Michael Shine: Can any blame be apportioned to poor journalistic reporting, for the amazing and sudden rise in world-wide hatred of Jews, as seen in recent demonstrations in many locations?
Michael Shine
The anti-Israel world would have us believe that instability in the middle-east is due to Israel defending itself against, and fighting terrorists. This attitude, particularly from European and American young left-wingers claiming to be pro-‘Palestinian’ human rights believers, but who are actually anti-semitic and anti-Israel demonstrators, whose views have been formed not by studying the actual situation and reading the history of the area, or learning about the conflicts, but from incitement by biased news journalists and blatant one-sided news stories which appear on their screens or are published in the poorer quality newspapers.
The majority of the misleading articles coming from Gaza do not show Israel in a particularly good light – not totally surprising really as all, or at least the majority of the journalists there, are apparently too scared to show Hamas operatives firing their rockets from schools and hospitals, or showing Hamas stringing up (20, some say 30) local Arab demonstrators for daring to oppose the Hamas brutality. This Finnish reporter said that she was aware of Hamas rocket firing from a hospital but did not want her comment used for (pro-Israeli) propaganda: http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Rockets-are-launched-from-Gazan-side-into-Israel-says-foreign-journalist-369804 or this similar piece from an Italian journalist: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/safe-from-hamas-italian-reporter-reveals-the-truth-about-gaza/2014/07/30/ and yet another story from a Spanish journalist who is reported as saying: “If we were to point our cameras at Hamas, they would simply kill us!” http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/31/spanish-journalist-on-why-hamas-never-photographed-in-action-if-ever-we-dared-point-our-camera-on-them-they-would-simply-shoot-at-us-and-kill-us/
There are some journalists in Gaza who are either deliberately slanting their reporting by lies and deception (or maybe just by lack of journalistic ethics) as with this caught out reporter:
http://bbcwatch.org/2014/07/31/the-curious-case-of-a-dual-identity-bbc-interviewee-in-gaza/
Indeed, so poor have reporting standards from Gaza appeared to be recently that the Washington Post was actually moved to post this questionnaire: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/07/31/forty-questions-for-the-international-media-in-gaza/ Replies have yet to be published.
The infamous U.S.newspaper, The NY Times, said that it had not published any photographs of Hamas operatives firing rockets from ‘civilian’ shelters, mosques and schools, because they didn’t have any good ones. Yeah! Right!!
http://www.jta.org/2014/07/31/news-opinion/nyt-on-why-no-photos-of-hamas-fighters-we-dont-have-any-1
Michael Shine
So, if the world is being led by the nose by unethical and misleading reporting, predominantly aimed at demonizing Israel, how will the grass roots people, the ones who are rioting and demonstrating because of what the tabloids tell them, come to understand that the enemy of democracy, the enemy of peace, is not Israel? This is an interesting commentary from the BBC programme Newsnight just last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjgfnS7qKCI which goes some way to explaining that middle-east politics and middle-east conflicts, have very little to do with Israel’s desire to stay alive. Why else would it be that throughout this recent conflict, countries that have steadfastly condemned Israel, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan etc. in the past, are now staying silent? It may well be because these countries have now come to realize that their enemy is not Israel – it is Hamas, it is Isis, it is Hezbolleh, it is all of these internationally recognized terrorist organizations whose main aim is a global Caliphate, and the death of all people who disagree with their ideology (which also calls for the destruction of Israel and America and ANY country that does not bow down to Islamic Jihad).
One of the most effective ways that Hamas and similar terrorist organizations have of riling up public opinion against Israel is to have coward international reporters tell the world its lies. Much of the current spate of international anti-Semitism can directly be attributed to inaccurate and misleading reports from Gaza of (inaccurate) numbers of civilian casualties, with emphasis on the unfortunate amount of young and female casualties, with no reference whatsoever to Hamas casualties. The numbers of casualties reported are those given out by Hamas and their UNWRA supporters and are largely unsubstationated by any independent sources. If you or people that you know in the UK, in France, or wherever, have recently seen or experienced overt anti-Semitic acts, this is what has been instrumental in bringing the Jew-haters out from under their stones. See this article by Richard Kemp an acknowledged expert on combating terrorist guerillas: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4570/gaza-civilian-casualties?anid=4
Many of these people, the ones vociferously expressing their anti-Semitic views and joining the anti-Israel demonstrations in Paris, in London and in other parts of Europe and cities in America, are likely to find, that if they are not careful, the Islamists will be coming for them too. After all that is what they are saying they will do, (but not reported too often) and the demonstrators just can’t hear them. As I am constantly saying: “There are none so deaf as those that refuse to hear
Michael Shine
