America's one-eyed view of war: Stars, stripes, and the Star of David

[burythehatchet]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1219241.ece

There are two sides to every conflict - unless you rely on the US media for information about the battle in Lebanon. Viewers have been fed a diet of partisan coverage which treats Israel as the good guys and their Hizbollah enemy as the incarnation of evil. Andrew Gumbel reports from Los Angeles

The media, more generally, has left little doubt in the minds of a majority of American news consumers that the Israelis are the good guys, the aggrieved victims, while Hizbollah is an incarnation of the same evil responsible for bringing down the World Trade Centre, a heartless and faceless organisation whose destruction is so important it can justify all the damage Israel is inflicting on Lebanon and its civilians.
....
Often, the coverage has been hysterical and distasteful. In the days following the Israeli bombing of Qana, several pro-Israeli bloggers started spreading a hoax story that Hizbollah had engineered the event, or stage-managed it by placing dead babies in the rubble for the purpose of misleading reporters.
....
When John Dingell, a Democratic congressman from Michigan with a large Arab American population in his constituency, gave an interview suggesting it was wrong for the US to take sides instead of pushing for an end to violence, he was quickly - and loudly - accused of being a Hizbollah apologist.
....
This is less a reflection of American Jewish opinion - which is more diverse than is suggested in the media - than it is a commentary on the power of pro-Israeli lobby groups like Aipac, the American-Israeli Political Action Committee, which bankrolls pro-Israeli congressional candidates. That, in turn, is frustrating to liberal Jews like Michael Lerner, a San Francisco rabbi who heads an anti-war community called Tikkun. Rabbi Lerner has tried to argue for years that it is in Israel's best interests to reach a peaceful settlement, and that demonising Arabs as terrorists is counter-productive and against Judaism.

[burythehatchet]

1. .

[burythehatchet]

2. .

[Jazzgirl]

3. Shameless kick again.

And I agree with Rabbi Lerner on how demonising Arabs as terrorists being counter-productive. I actually know ignorant people who think all Arabs are terrorists or support terror. Sick.

[leftchick]

4. Lerner is correct of course....

<snip>

Lerner is probably right to assert that he speaks for a large number of American Jews, only half of whom are affiliated with pro-Israeli lobbying organisations. Certainly, dinner party conversation in heavily Jewish cities like New York suggest misgivings about Israel's strategic aims, even if there is some consensus that Hizbollah cannot be allowed to strike with impunity.

Few, if any, of those misgivings have entered the US media. "There is no major figure in American political life who has been willing to raise the issue of the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people, or even talk about them as human beings," Lerner said. "The organised Jewish community has transformed the image of Judaism into a cheering squad for the Israeli government, whatever its policies are. That is just idolatry, and goes against all the warnings in the Bible about giving too much power to the king or the state."


thank you for this!

[burythehatchet]

13. It's really no different that any other issue

where the true feelings and opinions of Americans are not accurately portrayed or reflected in the media. Take healthcare, for example, a large majority of Americans want universal healthcare. This view certainly doesn't make its way into the teevee debate.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[cali]

6. Not that old canard again:

Jews are running the U.S. government. It's such bullshit.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

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[JohnyCanuck]

11. More accurate to say pro-Israel Zionists than "Jews" n/t

[cali]

14. Wrong.

It's just naive and sorry, ignorant to believe that Zionists control the U.S. government.

[Name removed]

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[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

7. By the way, who kidnapped those Israeli soldiers and

does anyone know what happened to them? Why doesn't Hizbollah release them?

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[cali]

10. What part of advertisement

escapes you? That groups- even groups I find repugnant are running ads, doesn't mean that Jews control the media. And btw, the U.S. has a far higher per capita income than Israel.

[Nimrod2005]

12. OMG...Did he really say that?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

15. K & R