Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Saturday 9 August 2014

The Press Prejudice Perfecting Hamas's Propaganda War & Coaxing Leftist Bigots Out Of Their Lairs

On Thursday a friend of mine in the dear old Mother Country, a Cambridge-educated educationist (that's Brit for "educator") who's neither Jewish, nor a gung-ho supporter of Israel (I have had heated exchanges with her and her husband over this issue in the past), nor particularly rightwing in politics,  sent me an email.  Its main purpose was to tell me of happenings in the neighbourhood that I left behind last year to return to Australia.  But it also had this to say:
"[My husband] and I are very concerned about Gaza. Even we think it is so unfair the way the situation is reported. Of course Israel can t have rockets landing in their territory; nor tunnels springing up everywhere. Hamas is dreadful - using children as human shields - and how much did those tunnels cost to build? The money would have been better spent building up Gaza's infrastructure. Who has ever heard of a place with that population with only one power station? And as for the conduct of Egypt closing its borders against its fellow Muslims. Why wasn't a proper kindertransport organised? Can you imagine Jews behaving like that to their fellow Jews? Basically I am furious..."
Alas, not everyone faced with a barrage of media distortions is so discerning.  One of my favourite bloggers, Edgar Davidson, has devoted several recent posts (do read them!) to the issue of British media prejudice against Israel, and how the British public is being indoctrinated.  For instance:
'What the latest Gaza conflict has made clear is the extent to which anti-Israel activists have managed to ensure not just that the Hamas narrative dominates all public discussion, but that any alternative view is totally silenced.
The ad The Times refused to run
It is almost impossible to understand how a supposedly 'free' Press has completely ignored the mass of evidence that shows their entire presentation of the conflict to be a tissue of lies. Every British newspaper (and TV News channel) without exception  - left, right and centre - has simply presented the Hamas narrative. This includes reporting - without questioning -  the Hamas reported casualty figures and the Hamas reported 'attacks on schools and hospitals by Israelis'. Although the latter have invariably turned out to be either a) completely false, b) the result of Hamas rockets or c) the result of Hamas firing from those locations, the media has uniformly refused to produce retractions or corrections.
Not a single newspaper or TV report has made clear that all their Gaza reporters are under the total control of Hamas, even though other countries' reporters have documented the abuses after they have left. With very minor exceptions, the ONLY reports from Israel have been those where the media sensed an opportunity to further demonize Israel (such as the story of civilians in Sderot cheering when missiles were targeted at Gaza, and where a group of extreme leftist 'anti-war' protesters in Tel Aviv were confronted by an angry crowd). The obsession with the Sderot story is especially telling since, for 15 years, the media has completely ignored the missiles that have rained down on that town almost every day from Gaza.
We are not talking about 'anti-Israel' bias here. That has been going on for years. We are talking about a totally uniform effort by the entire UK media to brainwash the public with hatred for Israel. While some of the newspapers have carried rare commentary pieces supporting Israel, these have been drowned out by the tsunami of anti-Israel commentaries; to the uninformed reader the pro-Israel commentaries must seem ludicrous since they speak of things that have NEVER been reported as part of the news, like: Hamas use of human shields, the Hamas charter to destroy Israel; the extent Israel goes to avoid civilian casualites; the thousands of Hamas rockets fired at Israel, etc....'

It seems to be getting worse, the one-sided narrative about Gaza in the Western media.  And the Australian media is similarly affected. With honourable exceptions, the bias is all on the Palestinian side.  The ABC, SBS, and the commercial channels, are all as bad as each other, with only token attempts to present the Israeli case, if indeed it is preesented at all.  One newsreader's raised eyebrow, another's frown, and yet another's shake of the head, such mannerisms as those emphasise the disgust that in which  those employed to read from the cue card appear to hold Israel's Operation Protective Edge.

"There's been a major development in the fight against Islamic extremists in Iraq", blithely proclaims Channel Nine News (regarding the current Gaza crisis one of the worst offenders against evenhanded reporting), while failing to consider that in Hamas Israel is facing Islamic extremists on its doorstep.


Meanwhile, segments by the truly egregious Orla Guerin (she of the demonising tone and the fanatical scowl) than whom a more biased reporter never disgraced the BBC, are shown on ABC, and there are no counter-reports from the Israeli side.

Like its counterpart in Britain, the ABC, publicly-funded and obligated to be objective, seldom is, inclining instead towards the left-liberal worldview.  Why Israel let her and the snide, brattish Jon Donnison back, given their track records of hostile reportage and misrepresentation towards it, must be reckoned amongst the most magnanimous acts of a country in peril; it must also be reckoned among the most reckless and stupid.

At the same time, the odious pronouncements of Israeli leftists (well-described here for what they are) give aid and comfort to leftist Israel-haters everywhere.

Sentiments such as these appear on left-leaning media websites (in this case the ABC's, in relation to the downfall of journalist Mike Carlton) by opponents of the Middle East's only true democracy:


And on Facebook a leftwing bigots show their true colours by posting, in relation to the antisemitic targeting of Jewish children on a Sydney school bus:


(Another third post from this avowed Socialist, which I omitted to screenshot, described Jews as "arrogant" etc.)

While a good guy is penalised!


As for the press propaganda war, British-based blogger The Bilateralist has a long and thoughtful piece on the subject that is well worth reading and taking to heart.

4 comments:

  1. I wonder if like the "great martyr" Helen Thomas, Carlton will get an award from CAIR and the PLO.

    MUSLIMS FOR MIKE
    In a letter to Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood and editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir, the Australian National Imams Council, Islamic Council of NSW and the Muslim Legal Network NSW among others say they will boycott the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper unless the outspoken columnist is reinstated.

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    1. Interesting! Thanks.
      Apparently the Guardian will run that ad rejected by The Times!

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    2. The Guardian unlike the The Sun, The Times or Daily Mail, occasionally run articles counter to the typical British media anti-Semitic diatribe.
      Antisemitism on rise across Europe 'in worst times since the Nazis'

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  2. Despite their 'victories' in the media Hamas has gained nothing in practice. Demonstrations by the usual suspects have attracted indifference or even hostility from most of the population and nothing like the crowds that would put pressure on governments. Western governments have promised to investigate arms sales some time in the future while a handful of Latin Americans made the purely symbolic gesture of removing their ambassadors. Not only has the Western world done nothing but the ever outraged Arab/Muslim street has done nothing much.

    Hamas has the BBC and the United Nations but it always had them. If anything their control of the media has only shown how little control the media has on the people.

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