Western media slides into irrationality over Gaza flotilla debacle
Try this for a headline from the BBC: “Witnesses cast doubt on Israel’s convoy raid account”. That’s the lead story on the MidEast section of the BBC’s website. Here’s the first paragraph:
“Eyewitness accounts from ships raided by Israeli commandos have cast doubt on Israel’s version of events that led to the deaths of at least nine people.”
So, members of a virulently anti-Israeli convoy whose friends, colleagues and soul mates launched a violent attack on Israeli soldiers which ended in bloodshed have a different version of events from the Israelis, their sworn enemies? That’s a quotable lesson in BBC propaganda: people whom the average 11 year old could see have a conflict of interest are passed off as objective “eyewitnesses”.
But if you think that’s stupid, wait until you see what the Guardian’s serving up as Middle East editor Ian Black refers to the predictable condemnation of Israel in the Islamic world and then feigns surprise that it has been echoed in the West:
“Far more striking,” he writes, “was the wave of critical statements by normally friendly countries, with Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, calling for the lifting of restrictions on Gaza. France, Sweden, Denmark and Greece all summoned Israel’s ambassadors for explanations.”
“Normally friendly countries”? The British Foreign Office is so notoriously hostile that its MidEast team is habitually referred to as the “Camel Corps”. France has been the most viscerally anti-Israeli country in Europe since Charles de Gaulle called the Jews an “arrogant and domineering people” back in the 1960s.
Sweden last year became the wellspring for one of the worst anti-Semitic blood libels in living memory when the country’s best selling newspaper Aftonbladet released the Jew-organ-harvesting story while the country’s government actually condemned its own ambassador to Israel for distancing the Swedish authorities from it. I’ll give Denmark a pass for the moment since, with all due respect, it’s not a major player. As for Greece, it is probably the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, though I concede that the competition is stiff.
If this is what passes for being “friendly” to Israel you get a startling insight into the calculus that informs the Guardian’s broader worldview.
Still, the media has not been alone in the irrationality of its response. I noted in a postscript to my previous entry that CNN was carrying a strapline (on the afternoon of the day the story broke) as follows: “EU condemns use of excessive force, calls for investigation”.
But why call for an investigation if you’ve already drawn your conclusion that the use of force was excessive? That, in fact, provides a pretty fair summary of the way in which most Western leaders have responded to this affair. They say that they don’t know what happened (therefore there needs to be an investigation) but condemn Israel all the same, thus saying that they do in fact know what happened.
And that’s the price you pay for adopting the anti-Israeli agenda. It’s not just your basic political principles and values that get flushed down the toilet, it’s your capacity for reasoned discourse as well.
Watch this space…
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Tags: Israel
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:59 am
Anyone who watches the various videos can clearly see what happened. Yet so many people still refer to the attackers as “peace activists”. There is a complete refusal to even consider any/all evidence that justifies Israeli action.
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:16 am
What can I say except once again you are a voice of reason amidst the multitude of idiots who leave intellect and reason behind predjudice as they descend into madness in thier virulent hatred and libel against Israel. However the implications of the dishonest and unbalanced reporting of Israel feeds anti-semitism, prejudice and is very dangerous. It is amazing given our troops are out in Afghanistan risking life and limbs, and yet far more coverage is given to this matter which has the distinct odour of a set up against Israel, to advance Islamic aims and to take the focus of Iran. I have read that Denmark has actually fingered IHH for terrorist links and report they have been implicated in Afghanistan, Bosnia etc. So why is the West not calling this to account but going after Isreal?
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:40 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvS9PXZ3RWM&channel=idfnadesk
Here is evidence of what was aboard the Marmara.
(Of course, the BEEB will cast aspersions by saying that the IDF ‘claims’ that this weaponry was found. )
“Even diehard supporters of Israel admitted it will find it difficult to spin away this story” : we don’t need to spin; we just want to make sure that the media stops applying double standards and examines all the evidence.Admittedly Israel has been slow to release the footage but it is available now,for all to see.
Here is a link to an op-ed in Ha’aretz :
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/it-s-time-for-real-disengagement-1.293671
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:57 am
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e109.htm
“I have read that Denmark has actually fingered IHH for terrorist links and report they have been implicated in Afghanistan, Bosnia etc. So why is the West not calling this to account but going after Isreal?”
See the link above Charlene : a full pdf download is available and it makes for a very worrying read.
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:15 pm
wendy, yes – the journalistic nonsense that the BBS is always “says” that “Israel says…” (of course keeping an artificially ice-cold posture that is designed to sell their underlying premise that “HEY, You should not believe anything at all these b*sta**s tell, because they are just a bunch of LIES anyway!”, but the strange thing is that they very-very rarely use the term “the Palestinians say” or “Mahmoud Abbas says”, the “Palestinian Authrotiy says” or EVEN! “Hamas says” along these lines… Didn’t you take note?
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Nothing better demonstrates the irrationality to which Robin Shepherd refers than this editorial from the Guardian newspaper:
Gaza: From blockade to bloodshed
Nothing has done more to establish Israel’s status as a pariah state among its neighbours than the actions of its armed forces
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/01/gaza-blockade-bloodshed-editorial
Just take a look for example at this small extract from the article:
“There was nothing on board those ships that constituted a threat to Israel’s security, so Binyamin Netanyahu’s argument that his troops were acting in self-defence has no validity. They should not have been there in the first place. The convoy was carrying construction materials, electric wheelchairs and water purifiers for Gaza’s people. This was recognised by the Israeli navy, who said in a statement that it had offered to transfer the aid by land to Gaza”
Two comments:
1) How could Israel possibly know that there was “nothing on board those ships that constituted a threat to Israel’s security” until the ships had been searched?
2) The Israeli navy had not recognised that the goods were harmless at all. They had asked that the ships dock at Ashdod where the goods would be inspected. Once it had been established that no harmful materials were in the ships’ cargoes the goods would then be transported to Gaza.
The Guardian’s lies are now so transparent and its rhetoric so incredibly inflammatory that there can be little doubt that its chief objective is the destruction of the Jewish state. It is in other words the Der Stürmer of our times, a truly evil newspaper.
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Yes, Robin is right on Black’s feigned surprise. Denmark for example – and Germany too, as I decipher from events the German FM led by Guido Westerwelle did not use the term “summoned” the Israeli envoy – not really called in the Ambassador to reprimand but more to inquire about their citizens. There is a difference. Yes, good remark: “The competition is stiff” – how true. The worst “usual suspects” in the competition are probably Greece, Spain neck and neck, immediately behind them by a nose-long distance Ireland, Sweden, Norway, then virtually centimeters behind Belgium, France and still somewhere among them England (Britain). (Eastern-Europe is a class of its own in this recpect.) The funny thing is that paradoxically the motherland of Nazism – as I keep hearing more and more – are somewhat oddly a prodices only a garden-variety anti-semitism in much of the country (btw stunningly beautiful and scenic, I admit I love it! Sorry!), but certain parts geographically are very brutal like Carinthia and parts of Salzburg. Btw, not in eevry capital can you organize an Israeli Summer Festival for a week without hindrence. Wien (Vienna) is such a place! and for i it earns my sincere appreciation and recpect! Try doing the same in London!
June 2nd, 2010 at 3:07 pm
England’s rise to world power dominance began with the return of the Jews under Cromwell. Its slide from that pinnacle to depths not yet plumbed started with England’s backtracking White Paper and Mandate’s disregard.
Guess it must be that “Saxon” gene among the anglo-saxons, you know, the same Saxon gene found among Germans that contains the spark of hatred for Jews generally, Israel specifically.
June 2nd, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Joshua: “The Guardian’s lies are now so transparent and its rhetoric so incredibly inflammatory that there can be little doubt that its chief objective is the destruction of the Jewish state.”
Well, only partly true. It appears that this urge is now – there’s a fine melodic French expression for it – its raison d’etre.
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:42 pm
They are known as ‘peace activists’, as many are followers of the ‘Religion of Peace’.
I hope that is clear.
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Link to the pictures
http://tundratabloid.blogspot.com/2010/06/vlad-tepes-republishes-excellent-post.html
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:01 am
Come on: who are you going to believe, a bunch of thuggish Islamists or your lying eyes?
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:37 am
I think Spain is more anti-Semitic than Greece, but the competition is, as you say, stiff. Greece has been more thoroughly infiltrated by Palestinians.
June 3rd, 2010 at 8:57 am
Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, makes an excellent point:
“Look at what appears to have been a very serious military error made by the German army in Northern Afghanistan last year when something like 50-150 civilians were killed in an air strike,” he said.
“Where was the independent inquiry about that? Where were the calls for an independent inquiry about that? Why is it that Israel is subjected to that kind of call when other democratic countries aren’t?”
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=177334
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This piece is also well worth reading:
The left’s selective outrage by Peter Hitchens
http://tinyurl.com/3aj3g8t
via Stephen Pollard’s blog at the JC
http://www.thejc.com/stephenpollard
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:09 pm
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/65245/sec_id/65245
A very good article
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I have been reading earnest accounts of the miserable conditions in Gaza, as if Israel claims that the standard of living there is great. Of course it isn’t! Now if they would only stop insisting on their right to kill us, and trying to implement it at every opportunity, we could all cooperate in raising it.
What I don’t understand is why, with millions of people who have never tried to kill anyone being starved and massacred every day, so many apparently well-meaning people devote themselves to ensuring that the Gazan’s dedication to killing us doesn’t result in any inconvenience to them whatsoever.
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:39 pm
The Guardian as a newspaper has lost all credibility of impartiality. It no longer ‘reports’ the news, it ‘creates’ it in order to fulfil its own agenda. It therefore follows that nothing that it prints can be believed.
One note of optimism: at least on the talkbacks at the Daily Mail and Sky News today they are overwhelmingly pro-Israel and most commentators are aghast at the Mail describing these ‘peace activists’ as ‘heroes’, wrapped as they were in either Palestinian or British flags. The concensus was that they should rot in Israeli jails.
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I think it could be described as ‘ moral inversion’ Naomi;or the flat earth mentality.
An irrational and passionately held belief which flies in the face of decency,common sense and evidence.
A repressive and sinister regime is held up as a worthy cause and as a victim, whereas a small beleaguered democracy,which shares our western values , is denounced as an evil and belligerent aggressor.
I call this oxymoronism, because it is intrinsically contradictory : Hamas/ Hezbollah-democratic freedom fighters and brave resistance heroes; Israel-evil illegitimate Zionist entity. Unfortunately this distorted thinking has gone viral and has infected many members of the so-called intelligentsia.
June 3rd, 2010 at 8:12 pm
I include here a blod I have tried to leave on the BBC website that totally inverts the import of the account given by a returning activist.. I am sure the BBC moderators will censor it, because it so damning of their editorial practices, for that reason I include the shocking report again here:
” I just saw Channel 4 item on Sarah Colbourne, one of the returning pro-Palestinian activists and then read on the BBC website the report by Peter Watkins of the same event. The later managed to leave out entirely her saying that she said she was not on the upper deck and did not see what happened there. As a result her account of helicopters, shots, the injured, the peaceful activists suggested the awful murderous Israeli’s are to blame. But in the filmed account, you can understand why she thought that – because she did not see the orchestrated mob violence that the rest of us have seen and which clearly shows life threatening action taken against the Israelis. This is a pernicious distortion and typical of what has been going on the last few days. It is as orchestrated as the events on the top deck of that blighted vessel. No wonder the report is instantly no longer available – because it reveals the blatant manipulation of the news.”
June 4th, 2010 at 2:19 am
Shocking Video: Footage Taken by “Peace Activists” on Flotilla Shows one of Them Stabbing an Israeli Soldier…
This is the first footage I’ve seen taken by the “innocent activists” themselves and it is by far the most damning…
http://weaselzippers.us/
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An Open Letter to Turkey
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/06/open-letter-to-turkey.html
June 4th, 2010 at 4:20 am
it’s become a pathology, this irrational hatred towards israel, there is no quick fix and anyone attempting to look at the situation with rationality is condemned. here in sydney the journalist who was on board has written a huge piece (not on the internet strangely) where he and his colleague faced the brutality of the israeli army, they describe the army as hyenas etc.
not once does the paper mention the journalist has a palestinian girlfriend who is an activist.
our pm has condemned israel, so has the opposition. yet the australian navy behaves in a similar way as illegal boats enter our waters, although no one is killed as far as i know.
the israeli pm is correct. hypocrites.
June 4th, 2010 at 10:00 am
This new Jerusalem Post article sums up what really happened. Any chance of the truth being broadcast on the BBC ? Not a chance in hell.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177445
June 4th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Naomi: “What I don’t understand is why, with millions of people who have never tried to kill anyone being starved and massacred every day, so many apparently well-meaning people devote themselves to ensuring that the Gazan’s dedication to killing us doesn’t result in any inconvenience to them whatsoever.”
I think no one commenting before me discovered the true root cause of the issue.
Wendy: “I think it could be described as ‘ moral inversion’ Naomi;or the flat earth mentality. An irrational and passionately held belief which flies in the face of decency,common sense and evidence.” Yes, yes, but still not good enough wendy. Sorry. These are just the symptoms, but not the disease.
What is the disease then?
The most fascinating country in the Western world,- and civilization to study and research today is Sweden. Sweden?????!!!!!! Yes, Sweden.
What happened to Sweden is happening to ALL the countries without excpetion, only the people don’t realize anything — yet.
The root cause of everything is the – according to modern political studies – is the so-called IVth branch of power, beside the other 3: legislative, executive and judicial. It’s called: the MEDIA (plural) or conservatively called: “press”.
This is *IT*. Nothing else. In Sweden – but in almost all other places too – some few thousand (politically hard-left radical) people hijacked the country since the early-middle 60s. (Of course the judiciary and the political establishment played their necessary parts as well. Britain – thank God still did not reach so far, but its judiciary definitely DID.) They dictate nearly eevrything that goes in the country (Sweden). Without wishing to appear as a freak, I am not readily available to freaky conspiracy theories.
If you read Jean Sevillia’s book (former editor of the conservative Le Figaro, a mainstream newspaper in France): The terrorism of intelligentsia, then you realize that those on the barricades in Paris and elswhere in France in ’68 and later are the ones today who are largely (not totally, not exclusively, but largely) call the shots and pull the strings. Not just in France, but mostly everywhere in Western-Europe and the anglo-saxon world (USA, CDN, AUS, NZ etc.)
IF the media had not constantly crowed about the Gaza, what Gaza!, the so-caled Palestinian lie (one of the biggest lies in the XXth century in my opinion) daily, then no one would be talking about Gaza now, there wouldn’t have been Rachel Corries and Tom Hurdalls and others then(dupes of the lie – well, only partly true in Corrie’s case, since she was an insane bloodthirsty terror-supporter as evidenced by the photographs that were taken in Seattle at “Evergreen College” – an extremist place of higher learning in name only – showing the raging face of a maniac/fanatic in the midts of the burning American flag). THEN the world’s perspective and thinking would be totally different – and let me say, sane or saner.
But this is not the case, and the reason this is not the case is the fact that a few thousands nearly everywhere hijacked their countries, nations and their so-called public opinion.
It’s quite diddicult to make a difference between fascism and “communism” in this case.
Back to Sweden:
Many people say that Sweden will be the first country in Europe that will cease to exist somewhere in the XXI century. This is all, but certain. Well, I couldn’t care lss about the wellbeing of the Swedes. If they were stupid enough, their problem. But others should learn from their case. Sweden is a “democracy” in all but name today. It’s a soft totalitarian dictature. A built-in Taliban-style pseudo-democracy in Europe. How many of you KNOW that Sweden (just like Norway, but even ther the rules are looser) has a state-run press-commission that readily finances publication according to their “needs”? That even the European Union has deemed it contrary to democratic values and fundamental principles and urged it to stop. In vain.
Sweden’s humanitarian champion PR is a ruse and a sick trick. And the world fall for it. Why on earth do you think that the Guardian claimed that “Sweden is the most successful stae of History ever”. Not kidding. Why do you think that is? And what actually would be prepared to do with their own conutry if had the opportunity.
If we are not aler we will end up like Sweden.
Aux armés citoyens!
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/04/fjordman-jihad-and-the-collapse-of-the-swedish-model.html
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2005/04/resignation-rules.html – (this is part 3 and former parts of the series available before)
June 4th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
And sorry for talking too much again. My above “story” is still not the root cause. The genuine and veritable “root cause” if you are brave enough to dig to the core is one thing and one thing only. It’s a name – one name. Sorry for being theatrical here. The embodiment of EVIL, a despicable antisemite. No, not Hitler, nor Stalin, or not even Lenin. His name starts with an “M”…
June 4th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I was thinking about Wendy’s comment that the anti-Israel mobs are like flat-earthers. The difference is, only a small minority of people generally believe something contrary to all evidence and common sense. There seems to be an important element of social pressure involved here, which would be supplied by the media, as stated in the comment above. In other words, we are seeing a significant percentage of the Western world turn into rhinoceroses.
June 5th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Oh joy. Today The Independent has exceeded even its own usual levels of anti-Israel vitriol.
On Page 17 Christina Patterson, referring to the aid boat interception, queries whether “the actions of violent racist thugs against peaceful protesters are a move towards peace in the Middle East.”
On Page 47 . . . wait for it, guess who it is? Yes, it’s Richard Ingrams!! Here he intones about “a country that pursues an apartheid policy in land which it has illegally occupied by force, that thinks little of killing large numbers of innocent civilians . . .” blah, blah blah, before inevitably ending with the Tory party’s policy on the Middle East being “largely dictated by the Zionist lobby.” Seems somewhat contrary to Robin Shepherd’s next post on here, wouldn’t you say?
Finally to round things off, how about the advert taken out by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign on Page 32 (whose logo by the way is a map of the State of Israel), with the headline “BOYCOTT ISRAELI GOODS.” Has anyone started a blog yet showing the availability of Israeli goods so that I can go out and buy lots more of them?
And to think I’m only half-way through the paper.
June 17th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Re. my own country Sweden and the flotilla, please read what the Swedish success author cum Gaza-activist Henning Mankell’s views on Israel. Henning Mankell took part in the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.
I think it is of general interest to know Mankell’s views on Israel from its establishment to the present day.
When the Swedish part of the Ship to Gaza campaign was launched at a gala event at Södra Teatern (Southern Theatre) in Stockholm August 15th 2009, Henning Mankell made an extensive speech on how he saw the present situation in Israel and Palestine. He also talked about his views on Israel, how it was established and how he viewed the state, comparing it to South Africa during the apartheid days and how he sees the future for the Jewish state.
I have translated as literally as possible from the text http://www.shiptogaza.se/sv/henning-mankell-om-gaza which still is present at the Swedish Ship to Gaza website:
On Israel as a state and its establishment:
“It’s like experiencing a ghost raising from its grave. It’s like watching the South African Apartheid system arise again from the historical scrap heap where it was finally dumped around 15 years ago…
But one cannot of course compare South Africa with Israel and Palestine. There are historical differences that in many ways are decisive. The Israeli state was established after World War II when the shattered Jewish people had all bloody aces on hand (my italics). After what Nazism had done to all the groups of “untermenschen” of which the Jews had formed such a large group.
One can consider or play with the thought that if it today in 2009 had been possible to so quickly and easily establish a state as Israel (was established). On occupied land where other people were to be expelled. Of course not….
It is important to never forget this, that Israel is created on the basis of an occupation. Nothing else. The whole present structure of the state is based upon developing this occupation. ..
On the two-state solution and suicide attacks “
“What will the future look like? There I think the people gathered here today aren’t all agreed. Many, perhaps most people here, think a two-state solution is the future solution that must be implemented to dismantle the terrorist Israeli state. (For me that the more or less desperate bomb attacks, suicide attacks and the like, is an expression of the Palestinian resistance, no more no less: resistance against an occupation power. It is not more noteworthy than the fact that Norwegian resistance liquidated renegades or quislings during the Nazi occupation. If one is oppressed, one responds with resistance).
….My alternative (to the two-state solution) is: what you can call the rainbow-state after South Africa. A land where open elections will lead the popular majority, the Arabs or Palestinians to get to a position of power (my italics). But those who have previously oppressed them will be granted full civil rights – without privileges – in the country.”
June 27th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Inside documents of the Free Gaza Movement seized in the recent flotilla expose considerable discrepancies between its strategy and tactics and its public stance. The documents prove, among other things, the attempts to conceal the aid to the Hamas administration since Hamas is designated as a terrorist organisation in the US.”
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ipc_e101.pdf
It needs to be read by as many as possible”!!!