MK Ayoob Kara: A Study In Media Distortions - by Sheri Oz

...While this particular instance is perhaps minor, and may cause you to wonder why I would invest so much energy and words in writing about it, I suggest that this small example very clearly demonstrates how what is presented to us as news is so easily twisted and how we are so easily mis-informed by the very news upon which we rely to inform us.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
Keeping Up With Our MKs..
13 January 17..

We have all heard stories about how the media twists stories around and produces fake news. How often do we have the opportunity to see it in action ourselves? Here is one example I chanced upon two days ago.

On Tuesday morning (10 January), I was driving down to Tel Aviv, listening to Galei Zahal on the radio, as is my habit. The programme “Ma Bo’er” was on. Razi Barkai interviewed Deputy Minister Ayoob Kara and bereaved father David Einhorn regarding the fact that no MK or Cabinet Minister had come to any of the four funerals of the young soldiers killed in the latest terror attack in Jerusalem.

A mere ten minutes later, at 10:00, part of Einhorn’s interview was replayed on the hourly news, as was part of an interview with Minister Yoav Galant, that was heard earlier on Boker Tov Yisrael. My curiousity was sparked by the fact that the interview with Kara had disappeared as if it had never taken place. An hour later, on the 11:00 news, listeners heard only Einhorn.

The evening news programme on Mabat also carried an item lambasting the government for not having had even one single representative at any of the funerals. Deputy Minister Kara was interviewed in his car and this time he said something that sounded to me quite different from what he had said in the morning on the radio. I set out to understand what had happened between the morning and the evening.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

One-sidedness, journalistic bias and unreported ‘price-tag’ actions

...The Israeli media simply doing its job would have two major effects the issue of terrorist acts against Jews. One is that the IDF and other security forces would take it more seriously and put more effort into prevention. The second and the more important result, however, is that more people in Israel and all over the world would appreciate the pressure on Israelis coming from the Palestinian side.

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost..
28 May '14..

Over 48 hours (May 23-24), there were no less than 69 stone-throwing and fire-bombing attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria (Yesha). On May 24, according to a report of the Hashomer Hachadash website, fires broke out at three separate locations in the area of Givat Nili and Regavim. Arson is strongly suspected. Givat Nili and Regavim are not “settlements” across the Green Line, rather they are located on the Western boundary of Wadi Ara. Such fires occur in that area at the rate of approximately 1,000 per year.

The Hakol Hayehudi news website reported on May 22 that that morning there were 10 stonings of Jewish cars in Yesha. Some were damaged, no injuries were reported. According to the same website, during the week preceding May 13 no less than 62 attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria were recorded. Most of them were “only” stonings. Similar statistics were reported for the first week of May.

There is nothing new about any of this. The Megaphone website, in an article from November 23, 2013, reported that in the three weeks prior to the article’s publication, 786 stonings were reported in all of Israel, not including attacks directed at IDF forces. Yehudit Tayar, an emergency medic volunteer with the Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron organization and who served in an IDF combat unit, has so far published, with the clearance and confirmation of the IDF, 91 reports, each of which contains dozens of violent incidents that have occurred over the past three years in Judea and Samaria. These reports have appeared on news websites in both Hebrew and English, but are ignored by mainstream media outlets.

Ynet reported on May 8 that swastikas were spray-painted on three vehicles in Lydda. The report, by Eli Senior, ends with the laconic statement that the police had opened an investigation. On May 8, the Rotter website reported that swastikas were spray-painted on a bus parked in the vicinity of the ORT Shapira School in Jaffa. Swastikas were also reported on the Serugim website to have appeared in the ancient synagogue in Eshtamoa (located in the South Hebron region). The “price tag” logo did not appear in any of the cases described above.

Had it not been for modern technology we would not know that a war is taking place in Judea and Samaria.

No, this war did not break out as a result of the “breakdown” of the talks between Israel and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen. It has been going on all through the nine months of talks.

No one in the media addressed a question to Abbas about these events. PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, a frequent guest of Razi Barkai on Army Radio, was not asked questions such as, “Do you condemn such violent acts against civilians, holy places, etc.? Aren’t you also responsible for these acts if you do not actively seek to have them stop? Don’t you think that it is high time that your religious leaders stop their hate speeches in the mosques, so that such terror acts are reduced?”

One wonders why the IDF radio station is even willing to interview Erekat, an outspoken supporter of this kind of terror. The same station has not interviewed (and justifiably so) the “price tag” suspect caught in Yokne’am to provide him with a broad platform to “explain” his weltanschauung.

The who and probable why of attempts to bring down Ya’alon

...Indeed, he behaved as a leader ought to. When the leader in an open society is considering a significant shift in national policies, it is reasonable for him to share his thinking with policy elites, whether in academia or the media, to prepare the ground and gauge their responses. Doing so in private enables leaders to consider major shifts away from the spotlight...He spoke off the record to prevent a diplomatic embarrassment for himself and the country. They leaked his remarks in order to embarrass him and initiate a diplomatic crisis.

Caroline Glick..
Our World/JPost..
24 March '14..

If this is a coincidence, it is an extraordinary one. Twice in less than two months, remarks that Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon made in closed forums about key issues on Israel’s national security agenda were leaked to the media. In both cases, the media used the leaked remarks to foment a crisis in relations between Israel and the Obama administration.

In both cases, the Obama administration has used the opportunities created by the Israeli media to bash Ya’alon and pressure Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to fire him.

In January, Yediot Aharonot leaked Ya’alon’s private remarks about US Secretary of State John Kerry’s irrational focus on the mordant peace process between Israel and the Palestinians at a time when there is both relative peace in Israel, and Israel’s neighbors are undergoing political upheavals and civil war. Together with the other two musketeers of Israel’s far-left media – Haaretz and Channel 2, Yediot used the story to provoke a fight between the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration. Acting on cue, the White House and State Department demanded that Ya’alon apologize for remarks that were made in private. Ya’alon sufficed with a terse statement that he was sorry if anyone took offense from his private remarks.

And now, two months later, Ya’alon’s remarks have been leaked again.

Last week Ya’alon spoke at a forum at Tel Aviv University that was closed to the media. There he bemoaned the Obama administration’s abandonment of the US’s traditional role as the world’s policeman and considered its significance for Israel. With regard to Iran’s nuclear program, Ya’alon said that the time had come for Israel to recognize that the US has not met its expectations and taken the lead to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. As a consequence, “We [Israelis] have to look out for ourselves.”

Haaretz published Ya’alon’s leaked remarks and then, with its partners, Yediot and Channel 2, set about fomenting a crisis in relations with the US. As it did in January, last week the Obama administration jumped at the opportunity. State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki stopped just short of demanding Ya’alon’s resignation.

What is going on here? Obama and Kerry say far worse things about Israel’s leaders as a matter of course than Ya’alon said about either of them. And nothing Ya’alon said was wrong. Nothing that he said was unique. Similar statements are being heard from spurned US allies around the region and the world. Not only were Ya’alon’s statements reasonable, the vast majority of Israelis share his sentiments both on the untrustworthiness of US security guarantees and on the absence of prospects for peace with the PLO.

So why leak his remarks and present them as unforgivable faux pas?

Sapir Sabah, a profile in courage

Our media has made its choice, and not only when it comes to the negotiations between Israel and the United States.

Sapir Sabah Photo Credit: Channel 2

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost..
05 February '14..

US President John F. Kennedy’s 1957 book Profiles in Courage enumerated three “terrible pressures which discourage acts of political courage,” and that “drive a [politician] to abandon or subdue his conscience.” The first is criticism for lack of forthright principles. A second stems from the desire to be reelected, which “exercises a strong brake on independent courage.”

The third “is the pressure of his constituency, the interest groups, the organized letter writers, the economic blocs and even the average voter.” In the book, Kennedy dealt with eight politicians who felt that what they were doing was right and paid a steep political price for their actions.

There are pundits in Israel’s media who studied Kennedy’s book and are calling upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be “courageous.” They ask him to disassociate from his ideological roots, from his promises to his constituency, and do what is “right”: accept the dictates of the US government. This “courage” means dividing Jerusalem and uprooting hundreds of thousands of citizens from their homes. The pinnacle of courage is to take a huge risk for the sake of “peace.”

There are other definitions of courage, however, which are somehow missing in our media’s discourse. Courage also means to be fearless. For example, courage might mean not fearing the boycott threats of Secretary of State John Kerry and other European countries. It might mean not fearing international pressure aimed at preventing imposition of Israeli law in the disputed territories.

Courage could also mean the willingness to face the challenge of a large Arab minority within the State of Israel.

Our media has made its choice, and not only when it comes to the negotiations between Israel and the United States. Its misunderstanding of the word can be measured by its attitude to people who actually are fearless, and willing to face the consequences of adhering to their beliefs even in the face of media pressure.

A fitting example is that of Sapir Sabah, a 17-year old student in the ORT high school in Tivon. Sabah complained in a letter to Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron about her teacher, Adam Werte. In her words: “During most of the lessons I face difficulties. Adam makes sure to emphasize his political opinions.

He explains that he is an extreme left-winger, that from his point of view our state is not at all the state of the Jews but that of the Palestinians and that we the Jews have no business being here. He stresses that the IDF acts more cruelly and violently than all other armies. He explains that the IDF is immoral and that he is ashamed of the army in our state.” She further accused him of publicly ridiculing her.

Sabah is a fighter, and brave. She complained to the school directors, but this did not help.

Consider the pressure that this young woman faced. She has to pass matriculation exams, is at the mercy of her teachers and yet dares to voice her opinion and open criticism.

Our media treated her despicably. Ben Caspit and Hagai Golan “interviewed” her on the 103 FM radio station. No, it was not an interview but rather a lesson, similar to those Sabah had to hear from Werte. Caspit did not let her express her opinions but tried to instill in her his perverted values. In his words: “he [Werte] is in distress, you are violent!” It was so bad that Sabah did the unthinkable in the eyes of Caspit, and discontinued the interview.

Yedioth Ahronoth: Sabotaging the Israeli consensus?

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
10 August '12..

Did the Yedioth Ahronoth headline on Thursday — which reported that the U.S. administration delivered a message to Israel that Saudi Arabia threatened to shoot down Israeli jets flying over Saudi airspace on their way to attack Iran — actually teach us anything new? Let us assume that the Saudis did in fact say that they would shoot down Israeli jets en route to Iran if they entered Saudi airspace — so what? What did we expect, that they would send us a public invitation? The real question, which should be asked as loudly as possible and as often as possible until an answer is provided, is why Yedioth Ahronoth, and irresponsible pockets in the Israeli Left, are working overtime to sabotage Israel's ability to protect itself from an existential threat.

Remember the First Lebanon War? For the first time in its history, Israel launched a war under a leadership that was not leftist. For the first time, the current evolution of the historic Mapai movement and its subsidiaries were out of the decision making loop. So they turned it into a "war of choice." It's a good thing that it was not a Likud-led government that launched the 1967 Six-Day War, or the Left might have said that was a war of choice too! After all, we started it, didn't we?

This Yedioth headline had to have come from somewhere. It was shuttled across the ocean as part of a concerted disinformation campaign aiming to influence public opinion. A "senior Yedioth Ahronoth correspondent" served as an agent of influence. The last thing that U.S. President Barack Obama needs during an election year is for oil prices to skyrocket or for Israel to embarrass him by launching an attack on Iran that big, bad America should have launched a long time ago, on behalf of the entire free world.

The main goal is to portray the Israeli government as a bunch of lunatics who are about to drown the entire region in blood and brimstone. The aim in stirring an internal debate is to undermine the public consensus so that the absence of broad agreement will influence the government to shy away from attacking Iran.

Regev - An irresponsible debate

Amos Regev
Israel Hayom
02 November '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=760

Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy was a respected naval officer. Five gold stars adorned his uniform -- the most senior rank in the American military. His wisdom and experience conferred upon him a certain reputation; so much so, that in the midst of the darkest days of World War II, Roosevelt brought him back from civilian life and appointed him chief of staff to the commander in chief, essentially making him the supreme commander of the armed forces. By virtue of his personality, he also become the president's most trusted military adviser, and served as the link between the president and the army's top brass.

When Roosevelt died in April 1945, with war still raging in Europe and in the Far East, Leahy continued in the role under the new president, Harry Truman, who until then had served as vice president. One of the first things about which the new president was briefed was the greatest secret of all: the development of the American atomic bomb. Yes, even as vice president, Truman had not been aware of the existence of the Manhattan Project. That is how state secrets are kept. The only ones who know are those who need to know. Even the vice president was out of the picture until he became president and commander-in-chief.

"Mister President," Admirial Leahy, the senior military adviser, told him, "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."

The rest is history.

The decision to drop the atomic bomb was President Truman's, the U.S. army's official history asserts.

"The decision to use the atomic bomb was made by President Truman," writes military historian Louis Morton. "There was never any doubt of that, and despite the rising tide of criticism, Mr. Truman took full responsibility for his action ... Mr. Truman leaned heavily on the advice of his senior and most trusted advisers on the question of the bomb. But the final decision was his and his alone." Some of those advisers supported the attack as the surest way to bring about a quick end to the war, thus saving millions of lives, both American and Japanese. Others objected, among them Admiral Leahy, who not only thought the bomb would not work, but also believed that the use of atomic weapons was immoral.

The Tribal Update exposes Right-wingers anonymous

Caroline Glick
Latma
21 May '10

(English subtitled, very Israeli. There was a time when the news-media viewed themselves as the oracles from on high. Latma is meant to prick that balloon. Y.)

In this week's Tribal Update from Latma, the Hebrew-language media satire website that I edit, our anchors Ronit and Elhanan discuss Holland's "abandonment" of Israel, Elvis Costello's decision to cancel his concert in Israel and much much more. They also exposed a new organization RA or Right-wingers anonymous and get an update on what's new in the Israeli children's book market this summer.

Enjoy!



If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.