What Media Bias?

“The prisoner issue is an emotional one for Palestinians after decades of conflict with Israel. Palestinians generally view them as heroes, regardless of the reason for their imprisonment. Israelis mostly view them as terrorists.” The Guardian.

This “regardless of the reason for their imprisonment” is the closest I have seen from the international media admitting that these “heroes” are murderers who targeted schools and hospitals.

“The Palestinians have now abandoned an undertaking to refrain from applying for membership of various international organisations; a step which displeases Israel and the Americans.” BBC.

The BBC often go to great pains to avoid saying that any Palestinian dictator ever did anything wrong. “Abandoned an undertaking to refrain from applying” rather than simply saying they did what they agreed not to do. “A step which displeases Israel and the Americans”. It is not a massive violation of an agreement with Israel and the United States; the only countries on this planet that are keeping Palestine alive. It is merely displeasing.

“There is an identical twin of this plane. It has been sitting in a hangar in Tel Aviv, Israel, for the past couple of months. There was a shell-game played with this aircraft. It was in the south of France, and then they moved it down to Israel. Speculation is that there was some sort of false-flag plan afoot, perhaps another planes-into-buildings deception like 9/11.” Press TV.

This is about how Israel made that Malaysia Airlines flight go missing. It is easy to dismiss stories like this as the rantings of crazy people. But the more the crazies rant the more people listen. The narrative used to be that all terrorists were bad. Now some are bad and some are good. Depending on whom they murder. Someday “terrorist” will be a positive designation.

“Palestinians want an independent state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - lands captured by Israel in a 1967 war.” Reuters.

This is my favourite. I see this all the time. Israel took this land away from poor innocent Jordan. The international media always ignore a few key points. What prompted Israel to “capture” this land from Jordan in 1967? Why was it under Jordan’s control? Was it considered an ancient Palestinian homeland whilst under Jordan’s control? What country was it part of before Jordan captured it? Anybody who cannot answer these basic questions, which are not at all subjective, is not in the least bit qualified to discuss this issue.

I live in a world where terrorists from repressive dictatorships are given equal standing from the international media as the democratically elected representatives from a progressive liberal democracy. This same international media would never label al Qaeda and the United States as equals. Or Tamil Tigers and Sri Lanka, PLA and India, Taliban and Afghanistan, FARC and Colombia, Shining Path and Peru, DHKP and Turkey. All of those countries are the good guys whilst the terrorists who blow people up are the bad guys. Most people will agree that strapping on a bomb and blowing people up makes you the bad guy. Unless you blow up Jews. Then you are an oppressed minority, despite being part of the overwhelming majority ethnic group in the region.

As we all know, minority groups are the good guys and majority groups are the bad guys. Yet all of the terrorist examples above are minority groups in their countries and they are the bad guys compared to that country’s majority. Israel, the bad guy, is the minority surrounded by a rather hostile majority of good guys. Maybe, just maybe, being in the minority or majority does not automatically make one right or wrong.

American liberals support homosexual rights, women’s rights, minority rights, abortion rights, gun control, high taxes, science, education, oppose capital punishment, religious law, and rabidly defend liberal political candidates who say and do crazy things whilst rabidly attacking conservative candidates who say and do crazy things. The same is true in other “western” countries. Although the terms “liberal” and “conservative” do not necessarily apply.

Arab dictatorships and terrorists generally want to kill or at least arrest homosexuals, kill or subjugate women, kill or at least subjugate minority groups, kill anybody who has an abortion or any doctor who performs one. They love guns, have little to no taxes, frown upon science and education, especially if girls want to get involved, absolutely love capital punishment and religious laws, and rabidly oppose any open dissent in countries where free speech is blasphemy. Liberals would not be very happy living in the average Arab state.

Israeli homosexuals, women, minorities have all the same rights as everybody else. Abortion is legal, guns are very hard to get, taxes are very high. Israel is one of the world’s leaders in medical research and technology, and environmental science. Education is open to anybody and everybody. There is no capital punishment or religious laws. The state does not demand that anybody keep kosher and does not give a rat’s ass if you honour Shabbat or not. I would argue that there is more freedom of speech in Israel than in the United States. Liberals flourish in Israel.

Yet American liberals, and often their equivalents in other “western” countries, support Arab terrorists and oppose Israel.

Aaron Sorkin has compared American conservatives with the Taliban. That is fairly extreme. But American conservatives actually agree with Arab dictatorship positions more than they agree with Israeli positions, albeit in a far more moderate form. Michele Bachmann says some crazy shit but the fact that she is allowed to speak in public shows that American conservatives are not the Taliban. And I would doubt that she has ever advocated throwing acid on a girl’s face. Yet American conservatives support Israel over these terrorists.

How does this make any sense? Has the international media mantra of Israel bad, terrorists good actually conditioned Americans to hate Jews in order to love Arabs? This would be odd when you consider that most Americans completely ignore the international media when it comes to any criticism of American actions. Also, and this might only be a minor point, the typical Arab terrorist would gladly sacrifice his own life to kill as many Americans as possible. The typical Israeli would not sacrifice so much as a bagel to kill an American. Israeli citizens and Arab terrorists might be equals in the eyes of the international media but there is a pretty big difference when it comes to our definitions of right and wrong.

I was very much on Palestine’s side before I came to Israel. Then I lived here and saw what it was really like as opposed to what the international media told me it was like. The more I saw people rationalising the murder of Jews and open support for terrorists the more I started to support Israel. Pretty soon terrorists will be like pirates. Everybody will love them and their madcap adventures. But pirates were murderers, rapists, kidnappers, thieves. In pirate movies the British Navy are the bad guys and the pirates are brave heroes who sing and dance.

Now I am not only protecting my family from people who would willingly kill their own families to kill people they hate. Now I am protecting my children from people who would willingly kill their own children to kill people they hate. I am not even a mother yet but I cannot imagine any circumstance where I would want to kill my own child just because I hate somebody’s religion or culture. I cannot imagine that it would ever be possible for me to hate any race or religion that much. I realise that racism is all the rage right now but how can hating others ever take precedence over protecting your own children?

Not only do these people hate Jews so much that they think all of this is reasonable, and they are willing to rationalise any horrors that terrorists commit against Jews, but they even take their hate a step further and complain that “the Jews” control the international media. If The Jews control the international media then I can only wonder what our devious master plan must be.