Media and the Middle East.

[soda72]

Please study the below chart:  

My guess the "need for democracy" would be below "physiological needs" for most leftist...

[Trikky]

I now understand why the BBC is considered a regional bureau of Aljazeera, it actually NAMES Palestinian dead. Damn turrst lovers.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Shuckins
Ok...so we get one version of an event through our media's presentation of a film clip...and people in other countries get a different version of the same event through their media's presentation of that event.




If we concede the point that our view is distorted then we also have to concede the point that their view may also be distorted, no matter how well it may be presented.

Exactly true.

and somewhere in the middle of the two stories. Is the truth

[Irwink!]

"The bigger the lie the more people tend to believe it."  - Joseph Goebels

     A pretty despicable guy to quote but he was good at his job. Every side of every conflict has their own propoganda. That's how we motivate our populations and potential allies and get young people willing to go catch a bullet for folk and fatherland. The fact is the truth is usually somewhere in the middle well removed from the propoganda of the opposing sides. If one were to listen only to Arab media most would tend to side with the Arabs. I don't mean listen to it for a day or a year but to have never heard anything else or tried to look outside of it. The same could be said for British media re: British issues, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, the United States or whoever. Having been born a citizen of the United States I am exposed for the most part to U.S. propoganda, or as we call it today, the U.S. spin . Often some facsimile of the truth starts to reach the general population, if they care to look at it, a few years or decades after some clash of arms or pivotal event - after the passions of the day have passed for the most part and leaders gone from power. By that time a large portion of the population doesn't care anymore because it didn't involve them or - they just don't care anymore period. In terms of U.S history one need only start to examine events in the late 20th century and work backward in our history. If you need examples than nevermind.
     The point is you'll never know the truth of most issues if you only read one newspaper, watch one news channel or listen to one side of anything.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Momus--
You will get no argument from me on any of that Dred.  I just thought it was funny that Grun was screeching about the video when a quick look at the time he posted indicates he couldn't have watched the whole thing if indeed he watched more than five minutes of it.

Yes Shuckins; that is a reasonably neutral site as far as it goes. It doesn't however even go near to touching the issues the link Rolex posted, so I'd question if you even watched it either?

And I agree with you.
My point about not being able to re butt it had more to do with the fact that I hadnt seen it in its entirety either.
so it would be hard for me to re butt anything either.

but the fact he couldnt have possibly watched it Does speak volumes.


Amazing how lobotomized people are to their party, or in their support for one side or the next (which is usually shaped by their political party)
(Not to only pick on Grun. As I see the same thing from the other side as well.)

Laz is showing a pretty classical example of this. While he watched the entire thing (or so he claims, but Ill not dispute that)
 He didnt seem to take notice that  these so called  "American born and bred lefties" were also critical of how the Clinton administration dealt with it either
Not to mention that in its entirely was critical of our media which we all (including Laz) have claimed is slanted far left covers and skews the situation in favor of the Israelites

and contrary to what Laz claims I did not see a single incident where any of these "American born and bred lefties" championed the terrorists. In fact I did see several say it was wrong.

"The video focuses on whatever brutality it sees and acts like it is happening in a vacuum."

As opposed to only  focus on whatever brutality they do against the Israelites?

"Why a curfew for a year? why checkpoints? why beatings of these young men... you don't see them beating women or old men or children... why is it always the young men... the young men who look just like the bombers and shooters in the Israel marketplaces?"

If only the men are being beaten. Why is it that fully 2/3's of the deaths are of women and children?

Ohhh I get it. Beat the men. kill the women and kids

Laz. Im sorry but its obvious you only saw in that video what you wanted to see. And only look to discredit that which you dont want to see


Now while I admit the show was slanted in favor of the Palestinians. It did show another perspective that our own (left)media doesn't.
It does raise very legitimate  points and questions
And if viewed with an open and independent mind. Will compel thought independent of what is spoon fed us

I have long said I am neither for nor against either side. And that I see the great evils being committed by BOTH sides.
Regardless of who started it. Neither side is an innocent party to this.

I see only a coupe different solutions as to the whole situation

A- they can share the area, and the power with each side having equal power. This is the best overall solution.
But it aint gonna happen So long as religion is the primary driving force

B-the entire area gets wiped clean and started over (poof)

Because so long as either side has their governments are based  on religion Be it a Jewish only government. or a Islamic only government
Neither side is going to have peace

The future is interesting though.
Israeli Palestinian numbers are growing.
Eventually, if they are smart they will organize and demand the right to 1 man 1 vote and representation in the Israeli government.

Denying this will essentially alienate Israel from the rest of the worlds democracies, Including the USA

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Sixpence
It makes them desperate

Desperate people tend to become angry people.

Thats why they call em
"the angry mobs"

"Desperate mobs"
"Angry mobs"

"angry mobs" sounds better too

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by Momus--
You will get no argument from me on any of that Dred.  I just thought it was funny that Grun was screeching about the video when a quick look at the time he posted indicates he couldn't have watched the whole thing if indeed he watched more than five minutes of it.

Yes Shuckins; that is a reasonably neutral site as far as it goes. It doesn't however even go near to touching the issues the link Rolex posted, so I'd question if you even watched it either?

I saw some 40 minutes of the video as I  this morning before work. If I remember the video is  maybe 1 hour 20 minutes long...  Rolex posted the video about an hour before I replied. To think, i clickled on his post because he usually has something intelligent to say...  Oh well, everyone lets you down from time  to time..  

And again as for the film...

Its full of extreme leftists only spouting the typical pro-palestenian one sided out of context arguments you see all the time at the commie leftist anti war rallies - only they put it on a film with decent production values.

[GRUNHERZ]

"Eventually, if they are smart they will organize and demand the right to 1 man 1 vote and representation in the Israeli government.

Denying this will essentially alienate Israel from the rest of the worlds democracies, Including the USA"


INSTEAD THEY ARE IDIOTS AND CONTINUE TO THINK THAT THEY WILL GET WHAT THEY WANT BY BLOWING ISRAELIS UP

[Elfie]

I just watched that whole thing.

At one point they say Israel took the West Bank from the Palestinians during the 6 Day war. That is not true. Jordan controlled the West Bank prior to the 6 Day War, not the Palestinians. The Palestinians weren't even a player in the 6 Day War.

They also describe Israel's occupation and settlement of occupied territories as illegal and base that on Geneva Conventions (?) that forbid the settlement of territories gained by the use of illegal force. I dont consider pre-emptive strikes against an enemy that is clearly assembling and about to attack you as *illegal*.
The West Bank was taken from Jordan after Jordan attacked Jerusalem and Netanya.

UN resolutions are also mentioned as a means of stopping various Israeli actions. Regardless of whether or not America used it's veto power to stop these resolutions, I dont believe they would have changed a thing. UN resolutions are worthless imo unless the UN is willing to back them with force if need be. And we all know how often that happens.

I dont agree with some things I saw in that video: 1) Where the IDF soldier has a Palestinian by the back of his hair and slams his head into a wall. 2) When the IDF soldier was hitting the Palestinian while holding a rock.

Israel in general, the IDF and Israeli police need to be above that kind of behavior. When a suspected Palestinian militant is arrested for example, the folks doing the arrest should only be doing the arrest, not acting as judge, jury and executioner.

The entire video was a propaganda effort on behalf of the Palestinians imo. When Israeli violence is cited or curfews mentioned, no reasons are given for the Israeli actions.

Israel's demolition of homes is also discussed. When Palestinians apply for a building permit, and if they dont get one and build anyways.....the Israeli's demolish the building. If the law requires a building permit, and you build without a permit you are in violation of the law. Israel's response to these violations is to demolish the building.

[Nashwan]

They also describe Israel's occupation and settlement of occupied territories as illegal and base that on Geneva Conventions (?) that forbid the settlement of territories gained by the use of illegal force. I dont consider pre-emptive strikes against an enemy that is clearly assembling and about to attack you as *illegal*.

The Geneva Conventions say no such thing. It's provisions apply in case of war or armed conflict, for whatever cause it's fought.

There is no doubt amongst mainstream international legal opinion that the settlements are illegal, even the US judge appointed to the world court, Thomas Buergenthal (a Jewish Auschwitz survivor) says of the settlements:

"Paragraph 6 of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention also does not admit for exceptions on grounds of military or security exigencies.  It provides that “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.  I agree that this provision applies to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and that their existence violates Article 49, paragraph 6."

[Elfie]

In the video Nashwan the reference they use may or may not be the Geneva Conventions. I took very brief notes as I watched it and couldnt recall for sure if they used the Geneva  Convention as a source for calling the settlements illegal, hence why I put the question mark in parentheses after *Geneva Convention*. I'm not gonna watch the first 40 minutes of that video just to find out who/what was their reference. Maybe someone else remembers that part more clearly?

They also describe Israel's occupation and settlement of occupied territories as illegal and base that on Geneva Conventions (?) that forbid the settlement of territories gained by the use of illegal force.

The rest of that statement is accurate as far as it applying to the video. The folks in the video say the settlements are illegal because illegal force was used to take them. If that isnt accurate, then it's another false statement made by the folks in that video.

[culero]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
but the question has to be asked. Why is the population so hostile?
snip

Its been asked and answered ad nauseum. Its also IMO does not matter.

My view is that in the conflict between the Arabs and Israel, the Arabs are the aggressors. I will agree that Israel is and has been harsh in its responses, but I don't blame them for that. If it were me in their place, I would be much more harsh.

I'm not ignoring the fact that there are surely many in the Arab population who have not participated in violence toward the Israelis, but yet have suffered from Israeli responses. It may not be fair, but life isn't fair. They should blame their Arab brothers who did engage in violence for having provoked the Israeli responses, rather than the Israelis for having responded to violence done against them.

culero

[Toad]

Mideast's creed of victimization

Mideast's creed of victimization
By Victor Davis Hanson
Originally published August 4, 2006

Despite the claims of terrorist organizations, Israel's current two-front war is not just about land. After all, Hezbollah and Hamas fired rockets from Lebanon and Gaza well after Israel had withdrawn from both places.
Indeed, if sacred Arab ground were the driving force of the Middle East crisis, then surely Syria itself would now be willing to risk a shooting war over the all-important, Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Meanwhile, Cairo is still perhaps the nexus of virulent Arab anti-Semitism, even though Israel finished handing over Sinai to Egypt in 1982.  
 
The world prayed that after the unilateral departure of Israel from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and the recent elections in Beirut and the West Bank, it was witnessing an incremental evolution toward a lasting peace between rational, democratic states. Gradually, Israel was returning to its 1967 borders. In response, gradually, it was hoped, Israel's Arab neighbors would vote into office reasonable statesmen who would renounce terror and get on with the business of crafting workable economies and governments. But all that optimism presupposed a radical change in the Middle Eastern mentality. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened.

So, if the most recent war in Lebanon and Gaza is not about land per se, then whence arises the elemental desire to destroy Israel?

The answer boils down to Islamists feeling their reputation is at stake. Words like "honor" and "pride" are evoked - in the sense that they need to be regained - by every insecure radical in the Islamic world, from al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden to Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Fist-shaking crowds, fiery mullahs and terrorists all boast of not giving an inch to infidels, and of the restoration of the now-sullied honor of the Islamic people.

Why their hurt?

For about the last half-century, globalization has passed most of the recalcitrant Middle East by - economically, socially and politically. The result is that few inventions and little science now emanate from the Islamic world - but a great deal of poverty, tyranny and violence. And rather than make the necessary structural changes that might end cultural impediments to progress and modernity (such as tribalism, patriarchy, gender apartheid, polygamy, autocracy, statism and fundamentalism), too many Middle Easterners have preferred to embrace the reactionary past and the cult of victimization.

At one time or another, they have welcomed all the bankrupt ideologies that traditionally blame others for prior self-induced failure: fascism, communism, Baathism, Pan-Arabism and, most recently, Islamic fundamentalism.

When there is high unemployment, corruption, zero economic growth, endemic illiteracy and no freedom, mullahs, dictators and jihadists of the Middle East always seem to fault the ancient colonial power - Britain, France or Italy (though rarely Islamic Turkey) - that supposedly set them back more than a century ago. Or they try blaming the omnipotent United States, whose oilmen developed the riches of the Gulf and whose military has saved Muslims from Kosovo to Kuwait.

But above all, for decades leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Mr. bin Laden have scapegoated tiny Israel.

It is the closest Western bogeyman, and its Holocaust survivors transformed an area of desert into a technologically sophisticated Western state. Israel's astounding success is a constant irritant to many nearby Muslims, representing the infidel's ability to fashion a prosperous Middle Eastern society without oil revenues under democratic auspices.

Victimization turns out to be the real creed of the Middle East, uniting disparate *****es, Sunnis, dictators, theocrats and terrorists. "They did it to us" offers an easy explanation of why Islamic states are now weak and offer little hope to millions of their poor, who, ironically, emigrate to the much-pilloried West by the millions.

American cash aid, Israeli concessions, windfall petrol profits and, most of all, appeasement of radical Islamists can do nothing to alleviate these perceived grievances.

Instead, there will be no peace in the general Middle East until Iranians and Arabs have true constitutional government, free institutions, open markets and the rule of law. Without these reforms, they will continue to fail, seeking easy refuge in the shreds of mythical ancestral honor - and in this pathetic neurosis of blaming nearby Israel for the loss of it.



Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His e-mail is author@victorhanson.com.

More food for thought.

[Nashwan]

   In the video Nashwan the reference they use may or may not be the Geneva Conventions. I took very brief notes as I watched it and couldnt recall for sure if they used the Geneva Convention as a source for calling the settlements illegal, hence why I put the question mark in parentheses after *Geneva Convention*.

It probably is the Geneva Convention, as it's the best known, and has the most specific prohibition of the settlements. There are other humanitarian laws being violated, but they're much more oblique.

The folks in the video say the settlements are illegal because illegal force was used to take them. If that isnt accurate, then it's another false statement made by the folks in that video.

Without having seen it, perhaps they mean the methods used to take the land, rather than the war. ie seizure of the land following the war.

For example, the Hague Convention of 1907 says:

"Private property cannot be confiscated."

"Requisitions in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation."

"The property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, even when State property, shall be treated as private property. All seizure of, destruction or wilful damage done to institutions of this character, historic monuments, works of art and science, is forbidden, and should be made the subject of legal proceedings."

Israel has used expropriation orders to seize the land to build settlements, both from private individuals and Arab local authorities. That's specifically forbidden under international law, and that might be what the documentary is refering to by "illegal methods".

[Elfie]

Nashwan they actually said *illegal force*. Watch the vid, it's a decent one, just slanted toward the Palestinian cause. You might be able to shed more light on this after watching it. This part is about 30 - 40 minutes into the video. Somewhere around there anyways heh.