Rubin - If Anti-Israel Propaganda Becomes Too Ridiculous Will Nobody Believe it?

Barry Rubin
Rubin Reports
pajamasmedia.com
29 July '11

http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/07/29/if-anti-israel-propaganda-becomes-too-ridiculous-will-nobody-believe-it/

And if once-prestigious publications publish material that borders on satire will they be discredited?

This article in The Economist, once considered the world’s greatest international magazine for serious news and business analysis is so horrendous that I admit to laughing hysterically while reading it.

The opening sentence is priceless. Innocent Palestinian kids are just going to get water and for no reason at all Israeli soldiers start shooting them down in cold blood. If such an incident had ever happened, it would be everywhere in the mass media. Yet no date or place is mentioned, making it certain that this is fabricated or, more likely, the journalist merely writing down what he was told by Palestinians.

Then the reporter quotes an Israeli settler as saying that the soldiers should maim Palestinians more. No place, no date. This one the journalist himself must have made up.

That’s the best line I have read since a USA Today reporter (later fired for making stuff up) wrote of how a settler was going out to kill Palestinians so he put on his kipa before he went out the door. [Note: Orthodox Jews always wear a kepah or hat even when at home not murdering Palestinians.]

When the individual named in the USA Today article as having been at least an attempted murderer protested to the newspaper that it was ridiculously inaccurate, they ignored him only to find out later that the reporter did make things up on other stories (and fiddled his expense accounts, too) and fired him.

If The Economist has reached the level of bias once achieved in Germany during the 1930s, what possible hope is there for the mass media? Remember, it isn’t just a writer’s work but also the acceptance of it by editors and the use of that person in future employment.

All of this raises an intriguing question: If the lies become continually larger and more glaringly ridiculous will such stuff lose credibility? Will anyone in authority recognize that such incitement does lead to hatred, terrorism, and even murder (or its justification)?

I’m not answering the question, I’m just asking it.

http://www.economist.com/node/18988684

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