Israel Matzav

Selective reading

Evelyn Gordon decries the selective reading that the mainstream media undertakes with 'Palestinian' polls in order to perpetuate the myth of a 'Palestinian' desire for peace.

Here, for instance, is how DPA and Haaretz reported the poll; here’s The Media Line’s version; here’s AFP. All correctly reported Palestinians prefer incumbent Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to Hamas’ candidate by a two-to-one margin; the first two also noted that 61 percent want the new unity government to follow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ peace policies, while only 18 percent favor Hamas’s policies. The clear implication is most Palestinians are moderates who want peace with Israel: They prefer Fayyad to Hamas and Abbas’ stated support for a deal to Hamas’ vocal opposition.

But here’s the finding none of these media outlets bothered to report: Asked what the Palestinians’ “most vital” goals were, 40 percent chose securing “the right of return of refugees to their 1948 towns and villages” as the “second most vital Palestinian goal” and another 26 percent deemed it the “first most vital Palestinian goal.” This issue outpolled all the other options in the second-place slot, while only “end the Israeli occupation” outranked it in the first-place slot.

A “return of refugees to their 1948 towns” – i.e. to pre-1967 Israel – is clearly incompatible with a two-state solution: Relocating 4.8 million refugees and their descendants to pre-1967 Israel would, when combined with Israel’s 1.6 million existing Arab citizens, turn Israel into a second Palestinian-majority state, thereby eliminating the world’s only Jewish one. Yet Abbas cannot concede the “right of return” in negotiations when 66 percent of his people deem it one of the two “most vital Palestinian goals”; no leader anywhere could. Thus as long as most Palestinians view the “right of return” as crucial, no peace agreement will be possible.

Gordon goes on to point out - correctly - that while Israelis have been indoctrinated with the meme that it is necessary to compromise for peace, the 'Palestinians' have changed nothing in their approach in the last 18 years. Israelis were brainwashed to see the viewpoint of the 'other' while the 'Palestinians,' free to control their own media, have incited their people to unprecedented levels of Jew-hatred.

What could go wrong?

Labels: media bias, Palestinian Authority media, Palestinian polls

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:45 AM