Media bias in Israel?
Power Line notes a Washington Post article that complains that the Israeli media is too pro-Israel.On the one hand, it is important to note that this war has the overwhelming approval of Israelis, 91% according to a poll in the Hebrew paper Maariv last Friday.In any event, Witte finds that the Israeli media is at least in part to blame for Israel's allegedly callous view of events in Gaza. He states that "images from Gaza are relatively scarce, while the plight of Israelis injured or killed during the war is covered around the clock."
Notice that Witte is unable to claim that images from Gaza are actually scarce, only that they are "relatively scarce." This probably means that they don't dominate the coverage as they do in the rest of the world, including the pages of the Washington Post. But then the rest of the world isn't at war with Hamas, nor has it experienced a steady stream of rockets attacks from Gaza over the past few years.
Witte seems offended that "each death [of an Israeli] has received blanket media coverage, complete with family interviews and anguished funeral scenes." He must think it improper for Israelis to grieve the deaths of their citizens or for the media to "pander" to lack of sophistication.
Witte also takes note of the fact that "even rockets that cause no injuries, as is usually the case, get extensive play on television." Apparently, Israelis must die or be injured before a rocket attack merits serious (but not "overdone") attention. Yet Witte himself wants to judge the success of the war by whether rockets are falling, without regard to their toll. He claims (or perhaps gloats) that the "military campaign has not achieved its objective of halting Hamas rocket fire."
In its own anti-Israel way, the Post has stumbled upon the most important fact about this war -- Israel still has a survival instinct.
On the other hand, the media has tried hard to dissuade Israelis from supporting the war. This especially includes the likes of Haaretz, whose columnists continue to slam the IDF and the operation's conduct daily.
Yes, we have a survival instinct. But once the we manage to put Hamas in its place, watch how quickly things go back to normal here.
And if God forbid we start to lose or it ends inconclusively, people will come out of the woodwork saying how opposed they were.
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posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:35 PM
3 Comments:
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The viewpoint articulated in Haaretz is held by less than 9% of the Israeli population - and that's not a lot of Jews for I suspect the bulk of that 9% in opposition to Operation Cast Lead are Arabs. Most Jews do have a survival instinct and much of the reaction in Israel is a desire to put an end to the danger. Most foreign journalists do not bother conveying to their readers and viewers what a tiny country Israel is really is. You can drive from one end to the other in less than six hours. And it takes only an hour to drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The truth about this war is what is not getting out to American and European audiences. They're not getting the context and Israelis do understand the context - the country is still under relentless enemy attack.
Too bad. There has to be at least one media outlit that is pro-Israel. The rest of the world are anti-Semitic.
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