By Barry Rubin
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 teargas at them and arresting them forno reason. 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. (And if you really want to see how kids are systematically recruited by Palestinian adult political organizers in order to get them injured or arrested in order to make propaganda against Israel, read this.
Update: Others who have researched this now tell me that it came from Palestinian accounts that was picked up by an anti-Israeli site. The “reporter” almost certainly read about it on radical site and just copied it. (
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
More update: Israel’s army has issued a report saying the incident never happened. I just spoke on the telephone with Eran (not “Iran”! as the reporter wrote) Segal who told me he never said anything like the words used in the quote. By the way, it’s the first time he ever heard about that article.
Claiming that Segal wanted Palestinians maimed reminds me of 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.
Then there’s Chris Hedges blood libel about the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip in Harpers a decades agoyears ago:
“Children have been shot in other countries I have covered – death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo – but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”
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.
Ihttp://www.economist.com/node/18988684
…Abbas has repeatedly sought to block joint projects between Jewish settlements and neighbouring Arab villages for fear that co-operation would make the settlers feel more at home.”
Just looking out for his Jews. Believe it.
Well here’s an extension of your question: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/us-egypt-protests-idUSTRE76S1T720110729
If Liberals (Egyptian “liberals” mind you) think MB is a threat and an extremist movement, how will the Western Media report this? If the MB and their affiliated “ultra conservatives” are the source of much of the anti-Israeli propaganda in the ME, will this blunt how the West accepts such hate?
I would think this a huge development. I think the rejection of Erdogan by many senior generals in Turkey is also a blow to the views spouted by him and his foreign minister.
Also it is interesting that while Al Jezzera cites the Economist regarding their view of the Palestinian situation in Gaza, their views are rejected by Erodogan and Ahmadinejad when it comes to Muslim illiberality.
P.S. Barry my comments in your last thread still are “on hold pending a moderator”.
Also, despite the hysteria over right wingers” in Norway AND threats mad by the Taliban, AQ and al-Islam, Norwegian government say there is no increased threat to Norway. Now what does that say although I am sure Norway will continue to blast Israel……
“If the lies become continually larger and more glaringly ridiculous will such stuff lose credibility?”
No, probably the opposite.
“Will anyone in authority recognize that such incitement does lead to hatred, terrorism, and even murder (or its justification)?”
Most could care less, most of the rest are depending on it, the few remaining are probably right wing, Christian Zionist Jewish racist anti-intellectual homophobic Palin-loving fundamentalists and therefore should be shunned and laughed at.
BTW a long time I asked an Israeli border guard if they tortured prisoners. His answer,”no, but we should”.
Every lie has its audience. There is a huge swathe of the global population that believe blood libels and in an age of Gulf oil money, etc., the Economist is not selling itself to just Manchester liberals anymore. It is when the world economy, or a good part of it, comes to see the need again for Manchester liberals, when “sticking it to the man” provides little material or psychological relief, that the lies will be increasingly anathematized.
The other glaring problem with this article is that it makes it seem as though Palestinians are really open to allowing Jews to live in their state. But this is not true — Abbas has insisted, including very recently, that not a single Jew will be allowed to live in a Palestinian state.
If this had been a normal article, it would have acknowledge the common-sense moral truth: no people in the world has the right to an ethnically-cleansed state. Yet that is precisely what the Palestinians plan on doing — creating a state that permanently excludes all Jews from its territory, even though Jews have lived there, either as a minority or majority, for thousands of years. Unless they are willing to allows Jews to live there, and for that matter, travel there freely, they have no right to a state at all and there should be no negotiations.
Its sad barry, but every additional mistruth just reinforces the general web of lies, If Its in the news it must be true or at least have some basis in fact or otherwise why would they have allowed it to be printed or broadcast in the first place (indoctrination in the west that the press is free and true).
Of interest, Over the last 10 days there has been an anti Israel scandal, starting with unsubstantiated allegations in the Southland Times Newspaper (mossad disguised as backpackers, Mossad disguised as rescue workers and forensic expersts and pathologists disguised as mossad) in New Zealand. The entire NZ media, print, radio, TV has picked up and run with a story damning Israel. This story refuses to die even though the NZ Prime Minister publicly stated that all allegations were unfounded and untrue and that all allegations had been checked by NZ police and SIS. A quick read of letters to the editor shows that the media have sown such suspicion of Israelis, a suspicion that they cant shake off, denial just seems to lead to further fantastic allegations.
It’s being done true to the tradition of Josef Goebbels.
Tell a big lie, repeat it often enough, and it then becomes accepted as the truth.
Problem is it works to give a bad Image of Israel and the Ignorant man in the street will believe it because it such a Reputable paper..why won’t Israel sue the Paper for this,that would be beneficial and a warning to other media who want to engage in Defamation and Lies About Israel?
is it possible for Israel to sue the news Paper?
Chris
I’m still recovering from the creepy title and illustration at the top of this Economist article.
“The Kosherest Nosh Ever”
http://www.economist.com/node/18744129
If anyone agrees with my sentiments, let me know.