MSM finally hits the mark
I watched a Glenn Beck special on CNN about the anti-Semitic rabidity that emanates from the Arab and Muslim media. Two weeks ago Fox News ran a similar special. Finally at least two mainstream media outlets have homed in on this problem, which I believe is the real reason the Arab-Israeli conflict rages on.
As I’ve written before, there seems to be two general ways to view the conflict: “It’s the occupation, stupid,” or “It’s the anti-Semitic brainwashing hate propaganda, stupid.”
Let’s look at the first argument: Time and again Israeli territorial concessions are answered with violence. This is a fact, and so the argument that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza fuels the conflict—oh wait, Gaza was evacuated over a year ago—doesn’t hold water. So why does the conflict rage on? Because it stems from Israel’s mere existence in any size, shape or form. Yet the mainstream media basically refuses to consider this fact. Therefore, most reporting “on the ground” about the conflict is your typical, “Fatimah al-Husseini and her 30 children are angry. She wants to buy vegetables for the feast, but she can’t get cucumbers because Israeli checkpoints between her hardscrabble village and the major vegetable markets require hours of waiting. Sometimes, it’s closed altogether…” [Voice over to Fatimah’s hysterical ranting in Arabic, where every time she says “Yahud (Jews) the translator replaces it with “Israeli” or “Zionists”].
I listen to the BBC every night. I listen to NPR twice a day on my hour long commute to work. I peruse all sorts of news mediums. The above is the type of standard reporting fare on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed any reports about the Medieval hate that is spread throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. Why, why, why???
As I’ve written before, there seems to be two general ways to view the conflict: “It’s the occupation, stupid,” or “It’s the anti-Semitic brainwashing hate propaganda, stupid.”
Let’s look at the first argument: Time and again Israeli territorial concessions are answered with violence. This is a fact, and so the argument that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza fuels the conflict—oh wait, Gaza was evacuated over a year ago—doesn’t hold water. So why does the conflict rage on? Because it stems from Israel’s mere existence in any size, shape or form. Yet the mainstream media basically refuses to consider this fact. Therefore, most reporting “on the ground” about the conflict is your typical, “Fatimah al-Husseini and her 30 children are angry. She wants to buy vegetables for the feast, but she can’t get cucumbers because Israeli checkpoints between her hardscrabble village and the major vegetable markets require hours of waiting. Sometimes, it’s closed altogether…” [Voice over to Fatimah’s hysterical ranting in Arabic, where every time she says “Yahud (Jews) the translator replaces it with “Israeli” or “Zionists”].
I listen to the BBC every night. I listen to NPR twice a day on my hour long commute to work. I peruse all sorts of news mediums. The above is the type of standard reporting fare on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed any reports about the Medieval hate that is spread throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. Why, why, why???
posted by semite1973 at 6:32 PM
4 Comments:
Because the media sucks.
Well, large components of the media suck when it comes to certain topics. The media, of course, is a massive enterprise. I think we only notice it when it pisses us off.
hello, s1973. Ahoy, Bluebeard!
It isn't that the media "sucks", but profit is so important and the audience not very discerning. There are over 400 million Muslims and only 12 million Jews. Why should we expect that the media would value truth over an expanded circulation?
I made my children watch both of those specials. I will probably steel myself to watch the Discovery Times special on Iran that Koppel is doing, but I'll have the Maalox close by in case it lives up to the commercials.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
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