Monday, July 25, 2016

Gutless Journalism at the SMH

Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Nick Miller, wrote the following, clearly under duress:

"He was in Gaza for a year, and for 11 months it was 'fairly routine', but the final month was Operation Cast Lead, a three-week conflict between Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Israel, which the Palestinians called a massacre. The opening assault was followed by a ground invasion. it ended with more than 1000 Palestinian deaths and a subsequent United Nations mission accused both sides of war crimes." (Buried under the rubble, Nick Miller, 23/7/16)

Fear of the Israel lobby is palpable in every word.

Just to correct the record:

An even stevens conflict?

Really? Why then did the UN's Goldstone Report describe it as "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population..."? (1893)

Only the Palestinians call it a massacre?

Bullshit, only the brass-necked Israelis would call it anything other than a massacre.

More than 1000 Palestinian deaths?

Too bloody right! Add another 400 to that.

UN accused both sides of war crimes?

And also said that it did not "equate the position of Israel as the occupying Power with that of the occupied Palestinian population or entities representing it." (Goldstone Report, 1876)

In the same issue, the Herald's rambammed political editor Peter Hartcher outs himself as a PEP (Progressive Except Palestine).

While he's quite capable of getting Australia right - "British Australia was built on the ruins of Aboriginal Australia, and the modern nation federated on a consensus of racial exclusion." (She's no threat - there's an opportunity, 23/7/16) - don't in a million expect him to write anything like this:

'Israel was built on the ruins of Arab Palestine, and constituted as an exclusively Jewish state.'

5 comments:

Grappler said...

It is often said that Hamas targets civilians but the IDF "the most moral army in the world" targets only military. In the 2014 carnage (aka massacre), the Palestians killed 5 Israeli civilians and 66 IDF (from memory). More than 3/4 of Palestinians killed were civilians. All I can say is that, if that is the case, the IDF must be extremely bad at its job.

Anonymous said...

It's as if these neophytes from the SMH had never come across the Fourth Geneva Convention. But only when it applied to the occupied Palestinians.

Anonymous said...

a massacre?
you have got to be kidding!
You want massacre.....look at Syria with almost a million dead, Nigeria ,Kenya, France, Belgium, spain.
Please dont try our patience when 800 of the dead were military.
And if Israel really wanted to massacre, there would not be any one left alive to talk about it.
1400 total died in Gaza as the headquarters of HAMAS military bunkered down underneath their largest hospital,fired 14000 rockets mostly from within and near schools, and civilian instillations.
And you all cry why not more Israelis were murdered?
Perhaps because Israel builds bomb shelters and looks after her people unlike HAMAS which uses them as cannon fodder.
Oh ofcourse MERC i dont expect you to publish letters like this because the plain truth is that it hurts, and ofcourse if your narrative is not seemingly 100% pure then you get very upset.
Reality check huh!
Right!
Try the alternate universe at the School of Physics Syd Uni.

MERC said...

Re the above comment, Israel's best known propagandist, Abba Eban, once described propaganda as "the art of persuading others of what one does not believe oneself." His summation, of course, while generally true, doesn't necessarily hold for undergraduate Zionists. They really do believe in their 'own' propaganda. So sad.

Daniel louis said...

i think this article will give me cancer some facts are totally insane