Israel

[Vēritās]

Yeah, what’s interesting is Jew-hatred has really ramped up over this one. It’s coming from the progressive Left, the hard Right, and of course Islamic types of all flavors. Gad Saad, who is a frequent guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast, said, “Each group utilizes a different set of tropes but all share diabolical, orgiastic, and hateful foaming of the evil Jew. It is unrestrained all-consuming genocidal hate.”

They cry out as they strike you? I dunno. This observation rings a little hollow at the moment, but alas, I’m an American *shrugs*

I’m worried about this one. It’s *this* close to spinning out of control thanks to the Russians getting the Iranians to use their proxies to strike at Israel.

- Doc

As long as you're not confusing "Jewish hatred" with criticism of Israel or our support for their apartheid and genocide.

[Vēritās]

Seems like a religious thing to me, but I also realize humans would just find other reasons to kill each other in droves a la Ukraine.
- Doc

Of course it is religious. Contrary to what some might think, it isn't that complicated. Netanyahu recently invoked the Bible recently and Israelites frequently call the Palestinian Arabs "Amalekites."

What better way to convince the world you're not engaging in genocide than to cite the Bible which speaks of slaughtering all women and children?

Bibi said, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.”

And Samuel said, “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

But Israel isn't engaged in a religiously motivated genocide at all, right?

But yeah Doc, people can make all kinds of excuses to slaughter each other. But Religion just makes it easier, faster, more intense and above all, justified.

[Vēritās]

Your original claim was that the media immediately leaps to pro-Israeli positions about the conflict.

I'm shocked that anyone not named Ajax would even think about disputing this. It is a point that has long been established. We didn't even really get into the fact that Israel just made up a fake audio clip in an attempt to blame Hamas for Israel's bombing of a Gazan hospital. But why isn't the media focusing on this? Because Israel is God's chosen people and Palestinians are terrorists or terrorists in training. That's the narrative. Israel is presumed to be our closest ally whom we must subsidize and defend at all costs no matter what atrocities they commit as we enable them.

In a 2011 study conducted by the Glasgow Media Group on the news broadcasts of the BBC, the differences in the language used by journalists for Israelis and Palestinians was documented.

The study found that the BBC used terms such as “atrocity”, “brutal murder”, “mass murder”, “brutal cold-blooded murder”, “lynching” and “massacre” to describe the deaths of Israelis, and that the word “terrorist” was often associated with Palestinians.

=========================

Israelis are quoted and speak in interviews over twice as much as Palestinians and there are major differences in the language used to describe the two sides. This operates in favor of the Israelis and influences how viewers understand the conflict. The study focused on BBC One and ITV News from the start of the current Palestinian intifada, the Glasgow researchers examined around 200 news programs and interviewed and questioned over 800 people.

The study is unique in that for the first time it brought senior broadcasters together with ordinary viewers to work in research groups, analyzing how the news informs people and how it could be improved. Those taking part included George Alagiah and Brian Hanrahan from the BBC, Lindsey Hilsum from Channel 4 news, the film-maker Ken Loach and a large number of other broadcasting professionals and program makers. The study was part of a large research program analyzing views and audience understanding across a range of subject areas.

The excerpts below illustrate some of the book's major findings.

Excerpt 1

There is a preponderance of official ‘Israeli perspectives’, particularly on BBC 1, where Israelis were interviewed or reported over twice as much as Palestinians. On top of this, US politicians who support Israel were very strongly featured. They appeared more than politicians from any other country and twice as much as those from Britain.

Excerpt 2

TV news says almost nothing about the history or origins of the conflict. The great majority of viewers depended on this news as their main source of information. The gaps in their knowledge closely paralleled the ‘gaps’ in the news. Most did not know that the Palestinians had been forced from their homes and land when Israel was established in 1948. In 1967 Israel occupied by force the territories to which the Palestinian refugees had moved. Most viewers did not know that the Palestinians subsequently lived under Israeli military rule or that the Israelis took control of key resources such as water, and the damage this did to the Palestinian economy. Without explanations being given on the news, there was great confusion amongst viewers even about who was ‘occupying’ the occupied territories. Some understood ‘occupied’ to mean that someone was on the land (as in a bathroom being occupied) so they thought that the Palestinians were the occupiers. Many saw the conflict as a sort of border dispute between two countries fighting over land between them. As one viewer put it:

"The impression I got (from news) was that the Palestinians had lived around about that area and now they were trying to come back and get some more land for themselves - I didn’t realize they had been driven out of places in wars previously."

Excerpt 3

Journalists gave different views on why there was so little explanation on the news. George Alagiah from the BBC stressed the problem of time:

"In depth it takes a long time, but we’re constantly being told that the attention span of our average viewer is about twenty seconds and if we don’t grab people - and we’ve looked at the figures - the number of people who shift channels around in my programme now six o’clock, there’s a movement of about three million people in that first minute, coming in and out."

Lindsey Hilsum from Channel 4 News also commented on how difficult it was to report in a controversial area:

"With a conflict like this, nearly every single fact is disputed, I think ‘Oh God, the Palestinians say this and the Israelis say that…’ I know it’s a question of interpretation so I have to say what both sides think and I think sometimes that stops us from giving the background we should be giving."

Excerpt 4

Because there was not account of historical events such as the Palestinians losing their homes, there was a tendency for viewers to see the problems as “starting ” with Palestinian action. On the news, Israeli actions tended to be explained and contextualised - they were often shown as merely “responding ” to what had been done to them by Palestinians (in the 2001 samples they were six times as likely to be presented as “retaliating ” or in some way responding than were the Palestinians). This apparently influenced many viewers to blame Palestinians for the conflict, as in these comments from two 20 year olds:

"You always think of the Palestinians as being really aggressive because of the stories you hear on the news… I always think the Israelis are fighting back against the bombings that have been done to them."

"I wasn’t under the impression that Israeli borders had changed or that they had taken land from other people - I thought it was more a Palestinian aggression than it was Israeli aggression."

Some people disputed such views but they tended to cite alternative sources of information other than the television news.

Excerpt 5

In news reporting there was a tendency to present Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as vulnerable communities, rather than as having a role in imposing the occupation. But as the Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has written, they have a key military and strategic function. They have been built on hilltops to give a commanding position and their occupants are often heavily armed. The Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, has pointed to its role in attacking Palestinians in attempts to seize land. Most viewers knew very little of this - one describes his surprise at learning that the settlements controlled over 40% of the West Bank:

"I had absolutely no idea it was that percentage… I saw them as small embattled and surrounded by hostile Palestinians - that’s entirely thanks to watching the television news."

Excerpt 6

There was a strong emphasis on Israeli casualties on the news, relative to Palestinians (even though Palestinians had around 2-3 times the number of deaths as Israelis). In one week in March 02 which the BBC reported as having the most Palestinian casualties since the start of the intifada, there was actually more coverage on the news of Israeli deaths. There were also differences in the language used by journalists for Israelis and Palestinians - words such as ‘atrocity’, ‘brutal murder’, ‘mass murder’, ‘savage cold blooded killing’, ‘lynching’ and ‘slaughter’ were used about Israeli deaths but not Palestinian. The word ‘terrorist’ was used to describe Palestinians by journalists but when an Israeli group was reported as trying to bomb a Palestinian school, they were referred to as ‘extremists’ or ‘vigilantes’ (BBC 1 lunch time news and ITV main news 5/03/02). TV News coverage influenced some viewers to believe most deaths had been Israeli as in these comments about the reporting of suicide bombs:

"I remembered it was the suicide bombers - they are the one who go in and take maybe a whole busload and I thought it would be more Israelis."

And this is from a viewer who believed the Israelis had five times as many casualties as Palestinians:

"I would imagine it’s going to be more casualties on the Israeli side, but it’s purely from television - that’s where I get my information from."

Excerpt 7

The journalists and researchers also looked at issues of cultural difference. They asked viewers if they ‘saw’ conflicts in terms of who they identified with? Do we sympathize immediately with people who look and sound like us and reject the views of people who look ‘strange’? The research showed that our perceptions of others are affected by such factors but the journalists wanted to know what they should do about it. Should they intervene to help audiences ‘see through’ cultural difference by appealing to more universal values, e.g. concern for human suffering or loss – and should this be done in the name of balance? This is explored in a number of fascinating exchanges between journalists.

[Vēritās]

While Veritas and Res Ipsa are trying to figure out who is the most pedantic (my money is on Res Ipsa)

Pedantic:

"It typically describes an irritating person who is eager to correct small errors others make, or who wants everyone to know just how much of an expert they are, especially in some narrow or boring subject matter."



I actually had no idea it meant all of that too.

[Vēritās]

This is from March of this year, reporting on the incidents of attacks on Palestinians committed by Israeli "civilians":

Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians by the numbers

On February 26, at least 400 Israeli settlers attacked several Palestinian villages in Nablus, including Hawara, killing one man and injuring hundreds of others. Settlers burned down more than 30 homes and at least 100 cars while beating Palestinians with metal rods and rocks. According to Israeli media, six settlers were arrested.

On March 1, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister who also handles civil administration in the occupied West Bank, said Hawara should be “wiped out”.

What are Israeli settlements?

Israeli settlements are Jewish communities built on Palestinian land. Between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers live in at least 250 settlements and outposts built by the Israeli government and settlers, across the occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem. That is equivalent to roughly 11 percent of the total Jewish Israeli population. They live beyond the “internationally recognized” borders of their state, on Palestinian land that Israel militarily occupied in 1967 and continues to do so until today. Settlers also lived in the besieged Gaza Strip until 2005, when they were evacuated.

settlers.jpg

Israeli settlements are illegal under international law as they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans an occupying power from transferring its population to the area it occupies. This is for a variety of reasons, including protecting civilians from the theft of resources by the occupying power and to prevent changes in the demographic makeup of the occupied territory.

The majority of settlements have been built either entirely or partially on private Palestinian land. Despite being outside of Israel proper, these settlers are granted Israeli citizenship and receive government subsidies that significantly lower their cost of living. In contrast, Palestinians living in the West Bank are subject to Israeli military law.

The majority of settlers are armed and Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem suffer from hundreds of Israeli settler attacks each year. Such attacks, which include shootings, stabbings, arson, beatings and rock-throwing, have become more organized over the past few years. Every year, thousands of Palestinian trees and cars are burned by these settlers. Many of these incidents have been recorded on video showing that the attacks often take place under the protection or in coordination with the Israeli army, sometimes with soldiers and settlers shooting side by side.

Increasing number of settler attacks

Between 2010 and 2019, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded at least 2,955 settler attacks, in which at least 22 Palestinians were killed, and at least 1,258 others were injured. The governorates of Nablus, Hebron and Ramallah had the highest number of incidents. Since the start of 2023, Israeli settler-related violence reached an average of three incidents per day compared with two incidents per day in 2022, and one incident per day in 2021, the UN told Al Jazeera. This is the highest daily average of settler-related incidents affecting Palestinians since 2006, it added.

settlers2.jpg

According to Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, which has been tracking settler violence since 2005, just seven percent of settler attacks have led to criminal charges with only three percent of investigations leading to a conviction.

Palestinians killed by settlers in 2023

During the first two months of 2023, at least five Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. In comparison, three Palestinians were killed in 2022, five in 2021, none in 2020 and two in 2019.

settlers3.jpg

[Res Ipsa]

Veritas, I said go to hell. I meant it.

Your new chronology doesn't show what you claim at all. You are still including things other than media articles, which is what our disagreement is about. You still have cherry picked a handful of media articles out of literally thousands of stories and articles published by the media in the time frame your examples cover. You haven't shown any kind of consistent pattern of overstating civilian casualties even within a single media outlet, let alone across multiple media outlets.

The reporting for weeks now has been a steady drumbeat describing the horror of what Israel is doing in Gaza. Exactly as it should be. What is occurring is horrific. That doesn't make your claim about the American media correct. it makes it wrong.

Your claim, and the claim of the source you cited, was a pro-israel media propaganda campaign consisting of a two-week barrage of misreporting what the 1400 figure was. It was false when you made the claim. It's still false. You haven't shown it. I already showed you multiple example of correct reporting by the very sources you cherry picked from either on the same day or on adjacent days. If I thought you had the slightest interest in the truth, I could show you 10 correct descriptions of the 1400 figure in the same publication for every incorrect example you gave me. But your posts don't indicate to me any interest in the truth at all, so i won't waste my time.

I don't think you understand at all how offensive it is for you to claim that my position is so unreasonable, it could only be made by a Jew. Likewise, your defense of the notion that Israeli civilians aren't real civilians.

But I'm sure, now that the israeli government has concluded and stated that 200 of the unidentified dead from October 7 were more likely Hamas terrorists, you'll be chasing a new rabbit.

Count me out.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well. “F”.

I have friends in “the community” - I can’t name names and I can’t name organizations or units. Unfortunately, word has been relayed to me that a former unit of mine has canceled something called a Cross Brief. A Cross Brief, with regard to this old unit of mine is a fairly important and high-level’ish, but important, thing that happens. It’s so important this Cross Brief has only been canceled two other times - Gulf War I and Gulf War II.

“The situation that necessitated cancellations then is the same one we find ourselves in now, a strategic inflection point for the nation that demands significant portions of our combat power.”

Don’t ask me what that means, because I don’t. I can tell you the Unit was inserted in-country both times for targeting, and this kind of vibe follows. tl;dr - there’s a good chance escalation is happening, and it’s probably not insignificant.

- Doc

[Jersey Girl]

Well. “F”.

I have friends in “the community” - I can’t name names and I can’t name organizations or units. Unfortunately, word has been relayed to me that a former unit of mine has canceled something called a Cross Brief. A Cross Brief, with regard to this old unit of mine is a fairly important and high-level’ish, but important, thing that happens. It’s so important this Cross Brief has only been canceled two other times - Gulf WarI and Gulf War II.

“The situation that necessitated cancellations then is the same one we find ourselves in now, a strategic inflection point for the nation that demands significant portions of our combat power.”

Don’t ask me what that means, because I don’t. I can tell you the Unit was inserted in-country both times for targeting, and this kind of vibe follows. tl;dr - there’s a good chance escalation is happening, and it’s probably not insignificant.

- Doc

Looks like there's talks of an actual cease fire agreement in the works. But that could be total hogwash.

[Jersey Girl]

Veritas, I said go to hell. I meant it.

Your new chronology doesn't show what you claim at all. You are still including things other than media articles, which is what our disagreement is about. You still have cherry picked a handful of media articles out of literally thousands of stories and articles published by the media in the time frame your examples cover. You haven't shown any kind of consistent pattern of overstating civilian casualties even within a single media outlet, let alone across multiple media outlets.

The reporting for weeks now has been a steady drumbeat describing the horror of what Israel is doing in Gaza. Exactly as it should be. What is occurring is horrific. That doesn't make your claim about the American media correct. it makes it wrong.

Your claim, and the claim of the source you cited, was a pro-israel media propaganda campaign consisting of a two-week barrage of misreporting what the 1400 figure was. It was false when you made the claim. It's still false. You haven't shown it. I already showed you multiple example of correct reporting by the very sources you cherry picked from either on the same day or on adjacent days. If I thought you had the slightest interest in the truth, I could show you 10 correct descriptions of the 1400 figure in the same publication for every incorrect example you gave me. But your posts don't indicate to me any interest in the truth at all, so i won't waste my time.

I don't think you understand at all how offensive it is for you to claim that my position is so unreasonable, it could only be made by a Jew. Likewise, your defense of the notion that Israeli civilians aren't real civilians.

But I'm sure, now that the israeli government has concluded and stated that 200 of the unidentified dead from October 7 were more likely Hamas terrorists, you'll be chasing a new rabbit.

Count me out.

Hmmm...didn't read the remarks that led to this post but 5'll get ya 10 that they're filled with irrational hatred for Israel.

Just a guess.

[Vēritās]

Veritas, I said go to hell. I meant it.

Your new chronology doesn't show what you claim at all. You are still including things other than media articles, which is what our disagreement is about. You still have cherry picked a handful of media articles out of literally thousands of stories and articles published by the media in the time frame your examples cover. You haven't shown any kind of consistent pattern of overstating civilian casualties even within a single media outlet, let alone across multiple media outlets.

The reporting for weeks now has been a steady drumbeat describing the horror of what Israel is doing in Gaza. Exactly as it should be. What is occurring is horrific. That doesn't make your claim about the American media correct. it makes it wrong.

Your claim, and the claim of the source you cited, was a pro-israel media propaganda campaign consisting of a two-week barrage of misreporting what the 1400 figure was. It was false when you made the claim. It's still false. You haven't shown it. I already showed you multiple example of correct reporting by the very sources you cherry picked from either on the same day or on adjacent days. If I thought you had the slightest interest in the truth, I could show you 10 correct descriptions of the 1400 figure in the same publication for every incorrect example you gave me. But your posts don't indicate to me any interest in the truth at all, so i won't waste my time.

I don't think you understand at all how offensive it is for you to claim that my position is so unreasonable, it could only be made by a Jew. Likewise, your defense of the notion that Israeli civilians aren't real civilians.

But I'm sure, now that the israeli government has concluded and stated that 200 of the unidentified dead from October 7 were more likely Hamas terrorists, you'll be chasing a new rabbit.

Count me out.

Hmmm...didn't read the remarks that led to this post but 5'll get ya 10 that they're filled with irrational hatred for Israel.

Just a guess.

LOL. Another admission of not reading while at the same time accusing me of refusing to see other view points.

Equating criticism of Israel's murders with "irrational hatred for Israel" isn't just stupid, it is also lazy, and straight out of the ADL playbook. You and Res are doing everything you always bitched and moaned about when people would call ajax a Nazi.