Israel Matzav

The Glenn and Helen Show: Michael Totten on Blog-Journalism and the Middle East

If you're sitting at your computer and want to listen to an interesting interview, point your browsers here and listen to an interview with Michael Totten, a blogger who has travelled all over the Middle East, including Israel.

Not all of this interview is about Israel, but my impression is that Michael would have gotten a far different view of the country if he had spent more time with Jerusalemites. Here are some of the points that he made in the interview (with my responses in parentheses):

1. The Israeli right is racist although not as racist or as crudely so as the Arabs. (I disagree. I do not believe the Israeli right is racist - I believe we are after self-preservation).

2. Jerusalem is the center of the Israeli right (other than the 'West Bank' which is "even more radical"), while Tel Aviv is the center of the Israeli left. The rest of the country - the real Israel - is somewhere in between. (How much time did he spend in Moonbat Haifa? Other than that, it's probably not an unfair assessment).

3. Journalists stay in Jerusalem so the 'settlers' get disproportionate coverage. (That may be true, but most of that coverage is unfavorable. My view is that the world is obssessed with the 'settlers' and that the journalists are just feeding them what they want to hear).

4. Israelis would not say anything bad about Lebanon to him. (That's not surprising. Israelis think Lebanon views us more favorably than do other Arab countries. I think that's true of the Christians and some of the Druze in Lebanon. It's not true of the Muslims - Sunni or Shia).

5. He heard more anti-'Palestinian' than anti-Israeli comments in Lebanon. Probably true other than the few weeks of the war this summer.

Worth listening if you have the 35 minutes to spare (I don't but when has that ever stopped me?).

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:01 PM