From the opening paragraphs of British journalist Jonathan Cook's 24-page essay Publish it not! How Israel controls the way the international 'liberal' media portray its illegal and vicious occupation of Palestine & why the media allow them to get away with it:
"Probably like many other journalists, at some point in my childhood I fell in love with the idea of the crusading, fearless reporter - unafraid of bullying figures of authority and always looking out for the little guy... Life, of course, has proved to be less simple. Who is the bully and who is the little guy? I, like more notable reporters who preceded me, would find that conundrum expressed most powerfully in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"In the mid 1990s, I arrived in Jerusalem for the first time - then as a tourist - with another potent Western myth at the front of my consciousness: that of Israel as 'a light unto the nations', the plucky underdog facing a menacing Arab world ranged against it. A series of later professional shocks as a freelance journalist reporting on Israel would shatter my assumptions about both Israel and courageous reporters.
"These disillusioning experiences came in the early stages of the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began in late 2000. At the time I was writing for Britain's Guardian newspaper... The Guardian has earned an international reputation - including in Israel - as the Western newspaper most savagely critical of Israel's actions. That may be true, but I quickly found that there were still very clear, and highly unusual limitations on what could be written about Israel.
"During my years at the Guardian, I had regularly travelled to the Middle East from where I dispatched a number of reports. Only when I offered articles about Israel itself - or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did I sense a reluctance, even a resistance, to publishing them. The standard of proof required to print anything critical of Israel, it became apparent to me, was far higher than with other countries. Particularly problematic for the Guardian - as with other news media - was anything that questioned Israel's claim to being a democracy or highlighted the contradictions between that claim and Israel's Jewish self-definition."
Google it and read the lot!
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4 comments:
And the Guardian just lurched even more into the Zionist camp with the appointment of Freedland as Executive Editor. Moral: don't believe anything you read at the Guardian about the Middle East.
Grappler, I'm afraid you're right. For those interested, see my file on Freedland.
MERC: Last year there were several reports in the Guardian about "heroes" of the "Free Syrian Army", which has someone said elsewhere is not free, not Syrian and not an army. Under one particularly fanciful report a commenter said:"I don't believe a f***ing word you're saying". That comment received more ticks of approval than the rest of the comments combined. I think the readership of the Guardian is waking up.
I've also noticed that those who police the comments are particularly zealous in removing anything they deem too critical of Israel and Zionism.
Frankly, the Guardian Australia website is little better than the Fairfax press in these matters.
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