Monday, January 26, 2009
I got multiple emails this morning from people who apparently still actually watch 60 Minutes that they did an absolutely horrific piece on Israel last night. The episode can be watched here. I watched. It's amazing. The absolutely most one-sided brain-dead report I've seen in a long while. It manages to be less intelligently informative than the average BBC report. Even Al Jazeera would make more of a pass at providing its viewers with information.
Bob Simon narrates. What is it with ex-hostages? (Simon was held captive during the first Iraq War.) Do the Islamists carry Stockholm Syndrome in a bottle or something? Simon was also the person perhaps most responsible for promulgating the Al Dura myth in America, also on 60 Minutes.
Let me sum it all up for you: It's the settlements. You see, there's a country called Palestine just waiting to exist if only the Jews would get out of the West Bank and stop bothering the peace-loving Arabs. Gaza isn't really discussed, nor Hamas, nor the PLO, nor Arab refusal to accept a Jewish State in any borders, nor what the excuse before 1967 was, nor the pressures from the rest of the Arabs...nothing...just mean Israelis, their apartheid wall (oh yes, it's all about the apartheid)...this report isn't just bad, it's evil.
I don't know what to tell you to do. Sell your CBS stock? Snub Bob Simon at the health club? There is a comment section.
Update: Oh, I keep meaning to mention this. Mustafa Barghouti's political party, the guy this show, and seemingly every Western news agency keeps sitting in front of a camera to showcase the so-called "reasonable" Arab position (though there's little reasonable about it -- he's this decade's Hanan Ashrawi) -- won 2.7% in the last Palestinian Council election. He represents next to no one. You want to know who actually wins elections? Hamas. CBS should put some of those guy on the air. Instead, they're not even mentioned.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: CBS Strikes Again: Worst 13 Minutes I've Seen on the Middle East in a Long Time.
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My Right Word has posted CAMERA's Critique of Bob Simon's "60 Minutes" Program. It is a good resource. (Previous: CBS Strikes Again: Worst 13 Minutes I've Seen on the Middle East in a Long Time)... Read More
How do you get in touch with Bob Simon and/or Sixty Minutes. I looked at the CBS homepage but couldn't find a comments section, maybe they are ashamed to publish it.
Ironically, or not, but the evangelical Christian network, TBN, has been running pro-Israel stories on its various programs. They've sent a number of their televangelists to interview Israeli government officials & ambassadors. They point out such minor details that Hamas fires from civilian targets when they launch their rockets & that Hamas spends money on tunnels to smuggle weapons, but doesn't build air raid shelters.
Bob Simon is a sad figure, among the saddest in broadcast media in the U.S., with emphasis upon "among" since he has plenty of company. The sterile, well modulated intonation that passes for an objective and well grounded voice, the malformed subtexts and texts that pass for astute, informed opinion. A deep-seated, visceral revulsion sets in when viewing these types, these manifestations of our contemporary media class.
A couple of authors can serve as anecdotes, Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes and The Technological Society and Nail Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Ellul is somewhat dated in terms of the technology he addresses, but the themes remain entirely current and he's poignant with his analyses.
If there isn't an easy way, via the net, to complain - send a hard copy letter to the network.
This is worrisome - we've seen bias and open judenhass spread from the far right/far left blogosphere, to blogs on newspaper sites, and now on TV programs, major network TV shows.
When I first started telling people I was worried about the misojudaism/antiIsrael bias on DU and other sites I visited because I was mad at Bush (sorry:) - my concerns were dismissed.
People (including my fellow Jews) didn't believe this was anything but a fringe element. They said not to worry, just to ignore it.
However the fact that Jewish conspiracy theories were openly expressed worried me more than the hate expressed for Israel - the latter COULD be construed as "proPalestinian" (though increasingly I'm finding it hard to separate such hate and bias from antisemitism per se).
But the conspiracy theories - including ideas that Israel/Jews caused/created 9/11, the war in Iraq, run the US government etc - that's old fashioned Jew hate period and that scared me.
Now it's on CBS. This is shameful but the pattern was visibly developing years ago.
I wonder how much industrial sponsorship has to do with this?
I found a link to write to CBS:
http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/fb_global_form.php
"Goldberg relates the story of an exchange with a college professor, who asked: “Isn’t it the role of the media to effect change in society?” It was a statement posing as a question. “Your change or mine?” I asked. Silence."
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30406
#5 Sophia,
Thank you for the CBS link. I'll send them a complaint, but it's no doubt a useless gesture.
I would write them anyway. I just did, and I would lay it on as thickly as one can, because it needs to be. This is just frankly sickening, and we need to not be sheep about taking it...will it change anything? I don't know, might not, but will it hurt to try? 5 minutes of typing, hit the "submit" button...very tough.
Spread the story and write CBS, and make them aware how low they are and what a complete bigot and 'tool' Mr. Simon is.
I noticed that he said "Settlers Only Roads" rather than the usual "Jews Only Roads".
The one shot I saw of the roads is a road surrounded by high walls to protect the vehicles from being attacks as they passed by.
From CAMERA's email alert (unfortunately not yet on their web site), here are other ways to contact CBS:
They also have a list of contact information for the show's sponsors and suggest contacting them. If the sponsors are upset with 60 Minutes and speak up, that will have a lot more effect in the long run.
Don't think for one moment this thing wasn't coordinated on some level. The "moderate" Left has long been saying that a final agreement will look more or less like the 1967 border, and we may as well just go straight there - the onus being 100% on the Israeli side to just pull out.
Of course, to those paying attention, it's a lot more difficult than that, and events have shown (if you didn't get it in the last 75 years, you should have in the last 60, if not in the last 60, certainly in the last 40, if not the last 40, then certainly the last 17, etc...) that the answer isn't on the Israeli side of the border. Leave it up to the crew at CBS not to be paying very close attention...or thinking very deeply.
But on they go anyway, and they see their chance in Obama. I think they see this as a way to start setting the groundwork for the new administration to pressure Israel to capitulate.
The sheer quantity of lies and distortions and omissions in this thing should be a signal as to how wrong-headed it is in every way, but when you're wedded to an ideology and are as arrogant as these boobs in the MSM, this is what you get.