Slaughter in Gaza

[tha]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

... In particular, are the pictures of death and destruction in Gaza brought to their homes? And do all political parties get a fair representation in the media, in particular those media with wide circulation? (These questions would be answered in the negative for many "democratic" countries in Europe. Does Israel do better?)

The Israeli people are known to be news junkies. They are intimately familiar with pratically every shot fired by either side and the results. Once again, keeping scores obscures the true nature of the conflict.
There is also a saying amongst them that if you have two jews, you have three opinions. The political parties are so spread and diverse that the Knesset resembles an arena.
The best explanation for the higher degree of diversity amongst the press and political parties when compared to Europe is historical and based on the time many jews lived in the diaspora.

[Xyzzy]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0FZ2EY20140730

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0FZ2EY20140730

Yeah, well. We've sent emergency resupplies of cluster bombs during past adventures.

[Brian-E]

Here's an article about Israeli media bias. This was really what I was trying to get at before.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...campaign-media

Isaac Herzog, leader of the Labour party, said Israel was hardly a North Korea-style monolith. "Any issue in Israel is up for argument and debate, and the social networks are extremely active," he said. "But there is a national consensus [on the war]."
That consensus has been shaped in part by the media, which have largely focused on Israeli military casualties and rocket attacks, playing down Palestinian civilian deaths.
"The Israeli media is completely one-sided," said Orly Halpern, an Israeli journalist who writes the News Nosh, a daily review of the media for Americans For Peace Now. "You find references to Palestinian civilian casualties only deep in reports or on inside pages."
[...]
A notable exception is the left-leaning Haaretz, which carries reports of events in Gaza and commentary critical of the military operation. Its share of the market was less than 7% last year.

[tha]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Here's an article about Israeli media bias. This was really what I was trying to get at before.

Oh, well, you can believe what you want to believe but I have the impression that you only see what you want to see. Like so many other people in Europe you seem to see this conflict as a conflict between two European cultures. All the holes that than fall into this view by the unfolding events are then repaired by attributing absurd behaviour to one or both sides.

So, there is a guy in Israel with a view very far out of the Israeli center who rightly so considers everyone to be far away from his view of point. And since he is right and the rest of society is wrong the society as a whole is one sided. With the exception of the newspaper he likes to read.

I read Ha'aretz too, I just don't agree with everything they write.

The same media group think he mentions can be found here in The Netherlands. All Dutch newspapers blamed Putin and his Russian separatists for the downing of MH-17. All Kremlin views on the event were referred to as propaganda or absurd denials. It doesn't mean they are all wrong.

This Gaza war is fought by conscripts from throughout the country. The soldiers work in shifts. Even if there was a news black-out, there is absolutely not, all people would still know about the details. They know each and every tactic by Hamas to put civilians in harms way. They are the experts in getting round that, like the knock on the roof, which requires excellent cannons and solid experience. You cannot train an entire nation in these counter tactics and than assume the people not to know what is going on.

[kladner]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/...peace_20140730

Henry Siegman, a venerable dean of American Jewish thought and president of the U.S./Middle East Project, sat down for an interview with the “Democracy Now!” news hour. An ordained rabbi, Siegman is the former executive director of the American Jewish Congress and former executive head of the Synagogue Council of America, two of the major, mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States. He says the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories must end.
“There is a Talmudic saying in the ‘Ethics of the Fathers,’” Siegman started, “‘Don’t judge your neighbor until you can imagine yourself in his place.’ So, my first question when I deal with any issue related to the Israeli-Palestinian issue: What if we were in their place?”
He elaborated, “No country and no people would live the way Gazans have been made to live ... our media rarely ever points out that these are people who have a right to live a decent, normal life, too. And they, too, must think, ‘What can we do to put an end to this?’”

[garo]

Originally Posted by tha

Oh, well, you can believe what you want to believe but I have the impression that you only see what you want to see.

I think the irony of this sentence is totally lost upon the writer.

[garo]

Originally Posted by wblipp

To use the terminology of Polarity Management, I think you are saying the film is accurate but incomplete. That's a much more constructive response than denouncing it as lies and propaganda - which is frankly the response I expected to see in the soapbox. Of course admitting that it is incomplete requires abandoning its "easy to explain" claim. But admitting it is accurate puts some hard truths on the table that don't always get aired.

Ok here is a challenge for you. Try and come up with an equally "accurate but incomplete" film telling the other side of the story. Putting yourself in the other person's shoes is often instructive. And if you come up with what I ask for perhaps I can conclude your post was not partisan. Frankly, it is insulting the intelligence of your reader by presenting only one side of the story and pretending that the "accuracy" is more important than the one-sidedness. So you up for it? Shouldn't take more than 15 minutes of googling.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by garo

I think the irony of this sentence is totally lost upon the writer.

Uh...Ya reckon?

[Xyzzy]

First read this: http://eepurl.com/Z49o9

And then this: http://eepurl.com/0doYb

[chappy]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-...ushpmg00000063