It isn't just because of things we do. The decline in Israel's image (see
Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds and
Battle for hearts and minds - why it is important) is heralded not only by negative media coverage of specific events like
Operation Cast Lead but also by gratuitous slanted feature coverage.
Time magazine was not content with Tim McGirk's libelous and unprofessional coverage of Israeli "atrocities" in Gaza. A subsequent
feature by Andrew Lee Butters reminds Time's readers of the plight of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Articles about Palestinian refugees are a reliable staple of anti-Israel propaganda. The suffering of the refugees is real, but when it is portrayed, as it always is, as the result of Israeli obstinacy and evilmindedness, it becomes a tool in the war against Israel, which is precisely the reason the refugee issue is perpetuated by the Arab countries.
Butters' article contains the usual quota of distortions and omissions. He tells his readers incorrectly that
UN Resolution 194 "calls for Palestinians' "right to return." He portrays Palestinian terrorist groups that were originally formed for infiltration into Israel in the sixties, as groups formed for self defense against Israeli attacks (presumably unprovoked). He neglects to mention that the refugees' families got to those camps because of their enduring refusal to recognize the right of the Jews to a state of their own. He also doesn't mention that the poverty and misery of the refugees is due to the refusal of Arab states to integrate them and provide a new life for them, insisting instead on perpetuating the misery of the UNRWA camps. In all, this is the sort of feature article, replete with the photos of miserable and poverty stricken Palestinians, that one would expect to see in the propaganda organ of a totalitarian Arab state.
Subsequently, Time outdid itself with an
article, ostensibly about Gaza reparations, which states :
Indeed, facilitating any progress in the Middle East's most intractable conflict will require that the Obama Administration revisit two articles of faith of the Bush Administration: a refusal to accept Hamas as a legitimate representative of a substantial section of the Palestinian population; and a reticence to apply pressure on a reluctant Israel to take steps that may break the impasse.
The Bush administration and the Quartet were quite willing to recognize Hamas if Hamas would recognize Israel's right to exist, put an end to violence and accept the agreements that the Palestinian Authority had already negotiated. The Bush administration's refusal to recognize the Hamas government was due to the declared program of the Hamas, which is to destroy Israel and murder the Jews, as well as to the "democratic" manner in which Hamas took power by murdering its Fatah opponents.
Evidently Time endorses the Hamas program and their method of changing government, and urges the Obama administration to adopt it. It is unlikely however, that "reluctant Israel" will take steps to break the impasse regardless of any pressure, because the only "steps" Israel could take to "break the impasse" would be to agree to its own destruction. Moral qualms aside, if the Obama administration legitimizes Hamas without insisting that Hamas abandon its genocidal program, it will be killing the U.S. backed peace process that has been the centerpiece of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East for over 30 years, and handing victory to Iran and its allies, whose goal is to sabotage the peace process in order to fight US influence in the Middle East.
Time's campaign against Israel is bizarre, though similar changes have come about in previously respectable and professional mass media. It is hard to believe that Time Magazine's editors really think that Israeli soldiers are the monsters portrayed in Tim McGirk's coverage, or that they really do not know what UN Resolution 194 actually states, or why the United States does not recognize Hamas. The distortions and omissions can only be malicious and intentional.
It is impossible to know whether they have abandoned professionalism in favor of what they believe to be pop politics, or whether blatantly biased editorial policies are dictated by petrodollar investors.
In any case, you can indicate your dissatisfaction by writing to letters@time.com.
Ami Isseroff
Original content is Copyright by the author 2009. Posted at ZioNation-Zionism and Israel Web Log, http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000664.html where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Disributed by ZNN list. Subscribe by sending a message to ZNN-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by e-mail with this notice, cite this article and link to it. Other uses by permission only.
Replies: 1 Comment
In the area of the American liberal media, of which "Time" is a foremost example, antiSemitism is now quite acceptable. I have been saying that for years.
Howard Wolf, Wednesday, March 4th
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