Oh, and just in case sevastopol tries his normal lies about the PLO or their charter:
Post 40, by tom
Post 41, mine, with an unfortunately now-broken link whose contents I accurately reported when it was still working.
I don’t know. It hasn’t had a lot to say on the subject of Israel and the Palestinians. Of the three movies you mention, two are relatively obscure (I’d never heard of “Major Marcus”) and “pro-Israeli” output seems to be slim to nonexistent in the past few decades. For that matter, I haven’t heard of any entertainment epics favoring with the Palestinians or the Israelis coming out of foreign studios. Documentaries by various folks here and abroad, probably - but not big budget films.
The problem is, this doesn’t get us anywhere.
It would be just as easy, and ultimately uninformative, to state that because there are so few Jews in many foreign countries, and a greater residue of anti-Semitism, that the media “lean a little more in favour” of the Palestinians. That doesn’t tell us if coverage is fair or biased.
There don’t seem to be any exhaustive studies on the issue that go beyond things like word counts and anecdotes. Opinions based on the premise that the issues are cut-and-dried so that any deviation from orthodoxy constitutes bias, are worthless.
My own take (worth as much or little as any other) on coverage during the Lebanon crisis is that editorial opinion in the U.S. swung a little in favor of Israel, while “hard” news coverage went a bit the other way, amply highlighting Israeli military ineffectiveness (except in causing undue destruction in civilian areas) and in ultimately promoting greater power for Hezbollah. I can’t say much about foreign news coverage (except to anecdotally note a few amazingly biased pieces mingling news and opinion).
What’s apparent to me, once again, is that American coverage tends to be more nuanced and less “four legs good, two legs bad”. It’s frustrating to the true believers that the American general public has, over time, weighed this coverage and been generally and consistently pro-Israel. The answer to this, for those swayed to the Palestinian cause, is to make a more effective case for it - or even (gasp!) seek to reform that cause and make it better. The answer is not to seek bogeymen, conspiracies and scapegoats.
That way has proven to be a loser every time.
All of the West Bank is still patrolled by IDF troops, who control its border with Jordan. Everything between the Green Line and the Wall is occupied by settlers. Israel never gave up control of the Gaza Strip’s seacoast or its border with Egypt. And IDF troops are in the Gaza Strip once again.
As far as I can tell, you are referencing the Oslo accords, which I mentioned in my previous post, so accusing me of being unaware of them is kind of stupid, donchathink? In any event, the Oslo Accords recognized nothing, they simply provided a basis for peace that involved recognizing Israel, a step that the Palestinians haven’t formally taken. (unless you have that cite I asked for. Do you?)
Yea, you have a point. My statement was certainly exaggerated for effect, but the plain fact of the matter is that Israel has given back land in Gaza, and has, VIA the Oslo Accords, indicated their willingness to give back a lot more, but the Palestinians haven’t done anything on their side to reciprocate. Ever heard the expression “meet me halfway”? Israel is standing halfway with their hand out. Nobody on the other side is doing jack shit.
Here is your previous post. Please point out where you mentioned the Oslo Accords:
Perhaps this is the answer: Israeli influence on the media plays on the vulnerable and easily mislead. I can’t believe Weirddave is ‘exaggerating’ about mentioning the Oslo Accords.
By way of further explanation: When the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority. Yasser Arafat, recognises the state of Israel, that is formal recognition of the State of Israel.
Now your earlier claim that Israel would instantly make a lasting peace once that happened is shown to be false. Instead what happenned? Arafat’s Israeli partner in peace was assassinated by a terrorist. That’s right a terrorist assassinated the Prime Minister of Israel. Lucky the terrorist was Jewish, otherwise his family home would be bulldozed and the surrounds bombarded by the IDF. Anyway: Israel turned aggressive afterwards. Hard to believe. Jew assassinates Jew; Palestinians suffer, but there you have it.
No. The Gaza evacuation, while expertly sold as charitable in the US, was a mere strategic redeployment of Israeli troops and settlers into the parts of Palestine Israel really wants to steal and hang onto permanently.
That said, I’m glad we’ve recognised charity as a virtue: Arafat biography . You’ll note that the Oslo Accords and Arafat’s recognition of Israel are seperate events, occurring in the same year.
And if you need help, take a look at this map.
For further geographical info, you may want to check this site.
There are serious omissions from both those maps. It would be best to try again, starting with a source that is not a religious or partisan body.
Perhaps there is a world maps, or middle east map site you might use?
Here are the top three definitions from a google search “middle east” definition:
Definition 1 Large region that covers parts of northern Africa, southwestern Asia, and southeastern Europe consisting of Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Definition 2 An area comprising the countries of southwest Asia and northeast Africa. In the 20th century the region has been the continuing scene of political and economic turmoil.
Definition 3 Noun 1. Middle East - the area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to Iran; the site of such ancient civilizations as Phoenicia and Babylon and Egypt and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and Islam;
If your orientation is visual, the the third definition includes a map.
All right… I grant I didn’t know Cyprus was concidered part of the ME.
Apart from that… your point?
I’m increasingly finding it best to indicate the right direction and let people work out the facts themselves. Accost!
A couple of notes:
-
Can you give a cite for 1993 recognition? All I could find is websites quoting eachother “1993: Arafat recognized Israel’s right to existence”, but no actual reference. Note the cite upthread referes to a former statement from 1998, before PA, hence he was not the Chairman then. Re 1993, all I could find is a reference for a letter sent to Yizhak Rabin stating an intention to work toward … and not an actual recognition. It could be I didn;t look at the right place, though.
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A personal recognition, with all due respect, is not the same as a formal recognition. Was the PLO charter changed? How about Hamas’s?
Sevastopol, I really did ask what your point was, not trying to be sarcastic. Do you try to prove that other ME countries are democracies?
Puzzler and Sevastopol started throwing maps at each other after I said that I would not like to see the only democracy in the ME, namely Israel, wiped off the map because of anti-Jewish hatred.
So all of a sudden I am being shown maps of Israel and its neighbours. First of all, I am NOT an American so I have a pretty good idea of what the geography of other parts of the world looks like. (Sorry to take this swipe at Americans, but you have to admit that when it comes to geography, Americans on average are dummer’n ditch carp). What exactly is the point of showing me maps of Israel and its neighbours in the Middle East, may I ask? Am I supposed to be ablle to see democracy from a satellite photo?
:rolleyes: I am an American and frankly, I have a pretty fucking good idea of what geography in other parts of the world looks like too. But thanks for showing your prejudice…for no real point that I can see except to take a swipe at the US.
-XT
Well, after you mentioned that, Sevastopol replied with:
I just linked to a ME map. Frankly, I still don’t know what’s the point with the maps (as I stated above), and Sevastopol seem reluctant to answer for some reason. Guess I’m not smart enough for him.
I mentioned the Oslo Accords in post number #124. I can see how you might have missed it though, after all *you freakin quoted it in your post #129.
- :rolleyes:
All you have to do is read back up, or is your attention span so short that you are only capable of replying to whatever is in…oooh! Shiny!
No, in fact, it isn’t. You haven’t even provided a decent cite for that statement, and even if you produce a picture of Arafat walking around the Dome of the Rock carrying a “I <3 Jews” sign it doesn’t prove anything, and it’s certainly not formal recognition.
Balh, blah, blah. On one hand you accuse me of being brainwashed, on the other you post blatently biased tripe like this. My irony meter just exploded, then the pieces spontaneously reassembled themselves just so they could explode again.
I was apparently misguided in my belief that it would be possible to point people in the right direction and allow them to discover things for themselves.
Firstly to Weirddave:
Wikipedia on the Palestinian Charter
So while there is some residual controversy, it is clear that your original opinion was misguided.
Now:
Which facts do you now contend are unfounded:
-
Arafat’s Israeli negotiating partner was assassinated;
-
by a terrorist
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who is Jewish?
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Israeli politics became less conciliatory to Palestininans afterwards?
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Since the start of the Gaza evacuations, Israeli expansion in the West Bank has exceeded the Gaza withdrawl?
Valteron, generally how it works is that when you make a claim like ‘Israel is the only democracy in the middle east’ you can back it up. For example you can glance at, ooh say the large countries in; the Northern or Western Middle East. confidently declaring them not to be democracies. Showing evidence if necessary.
Now, overall the question is constant: How does it come about that in this day and age people with access to the internet can voice such easily demonstrable errors of fact; as Weirddave and Valteron have done? Where do these opinions come from? An agency of some sort seems the likely answer.
Now, someone has mentioned the phrase ‘evil Zionist’. The people behind this probably don’t see themselves as evil. More of a ‘lyin’ for zion’ thing. I would fondly imagine that the newly alerted SD readership might spot this when it happens again. However experience tells that these lifetime exposures to disinformation are not rapidly overcome by the simple, true facts. I would like to inquire of W and of V, how they came to believe these things?
Sevastopol,
I will try to address this in more depth (say state-by-state) later, but for now I will say that the wiki summary of the CIA World Factbook list these countries from you list as democracies:
Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey. I will add that I believe Yemen should have been included as an emerging democracy to the list.
Now Cyprus is not necessarily a part of the ME (it is a part of the EU).
Turkey is border case. Geographically it is partially in the ME. AFAIK, Turkey itself does not consider itself ME.
Yemen and Lebanon: these are young, fragile countries. I, for one, would love to see them flourish, and hopefully pull more ME countries into democratic regime.
As a side note (not wishing to start another map war), I’d note that although not part of the definition, I consider freedom to be a part of democracy. Given this, I think this map, that lists world countries according to their freedom is interesting. Green color denotes a free country. Now, note the tiny green spot in the ME?
Where might that be? A search of the thread does not turn up anyone using this phrase.
Yes, how does this happen?
I’m more likely to believe that misstatements on this subject come about because people are misinformed, careless or deliberately lie. I am willing to consider an “agency of some sort” if facts are brought to bear showing that this is so. But they never are.
We are well into “meander”.
:smack: young, fragile democracies