In much of the coverage of Gaza, there is a media shorthand that is used torecall some of the most important recent history. Like in today’s New York Times (6/11/10):
Israel imposed the embargo, allowing in charitable goods and letting out people with medical emergencies. It invaded in late 2008 to stop a flow of rockets and destroyed thousands of buildings.
Israel invaded Gaza in order to stop rockets, destroying buildings in the process–a shorthand that makes the invasion seem more defensible. Butif reporters summarized this history accurately,they would be telling a far different story.It would go something like this:
A mid-2008 cease-fire between Hamas and Israelseverely curtailedrocket fire from Gaza.That was broken when Israel attacked and killed four Palestinians in early November. That breach of the cease-fire led to increased fighting and an escalation in rocket fire, culminating in a full-scale Israel invasion that killed over 1,000 Gaza civilians.
It would not be very difficult to report the story this way. (This graph would help make things relatively clear.) As FAIR noted (1/6/09),the New York Times has in the past reported these facts (12/19/08); in fact, the very same reporter, Ethan Bronner, who today wrote that Israel invaded “to stop a flow of rockets” had earlier acknowledged that Hamashad been”largely successful” in seriously curtailing rocket fire from Gaza. Henoted then:
Hamas imposed its will and even imprisoned some of those who were firing rockets. Israeli and United Nations figures show that while more than 300 rockets were fired into Israel in May, 10 to 20 were fired in July, depending on who was counting and whether mortar rounds were included. In August, 10 to 30 were fired, and in September, 5 to 10.
As Noam Chomsky wrote recently (In These Times, 6/8/10), the cease-fire rockets that were launched were not the work of Hamas, and that attempts to renew the ceasefire were rebuffed. That forgotten Times account also noted that an Israelieasing of the Gaza blockade–which was promised in return for reducing rocket fire–fell short of expectations.
Time magazine, meanwhile, floats the idea (underthe headline, “Can Israel Learn How to Make Its Case?”), that many Israelis see a weakness in their PR strategy:
The way Israelis see it, the failure of the commando mission was compounded by a failure to communicate the danger in which Israel finds itself. The Gaza Strip, besides being home to 1.5 million overwhelmingly poor Palestinians, serves as a launching pad for missiles usually fired by Hamas, the fundamentalist Islamic group that does not shy away from terrorist attacks. The Qassam rockets that reach nearby Israeli towns are cobbled together inside Gaza. The fear is that Hamas will one day be able to stockpile larger rockets that could reach Tel Aviv. These would likely be supplied by Iran and arrive by ship. Hence the blockade.
This is absurd. There is constant stream of reporting and commentary that stresses the threats to Israel posed by Hamas rockets–in fact, as described above, the coverage actually distorts that history to Israel’s benefit.
This is why I read this blog. Much obliged, Peter.
TIME’s “reasoning”, psychologically speaking, would be deemed psychotic, don’t you think?
But there’s no mental failure here.
Only a wholly intentional moral one.
This is why I don’t read the NY Times on the Middle East.
You don’t mention what caused Israel to “attack and kill” the four Palestinians? If you are going to be fair and accurate, you ought to let us know the cause of the event or at least tell us what the Israeli claim of justification was, and then let us decide. You rely in your article on selected quotes from the New York Times and Time magazine articles. Surely these publications don’t constitute “the media”.
If anything, my reading of newspapers from the U.S. and the world lead me to a conclusion opposite to yours: Articles are usually captioned as, for example, “Israel kills Palestinians”, the inference being that Israel was the aggressor. It is only in reading the article itself, buried somewhere in the third or fourth paragraph, that one learns that the Palestinians killed provoked the Israeli reaction. Please be careful in making generalizations from very limited evidence, Mr. Hart.
I agree with Harold Shabo. Further, I would like to know who and what caused the media distortion on this issue, it is way too biased with no reason towards the unreasonable conclusions that it is always the Israelis at fault and who make the first step towards violence.
The media and companies doing business with the MIddle East have been flooded with investment from these countries, and there has been interference before from these governments. Many PR firms have secret clients in the Middle East take millions of dollars to do things like this in the media.
This is a constant distortion in the so-called LIberal, Progressive viewpoint, and it makes no sense to me, but it does serve both the Conservative point of view, and the terrorist point of view by getting support for the terrorist on the one hand and discrediting the Liberal point of view on the other for the conservatives.
I don’t know any Liberals who are haters or supporters of terrorism … so why is this what we see in the media?
The US media will report what Israel allows it to report! Otherwise we’d hear more about the nuclear weapons that Israel refuses to discuss! jus’ sayin’, cg
Every single peice of information about the Middle east comes from one source & one source only.Rita Katz,an Iraqi born Israeli women that her father was executed by Saddam Hussain for spying for Israel and she’s
resposible for every FAKE video about Osama Bin Laden or any other
Islamic Terror story you can name any ! America is getting the phony
side of the Middle east stories and if you think a little about what you read
it’ll never make sense to anyone at all ,it all a bunch of lies period !
Mark,
Paranoid, aren’t we?
Has anyone determined what the supplies were that were being carried on the flotilla? Did they eventually make their way into Gaza?
The majority of Media reports are anti Israeli no matter what the situation.911 was an attack on US territory.It galvanized support against terrorism.It shook the world.If the same happened to israel it would be seen as just another day for Israel.As another example of the skewed view…. we here in the US would not sit back and let any appreciable amount of rocket fire come in from Canada or Mexico without responding.Yet we seem to be Ok with 6000 rockets fired on Israeli positions.Or if not ok we are willing to give a benefit of the doubt to those launching the attacks.
My advice to Israel would be to not listen to the din of voices that rise up against you.They do not always have your best interest at heart.And that goes for America as led by the Obama administration.Trust in your intelligence service, and military strength.You are the best gatekeepers of your own future.
The US doesn’t occupy either Canada or Mexico. The solution to this problem is so obviously an agreement which would allow the Palestinians to live in their own state using the 1967 borders. It is a violation of international law for settlers to lay claim to anything acquired by this war (including East Jerusalem). Israel’s current (and recent) actions don’t help the situation and they don’t help Israel. It just pouring more gasoline on the fire.
Tom,
Not all of them. The Israelis took the items and said that they would deliver them to Gaza. However there were items (such as cement and building materials) that were on the blockade list. I doubt that these were delivered. In fact, I have no real verification that they delivered any of it.
Israel has been the aggressor from the beginning, killing many hundreds, while suffering only a few casualties. Now it honors its commando attackers on the Gaza humanitarian fleet. Sanctions? Israel should be sanctioned, which is much better than the mass destruction it will suffer if it does not leave Palestine.
This is to George Beres.George will the Arab countries that now sit on the majority( 80% )of Palestinian historic lands also suffer mass destruction at Palestinian hands?Never hear a word about that.Never hear any of those Arab countries willing to talk about returning Palestinian land.AND YOU NEVER WILL! Where oh where is that conflict?.Just Israel.With their little strip.The only ones who are willing to even talk about giving up land.In fact unless memory serves me wrong they have given up land.Again and again and again.To be attacked from the land they surrendered..It is not like Radical islam or Palestinian views differ all that much..Death to the Jews.Where ever you may find them.Some have admitted it is better Israel exists.Better to hunt them in one place.This is the clay Israel must build peace with?
Tin Foil says we don’t occupy land that was/is Canada’s or Mexico’s.Actually we absolutely do.And they occupy land that was Spanish.And French.And native.And British.And Viking,And neanderthal.On and on ,on and on.So many claims. How far back are you willing to go.To kill for a strip of dirt.For a memory of dirt?Are they willing to kill all the Arabs that sit on their ancestral lands?Or just Jews?
How about a flotilla to blockade Israel from receiving bullets and guns and airplanes and tanks and high-tech crap from the US. Anyone up for that?
Hey Weels…….
Got a cheaper idea than a blockade of Israel that would negate her need for those arms you speak of. .How about Hamas tear up its charter to destroy Israel.And all the Radical Islamic states that surround Israel move toward a peace that does not include killing every living Jew in the middle east and beyond.And how about Iran and her stone age theocracy leadership stop threatening to throw Tel aviv into a sea of flame to bring on the second coming of the great imam as she races toward becoming a nuclear power..Its little things like that that makes me believe we had better help keep Israel prepared to defend her very life if need be.So an embargo might not help in that
What total bullshit. If Canada was “lobbing” rockets into the US, let’s say at a state the size of Massachusetts, which is bigger than the state of Israel, it wouldn’t matter for shit if they were “lobbing” 5 a month or 300 a month. The US would mobilize it’s military, bomb Canada back to the stoneage, occupy the territory until ever troublemaker had been eradicated and hand it back to the remaining meek with assurances that future retaliations would be swift and comprehensive should rocket “lobbing” resume.
This is the same bullshit argument used by antisemites claiming “disproportionate response” when Israeli police shoot at Palestinians “lobbing” rocks at them or “lobbing” rocks at Jewish schoolchildren, often with deadly results. If Mexicans were flinging half pound rocks with slingshots over 100mph at schoolkids in Texas do you think Texans would or should respond by hurling rocks back? I think every American is confident that any red-blooded Texan would immediately unholster their sidearm and take aim at the offending foreigner attacking their children.
This is truly a country of the purest hypocrisy. We just leveled Iraq under the guise of WMDs. We violate our own Constitution daily at Guantanamo, we sure as fuck ain’t giving America back to the Native Americans, so why would anyone suggest for a second that Israel should give any land back to sworn mortal enemies residing on their doorstep?
Pure hypocrisy and Jew hating is all that it is. Let’s stop pretending that it’s anything more noble than fake, insincere, hypocritical, pc bullshit.
Michael E, lots of countries take over parts or the entirety of other countries. Israel could have done that in 1967, but it didn’t, it chose occupation instead of annexation. Why? Because if they had annexed the West Bank like Jordan did they would have had to given citizenship to the people living there. That’s what makes Israel different from the neighboring countries, they took *both* the land and the people, Israel wants the land but without its people.
You may have noted that the Palestinians who were allowed to remain in Israel and are citizens, although second class citizens, don’t go around throwing bombs and chanting “death to the Jews”. The stateless Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation now, that’s another story. They have no rights and every reason to hate their oppressors. Actually, I’m surprised at how tolerant they are, like a quarter of them support a one-state solution.
BigDaddy, you are right that Americans in many way are more brutal than the Israeli, which may be why USA is the largest supporter of Israel. Still, that doesn’t make what Israel does right. In your example of Canada lobbing rockets into USA, you should imagine that some two thirds of the Canadians were refugees from USA, having been thrown out of the country and into huge refugee camps. Then maybe they would feel that they had the right of revenge, of “bombing USA back to the stone age”. (Last time you attacked Canada they did burn down Washington, remember?)
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” as Gandhi put it.
One thing missed by Thomas Palm and Big daddy is that you seem to believe all of Israel’s problems are due to her living on land not her own.(We will set aside her very real claim stretching thousands of years for Israel to those lands for now,and move to other points.) You believe her brutality and injustice to displaced peoples fuels this hatred,and is the reason for it.I think it is also just the latest political excuse…… for that hatred.A hatred that exists with a life of its own that needs no Israeli input.
In the seventeen hundreds, long before the modern state of israel- Ben franklin in trying to open trade with Arab countries and a fledgling US was politely told by a sultan in what is now Iraq that this could not be.You see “we” being infidel must understand that the word of God orders our deaths.That war and peace with such Infidel is simply incompatible.Old Ben was stunned …as we still are centuries later.This is essentially Osama Bin Ladens rant.I would say this is what Jews face. Thier very existence……..anywhere ,is an abomination to these Islamic radicals. Some have admitted in Iran that the land of Israel is a good thing.Bring all jews into one place for extermination.This mindset is well understood in Israel.And ignored by many on these pages.
Michael e. PLO is a secular organization with both Christians and even a few Jews as members. The Palestinians have never been such a religious people. Hamas is a newcomer to the scene, and was created with Israeli support since Israel wanted to divide the Palestinians. It’s not the first time a people turn to religion when oppressed. Blaming Islam for the conflict is ahistorical, even if it resonates well in the West after 9/11.
I have no idea of the relevance of some anecdote with Ben Franklin in an entirely different country a few hundred years ago. Want me to pick a stories about Christian intolerance over the centuries? The idea that “infidels” must die has always been a tiny one within Islam.
At least you are sensible in putting aside several thousand years old claims, since you’d then have dozens of overlapping claims to most lands of the Earth.
Thomas some just write a blank pass for all the hatred directed at Israel?I think…think you just said you “understand” the PLO.That you “understand”Hamas?That you understand radical islam ,or at least the west and Israel’s silly preoccupation with it and its tenants?Understand this…The rest of the world does not have to philosophize terrorism.Or pander to it.You seem mystified at those the majority of the world call terrorists.Or you are at least willing to argue that in effect “we are all terrorists on any given day”…….For Israeli’s that would be EVERY DAY.
Let me be clear.I dont agree with anything you just wrote.Not historically or philosophically,or practically.We must agree to disagree.
The story of Ben Franklin is not so far away.That is the sickness.The same exact feelings resound today there .,and I think you are wrong to downplay that.
We see an American/Israeli rocket fired at a convoy of top terrorists.That rocket goes wrong and kills a family living in a home a mile away.Very differant than a bomb detonated in a school bus in Israel.Your arguments of moral equivalency are just not swaying me.
This site has devolved into a biased emgbarrassment–far removed from what “Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting” meant at Journalism School. The factual errors and subjective of choice of a narrative in again scapengoating Israel this week is the end for me. Goodbye.
77. But seek, with the wealth which Allah has bestowed on you, the reward and happiness of the Hereafter. Do not forget your share (of the needs and provision) from this world, and be good (to others) as Allah has been good to you (by giving you more than what you needed), and do not seek mischief in the land. Allah does not like the mischiefmakers
Is there going to be a invasion on May 15 in Israel
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