QuakerInfo.com Forum

[Kiahanie]

[Anthony]

[Pulpculture]

Thanks for the info Kiahanie. Hence my cautious approach this time

Whilst I have concerns with his overall stance (well more than concerns if someone is a right wing extremist or has anything to do with the KKK) I still find it interesting that so many people in the US media are Jewish and feel that it must have some effect on the media output.

All I want is fair and balanced media reporting. Over here if something is reported about Arabs or Muslims the media sometimes bolts on all sorts of terrorist connotations etc. It is never redressed and there are few voices to counter the incorrect or even biased information. If anything is reported about Israel a flurry of highly influential Israeli senior people issue legal threats about the media being anti Israeli and seem to get things redressed in their favour. It always feels one way.

The BBC is a good example. A few reporters on the ground stand firm with the truth and when the influential Israelis start conversing with the BBC hierarchy the BBC shifts its position. I have heard it so many times.

When Palestinians commit any killings they are always referred to by the Israelis as terrorists and the BBC trots out the same line. Israeli citizens who kill Palestinians are never referred to as terrorists - yet they do the same. When Hamas bombs or kills they are referred to as terrorists - yet Israel is killing Palestinians all the time with references like "targeted killings" reported. Israelis are made out to look like they are retaliating or doing things in self defence whereas Palestinians, doing exactly the same, are deemed as aggressors!

This is from the BBC Governors website in relation to an independent review the BBC commissioned on itself to see if they were impartial:

"In October 2005 the Governors commissioned the Independent Panel, chaired by Sir Quentin Thomas, to "assess the impartiality of BBC news and current affairs coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with particular regard to accuracy, fairness, context, balance and bias."


Report is
here (appendix D is the analysis by Loughborough University)

The bias can be slight but it makes an impact to the way people perceive the real events. For example when an Israeli Jew goes and kills 4 people (and shoots himself) the BBC referred to those killed as "Israeli Arabs" rather than Palestinians. It dumbs down the conflict in favour of Israel to the viewer / listener.

A couple of the points you'll find in the reports conclusion:

"That BBC broadcast news reported Israeli and Palestinian fatalities
differently in that Israeli fatalities generally receive greater coverage
than Palestinian fatalities (section 4.7)."

"That some important themes were relatively overlooked in the
coverage of the conflict, most notably in the recent period the
annexation of land in and around East Jerusalem (section 4.4);"

"That a disparity (in favour of Israelis) existed in BBC coverage taken as
a whole in the amount of talk time given to Israelis and Palestinians
(section 4.3);"

If you read the conclusions - nearly every other line starts with "That a disparity (in favour of Israelis) existed in BBC coverage......"

Regards

Matthew
_________________
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I said don't forget Burma!

[Pulpculture]

[Anthony]

Hi Matt,

Actually, I didn't say that 'you' had a fear of successful people, I suggested it was a human weakness to be intimidated and judgemental of those we may consider inferior and who appear to be 'getting the better' of the rest of us. I am generalising here.

I applaud your stance for the Palestinians and Gaza and I am with you all of the way but you do seem to be presenting your argument with an anti-semetic bias. I acknowledge I may be wrong and I have given some thoughts for debate on this issue in my last post. I find the digging into history and the listing of historical facts to be unhelpful - almost a lesson in history that is often distorted by memory or bias. What is important is now and how we can discuss the now without upsetting each other or appearing discriminatory?

[michaeldavidjay]

Jews built media empires, because they could... Anti-Jewish forces kept them out of many industries... they suceeded where a racist and class conscious society allowed them to suceed... hate to burst the bubble, but Jounalists were not always respected membe of society.... and usually from elowerclasses.
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?

[CelticNorth]

I think, Kiahanie, your point about an actual "Israeli Constitution", similar to the one in the United States, or lack of one, is being played out again this week by the Jerusalem City Council "approving" a "redevelopment plan" that would demolish 22 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, illegally occupied by Israel since the 1967 War. When supporters of Israel proudly state it is the only "democratic" country in the Middle East, I am sure now, Kiahanie, you will be the first and most vocal to point out they, in fact, have no constitutional mandate to declare their country a "demcoracy" as we understand it in the West. I do beleive the statement, or "Constitution", I was referring to, was the document akin to their national declaration submitted to the United Nations in 1948. I'll find the actual statement and post it here, to "clarify", as you say, it is not a "Constitution" as we Americans understand the term. Hence, the use of the term "apartheid" to describe Israeli racist policies against Palestinians by former President Jimmy Carter becomes only more valid, does it not, Kiahanie ? Some 500 Americans did, fortuantely, voice a peaceful opposition to the Israeli Gaza Blockage by boycotting the unloading of an Israeli ship in Oakland on Monday, organized by a gorup called the ANSWER coalition. They rallied at docks used by the Zim Shipping Line, whose protest lines were not crossed by the International Longshoremen and the Warehouse Union in Oakland. What should have been a huge media story, I would think, barely made a blip in the media. Some of us here would probably agree that halting the unloading of an Israeli ship in a U. S. Port of Call would be a major news event, and broadcast internationally. It was, perhaps, not.

[Patrocles]

Quite a lot of people seem to think that racial/ethnical disparity in the police force has an influence on how the police works.
Those people, at least, may draw the inference that disparity in the media force has an influence on how the media work. All the more because media work is much less regulated than police work.

Journalists are rather truthful about hard facts (like, were there nine or ten people killed on the Mavi Marmara?).

On the other hand, hard facts are often not the most relevant. Also hard facts don't make a story. To get a story you need "soft facts", namely: people's intentions, goals, reasons. But the soft facts (like: what does Turkish prime minister Erdogan really think?) are not known, but only guessed.

Now there are big journalists (normally in the big media) and little journalists (normally in little media).

The big journalists are handy to build up a story, guessing about people's intentions, goals and reasons. The little journalists (and the average reader) aren't as handy. If they hear/read a well-finished story from a well-reputed TV station/newspaper, they simply accept it as given - they wouldn't even think that the truth could be different, except they have a special interest.

In our case the story that spread along Jewish communications lines and networks was: that Erdogan had for months longed to break with Israel and to take side with the Muslim states, that he had used the Mavi Marmara in order to deliberately lure the Israeli soldiers in a trap where they "had to" kill the Turks - a story which basically makes Erdogan (and perhaps also the killed Turks as a kind of suicidal terrorists) the real perpetrators and the Israeli soldiers the real victims. That story also implies that the American/European pacifists in the flotilla were nitwits who had allowed Erdogan to use them as a smokescreen.

Now that story is of course possible (in politics, nearly everything is possible), but it's not particularly probable. People who spread such stories are not blatantly dishonest, they in fact believe their story, but they don't believe it because its true (or highly probable) but because they prefer it to be true.

That's why
1. I judge such stories against the personal background of the author (and try to find out as much as possible about him)
2. I think that disparity in media matters.

[CelticNorth]

Nice post, Patrocles, and it points to an all important error on our part; we somehow believe "professional" journalist have vetted the stories they "produce" for the media, and assume facts have been checked and verified. After years of White House "press releases" during the Vietman War, I learned to disbelieve, instead of participating in passive acceptance of "news". The National Declaration of Israel, which I admit I previously misidentified as the Israeli Constitution, was given to the United Nations in 1948, contained in paragraph 13 one of the greatest intentional misrepresentations in its history, when Israel declared...."it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will gurrantee freedom of religion, conscience, language and culture; it will safe guard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be FAITHFULL TO THE PRINCIPLES of the Charter of the United Nations ". The point you have made about disparity in media does not bode well for balanced news reporting regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like Pulpculture, I sense a pro-Israeli bias, a bias which was absent when similar apartheid and human rights issues were taken on by the media while questioning the white racist regime of South Africa. My leadings are that Israel gets treated rather gently, even amoung other Quakers who post here.

[Kiahanie]

[Kiahanie]

[CelticNorth]

There is a built in media bias when Arab parties opposed to, and who resist Israeli intransience, are declared terrorist organizations. Hamas, El Fatah, Hezbollah and every other Palestinian or Arab group who have chosen armed resistance in defense of Palestine, and who reject the United Nations "Partition", become off limits and tabbo to any constructive dialogue. In order for peace to be achieved, one has to negotiate and communicate with ones enemies- Machiavelli 101. Kiahanie makes a very good point about media bias during the cold war era when Israel was used as a hedge against Russian intentions in the region, and the United States could justify a national security interest; but those days are past, and a major premise for our foriegn policy in the region no longer exists. Unlike the Vietman War and Civil rights era here in the United States, there is no Walter Cronkite type journalist on the ground in Palestine, telling it as it is- with live footage running in the background, showing us on the evening news the horrors our policies in the Middle East have wrought. Perhaps that type of jouralism needs to come back, with those powerful visual images which tell a thousand words in a single frame, on the evening news, boradcast for all the world to see.

[Pulpculture]

[Kiahanie]

"Are you serious? " Yes, of course I am serious. I have no doubt about why many people in the Muslim world hate us. In fact, you just quoted one reason I gave for that. If I were them, I would hate us too.

Do you actually think I am approving US foreign policy? I haven't approved US foreign policy for over 45 years. Where do you find in any of my posts at any time that I "think American policy is the right way"?

I think you have misread my comments, Matthew. I'm not justifying the Israeli position, just providing historical context. Get some sleep and try again.
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"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[Kiahanie]