Nothing. I cannot name a single news outlet that is not biased in anyway. Just like BBC is biased in favor of the Palestinians, Fox News is biased in favor of the Israelis. This does not mean that their reporting is incorrect. It’s safe to assume that any news report they produce is factually accurate; bias has to do with what news they present or how they present it. For instance, BBC might use a headline like, “One Israeli, one Palestinian killed in new violence” to refer to a Palestinian suicide bomber killing one person beside himself. This headline at first gives the impression that both were equally victims of a killer, or that they both died in battle with each other. Similarly, a conservative-oriented source such as Fox might use the term “homicide bomber” - technically accurate, but probably intended to agitate people and make the murder sound even more gruesome.
Coincidentally, I wrote a letter to the BBC a couple of days ago on this subject:
*Dear Sirs:
The cited article seemed remarkably unsympathetic to the innocent victims of this attack. The article had nothing about the victims that a reader could identify with. You did not identify them by name. You didn’t give their ages or name the town where they lived. You didn’t mention their occupations. You didn’t even tell your readers whether the murdered child was a girl or a boy. From another source I learned that nine orphans were left behind by this shooting – a fact you might have included. The ugly implication seems to be that you consider, “Jewish settler” to be a sufficient description of a human being.
I appreciate your inclusion of the word “terror” in the highlighted quote from David Baker. Still, you ought to call the attackers “terrorists,” rather than “militants,” because that’s what the dictionary says they are.
As you know, Salah Shehada had organized several terrorist attacks, which killed and maimed dozens of Israeli civilians. He was reported to be planning additional attacks. It was inadequate for you to describe him as merely a “senior militant” and the “leader of the armed wing [of Hamas].” Your description does not convey the level of threat that he represented.
december*
The cited BBC article is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2154141.stm
Mandos and december:
I think there is something which you fail to understand about the UK position on the Israel/Palestine situation. Whereas the US government tends to unambiguously be on the side of Israel, the UK is officially neutral between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The UK Foreign Office has always referred to the two territories as “Palestine” and “Israel”. The US government does not refer to “Palestine” - they call it “the Palestinian territories” or something.
Despite the fact that the UK created Israel and supports its existence, it is officially neutral and always has been.
The BBC is not biased, it is neutral. It just seems biased to you because US-based news outlets are generally more supportive of Israel. It probably seems pro-Palestinian to you (because it’s different to what you’re used to) but it’s not. It’s not pro-anyone. It’s neutral.
I understand your POV, Jojo. Would you care to refute the points in my letter to the BBC?
If the BBC is unbiased, can anyone explain its coverage of Jenin?
december, sure, no problem:
The BBC’s job is to tell you what happened, not to give you in-depth biographies of each and every person who gets killed in the middle-east.
If they are going to provide all this information every time, then they’re going to get pretty boring to read after a while. When I read a headline news story, all I need to know are the pertinent facts.
The BBC described the victims as “Jewish settlers” - that’s all we need to know to get the idea. Obviously they will have had families, everybody in the world has a family. Telling me that these victims had families does not add any new information to the basic story, I coulda figured THAT out by myself.
This attitude may seem a bit harsh but the news business is like that. If I wanted to know more details about this story I would look for a more in-depth story somewhere else - maybe one of the BBCs special reports from Israel.
“Terrorist” is too general a word. It doesn’t really tell you anything. In particular it doesn’t tell you which group they are from. The BBC article makes it clear they are from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. This is much better because it’s more specific and more concise.
It’s just plain better writing.
Also, terrorist carries emotional overtones (particularly these days). It seems to imply that anyone who is a terrorist is An Enemy. Like with Osama. But the situation in Palestine is more complicated than it is with Osama.
Most people (even most Jews) think that the Palestinians do have some cause to be unhappy with the current situation. Most Palestinians feel aggrieved, some of them are more militant than others. So calling them “militants” is more accurate.
Calling them “terrorists” doesn’t actually get us any closer to finding out what’s actually going on over there. It’s just a superfluous phrase designed to provoke an emotional reaction from the readership.
This paragraph is just plain bizarre.
You say:
and yet they’ve just described him as the leader of the armed wing of Hamas!!!
If he’s the head of Hamas then I think we can fill in the details ourselves. It hardly comes as a surprise to learn that the head of Hamas is planning further attacks.
Thats like:
NEWS FLASH - POPE INTENDS TO STAY CATHOLIC, BEARS ANNOUNCE THEY WILL CONTINUE TO SHIT IN THE WOODS
It’s not really news that the head of Hamas may have been involved in other attacks and planning further ones. So once again, the article is better without your proposed addition. It’s concise, it’s clear, it gets the point across without confusing the issue with emotional overtones.
Mandos
Like it or not, the onus is on Israel to be the responsible party in this situation. This is because they’ve got all the weapons.
When they exert their considerable military power in poor, crowded places like Jenin you can damn well bet on it that the BBC will be watching very closely. As they should.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Efrem *
Acts of poverty driven crime that outlaws commit are not in any way a national agreement of Turkish support.
Acts of poverty driven crime? WTF does that mean? They’re poor, so they blow up cafeterias and bus stops? How exactly does A follow B in that scenario?
Or should we just understand?
There are quite a few things that you don’t understand. :rolleyes: If you had brothered to review the disscussion in question you would have read this.
The claim by Sofa King:
My highlighted response:
Their was not one word of ‘blow(ing) up cafeterias and bus stops’. NONE. This fact is clear from the disscussion. Please stop trolling for a response.
OK, Efrem, I’ll bite…
I think Sofa King’s point was that we Americans should now have a sense of what Israelis live with, given that we have also now been attacked by Islamic suicide terrorists, the kind Israel encounters on a weekly basis (and would on a daily basis were it not for the top-notch work of its police, military, and intelligence forces). Though I’ll admit that Sofa King’s language is too emotionally charged to be a salient debating point.
**
While this is already being discussed in another thread, I’ll point out that Israel’s actions, as long as you consider them military operations and Shehadeh a legitimate target in and of himself, were legal under the Geneva Convention.**
I cannot understand people who are in opposition to both collective punishment (as I am) and assassination (as I am not). Assassination is the only way Israel can precisely get who it wants to get. As has already been pointed out, policing and capturing terrorists in the territories would be at least as illegal and definitely more dangerous to both Israeli officers and Palestinian civilians.**
Although I’m opposed to the settlements, I assume you support the Palestinian right of return? Please comment on how you think these are any different, especially as the right of return would allow all Palestinians to come back to Israel, not only those who have deeds to existing properties.**
Of course, if the Palestinians were let out, you would be angry about the civilians who died while caught in the crossfire during military operations, no?**
Israeli policy says deportation would only happen to those family members involved in terrorist attacks.**
This economic “strangulation” is an unintended side effect of a policy designed to keep Palestinian suicide bombers from entering into Israel. It of course hurts the Israelis as well, since they are losing a huge labor source. But if the US reduced the number of Mexicans who could come across the border to work in the US, would you call that the economic strangulation of Mexico?
What else is Israel to do when the homes that are being razed are used as command-and-control centers and firing outposts for terrorists?
Cite?
Of course, the Boers never left a bomb in the Oxford cafeteria.
It’s not. But democratic institutions (and that doesn’t just mean elections - I mean, hey, Saddam Hussein was so popular he got 99% of the vote! - but also the rule of law, independent judiciary, and a recognition of individual rights also).
A terrorist dictatorship? A way to use the world’s money to make bombs and produce anti-Israel propaganda? The best proof that the Palestinians shouldn’t have their own state at this point in time?
Well, that was because they never brought Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the negotiating table. See, while groups like that (which I’m sure you of course condemn, but don’t think Israel should do anything about) explicitly call for the destruction of Israel, Arafat thinks it should be done more subtly, through the “phased plan” of 1974. But occasionally, his real ideas manage to leak out. Like when he supports agreements with Israel in the name of al-Hudaybiyah (which, for those who don’t know, is where Muhammad made a truce with the Quraish tribe so he could build up his army and break the truce two years later). Or how his kaffiyeh is worn unconventionally to his right side, not coincidentally shaped like the state of Israel. Or the fact that even since the Palestinian Legislative Council voted to eliminate the call for the destruction of Israel from the PLO Charter, the charter has not been re-issued since then, rendering the amendment meaningless.
I admittedly do not know much about Palestinian support or lack thereof for the Ottoman Empire, so I’m not going to address the topic with ignorance.
Neither did the Jews. The Palestinians were offered the first ever Palestinian state, and instead joined with Syria, Jordan, & Co. to attempt to destroy Israel. With no help from the rest of the world, Israel successfully defended its borders. The Palestinians (though nobody ever used that term then) made no demands for a state, and the Arab states were quite content to keep them in refugee camps, used as pawns in the larger Arab-Israeli conflict. After the failure of the 1973 attack on Israel while Jews were at Synagogue, not eating for the day on Yom Kippur, the Arab states decided that their primary vehicle for aggressing Israel would be Palestinian terrorism rather than a war against a country which had proved it could defend itself against all odds.
Which is, of course, a bullshit argument, since the Palestinians have been offered a state numerous times, and every time the result was increased violence against Israel.
As if the Israelis just came in and put their houses on Palestinian backyards! In nearly every case territory was bought from Arabs who thought they were cheating the Jews. However, their intended victims of deception used irrigation techniques and Western capitalist ethics to turn the place from a worthless desert to a thriving modern society.
I’ll concede that there were Palestinians forced out of their homes, but this was the exception rather than the rule. Those who were should be allowed to press their claims in Israeli courts. Israel has those, while the Palestinian Authority only has “courts” - though I’m sure that’s the Jews’ fault.
Well clearly the Jews weren’t going to stick around in Europe! Clearly they had to go somewhere, and there was plenty of low-value land to move onto in Israel. To say that Britain favored the Jews is foolish. Britain capped Jewish immigration despite the need to escape from the Holocaust - which was being perpetrated by Britain’s own enemy. In fact, Britain promised both sides things it could not deliver, and even actively promoted conflict between Jews and Arabs so that there would be less of a threat to its rule in Palestine. It was eventually decided that two states should be made out of none; one side accepted, the other side made a losing bet that it could have everything, despite having nothing before.
No, you’re right, massacres were the way to go.
This is not Godwin. Sofa King did not draw a comparison with the Nazis; he pointed out the fact that Palestinian leaders in the era of the Holocaust supported the Nazis. Do you deny that this happened? Today’s Palestinian leaders are the ideological heirs of those from the 30s and 40s, and many, especially those at the top of organizations like Hamas, still believe that Hitler was doing the right thing. I don’t have a cite for this on hand, but I can find one if you don’t believ me.
The German government has not actively attempted the murder of Jews since 1945.
Destroy the Israelis. The mere fact that they were living in that region did not make it all “their” land. By and large, the Jews moved on to uninhabited land or land they bought.
The Arab states, who were aligned with the USSR, did use the Palestinians in opposition to Israel. Don’t know if you could call that “help”, but Israel is not automatically guilty for being stronger.
Having already stated my opposition to this policy, I’m not going to reply.
But you didn’t prove your point. There is plenty of evidence that the dominating powers in the territories (Israel excluded of course) are opposed to the existence of Israel. The very act of sending attackers into Israel proper makes it clear that they are not mounting a resistance movement. Simple civil disobedience to Israel would have gotten them a state a long time ago; history has shown that civil disobedience works in getting countries with free presses to change their policies. Even armed resistance against Israeli military operations in the territories, without the simulataneous assaults inside the 1967 borders, would show that the Palestinians only want a state for themselves on the West Bank and Gaza. But when Palestinian TV shows for kids talk about how wonderful it is to be a suicide bomber, and Palestinian textbooks have maps labeling the whole of Israel and the territories “Palestine”, how can you not believe that the Palestinian Authority believes in the total destruction of Israel?
Ha. Two words: Camp David.
Well, no, but [url = “http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2002/p4epressrelease.html”] the majority do support suicide bombings inside Israel. And as I pointed out above, the children are being educated to destroy Israel by any means necessary. There used to be more people in favor of piece with Israel, but Arafat [url = “http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,422379,00.html”]killed them.
You are right. They don’t deserve a corrupt terrorist dictatorship at the hands of Arafat and his cronies, or the nuts at Hamas. Which is why Israel should launch an all-out assault on the leadership of every Palestinian terrorist group, including Fatah, then organize a Marshall Plan-style operation to rebuild Palestinian society to be better than the rest of the Arab socialist backwaters and fundamentalist theocracies. It will of course take a decisive victory, and may very well not happen, but Germany and Japan haven’t caused much trouble in the past 50 years.
And you accuse us of emotional appeals?
Define responsible. What sort of action should Israel take. Oh, also, what would you call the human bombs used by Hamas? In regard to Jenin, do you think it is appropriate for anyone involved in reporting to call something a massacre before all the facts are in? Would you be under the opinion that it was a massacre? This would be interesting, as Israel could easily have bombed Jenin in the air. Instead, they used ground troops in an attempt to minimize civilian casualties. They could easily have saved the lives of their soldiers through a strike from the air, but they did not. Look what this choice did for Israel: the “world” (I have yet to understand what is meant by “world” in such situations") was still outraged. It was instantly labeled a massacre. The number of dead was presumed to be hundreds when in fact it was much lower. I believe that the BBC was among the guilty in their eagerness to label it a massacre.
The Palestinian terrorists set off a human bomb. The radical Zionists move in a few dozen settlers. Either action is guaranteed to derail any negotiations. Sharon managed to sabotage peace with a single visit to a holy site. The Palestinians should have seen through this ploy and ignored him. I know, time travel is not practical and hindsight…
As has been stated before - but deserves restating - the radicals on both sides control the agenda. In the eternal battle between the screwheads and the doomed, it is clear that the Middle Eastern campaign is going to the screwheads.
Peaceful resistance has never* worked in the past, but the Palestinians might want to give it a try before the Israelis blow all the occupied territories into dust. Under the duress Israel faces, what advanced nation would not use its technological edge to crush the enemy?
*sarcasm alert
Here’s the “biased” BBC reporting about the “biased” UN report on Jenin.
Guess what it criticizes both sides.
jjimm said:
I’m confused. Are we talking about the bombers or the IDF?
I would recommend that your check out this site:
http://www.ict.org.il/researchreport/researchreport.htm
A quantitative analysis of the “body count” may surprise you.
Which group do you think I’m talking about?
That is indeed a very thorough analysis, and horrifying. The conclusion drawn:
I don’t think that the bombing in question was a deliberate attack on civilians. It was at best negligence, but more likely expedience with no regard for civilians.
The fact that a higher proportion of older people and women have been killed by “suicide morons” than by the IDF is a testament to their barbaric methods of blowing up the innocent and vulnerable. Palestinian non-combatants killed tend to be younger and male. What’s the implication that the compilers of the statistics want us to draw - young men are guilty by association? They’re bound to be involved somehow?
Why haven’t the analysts put up figures of non-combatants killed as a proportion of total population? Or town by town?
From those figures, the total cumulative death toll of non-combatants, regardless of age and gender, stands at 600 innocent Palestinians killed by the IDF, and 400 innocent Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists.
In other words, the body that prides itself on its democracy has killed 50% more civilians than that which has open, wanton terrorism as its modus operandi.
The analysis of the stats seems to say “look, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. are terrorists; Israel only kills civilians who get in the way”. Well, duh. It doesn’t make the killing of innocent civilians any more right in my eyes.
Correction: 450 innocent Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists, making Israel’s killing of innocent civilians 33% higher.
Yojimbo, perhaps I have misunderstood the situation with the BBC, but what you mentioned means nothing. Even if they were biased, they would have every motivation to retract their accusation when proved false. Jojo, if they claim to be unbiased, that does not mean that they are. Why would they admit to a bias? Now, would someone respond to my suggestion that it wouldn’t have made a difference? Even if there had been just one child killed, and I doubt civilian casualties could be avoided completely, though perhaps someone on this board could prove me wrong in that regard, the world would have been outraged. Or, at least, I would get that impression from Jenin. The world was so quick to eat up the claims of “massacre.” Israel could have bombed from the air, not risking its soldiers. What other motivation could there be for using the methods they did other than minimizing civilian casualties. Once again, if someone with experience can prove me wrong in this regard, I will retract my statements. In any case, the “world,” though are we referring to the entire world or just parts of it. What exactly is meant by the “world community?” I always seem to get the impression that “world community” rarely refers to the whole thing. I am getting sidetracked, aren’t I? Well…perhaps someone can clear up my bewilderment about such matters.
Israel has publicly and repeatedly stated that Palestine has no right to exist.
Could we stop beating this horse? CPR attempts have failed.
Sua
jjim
I assumed that you were talking about the IDF. The point was that your comment applies equally well to the suicide (homicide, moron) bombers.
You could make the same claim if 3 Palestinians and 2 Israelis were killed. From the same source, you could also say that “the body that claims to be the victim of aggression has killed 350% more women” than the other side. You can play all sorts of amusing games with the numbers, but that was not my intention. You were the one who called attention to the disparity between Palestinian and Israeli deaths, implying (to me anyway) that this constitutes proof of Israeli disregard for civilian life. This “proto-fact” is raised time and again as proof of Israeli barbarity. A less visceral look at the numbers belies this however, and shows the ratio of civilian deaths to be about 57:43, advantage, Palestine. Hardly overwhelming, considering the disparity in weaponry and training between the two sides.
You have me totally stumper by this one. Not only do I not get your point, I don’t understand where you dug this out of. I think you meant “Palestinian combatants killed tend to be younger and male?” This is not a well-kept secret.
All that tells me is that Israel is doing a better job at protecting its citizens than the Palestinians are.
I bump into your rype of logic all the time, and I don’t understand it - really. I mean, does the side that’s suffering more always have the moral high ground? Do we have to let ourselves be victims in order to earn your approval? I just don’t get it. Aren’t we allowed to win?
Might may not make right, but it doesn’t necessarily make wrong, either.
Mandos
Responsible action
I would call them “suicide bombers”. The problem is you are equating Israel with Hamas. The two are not comparable. Israel is a democratic, sovereign state whereas Hamas are a bunch of terrorists. The things that Hamas do are, of course, criminal but then they are a bunch of criminals so what would you expect?
Israel, on the other hand, aren’t a bunch of criminals. They are a nation state. Therefore they should not act in a criminal way no matter what the provocation is. They should act in accordance with justice. They should be responsible and proportionate. They should do absolutely everything possible to minimise civilian casualties.
No.
No. In fact the UN have reported today that it was not a massacre. See yojimbo’s link above. 52 Palestinians killed as against 23 Israelis.
They could have, yes. But this would have been an insane course of action. I think even Sharon may have realised that this would be somewhat over the top.
You don’t seem to get the point. Just because Israel “only” sent tanks and troops in as opposed to using nuclear weapons doesn’t make them all saintly and virtuous all of a sudden.
Remember what I said about them being a sovereign state and about how the onus is on them to act proportionately and responsibly.
I don’t think they were “among the guilty”. They reported that some people thought that there may have been a massacre. They didn’t say it was a massacre, they just told us that some people thought it was a massacre.
So all they did was tell us the facts. This is what a good news outlet should do.
And it wasn’t just the BBC who were concerned since the United Nations also commissioned a report into it.
True. And your point is…?
They wouldn’t, and your point is…?
You aren’t arguing with the BBC, you’re arguing with me and I’m saying they aren’t biased.
You are correct that civilian casualties are sometimes unavoidable but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t at least do our utmost to avoid them.
So if that one child casualty could have been avoided then I would want to know why it wasn’t.
There’s no such thing as an acceptable level of innocent deaths. ALL innocent deaths should be avoided, if at all possible.
Thats because Israel has tanks, warplanes, troops, big guns etc. Also they have something of a past history of being slightly “gung ho” in using them.
Yes but this would have been insane. We covered this earlier.
I’m sure they did try to minimise civilian casualities. No one has suggested they weren’t trying to minimise civilian casualties. People are just worried that maybe sometimes they don’t try hard enough.
Also using foot soldiers is more precise. They can make sure they get the particular people they are after. An airstrike would have been clumsy (as well as insane).
Even old Ariel “bombardment” Sharon himself could see that so I don’t understand why you can’t.