Ok, firstly, I need to make it clear that I fundamentally oppose the use of overwhelming force on a predominantly civilian population. I also despise and oppose the ghettoization and segregation of a community with military force and ad-hoc concrete borders such as Israel has created. I also despise the actions of the IDF and their seeming disregard for the lives of children and civilians, as widely reported around the world in recent years.
However, I worry strongly that at the present time the western media, particularly the liberal media in this country, is promulgating a form of propaganda that clouds the reality of the Lebanon war / conflict.
A few things seem to be forgotten / judged as unimportant:
- There was no such thing as a Palestinian state before the creation of the Israeli homeland
- Israeli and Jewish peoples have been stigmatised, wiped out, persecuted and dealt harshly with for centuries
- Hizbollah is a terrorist organisation that has no compunction with firing Iranian missiles from civilian buildings and is hellbent on destroying Israeli and western secular society in general, regardless of any form of diplomacy
I'm not proposing any easy answers, nor am I pro-Israeli, but in recent weeks I've been troubled by the holier-than-thou righteousness of our supposedly objective media in stigmatising and condemning Israel's actions, which by and large may be said to represent a form of self-defense against terrorism, albeit heavy-handedly and also verging on a form of state-sanctioned terrorism. I am also saddened by the way in which any debate on this issue is quashed by the overwhelming righteousness of the pro-Palestinian cause.
My point in a nutshell - biase is everywhere, don't swallow what's force-fed with an emotional spoon.
#08 August 2006
Comments...
I would say you have already answered your own point. State sanctioned terrorism is exactly what the Israeli government dish out. Yor momma…
Posted by: Nancy Levy | 7:03pm 8 August 2006
Yeah !
Posted by: Sharon | 7:04pm 8 August 2006
No, yor mo.mma
Posted by: Dan | 7:13pm 8 August 2006
Get bent Nancy - my point isn't about the actions of either faction - its the fact that what we're forced to digest under the banner of objective reporting is as unbiased as the Daily Star or Fox News these days and its hella depressing.
Posted by: Al peter | 10:54am 9 August 2006
people are dying on both sides. But if someone throws a rock at you, don't throw a hand grenade back. Fuck the IDF and Fuck Hizbullah.
Posted by: ken | 4:54pm 10 August 2006
BTW, Israeli Defence Forces are just that: Defence Forces. But they have illegally entered another country. Sound familiar to any of you brits?
Posted by: ken | 4:57pm 10 August 2006
OK al you say bias is everywhere. Obviously true, including all the comments here. Yet taking sides achieves nothing. It isn't that simple. Both sides are right. Both sides are wrong. Does Israel have a right to exist? if so where?
ken - what may not be so 'familiar' to a lot of 'brits' is that the UK government played a huge role in creating the problem. It gave the whole idea of setting up a national home for the jewish people in that part of the world it's full backing in 1917 (The Balfour Declaration), then having governed Palestine for the next 30 years and watched the problem come to fruition, they handed it over to the UN, who then agreed how to carve up Palestine and gave a portion of it to the Jews. Did the Palestinians agree that? No. Meanhwile every year since, the UN has reafffirmed its resolution that the Palestinians have the right of return. Will Israel give it to them? No. Never. Meanwhile the West supports the right of Israel to exist and "defend" itself. Its utterly non-negotiable.
The number of people who are concluding from this scenario that the only way forward is to exterminate Israel seems to be on the increase.
You and me shouting at each other about who's right and who's wrong is just so irrelevant.
BTW al, no-one forces us to digest anything do they?....Or do they?
Posted by: beachyhead | 1:16am 11 August 2006
the main problem lately has been the 'west's need to promote democracy which backfired with the election of Hamas in Palestine. The more it rejects it, the stronger they get in terms of support.
The bigger fish is North Korea anyway. That trigger happy don Kim Il Jong is starting to get itchy as attention has focused away from him. Check out those Taepodong 2's they fired into the sea less than a month ago. That's a routine thing in Japan where Taepodongs have been fired regularly by the north Koreans.
thanks to 19 for her input.
Posted by: ken | 8:50am 13 August 2006
yes beachyhead, people - nice comments - since i wrote that article i've been kind of agonising as i don't want to lend my support in any way to Israel or its army - i detest their actions, which i suppose is part of the problem- and you're spot on ken when you say that the name IDF doesn't warrant an illegal incursion into Lebanon. As you say, its a nightmare scenario in that both sides see their causes as sacrosanct and enshrined in godly righteousness - who's going to budge? nobody it seems. I'm also disgusted that as you say, the UK is massively at fault for its arbitrary carving up of the area back in the day. However, what made me write in the first place was a fear that whatever rationalism and calmness is left in this situation might just give way to a bellicose hystericism and an urge to declaim one side as evil and wrong over another, which is a trend i've felt in the media recently and could lead to a massive conflagration or war- almost like people stirring flames, whether its manipulating photographs to make explosions look worse, or almost implicitly labelling Israel as being like the Empire and intrinically, unalterably wrong - any kind of bias could be deadly at this time, especially when we have thousands of homegrown terrorists at home no doubt being riled and outraged by what they read in our press. and i'm not saying that anyone forces us to read anything, only that the media has got a huge huge responsibility to remain objective and unbiased right now and i've felt recently that some abstract notion of idealism has taken over. when we read articles in our liberal press we implicitly trust it to represent the real - we digest it without even thinking - thats what i meant by forced to digest. i'm probably more hysterical than the press though..
peace
Posted by: Al peters | 4:48pm 15 August 2006
you're bike diaries are hysterical. more please!
Posted by: ken | 10:45pm 15 August 2006
you're bike diaries are hysterical. more please!
Posted by: ken | 10:45pm 15 August 2006