The decision by the Indy editor to promote Noam Chomsky’s charge on Israel’s putative influence on the US political system, without informing readers of the academic’s record of unhinged commentary on Jews, Israel and a host of other international issues, is extremely worrying.
The “both sides blame each other” phrasing used by the Indy Middle East correspondent is one in a long list of tropes and cliches employed by journalists to avoid reaching the morally intuitive conclusion that the violent extremist group that controls Gaza is more interested in stoking conflict than the Jewish democracy they’re trying to destroy.
Daniel Barenboim, in his Guardian op-ed, follows in the Guardian tradition of expressing contempt for the state by claiming that its policies betray the country’s founding principles, whilst distorting both the policies and founding principles. His piece attacking the Jewish nation-state law grossly mischaracterises both the bill and the founding Zionist ideals (articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence) it is said to betray.
It’s disappointing that Indy editors chose to legitimise duplicitous rhetoric which has the effect of providing cover to those radical voices on the British and American left who claim to be anti-racists yet are openly hostile to the Jewish community.
Following out tweet to a Guardian journalist, criticising his claim that Israel has only treated injured Syrians “on occasion”, he amended the article to include statistics we provided on the thousands of Syrians treated since 2013.
The Guardian is not interested in articles that challenge their readers’ prejudices against Israel, especially such a counter-intuitive story which offers a glimpse at how Israeli humanitarian efforts has the potential to win some hearts and minds hearts in the hostile Arab world.
The Indy corrected their article after we cited an official statement from EL Al which maintained that the flight delay had nothing to do with the incident involving the Ultra-Orthodox passengers wishing to switch seats.
These headlines illustrate the failure of journalists and their editors to frame articles in a manner which focuses primarily on Hamas and Islamic Jihad violence and evokes sympathy for Israeli terror victims and the southern communities which are constantly on the receiving end of such attacks. The story they wish to tell demands that facts be molded to conform to the desired David vs Goliath narrative, operates from an assumption that Palestinians lack agency and that the only party in the conflict that matters is Israel. The facts may change, but the story remains the same.
Whatever the merits of Landsman’s arguments about antisemitism, the fact that he recycled such an insidious smear with no basis in fact is another good illustration of the rank ignorance which informs much of the anti-Israel bigotry shared by the leadership and activist base of the British Labour party.
A Times of London list of failed Israeli-Palestinian peace effortsstrangely omitted Ehud Olmert’s widely reported far reaching peace offer to the Palestinians in 2008 which was rejected by Mahmoud Abbas – a story which was actually covered by Times of London in 2009. Following communication with editors, they agreed to add a new paragraph with information on the 2008 offer.
Roger Waters headlined Barclaycard’s British Summer Time music festival at London’s Hyde Park last Friday and six activists headed down there to politely protest his putting a Jewish Star of David on an inflatable pig at one of his past concerts and his statement comparing the oppression of Palestinians by Israel to the oppression of Jews by the Nazis.
An article in The Times included, as a bit of historical context on the new US peace plan, a list of “Failed Peace Attempts” going back to 1919. However, the list curiously omits two historically significant peace efforts – in 1947 and 2008:
The failure of media outlets to recognize that Palestinians are more than just victims and, even within the real limits imposed by the occupation, have the capacity to resist violence, hatred, scapegoating and self-pity, and embark on a path of real political and cultural reform, continues to deny news consumers an accurate understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Contrary to Robert Fisk’s claim, Polish Jews do not have a “right” to “take back Nazi-confiscated property.” Following communication with UK Media Watch, editors at The Independent upheld our complaint and revised the sentence accordingly.
When, in May, the Board of Deputies’ outgoing president Jonathan Arkush met with Jeremy Corbyn, he asked the Labour Party leader: “Why is there nothing good you can say about Israel? According to Arkush, Corbyn didn’t respond, but remained silent – a silence likely driven by the same “mythical Israel” that continues to haunt the political imagination of Guardian editors.
A June 28th article at Times of London once again demonstrates the media’s frequent failure to challenge incendiary and unsubstantiated accusations against Israel by Palestinians or pro-Palestinian campaigners. The article included a quote by Irish senator David Norris charging that the Israeli army used expanding bullets (aka “Dumb-dumb bullets”) when firing at “children” during Gaza border riots.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and president of J Street, the far-left and self-proclaimed ‘pro-Israel’ US lobbying group, penned an attack piece in the Guardian on the US Ambassador to Israel which includes some of the favorite tropes of the pro-Palestinian commentariat.
Most British outlets which covered the death eight-month-old Layla al-Ghandour have failed to publish allegations that Hamas paid the girl’s family to tell the media that Israeli tear gas caused her death though the real culprit was a pre-existing blood condition.
Sky News Arabia wholeheartedly parroted Palestinian propaganda regarding incidents on the Temple Mount – ignoring the principles of neutrality and objectivity.
Following communication with UK Media Watch, Financial Times editors amended a sentence which had erroneously suggested that permission for Gazans to cross into Israel for medical reasons was rarely given.
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