Thursday, April 14, 2005
Time for a little perspective. This was forwarded to me, as you need to be a subscriber to read most NY Sun pieces.
April 14, 2005
Our friends at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies in Israel send along a report on anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian Authority. Among the items it mentions is an article published in the Hamas newspaper in Gaza, Al-Rissalah, on April 7. The article issued by the Islamic extremist terrorists was an attack on Pope John Paul II for - get this - being a Christian heretic. The pope's "terrific heresy"? He "absolved modern-day Jews from the guilt of having murdered Jesus." According to the Hamas newspaper, modern day Jews are "criminals like their ancestors." Another problem with the pope, according to the Hamas newspaper, was his attitude toward the Holocaust. His call for Christians to ask forgiveness was "a service to the Zionists" and "Pope John Paul II's worst crime," according to the Hamas newspaper. This is the environment in which elements of the American press and State Department focus on the obstacle to peace in the Middle East as being Prime Minister Sharon's decision to build some houses for Jews in an Israeli suburb four and a half miles from Jerusalem.
Somewhat off topic, but this recent post by PaleoJudaica serves to illuminate Reuter's and the NYT's much more subtly finessed historical revisionism, albeit similarly in the service of anti-Israel PR.
Where Hamas (catering to a Palestinian clientele in Gaza and the West Bank and Arab Muslims more widely) uses an unvarnished, brute force rhetorical style, Reuters and the NYT (catering to their own clientele) seduces in a much more subtle fashion. The force and effect of this type of de facto collusion between such outwardly disparate media organs nonetheless becomes more apparent when one realizes that the message is much the same (eroding Israel's most basic historical claims), only the style, tailored for their respective audiences, is different.
(And yes, I understand one can make too much of this; but one can make too little of it as well. It reflects the varied levels and degrees of de facto collusion that too often exists between different Western Left media organs and jihadist medias and ideologues in the Arab Muslim world.)
This will again highlight an all too common repetition, within Kierkegaard's use of the term, but Melanie Phillips has just published a piece on a British university anti-Israel/anti-Semitic initiative as well. What is significant (yet again) is the ahistorical mindset of the targeted professoriate - in Phillips's words:
"What is notable about the AUT motion is that it reflects the truly shocking ignorance of the region’s history and current political reality, the resulting deep gullibility to propaganda based on lies, and the consequent vicious double standards and prejudice that now characterise British received opinion on the subject of Israel."
These ahistorically founded propaganda and social action initiatives are born not out of studied and thoughtful reflection, but out of a certain aliberal, Leftist ideological obduracy.
there were 2 other recent Hamas stories. One where they murdered a couple who were holding hands, and the other where they beat up Gazans over improper behavior?
LGF I think had 1 story and I saw the other one somewhere else?
Solomon you know what I'm talking about?
Oh and the final is the McClellan commentary on Hamas 'businessmen'.
Larry, I'm not sure about those particular Hamas stories, but I don't doubt them. Let's face it, you either get it by this time with Hamas or you don't. Much of the Western establishment, particularly in the press, doesn't.
Michael B., thanks for those pointers. They are relevant. The way the Western press finds new ways to twist and turn in order to be even-handed makes them the useful tools of those who are willing to propagate the most ridiculous lies.