From the Boston Globe's Big Picture site, we get this caption:
"People gather around bodies of Palestinians near a
U.N.-run school in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip January 6, 2009.
Israeli tank fire killed up to 40 Palestinians at the United Nations
school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical sources at two hospitals
said. Israeli officials claim they had targeted Hamas soldiers
operating in the area. (REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah) #"
"claim", Israeli officials "claim" they were targeting Hamas soldiers. Hamas fired rockets for *two years* into Israel an the international press made basically no mention of it. Israel strikes back and it's wall to wall coverage with captions stating that Israeli officials "claim" they didn't mean to kill civilians.
Fuck that. Israel does nothing but give concessions, land and oppotunity to its enemies who then violate treaties. Hamas has *no* demands other than for Israel to stop existing. As far as I'm concerned we should stop urging for any kind of proportional response and just let Israel do its thing.
"People gather around bodies of Palestinians near a
U.N.-run school in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip January 6, 2009.
Israeli tank fire killed up to 40 Palestinians at the United Nations
school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical sources at two hospitals
said. Israeli officials claim they had targeted Hamas soldiers
operating in the area. (REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah) #"
"claim", Israeli officials "claim" they were targeting Hamas soldiers. Hamas fired rockets for *two years* into Israel an the international press made basically no mention of it. Israel strikes back and it's wall to wall coverage with captions stating that Israeli officials "claim" they didn't mean to kill civilians.
Fuck that. Israel does nothing but give concessions, land and oppotunity to its enemies who then violate treaties. Hamas has *no* demands other than for Israel to stop existing. As far as I'm concerned we should stop urging for any kind of proportional response and just let Israel do its thing.
12 comments:
Really? You don't think the rocket attacks into Israel are reported? Granted, they don't kill a whole bunch of people like when world class weapons are used against a civilian population, but they certainly get reported.
I think the two positions in this country are Israel is 100% right and this has gone on so long that both parties are to blame.
I basically find this idea that Israel is not getting a fair shake in the media, just shocking.
Really? You don't think the rocket attacks into Israel are reported?
I think they are vastly under-reported. Or more properly, they are not reported in a way that makes it clear that government supported combatants are lobbying weapons of war into civilian cities--in other words, no one makes it clear that Hamas has a constant low-level war going on against Israeli citizens, *after* Israel gave them what they asked for in the last major peace agreement. No, I think that is not made clear.
I do *not* think Israel is 100% right, but I think they are 95% right and are 100% more like the U.S. would be if we were in that circumstance than Hamas is.
That we don't have our major news outlets calling for us to invade and suppress Hamas as a cover for Israel to come in and assert their authority is Israel not getting a fair shake.
This kind of argument seems dishonest, like O'Reilly or Limbaugh devoting countless hours of nationally broadcast political comment to beef about the paucity of coverage for their viewpoints in the national media. If Hamas's perfidity hasn't been adequately reported, how do you know about it?
Of course that's a snarky b.s. question, but the point is sincere. I heard a radio report which used the "claim" language as well and was also struck by the word choice, but in the same report I also was informed of the basic background of the Hamas rocket attacks and the end of the cease fire and the international consensus that Israel didn't "start" this, etc., etc. and I also learned that Gaza Palestinian deaths in the last couple weeks are in the 700 range, while Israeli casualties from the rockets are near single digits, and I heard some debate over a wide range of responses to the goals, strategies, tactics, and ethics of both sides.
You can certainly assert that the major news organizations are not advocating the response you deem appropriate, but then you aren't asking them to report news, you're asking for an editorial, which I am also confident you will be able to find in abundance.
Over on PP I tried to pose a question addressing the 100% like the US position: namely when would we support the use of military force.
I really am coming to the belief that treating the terrorism like organized crime is the solution.
If Hamas's perfidity hasn't been adequately reported, how do you know about it?
I know about it because I hear a sentence about it as a header before an hour-long special with graphic images of missiles fired from Isreali soldiers, graphic pictures of dead Arabic Gazans with their legs blown off, and captions that say that Israel "claims" they didn't mean to hurt civilians.
It's not fair coverage. Hamas is trying to terrorize civilians, Israel is invading a country that has been committing active war on civilians for two years.
Palestinian deaths in the last couple weeks are in the 700 range, while Israeli casualties from the rockets are near single digits
I started this with the premise that I was unswayed by magnitude. If you disagree, okay, but don't argue by pointing out the numbers--I think demanding a proportional response from Israel is morally bankrupt, they are attacking terrorism, and you can't do that by killing 20 Hamas terrorists.
You can certainly assert that the major news organizations are not advocating the response you deem appropriate, but then you aren't asking them to report news, you're asking for an editorial, which I am also confident you will be able to find in abundance.
I think using terms like "claim" and publishing photo essays of dead Gazans but never showing a dead Israeli during two years of state-sponsored terrorism is already an editorial, in fact that was my actual point.
I really think this is observation bias. You think that Israel is right. You think that proportional response is irrelevant. And so, you think that it isn't fair to only mention in every report that this all started with Hamas sponsored rocket fire.
I am very middle of the road on this. I feel strongly that it is a terrible tragedy, but I think both sides have a lot of blame to bear. So, I think the coverage is pretty neutral. I mean, I don't think you could seriously not report about the civilian casualties, and obviously with 10-100 times as many on the Palestinian side, there is more to report. On the other hand, I think it is right that I've never heard a report on this conflict that didn't mention that this was in reponse to a Hamas attack.
We don't have a Palestinian symapthizer among us, but I suspect he would find that given the vast disproportionate response, that it is pro-Isaeli bias to continue to bring up the rocket attacks.
I have always been against proportional response. Always. If a country shoots down a helicopter in an obvious act of war, I think massive bombing of military bases which results in crippling the offending nation's military is perfectly acceptable, or in fact I think it should be the norm. Why not? Why should it protect a nation that they only killed a few people?
So being pro Israel has nothing to do with my rejection of proportional response.
I believe that you *think* you are middle of the road. Everyone thinks that they are fair, and that the ground they occupy is fair--you wouldn't hold that position if you thought it was unfair or biased. Hamas is a terrorist organization, they also fire rockets at civilians as a matter of national policy. They were elected by the civilian population that they represent. Why isn't it fair to attack them back in a way that has a chance of stopping the bombing? What would have been your response? If Israel had only bombed Gaza, killing 20 people, exactly proportional to Hams' bombs over the last two years. What if? Well I'll tell you what if... it would have stopped nothing. If you enact a policy that kills 700 people and it has a chance to stop a country from being at war with you, or you enact a policy that just kills 20 of them and it has no chance of stopping anything, which is the more moral thing to do?
I have a hard time knowing what "proportionality" means any more. If you're just talking "who had more deaths and suffering," well, sure, that's the Palestinians. But by that same metric, Vietnam was a brilliant military success. On the other hand, it can be argued that the response is not proportionate to the threat/provocation. By that measure, Britain and France were right to stand by when Germany invaded Czechoslovokia.
What I am saying is that I have a hard time judging this prospectively. What if Israel did nothing, and Hamas acquired a nuclear weapon? Far fetched, maybe, but then nobody would have predicted that the US would lose a war to a bunch of guerrillas in southeast asia.
As for the coverage, I think the bias is real, but it's also colored by the strongly anti-war position of all the major international bodies. It's hard to do a story on this conflict without noting that the UN, Red Cross, and just about every other major NGO has decried the civilian bloodshed. I think that, plus the graphic destruction/death in Gaza have combined to produce a media product which portrays Israel as the bad guy.
In fairness, I have not seen much media coverage about the effect of the rockets within Israel, but thinking back just a little bit further, I do recall lots and lots of very sympathetic media for Israel when the buses and cafes kept blowing up. So I don't think what we are seeing is anti-Israel bias, but a media which tends to sympathize with the victims of conflict. As the major media is a reflection of social norms, that's not an entirely a bad thing.
What I understand we are talking about is media bias. Matt wrote, "I believe that you *think* you are middle of the road. Everyone thinks that they are fair, and that the ground they occupy is fair."
My views may not be fair, in that Israel may deserve the bulk of the sympathies, but my view are middle of the road because my sympathies are not overwhelmingly aligned with one side or the other.
Liam thinks there is media bias but notes that it is " hard to do a story on this conflict without noting that the UN, Red Cross, and just about every other major NGO has decried the civilian bloodshed. Yeah, no kidding. It is also hard to do a story on this without showing the impact on the country under attack; just like the media had to show the results of car bombs and suicide bombers.
My opinion is that Israel's actions are helping Hamas. It is good for Hamas to lose a few hundred of its citizens to Israeli attacks. It affirms their world view, and strengthens their base of support.
I don't know what Israel or the world community should do. Find a way to arrest terrorist and jail them maybe. Broaden the definition of war crime perhaps.
I don't know what Israel or the world community should do. Find a way to arrest terrorist and jail them maybe. Broaden the definition of war crime perhaps.
Hamas is the duly elected government of the Gazan people. Saddam Hussein couldn't have had Bill Clinton arrested in 1998, could he have? It's not terrorism in this case, it's a war perpetrated by a freely elected government.
Yeah, no kidding. It is also hard to do a story on this without showing the impact on the country under attack; just like the media had to show the results of car bombs and suicide bombers.
Ha ha! It's the facts that are biased! (I always knew reality had a liberal bias!)
"Hamas is the duly elected government of the Gazan people. Saddam Hussein couldn't have had Bill Clinton arrested in 1998, could he have?"
True. I think it gets back to the issue of sovereignty that got batted around a little before the invassion of Iraq.
So, could the Israelis take people living in the Gaza strip who fire rockets into Israel into custody, or would that violate international law? I don't know the answer.
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