Unique imbalance when reporting Israel

I just had to write about my frustration over the recent murderous actions of the Israeli state in Gaza and the complete failure of the mainstream media (MSM) to report it fairly, far less (with a few exceptions) to condemn it in the strongest terms.

The temptation is to say nothing about it, as any commentary that is made about Israel is immediately seized on and decried as anti-Semitism. A. J. P. Taylor said: “Years of experience have taught me that one should never venture an opinion, favourable or unfavourable, on events concerned in any way with Israel or the Jews. Any attempt at a detached view opens the way for letters, telegrams, personal expostulations and, above all, telephone calls.”

I found out in the past that there was some truth in Taylor’s theory when I was critical of previous atrocities arising out of Israeli incursions (Pro-Israeli lexicon avoids terms such as “invasion”) into Gaza and Lebanon. The usual suspects, an apparent army of Israeli apologists from Newton Mearns etc., are on you like a ton of bricks.

These theist whatabouters ask: “What about the Arab countries ruled by tyrants, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East?” “What about Suni-Shia wars”, What about Islamic persecution of Christians in other countries”, “Why don’t you write letters about them?”

And of course the answer to them is that the double standards applied by the MSM and the world in general when dealing with Israel is unique. So blatant that it is an insult to anyone’s intelligence.

It is perhaps natural that the national media of a country involved in a war/conflict situation would shade the reporting of it favourably towards their own side and this is the case with the UK in actions such as Iraq, but there is some semblance of balance and objectivity as well as criticism, and even admitting the faults of our own people.

But when it comes to reporting or commenting on the Israeli’s by our press and politicians they are always blameless. Never the aggressor, always responding to provocation from (insert any of the following: Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, et al, and their actions are invariably portrayed as “targeted”, “measured”, and “reasonable” while the exact opposite to these euphemisms is what one sees with one’s own eyes. Year after year, decade after decade.

What makes me so angry about this when there are other injustices in the world? Well apart from the repetition and the uniquely biased reporting/whitewashing of Israel’s war crimes, there is the fact that my taxes pay for some of it and my elected representative usually takes part in the charade of turning a blind eye to, and apologising for, Israel.

Can you imagine if half of our parliamentarians were members of “Friends of Palestine” or “Friends of Islam”? Yet we accept that those who hold high office and vote on Middle East matters are Friends of Israel!

Can you imagine if TV footage showing mass slaughter of innocent civilians, men women and children by Islamic militants such as ISIS/Al Qaeda/Taliban and the commentator described these actions as targeted, measured, reactions to some previous alleged event, and blaming it on the victims? No of course not but where Israel is concerned we are expected to swallow this propaganda and pay a license fee to our national broadcaster for providing it.

Can you imagine video footage of Israeli Jews celebrating the deaths of schoolchildren in Gaza with taunts of “no school tomorrow the children are all dead” being shown on BBC TV? No it won’t happen but it did happen.

Haneen Zoabi

Ahmed Tibi

Another unique aspect is the history of the Jewish people who dominate in the Israeli state. In the main European people who were persecuted by many regimes through the ages and most recently by Hitler’s Nazis. I would have thought that the people who were persecuted and deprived of their land, homes and lives by the Nazis in the name of nationalist supremacy would have empathised with the rights of others under occupation. Yet it seems as if their hatred of the Palestinian people is all-consuming among the very people who should know better.

I don’t expect the Jews in Israel to be subservient to their Arab neighbours, but I don’t expect them to emulate the Nazis actions in the Warsaw Ghetto in brutality and savagery towards them. That, from a mighty, strong, state, against a poor, failed, state, is hard to comprehend.

The repeated humiliation of the Palestinian’s elected representatives/authority is difficult to understand as is the stranglehold of the economy by economic blockade and oppressive policing of what is in effect a huge open air prison.

I am not alone in my views on this topic and listening to the online Vox-Pop and speaking to young Muslims I am concerned that they are just as baffled as I am by the apparent blindness of the civilised, so-called, First World, to the excesses of the Israelis. And they are twice as angry as I am.

I will complain to my, usually, pro-Israeli MP/MSP, write to the press, even though letters critical of Israel are often not published and put up posts on blogs like this one, to vent my anger and frustration. But young Muslims may see Israel’s ability to act in breach of all international law without sanction as being evidence that there is nothing they can achieve by democratic means and Israel are free do what they want against the mainly Muslim Palestinian people without criticism or sanction.

Young Muslims, failed by natural justice, might seek recourse to the injustices against their co-religionists through violence.

They may see the only way to express their frustration as being violence against Israel and the sycophantic nations who allow that country to act beyond the pale.

LATEST. Greg Philo on Israeli PR. A must view!