Post by Teddy Bear on Mar 16, 2010 21:37:06 GMT
Excellent article by Robin Shepherd on the avoidance by the media to publish the fact that the 'peace-loving' Palestinians celebrate an Israeli massacre. The same media has no problem however in castigating Israel for deciding to build further housing on existing settlements. For the media and world that allows it to determine their thinking, the obstruction to peace in that region is the construction by Israel, not the destruction by Palestinians.
The rationale behind censorship: “Moderate” Palestinian leadership honours mass terrorism as Joe Biden leaves town. And the BBC’s response is?
So, let’s just accept that Israel’s handling of the Ramat Shlomo settlements announcement during US vice-president Joe Biden’s recent visit was cack handed and self-defeating. Prime Minister Netanyahu has admitted as much by apologising. It was a diplomatic faux pas, and it provoked a torrent of protest from the State Department to the Palestinian Authority. It also received saturation coverage in every major outlet in the western media. Hold that thought.
Now consider the response to the Palestinian Authority’s decision last week to celebrate the worst terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated inside Israel (the 1978 bus massacres which left 38 dead including 13 children) by naming a central square in Ramallah after its perpetrator, Dalal Mughrabi. That was a statement of values and intent, glorifying mass terrorism and signalling to Israel and the world that the Palestinians can never be trusted to abide by civilised norms. It tells you everything you really need to know about Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and why peace with them has proved elusive for more than six decades. What follows is a list of the western news outlets that have covered what, I repeat, is an immensely significant and illustrative story:
1. The New York Times. 2. Nobody… That’s right, every other major media outlet in the western world has effectively censored it. Apart from the New York Times (and I am grateful to Tom Gross
for pointing that out) the story has been ignored.
If you really want to understand the reason why Israel faces such appalling demonisation and defamation across the western world, stop and think about this for a moment.
In my recent book I outline a whole set of calumnies visited on Israel in the form of an active discourse of deligitimisation. But I also argue that in many ways the censorship of vital context about the true nature of Palestinian and Arab political culture is more damaging. Labelling Israel as a “Nazi” or “Apartheid” state is both offensive and harmful. But to many people outside the activist community it is also self-condemning: those who apply such terms usually sound too hysterical to be taken seriously.
Think about it. Does the BBC — the world’s most powerful media outlet — call Israel an “Apartheid” or “Nazi” state? No, never. What in fact is the BBC line against Israel, as evidenced by the thrust of its writing and reporting? It is that Israeli settlement policy and occupation forms the root cause of the conflict with the Palestinians, that the Palestinians, though divided, are largely innocent and helpless victims, and that Israeli responses to “militants” (not “terrorists”, of course) is disproportionate to the point of amounting to war crimes. I’m generalising, of course. But in a nutshell, that is the BBC narrative on the Israel-Palestine conflict and I do not even think that most BBC employees would substantially dispute that.
And now consider this. What would happen to that narrative if BBC reporting on the Middle East were interlaced with stories giving prominence to items such as the following?
1. That the Palestinians rejected while the Israelis accepted a two-state solution under the UN partition plan of 1947.
2. That the occupation of the West Bank took place in the context of an attempt to destroy Israel which culminated in the Six Day War.
3. That all offers of statehood and withdrawal made to the Palestinians, including those advanced by President Clinton, have been flatly rejected by the Palestinians. The Clinton offers were not just rejected, they were not just rejected without a single counter offer, they were rejected in favour of the mass terrorist violence of the second intifada.
4. Palestinian schools, textbooks, television, religious leaders etc continue, today, to propagate the notion that Israel has no right to exist, that, for example, Jews descended from “apes and pigs” and that terrorism is something glorious.
5. That President Mahmoud Abbas, the great Palestinian moderate, last week authorised the honouring of the most blood stained terrorist in Palestinian history.
I could go on. But let’s just leave it at five such items and return to the question which preceded them: What would happen to the prevailing BBC narrative if such items were referred to and reported on with the energy that the BBC devotes to stories about “occupation”, “settlements” and “war crimes”?
Answer: it would be rendered totally incoherent. It would be obliterated, and they know it. In order to sustain the BBC narrative on Israel, it is therefore vital that all such references and stories are either expunged completely or reported on so rarely that they have no real impact on the broader picture they are trying to promote.
That is why the Dalal Mughrabi story was ignored. That is why the BBC continues to censor all reference to Hamas’s anti-Semitism from their profile of the group on their website. That is why terrorists are referred to as “militants”. And what applies to the BBC applies in Europe more broadly.
By leaving the general population in a state of near total unawareness about the realities that Israel confronts in its dealings with the Palestinians, even neutral and unbiased observers are bound to come away with the impression that Israel is the guilty party in this conflict.
This is real censorship. And it works.
The rationale behind censorship: “Moderate” Palestinian leadership honours mass terrorism as Joe Biden leaves town. And the BBC’s response is?
So, let’s just accept that Israel’s handling of the Ramat Shlomo settlements announcement during US vice-president Joe Biden’s recent visit was cack handed and self-defeating. Prime Minister Netanyahu has admitted as much by apologising. It was a diplomatic faux pas, and it provoked a torrent of protest from the State Department to the Palestinian Authority. It also received saturation coverage in every major outlet in the western media. Hold that thought.
Now consider the response to the Palestinian Authority’s decision last week to celebrate the worst terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated inside Israel (the 1978 bus massacres which left 38 dead including 13 children) by naming a central square in Ramallah after its perpetrator, Dalal Mughrabi. That was a statement of values and intent, glorifying mass terrorism and signalling to Israel and the world that the Palestinians can never be trusted to abide by civilised norms. It tells you everything you really need to know about Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and why peace with them has proved elusive for more than six decades. What follows is a list of the western news outlets that have covered what, I repeat, is an immensely significant and illustrative story:
1. The New York Times. 2. Nobody… That’s right, every other major media outlet in the western world has effectively censored it. Apart from the New York Times (and I am grateful to Tom Gross
for pointing that out) the story has been ignored.
If you really want to understand the reason why Israel faces such appalling demonisation and defamation across the western world, stop and think about this for a moment.
In my recent book I outline a whole set of calumnies visited on Israel in the form of an active discourse of deligitimisation. But I also argue that in many ways the censorship of vital context about the true nature of Palestinian and Arab political culture is more damaging. Labelling Israel as a “Nazi” or “Apartheid” state is both offensive and harmful. But to many people outside the activist community it is also self-condemning: those who apply such terms usually sound too hysterical to be taken seriously.
Think about it. Does the BBC — the world’s most powerful media outlet — call Israel an “Apartheid” or “Nazi” state? No, never. What in fact is the BBC line against Israel, as evidenced by the thrust of its writing and reporting? It is that Israeli settlement policy and occupation forms the root cause of the conflict with the Palestinians, that the Palestinians, though divided, are largely innocent and helpless victims, and that Israeli responses to “militants” (not “terrorists”, of course) is disproportionate to the point of amounting to war crimes. I’m generalising, of course. But in a nutshell, that is the BBC narrative on the Israel-Palestine conflict and I do not even think that most BBC employees would substantially dispute that.
And now consider this. What would happen to that narrative if BBC reporting on the Middle East were interlaced with stories giving prominence to items such as the following?
1. That the Palestinians rejected while the Israelis accepted a two-state solution under the UN partition plan of 1947.
2. That the occupation of the West Bank took place in the context of an attempt to destroy Israel which culminated in the Six Day War.
3. That all offers of statehood and withdrawal made to the Palestinians, including those advanced by President Clinton, have been flatly rejected by the Palestinians. The Clinton offers were not just rejected, they were not just rejected without a single counter offer, they were rejected in favour of the mass terrorist violence of the second intifada.
4. Palestinian schools, textbooks, television, religious leaders etc continue, today, to propagate the notion that Israel has no right to exist, that, for example, Jews descended from “apes and pigs” and that terrorism is something glorious.
5. That President Mahmoud Abbas, the great Palestinian moderate, last week authorised the honouring of the most blood stained terrorist in Palestinian history.
I could go on. But let’s just leave it at five such items and return to the question which preceded them: What would happen to the prevailing BBC narrative if such items were referred to and reported on with the energy that the BBC devotes to stories about “occupation”, “settlements” and “war crimes”?
Answer: it would be rendered totally incoherent. It would be obliterated, and they know it. In order to sustain the BBC narrative on Israel, it is therefore vital that all such references and stories are either expunged completely or reported on so rarely that they have no real impact on the broader picture they are trying to promote.
That is why the Dalal Mughrabi story was ignored. That is why the BBC continues to censor all reference to Hamas’s anti-Semitism from their profile of the group on their website. That is why terrorists are referred to as “militants”. And what applies to the BBC applies in Europe more broadly.
By leaving the general population in a state of near total unawareness about the realities that Israel confronts in its dealings with the Palestinians, even neutral and unbiased observers are bound to come away with the impression that Israel is the guilty party in this conflict.
This is real censorship. And it works.