Anti-Israel prejudice by French and American media, or just normal SNAFU?

[december]

*Originally posted by jjimm *
**I was implying that there’s more than a whiff of conspiracy theory in the OP. Nothing more. **

I’m not sure what sort of conspiracy you’re talking about. I believe it’s established that the French and US media haven’t mentioned that this dramatic, anti-Israel story might have been incorrect. Why not? Possible reasons:

1. They don’t consider it important enough. After all, the death of that Palestinian was dramatic, but not a key event.

2. They don’t want the embarassment of admitting error.

3. They don’t want to give the Israelis a break.

#1 doesn’t seem convincing. The media gave a lot of coverage to the story; if there’s further information showing that may have been incorrect, the new information deserves some coverage, too.

IMHO #2 certainly applies to the US media. They don’t like to admit errors, and they usually get away with them. Thanks to the Internet, the media is now being held to a higher standard.

To analyze #3 requires some guesswork. Would the media have run a correction if the shoe were on the other foot? I don’t know. I can’t think of a comparable case the other way.

[Princhester]

*Originally posted by Doghouse Reilly *
**

No, I think the not-so-“unstated subtextual inference” (i.e., what the OP and others in the thread are really trying to say) is that the Palestinian Authority comprises a bunch of cold-blooded thugs whose trademark “standard manipulation of the foreign press” includes murdering their own people.**

Well you may be right about what the story is supposed to imply. If it has any factual basis. But if one looks at the situation and the story with open eyes, it’s not too hard to see that while the story might be true, it is also just the type of the enemy eats its own young story that propaganda machines have been churning out for millennia. Not only that, it is interesting that the story only says that that the bullet might have been fired by the Palestinians to create a propaganda story. And yet you and presumably others have swallowed that suggestion uncritically, as if there was actually any evidence that the Palestinians did shoot the kid on purpose. Which says more about your own views than about what the documentary actually said.

**In other words, we’re either Zionist conspirators or stooges of same. Nice. :rolleyes: **

I am quite prepared to accept that in your view of the world, those such as myself who are sceptical of some things the Israelis do or say believe that all supporters of Israel are Zionist conspirators or stooges of same.

But I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from suggesting that my view of the world is that narrow.