Comfort from distorted history

Soccer Dad
01 August '10

A couple of articles, from differing perspectives, on how blaming Israel for the plight of the Palestinians hurts the cause of peace. In the Jerusalem Post Mudar Zahran writes:

The demonization of Israel by the global media has greatly harmed the Palestinians' interests for decades and covered up Arab atrocities against them. Furthermore, demonizing Israel has been well-exploited by several Arab dictatorships to direct citizens' rage against Israel instead of their regimes and also to justify any atrocities they commit in the name of protecting their nations from "the evil Zionists."

This game has served some of the most notorious Arab dictatorships, and still does today, as any opposition is immediately labelled "a Zionist plot."

This model had served Gamal Abdel Nasser in ruling Egypt with an iron fist until he died, and was the main line for Saddam Hussein, who was promoting that "Iraq and Palestine are one identical case" in his last years in power.

The global media must be fair in addressing the Palestinians' suffering in Arab countries and must stop demonizing Israel. It should start focusing on the broader conditions of the Palestinians in the Middle East region.

(Do you think that Mudar Zahran is someone Thomas Friedman thinks we need to hear more of? My guess is that since Mudar Zahran challenges Friedman's believe that Israel is mostly at fault for the lack of peace in the Middle East, that the answer is "no.")

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