The jets streaked across the border into the neighbouring country with almost blinding speed … the sound of their screaming jets sending everyone below … including women and children … rushing for cover. Then the planes fired their missiles and rockets, killing two and injuring others, scaring scores more … innocent civilians among them; while ground troops, who also crossed the border, killed one more, and frightening hundreds more … before heading back across the frontier into their own country.
Damn Israelis! Ooops, wait a minute …. they were not Israelis; the attack on June 7 involved Turkish warplanes and troops, striking Kurds in Iraq, ACROSS their border. The deaths, the injuries, the civilian terror were all real … yet there were few news stories done anywhere on the attack (my source was a quick radio spot I heard and then the Reuters news wire) .
Where was the media? Where were the videos of the crying, screaming victims? Where were the tens of thousands of protestors around the world marching on the Turkish embassies? Where were the hard, tough questions or accusations hurled at Turkish leaders?
Nowhere.
And yet Turkey’s war on the Kurds goes back to 1984: as many as 45,000 are estimated to have died. But it is barely covered. And the brutal attack by Turkey far surpassed anything the Israelis did to that Turkish ship carrying militants who were armed with weapons. Are Kurdish lives worth less than Gazans?
If there’s one thing I hope people will learn from my blog is how, the media and public opinion are being manipulated more than ever now either ideologically or by those with the power, the money, and the resources to do so.
Reporting is now so muddled together with editorialization, it’s hard to tell the difference … unless you pay VERY close attention. Just look at Fox News, MSNBC, BBC World, so many newspapers and today, even various websites. The listener, reader and viewer must be more alert than ever to separate fact from propaganda.
Which brings me to the Middle East. Israel has, for some time, been losing the “information” battle with the Arabs.
Everyone knows the truth is there have been acts of aggression, cruelty, terrible mistakes, political grandstanding, impossible demands, false accusations etc by BOTH sides … fairly regularly. But the impression cast off by much of the media these days places the blame over and over again on Israel and virtually ignores Palestinian … even terrorist faction acts of provocation (firing rocket after rocket across the border during a supposed “truce”) and even outright aggression (kidnapping three Israeli soldiers inside their own borders … two of whom were then murdered).
Why? Here’s what has happened.
The Palestinians have become EXPERTS at portraying themselves as victims, as David in the David and Goliath story, while totally downplaying their own guilt in sponsoring terrorist attacks, the Intifada, avoiding or missing so many opportunities to negotiate peace because they can’t their own factional sh*t together, incredible amounts of internal corruption, and teaching their kids with school books aimed more to hate than to achieve any kind of scholastic success.
And too many reporters …. leftwing ideologues … have bought into the David and Goliath myth, accepting whatever the Palestininans shovel out. almost without any journalistic standards of questionning or even confirmation. Remember Jenin … the Palestinians alleged that 51 people had been slaughtered in an Israeli raid, going after wanted terror suspects. The media went wild with the story, making the Israelis look horrible. Until the 51 bodies failed to show up anywhere. Ooops. It was totally untrue, but the propaganda damage to the Israelis was already done. The media had willingly been had.
And don’t forget how, one of the black-garbed wailing ”mothers” of one of those Jenin “victims” also showed up wailing before the cameras in Lebanon over her loss and the destruction there … anther Palestinian propaganda piece … eaten up by the media, Until someone recognized her as the same “wailer” from Jenin. And then she disappeared.
And the Palestinians, including Hamas, with the support of Iran, Turkey (under a new Islamist government), and the help of increasingly militant Muslim militants throughout the Middle East, Asia and even Europe , can now get 100,000 protestors together in a day, to back up whatever claim they want against Israel and the West. And too many reporters lap it up without question …and become pawns in the Palestinian campaign.
In fact, during the recent Gaza debacle, we had another example of just how bad the BBC has become in covering the Mid-East: they featured a graphic outlining the recent history of Gaza. The first line stated how Hamas was elected in 2006; the second line told of the truce entered into afterwards by Israel and Hamas; but the third line said Israel then attacked Gaza. It made Israel look horrible and the aggressor (typical of BBC reporting these days) and only if you had been carefully listening, would have heard the announcer SAY Israel attacked Gaza AFTER rockets were fired at it. Oh! No mention of course that there were a thousand rockets fired ..and no listing in the graphic itself that the truce was broken by missiles being fired frrom Gaza …only that Israel had attacked after the truce. And what about the 2007 WAR between Hamas and Fatah? I didn’t see that highlighted either. Absolutely disgraceful crap by BBC World… but reflective of its current journalistic standard in covering that region.
Why has ther BBC become so one-sided? In my view the BBC has gone from a news organization to a very far left-wing ideologically driven manipulator of information BBC World also has millions of Arab/Islamic viewers across the world and caters to them; the Muslim population in Britain is becoming much more powerful and BBC World reflects that now; and BBC began its own Arab language network last year, and it certainly does not want that to fail.
That would explain not only BBC World’s ideologically anti Israel bent, but also why I have never seen an Israeli city listed in BBC World’s on-air weather reports; never seen an Israeli company featured on BBC World’s Mid East Business Report; but have witnessed an almost endless parade of fawning stories and special features about Dubai, Iran, Egypt, Muslim food, music etc etc. I guess there’s just nothing positive to report about Israel … ever.
The CBC also looks like it got caught up in the anti-Israel frenzy, reporting earlier that the child mortality rate in Gaza is among the worst in the World. I wonder who gave them that information! It’s totally untrue. In fact, the CBC Friday corrected itself, Gaza’s child mortality rate stands at 109 out out 224 countries. Butr the original propaganda damage to the Israelis was already done, just as Hamas and the Palestinians wanted.
In Vancouver, the Georgia Straight has disgraced itself completely in my view: becoming little more than a one-sided propaganda voice for the anti-Israeli bloc, abandoning the very basics of real journalism. And there’s a certain irony in that: peopleof the blogosphere love to castigate mainstream media as being one-sided, but actually I’d say that even the pro-Israel National Post does a fairer job in running articles/views critical of Israel than the supposedly alternative Straight does in running anything fair to Israel’s point of view.
And don’t forget the multi billion dollar annual influence the oil-bolstered Arab states and Arab corproations now have on the world’s economic and geopolitical reality. I have no doubt that control and investment affects political positions taken by governments and even the coverage of Mid-East news.
How can Israel compete with that? Even with the support of the oft-mentioned Jewish lobby, they can’t compete with the massive size and growing influence of the Islamic states and dollars.
So Israel … and the truth about what’s really going on …. must depend on those who listen, read or watch what’s happening to examine it with greater discernment and independent sense of fairness.
And hopefully remember what’s happening to the Kurds, at the hands of the Turks, as well.
Next … how the UN is laying the groundwork for the NEXT Mid East war .. and how the media is missing what will soon become a HUGE story.
Harv Oberfeld
10 responses so far ↓
1 Lynn // Jun 13, 2010 at 11:31 am
Yes! YES!
Well done piece, Harvey.
Like anything it all comes down to great marketing and manipulation.
I had suspected a wee bit ago the UN and the players are laying the ground work for a large scale war. God help us.
(Response: The evidence is in … wait til you read the next blog. Frightening. h.o.)
2 Mike Cleaver // Jun 13, 2010 at 10:45 pm
You and I know what the problem is, both of us being lifers in the news business.
It’s pack journalism at it’s worst.
Something big happens, all the media rush off to the event, cover it like crazy for a few days and then decamp, off to the next big thing and the original story hardly gets any follow-up thereafter.
Same with the Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Damage in New Orleans, the Haitian Earthquake, the Peru Earthquake, the latest incident in the Middle East, etc., etc.
The Middle East never will go away nor will the troubles there.
We all thought the same about Northern Ireland, that it never would stop but it’s certainly calmed a lot there.
The “story de jour” is the Gulf Oil Spill.
That too will eventually lose the interest of “the pack.”
Most conflicts in the world are based firstly on religious and ethnic differences, secondly on greed, lust for more land and resources.
If it wasn’t for this, we’d have nothing to cover but lying and cheating politicians at all levels and cute animal stories.
(Response: Yes, pack journalism … but at least during “our” time, reporters didn’t go out to cover conflicts with the script already written. Today, truly independent, fair, non-ideologically programmed journalists are becoming an endangered species. h.o)
3 M.E. // Jun 14, 2010 at 4:00 am
EXCELLLENT Harv!
Please, please continue… Everyone Must read and hear this truth
Thank you sir, I salute you
4 RY // Jun 14, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Harv,
Allegedly fawning food stories aside, the Islamic countries continue to receive enormous criticism in the Western media, not without reason. What Israel is experiencing is IMO nothing but the lifting of the taboo against criticising it. Israel gets held to a high standard of behavior, as befits the region’s only democracy. While critics might call that an implicit acceptance of the fact of Islamofascism, no one has ever successfully argued that wrongs make right.
(Response: i have NO problem with legitimate criticism of any country, Israel, Canada, the U.S. …but I believe in equality: dishing it out to whoever or whichever country or entity deserves it. Too often these days, to many people …and media … play only to their biases: whoever they disagree with can do no good …ever; and those they sympathize with can never do wrong. And although people love to talk about “the Jewish lobby” it’s clear to me that in Mid East coverage, Israel gets the short end of the stick, from biased far left leaning media, and Hamas and Hesbollah are totally ignored …until Israel hits them back, and is then condemned for doing so. Where is the world on Hesbollah’s massive stocking of missiles and rockets …totally contrary to the peace agreement they signed? h.o.)
5 B // Jun 18, 2010 at 5:47 am
The Mid East is a guaranteed economy to the western manufacturers of everything arms related for their side and the Eastern manufacturers for their side this is about making sure there is never peace allowed in the middle east it would cost stock exchanges worldwide far too much as always in all things follow the money
6 BD // Jun 18, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Very well said, I could not agree more. Specifically with your analysis of BBC. When you have so many Muslim viewers you must give them something to feed their appetite for their hatred.
(Response: I was in London two weeks ago. The Muslim presence (esp around Edgeware Road) is now overwhelming; the impact of Arab investment and $$$ is visible all around; the BBC now has an all-Arab language channel … and many many more Muslim reporters and bureaus coupled with its far-left anti-Israel editorial policy, it’s not hard to see where and how it has lost its journalistic independence and integrity. And in my view, what they are delivering now is mostly ideologically-driven propaganda …not unbiased news. h.o)
7 arctic_front // Jun 18, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Great Stuff, Harv!
I just found your site by following a link but I appreciate what you are trying to do. I fear that you are only preaching to the choir here. The frothing-at-the-mouth Left just is not ready or able to listen. They will ignore blatant facts if it goes against their entrenched beliefs
One thing you haven’t mentioned is that with all the Arab wealth being used to support new mosques and international terror, the Arabs do not partake in helping the Palestinians, Haitians, or the people caught in the tsunamis. They are greedy and selfish…. except to support terrorists and sharia.
They cry very loudly about Islamophobia but they can’t lift a finger to help their own brothers.
(Response: Unless they give quietly and anonymously, I have noticed how seldom you hear of major donations and assistance from the oil rich countries to other places experiencing terrible disasters. It’s alwys Canada, The U.S. Britain and the European Union who rush in with help. Russia and China are never big donors and the oil sheiks seem to prefer using their money to buy their 100th Rolls Royce of splurge on gold-encrusted 747s rather than really fund housing/schools etc for their Palestinian brothers. h.o)
8 David // Aug 15, 2010 at 12:33 am
Harvey
Stick to BC and Canadian political affairs.
You are only demonstrating a profound and inexcusable ignorance of the Israel-Palestinian/Arab conflict.
(Response: Have you noticed it’s ISRAEL not the Palestinians that wanmt to get back to face to face negotiations. Why won’t Abbas? Because if he agrees to a peace agreement the Hamas/Hesbollah nutbars will kill him! And who has broeken the truce in the North? Hesbollah has amassed about 40,000 rockets there while the UN looks the other way; and in the South, Hamas types have fired more than a hundred rockets into Israel since the “truce” but again the UN and the World say nothnig ..until Israel will have had enough and hits them hard. open your eyes and you’ll see its the Palestinians who have missed every opportunity to make a peace deal. h.o)
9 David // Aug 16, 2010 at 4:58 pm
To quote Nahum Goldman when he stepped down as president of the World Jewish Congress in 1977: “In 30 years, Israel has never presented the Arabs with a single peace plan. She has rejected every settlement plan devised by her friends and by her enemies. She has seemingly no other object than to preserve the status quo while adding territory piece by piece.”
To quote Professor Avi Shlaim, the renowned Jewish Israeli historian, as summarized by Ha’aretz (11 August 2005) in its review of his highly acclaimed book The Iron Wall (2000):
“…[B]ased on facts, he surveys the history of Israel’s contacts with the Arab world from 1948 to 2000, and states decisively (‘The job of the historian is to judge,’ he says) that the Israeli story that Israel has always stretched out its hand to peace, but there was nobody to talk to – is groundless. The Arabs have repeatedly outstretched a hand to peace – says Shlaim – and Israel has always rejected it. Each time with a different excuse.”
In April 2002, the Arab League presented Israel with a peace plan known as the Beirut Summit Peace Initiative. Looked upon with favour by the U.S., it calls for full peace between all members of the Arab League (which includes the Palestinian leadership) and Israel, i.e., full diplomatic recognition, normalization of relations, exchange of ambassadors, tourism and open borders in exchange for Israel’s compliance with international law (e.g., the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Fourth Geneva Convention – all ratified by Israel) and its previous commitments. Regrettably, then Israeli PM Ariel Sharon dismissed the Arab League’s peace overture, as did Israel’s subsequent govt. in 2008.
BTW, apart from the Arab League, the 2002 Beirut Peace Initiative has been accepted by non-Arab Iran, Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority and even Hamas has agreed, subject to a Palestinian referendum and a connecting corridor between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
Other peace initiatives that Israel’s governments have rebuffed include: U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers’ The Rogers Plan (1969); The Scranton Mission on behalf of President Nixon (1970); Egyptian President Sadat’s land for peace and mutual recognition proposal (1971); U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s call for a Geneva international conference (1977); Saudi Arabian King Fahd’s peace offer (1981); U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s Reagan Plan (1982); U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz’s Schultz Plan (1988); U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s Baker Plan (1989); the much heralded 1993 Oslo accords signed by Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that unravelled following the latter’s assassination and subsequent return to power of the Likud party from 1996-1999 under Benjamin Netanyahu; continuation of the Taba II negotiations (2001), and the unofficial Geneva Peace Initiative of November/December 2003.
In short, as the documented historical record clearly attests, contrary to the late Abba Eban’s observation, it is Israel’s leaders, not those of the Palestinians and their fellow Arabs who “have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity” to achieve peace.
Harvey, get to the history books, do some elementary research on this vital subject.
(Response: The Beirut Peace Plan … what a farce! I’m sure you knoe, but don;t say, that one of the provisions is that all the Arabs who left Israel in 1948 (at the ORDER of their Grand Mufti!) and al their descendents could move into Israel ..thereby swamping the tiny Jewish state. Get real! h.o)
10 David // Aug 16, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Harvey
Apparently, you have not read the Arab League’s 2002 Beirut Summit Peace Proposal. I also assume you are not aware of the fact that as a pre-condition for admittance to the UN, Israel agreed to comply with UNGA Resolution 194 (calling for the return of and/or financial compensation for Palestinian refugees of 1947-48.) See General Assembly Resolution 273 (11 May 1949) granting Israel UN membership. BTW, Israel is the only state admitted to the UN on the condition that specific resolutions would be obeyed.
Taking into consideration Israel’s demographic concerns, the Beirut Summit Initiative does not call for the return of all Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel. Instead, in accordance with policy first enunciated by President Arafat prior to and during Camp David 2000, Article II of Paragraph 2 “calls upon Israel to affirm” that it agrees to pursue the “[a]chievement of a JUST SOLUTION [my emphasis] to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.” There is no demand for the return of the 1947-48 refugees to what is now Israel. The emphasis would be on financial compensation.
For your edification: Between passage of the nonbinding, recommendatory only without legal status UN Partition Plan (Res. 181, Nov. 29/47) – grossly unfair to the Palestinian Christians and Muslims who despite massive Jewish immigration, still made up about 70% of the population and owned 94.5% of the land – and the declaration of the state of Israel on May 15/48, Jewish militia (e.g., the Irgun, Haganah, Palmach, Sternists) through force of arms, massacres, rape and intimidation had already expelled 350,000-400,000 essentially defenceless Palestinians, which necessitated reluctant intervention by outnumbered and outgunned Arab League state armies to stem the accelerating eviction of Palestinians (e.g., 60,000 driven out of Haifa in late April; 70,000 expelled from Jaffa in late April and early May and a further 60,000 from West Jerusalem in March and early May.) Indeed, the situation was so grave that at the behest of the Truman administration, the UNGA was in the process of shelving the Partition Plan in favour of a UN Trusteeship for Palestine. (Although the Arabs accepted it, Israel also rejected a US sponsored truce proposal.) In the ensuing war, Israel expelled a further 450,000-500,000 Palestinians, destroyed 450 of their towns and villages and seized 72% of Palestine. Just prior to and during Israel’s first invasion of Egypt in 1956 Israel expelled an additional 25,000 Palestinians. During and after the war it launched on 5 June 1967, Israel evicted a further 450,000 Palestinians, seized the rest of Palestine along with Syria’s Golan Heights (drove out over 100,000 Syrian Druze), Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms and Egypt’s Sinai. While the Sinai was subsequently returned to Egypt, Israel continues to occupy all of its other 1967 conquests.
Frankly, I’m surprised you would trot out the long since debunked canard “the Arabs who left Israel in 1948 (at the ORDER of their Grand Mufti!)” In fact, as BBC and CIA recordings of all radio broadcasts in the region at the time attest, neither the Grand Mufti nor any other Palestinian or other Arab leader ordered the Palestinians to leave. In fact, they implored them to stay.
For your further edification: Eminent historian and journalist Erskine Childers conducted an exhaustive examination of the British radio-monitoring records for all of 1948. As a result he discovered that contrary to assertions by Israeli officials, the Arab leaders had not broadcast any evacuation orders to Palestinians, but had in fact implored them to remain in their homes. “…there was not a single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from any Arab radio station inside or outside Palestine in 1948. There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put.” (Erskine Childers, “The Other Exodus,” Spectator, London, 12 May 1961)
Moreover, Childers discovered that “Even Jewish broadcasts (in Hebrew), mentioned such Arab appeals to stay put. Zionist newspapers in Palestine reported the same; none so much as hinted at any Arab evacuation orders.” (Erskine Childers, ibid)
Childers’ conclusions were verified by other scholars, including Walid Khalidi, professor of Middle East studies at Harvard, who had studied Harvard’s collection of CIA radio monitored recordings of the region’s 1948 broadcasts.
As Glubb Pasha, commander of the Arab Legion and an eye-witness stated, common sense reveals the utter absurdity of the Zionist claim that Palestinians left their homes by choice: “The story which Jewish publicity at first persuaded the world to accept, that the Arab refugees left voluntarily, is not true. Voluntary emigrants do not leave their homes with only the clothes they stand in. People who have decided to move do not do so in such a hurry that they lose other members of their family – husband losing sight of his wife, or parents of their children. The fact is that the majority left in panic flight, to escape massacre. They were in fact helped on their way by the occasional massacres – not of very many at a time, but just enough to keep them running.” (John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier With the Arabs, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1957)
In the words of Israeli historian Simha Flapan: “The claim that the exodus was an ‘order from above,’ from the Arab leadership, proved to be particularly good propaganda for many years, despite its improbability. Indeed, from the point of view of military logistics, the contention that the Palestinian Arab leadership appealed to the Arab masses to leave their homes in order to open the way for the invading armies, after which they would return to share in the victory, makes no sense at all. The Arab armies, coming long distances and operating in or from the Arab areas of Palestine, needed the help of the local population for food, fuel, water, transport, manpower, and information.”
John H. Davis, who served as Commission-General of UNRWA had no doubt as to who was responsible for the Palestinian exodus: “An exhaustive examination of the minutes, resolutions, and press releases of the Arab League, of the files of leading Arabic newspapers, of day-to-day monitoring of broadcasts from Arab capitals and secret Arab radio stations, failed to reveal a single reference, direct or indirect, to an order given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave. All the evidence is to the contrary; that the Arab authorities continuously exhorted the Palestinian Arabs not to leave the country…. Panic and bewilderment played decisive parts in the flight. But the extent to which the refugees were savagely driven out by the Israelis as part of a deliberate master-plan has been insufficiently recognized.” (John H. Davis, The Evasive Peace. London: Murray, 1968)
Finally, I refer to the IDF Intelligence Branch Report dated 30 June 1948, entitled “The Arab Exodus from Palestine in the Period 1 December 1947 to 1 June 1948.” After studying the document, pro-Zionist Israeli Jewish historian Benny Morris declared that “the Intelligence Branch report…goes out of its way to stress that the [Palestinian] exodus was contrary to the political-strategic desires of both the Arab Higher Committee and the governments of the neighboring Arab states. These, according to the report, struggled against the exodus – threatening, cajoling, and imposing punishments, all to no avail. There was no stemming the panic borne tide.” (Benny Morris, “The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defense Force Intelligence Board Analysis of June 1948,: Middle Easter Studies, Vol. XXII, no. 1, January 1986)
I repeat – get to the history books and do some basic research. You are drowning in Hasbara, i.e., pro-Israel mis/disinformation.
(Response: Funny how you devote so much time and effort to denigrating Israel ..but have said NOTHING about the kidnapping of Shalit by Hamas, the firring of thousdands of rockets aimed at Israeli citizens by Hamas, the murderous actions of Hesbollah both in Lebanon and along the Israeli border, their building up of another 40,000 rockets (according to the London Times) total flagrant violation of truce agreement ..while the UN pretends not to see or the nuclear weapons pursuit by the nutbars in Iran.
h.o
I respect your right to have your biased, one-sided anti-Israel views ..but you’ve had your fair say on here. I’m too busy to debate forever your distorted views this one issue on my blog. Suggest set up your own blog ..so you can rant all you want. I might even wrtie in!
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