The media’s despicable silence on Israel

[shira]

The world’s media constantly blasts and attacks Israel. A simple monitoring of the media over the last few days shows a deafening silence on issues – and there’s no explanation other than media bias against Israel:

In the last week, there have been 150 rockets fired into Israel, and it’s far from major news. It’s a non-issue for the Western media – damage to a school and factory on Saturday. It will become news when Israel responds and kills some terrorist(s), and world headlines will speak of “tit for tat violence.” No, in reality it’s a sane democratic country defending herself from terrorism.

Think if Israel fired 150 rockets into Gaza it wouldn’t be in the media?

more...
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-medias-despicable-silence-on-israel/

[Confusious]

1. No, it wouldn't be in the media

How about we have a news break every time a cat meows or a dog barks?

Killing each other is what happens there. Nobody wants peace.

[Mosby]

10. You are comparing attempted murder to animal sounds

Are you for real?

[Confusious]

13. Really, does no one understand analogy?

I seem to have found a medical anomaly like a freaking black hole sitting on the face of the earth.

I should report to the CDC or something, maybe they'll name it after me.

since you seem to have a problem understanding, the relastionship is:

dog barking -> common, won't make the papers
cat meowing -> common, won't make the papers

people killing each other in the middle east -> common, won't make the papers

Now if every dog or cat barked at the same time, it would make the papers. If enough people kill each other in the middle east, it'll make the papers. A few shells isn't enough.

If you still can't understand, contact your local medical professional, you have a problem I can't help with.

[holdencaufield]

14. Not only is your analogy...

... offensive -- comparing human life to animal noises -- it is, in its basic assumption, completely wrong.

You seem to imply that human deaths in the Middle East is more common than in other parts of the world. This is, in fact, the opposite. Crude death rate (total of all deaths per 1,000 inhabitants / year) in Gaza (3.29 / 1000) and the West Bank (3.58 / 1000) are much lower than other parts of the "civilised" world -- United States (8.38), United Kingdom (9.33).

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=26


In fact, the Israel Palestine conflict which is the topic of this thread doesn't even measure in the top 30 of all armed conflicts around the world when it comes to casualties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_military_conflicts

So, instead of callously dismissing human death as no more consequential than animal noises -- try showing some compassion for the lives list in what is essentially a needless conflict.

[Confusious]

15. why don't you spend a little time reading

Comprehension would also work.

Should I explain? hmmm..

Oh what the hell, light may dawn and you might understand through your strawman created outrage. probably not though.

The point of the article was "will this show up in the news?"

my analogy was a comparison between things that are common and happen all the time.

Casualties does not a conflict make. a long war can have just as many as a short war.

It just matters how long it's been going on, and the hatred between the Jews, Palestinians and Arabs has been going for quite a long time now.

So you, your outraged strawman and your straw man argument can take a hike.

[azurnoir]

2. well Ronn seems good at his job

tells us how the media is so against Israel and if there's any doubt wraps it up with a quote from Ze'ev Jabotinsky

Ronn runs a PR firm that includes the Government of Israel among is clients . who'd of ever guessed

http://www.5wpr.com/about5wpr/management.cfm

[shira]

3. Barrage of rockets target Sderot - at 6 in the morning

This morning around 6 in the morning rockets launched from Gaza started raining on the town. The explosions sounded really close and at one point the swish of a rocket filled the house. It was terrifying. I started saying shema' which I haven't done in a long time. The blitz lasted for about one hour and a half.

Now, I am accustomed to rockets. I have been living with the threat since 2001. There were many close calls during those 11 years, many times when it felt my legs had abandoned me.

However, I feel that this time is different. While the homefront command is telling us to remain not more than 15 seconds away from a shelter, this time it seems that it took just two or three seconds between the red alert and the strike, which would indicate either that Hamas have drastically improved the so-called "home-made" rockets, or that the launch site is a lot closer than it used to be.

http://www.israelforum.com/board/showthread.php?21610-Barrage-of-rockets-target-Sderot-at-6-in-the-morning

[holdencaufield]

4. How can this be terrifying in any way?

The previous poster says that shooting rockets at Jewish civilians is the equivalent of "a cat's meow or a dog's bark".

[shaayecanaan]

5. Probably the one accusation you can't make against the media...

is that its "silent on Israel". The Israel/Palestine dispute receives attention far beyond its strategic, economic or humanitarian significance. If 150 people were murdered in the Congo with machetes and one person lightly injured by a Qassam rocket in Israel, you can guarantee that the incident in Israel would receive more coverage.

[oberliner]

6. This is totally and demonstrably false

In fact, the BBC has recently admitted barely covering the massacre of the Fogel family because the story occurred during a "very busy news period".

I do agree that events in Africa are covered very lightly (especially in the United States), however, this article is talking about the way the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is covered.

Whether or not the entire conflict gets more attention than other conflicts is not the point that this author is trying to make. The article talks about how the conflict itself is reported.

Personally I think that different sources report on the conflict with different biases. I would say it's another case of seeing what you look for.

[shira]

7. The UNSCR is also silent and here's Abbas' Fatah complaining about Israel's whining WRT rockets....

Spokesman for the Fatah movement Dr. Fayez Abu Eita said in a press statement issued by the Office of Information and Culture on Tuesday, 'This complaint is the second official complaint made yesterday by the Government of Israel to the Security Council on the continued firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip, but it is only to throw dust in the eyes and mislead world public opinion, to cover up its ugly crimes against our people and our cause.'

http://www.palpress.co.uk/arabic/?action=detail&id=52746

The bolded part might explain the silence by the International Press and the UN. Obviously they agree.

You'd think all the hand-wringing sanctimonious bigots would call on Hamas to stop firing so many rockets, knowing they've killed some innocent Palestinians in the process (not that they care) and OCL 2 could be Israel's response. Seems cynical, but my guess is that they want OCL 2 and all the fallout that would occur. Another Goldstone, etc., and opportunities galore to bash Israel for daring to defend itself.

[shaayecanaan]

9. It is demonstrably true...

The Fogel murders took place on the same day as the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan, in which nearly 16,000 people died and hundreds of thousands more were made homeless. At the same time, you had the Libyan Civil War as well as the Arab Spring in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Frankly, the fact that the Fogel murders could compete at all for column space with events of monumentally greater importance vindicates my point, unless you think that the Fogels should have relegated the Japanese tsunami to the back pages.

Once again, this says more about your POV than anything else.

[oberliner]

11. No it's not

The BBC has even said as much. That's not disputable.

Do you need a link to their statement?

[shaayecanaan]

12. Their statement that the Japanese tsunami

was considered a more important news event than the Fogel murders? Do you really need a statement for that?

[shira]

8. (From March 2012) One Hundred Plus Rockets and They Report the Response

The title here says it all. As soon as Shabbos was out, those of us in Israel booted up our computers and discovered that over 100 rockets had been launched into Israel from Gaza. Of course, the one million Israelis who live in range of rocket fire knew this without Google. According to the IDF spokesperson, the 130 plus rockets fired within the past 35 hours represents 3 rockets every 60 minutes. But you wouldn’t know this from the mainstream media: 100 plus rockets and they report the response!

That’s right: they reported the response alone without context. Take a look at the headlines.

CNN: “Officials: Latest Israeli airstrike in Gaza bring death toll to 17?

ABC: “3 Palestinians Killed in Israeli Airstrikes”

Yahoo: “Israeli Airstrikes kill 15 Palestinian militants in Gaza.”

Fox News: “Toll from Israel Gaza strikes now 15 militants”

CBS: “Israeli airstrikes kill 15 Gaza militants”

<snip>

Only when we turn to Israel for more information does the big picture—and I mean big—become available. According to the Israel Defense force blog, “More than 130 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip, and struck major population centers in southern Israel in the last 35 hours. More than 500,000 Israelis are forced to stay in bomb shelters.”

Now 130 rockets is a HUGE number of rockets to fall within a 35 hour period on a populated urban area. HUGE. But CNN prefers to discuss 24 retaliatory airstrikes, without even mentioning that they were, in fact, retaliatory. The imbalance here is, if you’ll excuse the pun, striking.

Last night, one million Israelis slept under the threat of Hamas rocket fire and the media was silent.

The deafening silence speaks louder than words.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/one-hundred-plus-rockets-and-they-report-the-response/