This is not a question on the history (I studied that in school yonks ago, and it is still the same), But on the news coverage in the US. I am in Sweden and the coverage is fairly neutral, if slightly on the palestinian side (there are more Palestinian refugees in Sweden than Jews). The news keeps reporting that around 10 Israelis have died, compared to the 100+ Palestinians in the last 6 weeks.
There was a story about a Palestinian policeman standing on a hill directing the flow of ambulances to the clash points around him, he was not near any of the roiting, and a good distance from the border. He was shot half an hour after they interviewed him by Israelis. The implication being that it wasn’t a stray shot.
See… we’ve got this whole election fiasco going on… and as a result, the media has almost completely ignored, and therefore most people forgotton, everything that’s happening in the middle east.
Whenever the election coverage finally blows over, then perhaps We’ll start seeing more of it again.
Well, Kbutcher’s reply is an exaggeration. The strife in the mideast is big news here. Of course the presidential strife is bigger for the time being. Yes, that stuff makes it in print here. The Arabs got good publicity on the kid being shot, huddling for safety with his dad, of course, as the Arabs hoped. Some newspapers are pro-Arab and some are pro-Israel, but they all report what’s happening.
As far as those children being killed, I heard that the Arabs believe that’s a blessing. Not to pirate this thread, but does anyone know about that? I heard that if your child dies as a martyr against the Israelis, you do not mourn, but rejoice. However, that did not seem to be the case re that kid I mentioned above.
As a news anchor on a national network, I try to get an unbalanced account of the violence in at least a few times a night. Problem is, American news outlets tend to skew a bit to a Jewish angle, simply because of the number of Jewish folks living here… At least in comparison to Palestinians.
To answer the question, yeah, it does come across as something like 117 after today’s clashes, with tons more injured Palestinians, to far less Jewish casualties. Being neither, and not attached in any way to the violence, I wonder why it is that the Palestinians use the rocks, then get shot by submachine guns. There was an article in Time a few weeks ago, though, that recounts the diaries of about ten people, both sides of the violence, through out the past few weeks. If you get the chance, read it. It really does make you feel for both sides. I just can’t understand the violence factor of it. But it’s religious, so it doesn’t need to make too much sense.
You know, I keep hearing these figures thrown around by people who want to equate the rightousness of the cause with the number of casualties, saying, in effect “Well, far more Palestinians have died, so Israel must be in the wrong. Just look at the numbers.”
Well, you know something, when you start up with a better trained foe with better arms, you’re gonna get creamed. Its comperable to a situation where 10 kids go into a bear’s cave and start throwing rocks at it and poking it with sticks and then the bear kills seven of them. Sure it’s a tragedy that seven kids got killed. But that’s what you get for starting up with a bear!! You can’t say that the bear was wrong!
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Why? Because the rocks are deadly (we’re not talking about tiny little stones here…) and the Israeli army doesn’t issue rocks to it’s soldiers.
I’m willing to bet that if someone were throwing large rocks at you and you’re primary means of defense was a gun, you’d be shooting too.
Zev Steinhardt
Yeah, this thread was just to determine if the news was sent out in the US. Just because I keep seeing lots of rants about Palestinians using suicide bombers and such on buses and so on, but no one is mentioning how many Palestinians are being shot by the Isrealis. So the question is answered.
And I have no idea on how to solve the problem.
FloChi
OK, since this is asked and answered, I’m just going to close the thread before it become yet another middle East debate, of which there is no shortage in Great Debates.