Though the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has settled down somewhat with this week's ceasefire, the endless blame-game will surely continue.
However, having indiscriminately absorbed the myriad positions of contention from the slew of op-eds, blogs, commercials, and debates, I have stumbled on a point of agreement between the two warring factions in what is otherwise a lugubrious geopolitical mess that promises nothing but further despair. It follows the flawed logic of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and it is more often than not both the scapegoat and harbinger of all things desolate and disastrous.
The common ground I am referring to is, of course, media-blaming. Following Israel's incursion into Gaza at the end of last year, the repletion of media-bashing seemed to increase exponentially on both sides of the equation -- both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian -- until it reached a point where one could only feel confounded with the validity of either side's argument. Ultimately, there was no other option but to conclude that all such equally misplaced instances of censure may as well cancel each other out.
For example, on the pro-Israel side of the fence the media is regarded as a Palestinian sympathizer that only points out the horrors inflicted on the beleaguered civilian population in Gaza. Consider an article by Tal Sadeh in the conservative online publication FrontPage Magazine titled "How The Western Media Smear Israel", wherein one need not even bother reading past the title to get the gist of things. According to Sadeh:
"many Israelis feel abused by western Media and their clear Pro-Palestinian bias. Quite simply, you are often watching Palestinian propaganda in the guise of objective reporting. Perhaps the bias is the results (sic) of the hate reporters and editors feel towards Sharon, towards the settlers, and in some cases, to Israel altogether. Perhaps reporters are favorable to the weaker side in the conflict. The bottom line is that while the presentation may not be representative of Palestinians, what you get by western media is also quite removed from reality."
But then consider Uri Avnery, representing the complete other side of the spectrum and writing in defense of Palestinians for Gush Shalom:
"Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp....
Western and Israeli TV channels showed only a tiny fraction of the dreadful events that appear 24 hours every day on Aljazeera's Arabic channel, but one picture of a dead baby in the arms of its terrified father is more powerful than a thousand elegantly constructed sentences from the Israeli army spokesman. And that is what is decisive, in the end."
Indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words. And, in this crisis, there have probably been thousands of pictures, with each more visually arresting and morbidly graphic than its antecedents. In fact, as it happens, this is one of the exact arguments (reversing back again) for the pro-Israel side of the divide. According to this version of the media-blaming argument, the plastering of bloody bodies and twisted wreckage on the front-page each day only exploits readers' emotions, incites further sympathy for Palestine, and turns the rest of the world against Israel.
On his Jerusalem Post blog "Double Standard Watch", Harvard's Alan Dershowitz recently made this exact point -- that the media is constantly a vehicle for vilifying Israel and fulfilling Hamas's political objectives. Writes Dershowitz:
Hamas has learned how to manipulate the media's coverage of Israeli military actions. They deliberately fire their rockets from behind civilian shields in order to provoke Israel to respond and kill civilians. They are then ready to bring out the cameras to record and transmit every civilian death around the world.
But wait, according to a New York Times op-ed contributor, Rashid Khalidi (a Columbia University professor and author), the media is actually pro-Israel because it repeatedly reported an inaccurate account of the situation on the ground in Gaza during the three-week incursion. Khalidi writes:
"Nearly everything you've been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip."
(He then goes on to explain the "essential points", which you can read here.)
Then there is also Noam Chomsky, another leading pro-Palestinian scholar on the conflict who constantly cites pro-Israel "U.S. media bias" whenever he broaches the subject. For more from him, pick up a copy of the blatantly anti-Israel, anti-media The New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid (2001).
But again, wait just a minute here. What about "Joe the pro-Israel war correspondent" -- formerly known as "Joe the plumber"? -- who with such deft eloquence reveals that it is Israel who takes more media flak:
"I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed war (sic). I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for them. Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to downer-and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers."
Needless to say, I could go on with these examples, so hopefully these will suffice. But what should be made of this phenomenon, with each side relying on the same anti-media crutch to defend its position? The battle over blaming the media seems to have heated up to levels commensurate with the actual battle over the Holy Land. Can the media really be fueling both sides simultaneously? Is any one misrepresentation by a media source not made up for and counterbalanced by others?
The New York Times runs Paul Krugman's weekly Monday column directly alongside William Kristol's. And the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne and Harold Meyerson -- and even Jimmy Carter -- appear alongside Charles Krauthammer and Michael Gerson (just to name a few).
F. Scott Fitzgerald, in The Crack Up, provides a useful quip with applications to all of the above. He wrote: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
And thus we are left with that. In reality, the communal scapegoating of Western media is as arbitrary as the historical contours of the larger territorial debate itself. Factions can forever cavil over who first broke cease-fires or over whose policies are more in violation of international law, but at the end of the day the situation will only worsen. And the root causes will be obfuscated by a facile misappropriation of blame. In the era of globalization and the Internet, where thousands of media outlets with differing views from across the globe are just a mouse-click away, blaming particular media sources is not only a cop out, it doesn't even make a modicum of sense.
|
Obama Immediately Gets Working On Gaza
Before attending an official prayer service this morning, President Barack Obama put in a bit of work, his communications office let it be known. And...
|
|
Obama Speaks Out On Israel-Palestine
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is calling on Israel and Hamas to take steps aimed at ensuring that the cease-fire that's in place in Gaza...
|
|
International Tribunal to Save Israel and Palestinians
As we peer into the abyss, we believe that the establishment of a War Crime Tribunal needs to be supported both by Israel's friends as well as by supporters of Palestine.
|
|
The Violence And Settlements Anathema, Part 1
George Mitchell's emphasis on diplomacy will certainly help him tremendously on his mission, but he may need more than that to pierce through this conflict that has eluded all of his predecessors.
|
|
Mitchell "An Ideal Man for the Job"
if peace is your objective then Obama could not have picked a better person. His efforts in Northern Ireland were exceptional.
|
|
Change Gaza Can Believe In
In Gaza in the last few weeks, however, the Bush approach imploded, leaving Obama no choice but to initiate a new policy of his own. Hopefully, it will be one rooted in Obama's renowned pragmatism.
|
|
At Last, an Honest Broker
George Mitchell is going down in history as the man who brought peace to Ireland. It is inconceivable that he would choose to follow that success with failure in the Middle East.
|
|
Mitchell's Challenge: After Gaza, Five Questions About Palestinian and Israeli Realities
Given the overwhelming odds facing a two-state solution, a strong American negotiating presence will be necessary, of a sort not seen since... well, ever.
|
|
Obama Foreign Policy Heavyweights Emerge
Holbrooke's policy of engagement or what Hillary Clinton is calling a "robust" foreign policy agenda suggests that Foggy Bottom will figure prominently in the early days of the First 100.
|
|
Obama's Inauguration and the Israel-American Paradox
It doesn't make a difference if the U.S. president is "good for Israel". What would be "good for Israel," would be an entirely new government in Israel.
|
|
|
Can George Mitchell Astound the Skeptics, Again?
Ironically, Mitchell's first challenges may come less from the Israelis and Palestinians and more from the skeptics and naysayers in the Middle East peace industry back home.
|
|
Healing Gaza's Wounds
In the war's aftermath it is important that attention be paid not only to Gaza's physical wounds and its immediate humanitarian needs, but to the psychic wounds of the survivors.
|
Tell me about a newspaper that is owned by a carpenter or a bricklayer or a truck driver. They are owned by people who never had to live from paycheck to paycheck. They are owned by corporations. And corporations are responsible for setting up secret prisons all over the world and for torturing people who were not represented by council. Corporations are responsible for bypassing safety rules for working people, even though those people could die for not following the rules.
Fair and unbiased just doesn't describe what a news media has to be. It is a group of people who need to go to the dictionary and look up the word, empathy, everday before they start to work.
My goal here is more to raise what I believe is a relatively specious argument, made somewhat trivial when evoked by all sides of the debate simultaneously, that affords too much influence to a select few media sources. One can easily bypass with a Google search those which he or she considers to be biased. Or, you can explore a number of sources and sort out common elements. Yes, ideally, the media should present the news objectively. But there is also a responsibility on the public to acknowledge media's shortcomings, as many of you have, and account for them with increased scrutiny and exposure to different sources on your own part. Anyone can access al-Jazeera, Haaretz, Democracy Now!, Jerusalem Post, Middle East Report and many others to cover the gamut of perspectives and politics, especially with high-profile international issues such as this.
Why not? The Rothschilds' banks have been financing both sides in every war since our own Civil War. What's so strange about it? Surely you've heard the phrase, "If it bleeds, it leads!"? Ramping up opposing views in order to further muddy the waters, prove that you are fair and balanced, or create the news rather than just report it, are all old tactics used effectively to increase profits every time.
Israel and the Palestinians are pawns of European Monarchies, the US and their proxies--the other Arab states in the region who benefit from this ongoing conflict. They are moved around on the world chess board to suit the needs of much bigger and older powers. The "media" is owned by the same corporations that prop up those governments. It's Ali vs Frazier--theater meant to boost ticket and newspaper sales. And reinforce on the rest of us how "dangerous" the world is and why we need to keep funding the MIC with more money than all other countries combined.
I mean, think about it: Did right wing talk radio just spring out of nowhere, or was it a carefully considered and well funded marketing move on the part of media?
Israel is a pawn of the US? Don't you have that backward?
How many here believe the AP reporting was unbias?
Hah! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, choke, cough, cough, spit.
Oh my!
That's funny!
"Here's the thing: Sensationalism sells newspapers. Graphic pictures and video attracts viewers"
You are so right, so where are the pictures after all the thousands of rockets rained down on Israelis? No pictures? No video? I did see video of one Israeli who ducked when a rocket bomb landed nearby. That's it.
No matter the spin, pictures tell the story. And yes, they have driven a lot of people away from their automatic support of all things Israeli.
I guess at least those on the left still CAN blame the media
What tips the balance for me is that Hamas unleashed the full extent of their military capability. For Israel, this was a live-fire training exercise. They didn't prosecute the war as if they were facing an existential threat committed to their eradication, which they present as a justification. By holding back their arsenal and then pulling up short of unconditional surrender, Israel revealed that they see Hamas as an annoying pest that they will devastate every so often to keep them in check.
I'm Jewish. I have close family near Tel Aviv. But there are only two ways to deal with a "sworn enemy" -- co-option or annihilation -- and Israel is unwilling to do either. They want to manage Hamas like we manage a chronic disease. They want to keep them as a sworn enemy at arms length and sharpen their swords on their flesh during election years.
Israel has the right to defend itself -- just as soon as they can figure out how -- but they don't have the right to sustain a human slaughterhouse as if it were a social externality of their right to exist.
Al Franken