 2006 and 2011 as a reporter and > editor in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press, one of the world’s > largest news organizations, I pointed out the existence of a problem and > discussed it in broad terms. Using staffing numbers, I illustrated the > disproportionate media attention devoted to this conflict relative to other > stories, and gave examples of editorial decisions that appeared to be driven > by ideological considerations rather than journalistic ones. I suggested that > the cumulative effect has been to create a grossly oversimplified story—a > kind of modern morality play in which the Jews of Israel are displayed more > than any other people on earth as examples of moral failure. This is a > thought pattern with deep roots in Western civilization. > > But how precisely does this thought pattern manifest itself in the day-to-day > functioning, or malfunctioning, of the press corps? To answer this question, > I want to explore the way Western press coverage is shaped by unique > circumstances here in Israel and also by flaws affecting the media beyond the > confines of this conflict. In doing so, I will draw on my own experiences and > those of colleagues. These are obviously limited and yet, I believe, > representative. > > > <Untitled.jpg> > > > > I’ll begin with a simple illustration. The above photograph is of a student > rally held last November at Al-Quds University, a mainstream Palestinian > institution in East Jerusalem. The rally, in support of the armed > fundamentalist group Islamic Jihad, featured actors playing dead Israeli > soldiers and a row of masked men whose stiff-armed salute was returned by > some of the hundreds of students in attendance. Similar rallies have been > held periodically at the school. > > I am not using this photograph to make the case that Palestinians are Nazis. > Palestinians are not Nazis. They are, like Israelis, human beings dealing > with a difficult present and past in ways that are occasionally ugly. I cite > it now for a different reason. > > Such an event at an institution like Al-Quds University, headed at the time > by a well-known moderate professor, and with ties to sister institutions in > America, indicates something about the winds now blowing in Palestinian > society and across the Arab world. The rally is interesting for the visual > connection it makes between radical Islam here and elsewhere in the region; a > picture like this could help explain why many perfectly rational Israelis > fear withdrawing their military from East Jerusalem or the West Bank, even if > they loathe the occupation and wish to live in peace with their Palestinian > neighbors. The images from the demonstration were, as photo editors like to > say, “strong.” The rally had, in other words, all the necessary elements of a > powerful news story. > > The event took place a short drive from the homes and offices of the hundreds > of international journalists who are based in Jerusalem. Journalists were > aware of it: The sizable Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press, for > example, which can produce several stories on an average day, was in > possession of photos of the event, including the one above, a day later. (The > photographs were taken by someone I know who was on campus that day, and I > sent them to the bureau myself.) Jerusalem editors decided that the images, > and the rally, were not newsworthy, and the demonstration was only mentioned > by the AP weeks later when the organization’s Boston bureau reported > <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/21/brandeis-palestinian-university/3660975/>that > Brandeis University had cut ties with Al-Quds over the incident. On the day > that the AP decided to ignore the rally, November 6, 2013, the same bureau > published a report > <http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-gives-75-million-more-aid-palestinians> > about a pledge from the U.S. State Department to provide a minor funding > increase for the Palestinian Authority; that was newsworthy. This is > standard. To offer another illustration, the construction of 100 apartments > in a Jewish settlement is always news; the smuggling of 100 rockets into Gaza > by Hamas is, with rare exceptions, not news at all. > > I mention these instances to demonstrate the kind of decisions made regularly > in the bureaus of the foreign press covering Israel and the Palestinian > territories, and to show the way in which the pipeline of information from > this place is not just rusty and leaking, which is the usual state of affairs > in the media, but intentionally plugged. > > There are banal explanations for problems with coverage—reporters are in a > hurry, editors are overloaded and distracted. These are realities, and can > explain small errors > <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/10/23/bias-on-steroids-this-ap-headline-explains-why-so-many-complain-about-media-coverage-of-israel/> > and mishaps > <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/18/cnn-jerusalem-mistake_n_6179044.html> > like ill-conceived headlines > <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/11/18/cnn-earns-online-criticism-after-running-this-headline-following-jerusalem-terror-attack-unreal/>, > which is why such details don’t typically strike me as important or worth > much analysis. Some say > <http://www.onthemedia.org/story/ethan-bronner-and-matti-friedman-coverage-israel-palestine/transcript/> > inflations and omissions are the inevitable results of an honest attempt to > cover events in a challenging and occasionally dangerous reporting > environment, which is what I initially believed myself. A few years on the > job changed my mind. Such excuses can’t explain why the same inflations and > omissions recur again and again, why they are common to so many news outlets, > and why the simple “Israel story” of the international media is so foreign to > people aware of the historical and regional context of events in this place. > The explanation lies elsewhere. > > * * * > > To make sense of most international journalism from Israel, it is important > first to understand that the news tells us far less about Israel than about > the people writing the news. Journalistic decisions are made by people who > exist in a particular social milieu, one which, like most social groups, > involves a certain uniformity of attitude, behavior, and even dress (the > fashion these days, for those interested, is less vests with unnecessary > pockets than shirts with unnecessary buttons). These people know each other, > meet regularly, exchange information, and closely watch one another’s work. > This helps explain why a reader looking at articles written by the half-dozen > biggest news providers in the region on a particular day will find that > though the pieces are composed and edited by completely different people and > organizations, they tend to tell the same story. > > > The best insight into one of the key phenomena at play here comes not from a > local reporter but from the journalist and author Philip Gourevitch. In > Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa, Gourevitch wrote in 2010 > <http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-moral-hazards-of-humanitarian-aid-what-is-to-be-done>, > he was struck by the ethical gray zone of ties between reporters and NGOs. > “Too often the press represents humanitarians with unquestioning admiration,” > he observed in The New Yorker. “Why not seek to keep them honest? Why should > our coverage of them look so much like their own self-representation in > fund-raising appeals? Why should we (as many photojournalists and print > reporters do) work for humanitarian agencies between journalism jobs, helping > them with their official reports and institutional appeals, in a way that we > would never consider doing for corporations, political parties, or government > agencies?” > > This confusion is very much present in Israel and the Palestinian > territories, where foreign activists are a notable feature of the landscape, > and where international NGOs and numerous arms of the United Nations are > among the most powerful players, wielding billions of dollars and employing > many thousands of foreign and local employees. Their SUVs dominate sections > of East Jerusalem and their expense accounts keep Ramallah afloat. They > provide reporters with social circles, romantic partners, and alternative > employment—a fact that is more important to reporters now than it has ever > been, given the disintegration of many newspapers and the shoestring nature > of their Internet successors. > > In my time in the press corps, I learned that our relationship with these > groups was not journalistic. My colleagues and I did not, that is, seek to > analyze or criticize them. For many foreign journalists, these were not > targets but sources and friends—fellow members, in a sense, of an informal > alliance. This alliance consists of activists and international staffers from > the UN and the NGOs; the Western diplomatic corps, particularly in East > Jerusalem; and foreign reporters. (There is also a local component, > consisting of a small number of Israeli human-rights activists who are > themselves largely funded by European governments, and Palestinian staffers > from the Palestinian Authority, the NGOs, and the UN.) Mingling occurs at > places like the lovely Oriental courtyard of the American Colony hotel in > East Jerusalem, or at parties held at the British Consulate’s rooftop pool. > The dominant characteristic of nearly all of these people is their > transience. They arrive from somewhere, spend a while living in a peculiar > subculture of expatriates, and then move on. > > In these circles, in my experience, a distaste for Israel has come to be > something between an acceptable prejudice and a prerequisite for entry. I > don’t mean a critical approach to Israeli policies or to the ham-fisted > government currently in charge in this country, but a belief that to some > extent the Jews of Israel are a symbol of the world’s ills, particularly > those connected to nationalism, militarism, colonialism, and racism—an idea > quickly becoming one of the central elements of the “progressive” Western > zeitgeist, spreading from the European left to American college campuses and > intellectuals, including journalists. In this social group, this sentiment is > translated into editorial decisions made by individual reporters and editors > covering Israel, and this, in turn, gives such thinking the means of mass > self-replication. > > * * * > > Anyone who has traveled abroad understands that arriving in a new country is > daunting, and it is far more so when you are expected to show immediate > expertise. I experienced this myself in 2008, when the AP sent me to cover > the Russian invasion of Georgia and I found myself 24 hours later riding in a > convoy of Russian military vehicles. I had to admit that not only did I not > know Georgian, Russian, or any of the relevant history, but I did not know > which way was north, and generally had no business being there. For a > reporter in a situation like the one I just described, the solution is to > stay close to more knowledgeable colleagues and hew to the common wisdom. > > Many freshly arrived reporters in Israel, similarly adrift in a new country, > undergo a rapid socialization in the circles I mentioned. This provides them > not only with sources and friendships but with a ready-made framework for > their reporting—the tools to distill and warp complex events into a simple > narrative in which there is a bad guy who doesn’t want peace and a good guy > who does. This is the “Israel story,” and it has the advantage of being an > easy story to report. Everyone here answers their cell phone, and everyone > knows what to say. You can put your kids in good schools and dine at good > restaurants. It’s fine if you’re gay. Your chances of being beheaded on > YouTube are slim. Nearly all of the information you need—that is, in most > cases, information critical of Israel—is not only easily accessible but has > already been reported for you by Israeli journalists or compiled by NGOs. You > can claim to be speaking truth to power, having selected the only “power” in > the area that poses no threat to your safety. > > Many foreign journalists have come to see themselves as part of this world of > international organizations, and specifically as the media arm of this world. > They have decided not just to describe and explain, which is hard enough, and > important enough, but to “help.” And that’s where reporters get into trouble, > because “helping” is always a murky, subjective, and political enterprise, > made more difficult if you are unfamiliar with the relevant languages and > history. > > Confusion over the role of the press explains one of the strangest aspects of > coverage here—namely, that while international organizations are among the > most powerful actors in the Israel story, they are almost never reported on. > Are they bloated, ineffective, or corrupt? Are they helping, or hurting? We > don’t know, because these groups are to be quoted, not covered. Journalists > cross from places like the BBC to organizations like Oxfam and back. The > current spokesman at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, for > example, is a former BBC man. A Palestinian woman who participated in > protests against Israel and tweeted furiously about Israel a few years ago > served at the same time as a spokesperson for a UN office, and was close > friends with a few reporters I know. And so forth. > > International organizations in the Palestinian territories have largely > assumed a role of advocacy on behalf of the Palestinians and against Israel, > and much of the press has allowed this political role to supplant its > journalistic function. This dynamic explains the thinking behind editorial > choices that are otherwise difficult to grasp, like the example I gave in my > first essay about the suppression > <http://tabletmag.com/scroll/185121/former-ap-reporter-confirms-matti-friedman-account> > by the AP’s Jerusalem bureau of a report about an Israeli peace offer to the > Palestinians in 2008, or the decision to ignore the rally at Al-Quds > University, or the idea that Hamas’s development of extensive armament works > in Gaza in recent years was not worth serious coverage despite objectively > being one of the most important storylines demanding reporters’ attention. > > As usual, Orwell got there first. Here is his description > <http://books.google.com/books/about/All_Art_Is_Propaganda.html?id=IcyGPLqBi60C> > from 1946 of writers of communist and “fellow-traveler” journalism: “The > argument that to tell the truth would be ‘inopportune’ or would ‘play into > the hands of’ somebody or other is felt to be unanswerable, and few people > are bothered by the prospect that the lies which they condone will get out of > the newspapers and into the history books.” The stories I mentioned would be > “inopportune” for the Palestinians, and would “play into the hands” of the > Israelis. And so, in the judgment of the press corps, they generally aren’t > news. > > In the aftermath of the three-week Gaza war of 2008-2009, not yet quite > understanding the way things work, I spent a week or so writing a story about > NGOs like Human Rights Watch, whose work on Israel had just been subject to > an unusual public lashing in The New York Times by its own founder, Robert > Bernstein. (The Middle East, he wrote > <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20bernstein.html?_r=0>, “is > populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet > in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of > Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the > region.”) My article was gentle, all things considered, beginning like this: > > JERUSALEM (AP) _ The prickly relationship between Israel and its critics in > human rights organizations has escalated into an unprecedented war of words > as the fallout from Israel’s Gaza offensive persists ten months after the > fighting ended. > > Editors killed the story. > > Around this time, a Jerusalem-based group called NGO Monitor was battling the > international organizations condemning Israel after the Gaza conflict, and > though the group was very much a pro-Israel outfit and by no means an > objective observer, it could have offered some partisan counterpoint in our > articles to charges by NGOs that Israel had committed “war crimes.” But the > bureau’s explicit orders to reporters were to never quote the group or its > director, an American-raised professor named Gerald Steinberg.* > <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/?single_page=true#Footnote1> > In my time as an AP writer moving through the local conflict, with its > myriad lunatics, bigots, and killers, the only person I ever saw subjected to > an interview ban was this professor. > > When the UN released its controversial Goldstone report on the Gaza fighting, > we at the bureau trumpeted its findings in dozens of articles, though there > was discussion even at the time of the report’s failure to prove its central > charge: that Israel had killed civilians on purpose. (The director of > Israel’s premier human-rights group, B’Tselem, who was critical of the > Israeli operation, told me at the time that this claim was “a reach given the > facts,” an evaluation that was eventually seconded by the report’s author. > “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a > different document,” Richard Goldstone wrote > <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reconsidering-the-goldstone-report-on-israel-and-war-crimes/2011/04/01/AFg111JC_story.html> > in The Washington Post in April 2011.) We understood that our job was not to > look critically at the UN report, or any such document, but to publicize it. > > Decisions like these are hard to fathom if you believe the foreign press > corps’ role is to explain a complicated story to people far away. But they > make sense if you understand that journalists covering Israel and the > Palestinian territories often don’t see their role that way. The radio and > print journalist Mark Lavie, who has reported from the region since 1972, was > a colleague of mine at the AP, where he was an editor in the Jerusalem bureau > and then in Cairo until his retirement last year. (It was Lavie who first > learned of the Israeli peace offer of late 2008, and was ordered by his > superiors to ignore the story.) An Indiana-born Israeli of moderate politics, > he had a long run in journalism that included several wars and the first > Palestinian intifada, and found little reason to complain about the > functioning of the media. > > But things changed in earnest in 2000, with the collapse of peace efforts and > the outbreak of the Second Intifada. Israel accepted President Bill Clinton’s > peace framework that fall and the Palestinians rejected it, as Clinton made > clear <http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/ClintonMyLife.html>. > Nevertheless, Lavie recently told me, the bureau’s editorial line was still > that the conflict was Israel’s fault, and the Palestinians and the Arab world > were blameless. By the end of Lavie’s career, he was editing Israel copy on > the AP’s Middle East regional desk in Cairo, trying to restore balance and > context to stories he thought had little connection to reality. In his words, > he had gone from seeing himself as a proud member of the international press > corps to “the Jew-boy with his finger in the dike.” He wrote a book, Broken > Spring, about his front-row view of the Middle East’s descent into chaos, and > retired disillusioned and angry. > > I have tended to see the specific failings that we both encountered at the AP > as symptoms of a general thought pattern in the press, but Lavie takes a more > forceful position, viewing the influential American news organization as one > of the primary authors of this thought pattern. (In a statement > <http://www.ap.org/content/press-release/2014/ap-statement-on-mideast-coverage>, > AP spokesman Paul Colford dismissed my criticism as “distortions, > half-truths and inaccuracies,” and denied that AP coverage is biased against > Israel.) This is not just because many thousands of media outlets use AP > material directly, but also because when journalists arrive in their offices > in the morning, the first thing many of them do is check the AP wire (or, > these days, scroll through it in their Twitter feed). The AP is like Ringo > Starr, thumping away at the back of the stage: there might be flashier > performers in front, and you might not always notice him, but when Ringo’s > off, everyone’s off. > > Lavie believes that in the last years of his career, the AP’s Israel > operation drifted from its traditional role of careful explanation toward a > kind of political activism that both contributed to and fed off growing > hostility to Israel worldwide. “The AP is extremely important, and when the > AP turned, it turned a lot of the world with it,” Lavie said. “That’s when it > became harder for any professional journalist to work here, Jewish or not. I > reject the idea that my dissatisfaction had to do with being Jewish or > Israeli. It had to do with being a journalist.” > > * * * > > In describing the realities of combat in the Second World War, the American > critic Paul Fussell wrote, the press was censored and censored itself to such > an extent that “for almost six years a large slice of actuality—perhaps > one-quarter to one-half of it—was declared off-limits, and the sanitized and > euphemized remainder was presented as the whole.” During the same war, > American journalists (chiefly from Henry Luce’s magazines) were engaged in > what Fussell called the “Great China Hoax”—years of skewed reporting designed > to portray the venal regime of Chiang Kai-shek as an admirable Western ally > against Japan. Chiang was featured six times on the cover of Time, and his > government’s corruption and dysfunction were carefully ignored. One Marine > stationed in China was so disillusioned by the chasm between what he saw and > what he read that upon his discharge, he said > <http://books.google.com/books?id=tg4KilgfNY4C&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=%E2%80%9CI+switched+to+Newsweek%22+Marine&source=bl&ots=iEZ-cqkrQQ&sig=6GURJzsIiJ44NnDDPk-qSLjWk_s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-ZxuVLXUNIKkgwTm3IGYAQ&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CI%20switched%20to%20Newsweek%22%20Marine&f=false>, > “I switched to Newsweek.” > > Journalistic hallucinations, in other words, have a precedent. They tend to > occur, as in the case of the Great China Hoax, when reporters are not granted > the freedom to write what they see but are rather expected to maintain a > “story” that follows predictable lines. For the international press, the > uglier characteristics of Palestinian politics and society are mostly > untouchable because they would disrupt the Israel story, which is a story of > Jewish moral failure. > > Most consumers of the Israel story don’t understand how the story is > manufactured. But Hamas does. Since assuming power in Gaza in 2007, the > Islamic Resistance Movement has come to understand that many reporters are > committed to a narrative wherein Israelis are oppressors and Palestinians > passive victims with reasonable goals, and are uninterested in contradictory > information. [ BR emphasis ] Recognizing this, certain Hamas spokesmen have > taken to confiding to Western journalists, including some I know personally, > that the group is in fact a secretly pragmatic outfit with bellicose > rhetoric, and journalists—eager to believe the confession, and sometimes > unwilling to credit locals with the smarts necessary to deceive them—have > taken it as a scoop instead of as spin. > > During my time at the AP, we helped Hamas get this point across with a school > of reporting that might be classified as “Surprising Signs of Moderation” (a > direct precursor to the “Muslim Brotherhood Is Actually Liberal” school that > enjoyed a brief vogue in Egypt). In one of my favorite stories, “More > Tolerant Hamas” (December 11, 2011), reporters quoted > <http://news.yahoo.com/hamas-gaza-says-learning-arab-spring-184847515.html> a > Hamas spokesman informing readers that the movement’s policy was that “we are > not going to dictate anything to anyone,” and another Hamas leader saying the > movement had “learned it needs to be more tolerant of others.” Around the > same time, I was informed by the bureau’s senior editors that our Palestinian > reporter in Gaza couldn’t possibly provide critical coverage of Hamas because > doing so would put him in danger. > > Hamas is aided in its manipulation of the media by the old reportorial > belief, a kind of reflex, according to which reporters shouldn’t mention the > existence of reporters. In a conflict like ours, this ends up requiring > considerable exertions: So many photographers cover protests in Israel and > the Palestinian territories, for example, that one of the challenges for > anyone taking pictures is keeping colleagues out of the frame. That the other > photographers are as important to the story as Palestinian protesters or > Israeli soldiers—this does not seem to be considered. > > In Gaza, this goes from being a curious detail of press psychology to a major > deficiency. Hamas’s strategy is to provoke a response from Israel by > attacking from behind the cover of Palestinian civilians, thus drawing > Israeli strikes that kill those civilians, and then to have the casualties > filmed by one of the world’s largest press contingents, with the > understanding that the resulting outrage abroad will blunt Israel’s response. > This is a ruthless strategy, and an effective one. It is predicated on the > cooperation of journalists. One of the reasons it works is because of the > reflex I mentioned. If you report that Hamas has a strategy based on > co-opting the media, this raises several difficult questions, like, What > exactly is the relationship between the media and Hamas? And has this > relationship corrupted the media? It is easier just to leave the other > photographers out of the frame and let the picture tell the story: Here are > dead people, and Israel killed them. > > In previous rounds of Gaza fighting, Hamas learned that international > coverage from the territory could be molded to its needs, a lesson it would > implement in this summer’s war. Most of the press work in Gaza is done by > local fixers, translators, and reporters, people who would understandably not > dare cross Hamas, making it only rarely necessary for the group to threaten a > Westerner. The organization’s armed forces could be made to disappear. The > press could be trusted to play its role in the Hamas script, instead of > reporting that there was such a script. Hamas strategy did not exist, > according to Hamas—or, as reporters would say, was “not the story.” There was > no Hamas charter > <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/what-would-hamas-do-if-it-could-do-whatever-it-wanted/375545/> > blaming Jews for centuries of perfidy, or calling for their murder; this was > not the story. The rockets falling on Israeli cities were quite harmless; > they were not the story either. > > Hamas understood that journalists would not only accept as fact the > Hamas-reported civilian death toll—relayed through the UN or through > something called the “Gaza Health Ministry,” an office controlled by > Hamas—but would make those numbers the center of coverage. Hamas understood > that reporters could be intimidated when necessary and that they would not > report the intimidation; Western news organizations tend to see no ethical > imperative to inform readers of the restrictions shaping their coverage in > repressive states or other dangerous areas. In the war’s aftermath, the > NGO-UN-media alliance could be depended upon to unleash the organs of the > international community on Israel, and to leave the jihadist group alone. > > When Hamas’s leaders surveyed their assets before this summer’s round of > fighting, they knew that among those assets was the international press. The > AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their > office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t > report it, not even in AP articles > <http://news.yahoo.com/evidence-growing-hamas-used-residential-areas-051342974.html> > about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential > areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau > and threaten the staff—and the AP wouldn’t report it. (This also happened.) > Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival > of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their > cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the > illusion that only civilians were dying. (This too happened; the information > comes from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge of these incidents.) > > Colford, the AP spokesman, confirmed > <http://www.ap.org/content/press-release/2014/ap-statement-on-mideast-coverage> > that armed militants entered the AP’s Gaza office in the early days of the > war to complain about a photo showing the location of a rocket launch, though > he said that Hamas claimed that the men “did not represent the group.” The AP > “does not report many interactions with militias, armies, thugs or > governments,” he wrote. “These incidents are part of the challenge of getting > out the news—and not themselves news.” > > This summer, with Yazidis, Christians, and Kurds falling back before the > forces of radical Islam not far away from here, this ideology’s local > franchise launched its latest war against the last thriving minority in the > Middle East. The Western press corps showed up en masse to cover it. This > conflict included rocket barrages across Israel and was deliberately fought > from behind Palestinian civilians, many of whom died as a result. Dulled by > years of the “Israel story” and inured to its routine omissions, confused > about the role they are meant to play, and co-opted by Hamas, reporters > described this war as an Israeli onslaught against innocent people. By doing > so, this group of intelligent and generally well-meaning professionals ceased > to be reliable observers and became instead an amplifier for the propaganda > of one of the most intolerant and aggressive forces on earth. And that, as > they say, is the story. > > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > <http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism> > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > <http://radicalcentrism.org/> > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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