Gaza situation discussion

[Big Orange]

Over here the bias is more to sympathy for the Gazans to varying degrees, unlike the staunch Israeli lobby party that run TV news in the States.

That generates a lot friction between America and Britain if the anti-British rantings on Little Green Footballs are anything to go by.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Of course, because the one thing you can NEVER criticize is Isreal. Seriously, I think criticism of the AFGHAN war effort after 9/11 or discussion of blowback and moral culpability on the part of the U.S. was more tolerated than criticism of Israel.

People criticise Israel constantly, and not just here. Only the most hard-core right wingers refuse to criticise Israel; they treat Israel with softer kid gloves than most Israelis I've met.

What are you trying to do/say?

Mainstream politicians and media people never give equal weight or consideration to the position of either side, and never have.

The BBC is COMPLETELY different from news coverage in North America. It's like night and day, switching back and forth between them.

Exactly right. I'm talking about North American mass media. The thing your average voter, consumer, and man gets his information from. And its completely one-sided.

[Gil Hamilton]

There was a rally/counter rally on the University of Pittsburgh campus a couple days before I returned to university. What happened was a pro-Palestinean rally happened and a much smaller group of pro-Israeli folks showed up across the street with some Israeli flags and such. Alot of it was shouting slogans at each other from what I could tell.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That generates a lot friction between America and Britain if the anti-British rantings on Little Green Footballs are anything to go by.

Fuck 'em. I've not been amenable to the idea of a "special relationship" with the 13 colonies since Bush took the throne. And to be honest, I've been less accepting of the incumbent party in Whitehall too, so that's even longer.

Why people insist on one side always being right, no matter what, frustrates me. In this instance, Hamas fucked up and they're taking their lumps. But that doesn't exonerate Israel of some pretty piss poor management when it comes to playing this tit-for-tat game either.

[Sea Skimmer]

Fuck 'em. I've not been amenable to the idea of a "special relationship" with the 13 colonies since Bush took the throne. And to be honest, I've been less accepting of the incumbent party in Whitehall too, so that's even longer.

Too bad you’re stuck with it since you’ve now placed your entire nuclear deterrent in the hands of missiles which while jointly owned on paper, can only be serviced and loaded in US owned facilities. It would have been wise to have kept some gravity bombs around, but that would have cost some completely trivial yet apparently unaffordable amount of money needed to fund political asylum for captured pirates, or something.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Too bad you’re stuck with it since you’ve now placed your entire nuclear deterrent in the hands of missiles which while jointly owned on paper, can only be serviced and loaded in US owned facilities. It would have been wise to have kept some gravity bombs around, but that would have cost some completely trivial yet apparently unaffordable amount of money needed to fund political asylum for captured pirates, or something.

And when a nuclear war breaks out, I'll still not care. We've bigger issues to contend with, and frankly, nowadays it's not how lame the Western militaries are becoming, but how they're fucking over our general lives. Something Whitehall and the White House have perfected recently.

[Lonestar]

And when a nuclear war breaks out, I'll still not care. We've bigger issues to contend with, and frankly, nowadays it's not how lame the Western militaries are becoming, but how they're fucking over our general lives. Something Whitehall and the White House have perfected recently.

I don't know, the US Military has been pretty good to me.


As for the Media being rabidly pro-Israeli, okay, but any news organizations where the Saudis own 5%(CNN) or 5.6%(FOX) where it's promptly stated that "People are paying a higher price at the pump for Israel's War on Terror" is not one completely beholden to the Pro-Israeli lobby.

[Kanastrous]

Unless the cause is Arab oil producers throttling back production as a direct response to Israeli/US policy (may be but have not heard it reported), I wonder what the connection between Gaza and higher price-at-the-pump would be.

[Lonestar]

Unless the cause is Arab oil producers throttling back production as a direct response to Israeli/US policy (may be but have not heard it reported), I wonder what the connection between Gaza and higher price-at-the-pump would be.

They've also used the line when Israel invaded Lebanon a few years back. But if you own 5% of AOL-Time Warner and 5.6 of News Corp, it's pretty easy to make a phone call and get coverage to change.

[Illuminatus Primus]

As for the Media being rabidly pro-Israeli, okay, but any news organizations where the Saudis own 5%(CNN) or 5.6%(FOX) where it's promptly stated that "People are paying a higher price at the pump for Israel's War on Terror" is not one completely beholden to the Pro-Israeli lobby.

They own it to make money, and contrary simplistic understandings of media corporations, while they may broadly conform to the class interests of their owners, particular stockholders cannot veto verboten statements on the channels. They do not have active editorial control.

[Lonestar]

They own it to make money, and contrary simplistic understandings of media corporations, while they may broadly conform to the class interests of their owners, particular stockholders cannot veto verboten statements on the channels. They do not have active editorial control.

No, but they can call Rupert Murdoch and "request" that the editorial slant of the coverage of certain newsstories changes...and then boast about it later.

[Darth Wong]

They own it to make money, and contrary simplistic understandings of media corporations, while they may broadly conform to the class interests of their owners, particular stockholders cannot veto verboten statements on the channels. They do not have active editorial control.

No, but they can call Rupert Murdoch and "request" that the editorial slant of the coverage of certain newsstories changes...and then boast about it later.

Who is "they"? Saudis? Saudis are not Palestinians, and it doesn't mean the Palestinians have anyone's ear at FOXNews or CNN.

[Lonestar]

Who is "they"? Saudis?

Yup. Specifically the Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal.

Saudis are not Palestinians,

No, but they (The Saudi Leadership) do have a vested interest in knocking Israel down a few pegs, and using the IvP situation as a bloody shirt for their own people.

and it doesn't mean the Palestinians have anyone's ear at FOXNews or CNN.

It does mean anti-Israeli folks do have someone's ear at FOX and CNN, however. If absolutely nothing else it's a useful investment so that the Saudi leadership can have the MSM parrot the "The reason why prices are rising at the pump is because of the situation in Gaza/Lebanon".

[Elfdart]

Palestinians are depicted as little more than animals in most US media and Faux News is among the worst. The fact that some Saudi stock portfolios include shares of Newscorp means less than Jack Shit.

Even "liberal" media outlets like Huffington Post are chock full of IDF camp followers and fanwhores like Alan Dershowitz who claims that IDF atrocities are perfectly legal. Not only do they run this kind of excrement on their front page, they vigorously censor any posts that bring up his column in the Jerusalem Post calling for Lidice-style retaliation against Palestinian civilians.

So the idea that Faux News will slant its coverage in a pro-Arab way by so much as a micron is absurd. The bit about the oil prices doesn't do Arabs any favor, by the way. They'll take the blame for that, too.

[Coyote]

Would people be saying "it doesn't matter" if they found out that the Republican Party owned a 5% stake of Fox News?

[Elfdart]

Why would the GOP buy a share of the Newscorp cow when the milk is free?

[Coyote]

Why would the GOP buy a share of the Newscorp cow when the milk is free?

That's taking it too literally-- the point was, a party that cannot in any way be considered "neutral" or "objective" owns a share in the very media that is reporting on the situation.

[Uraniun235]

Palestinians are depicted as little more than animals in most US media and Faux News is among the worst.

Pulitzer prize-winning "political cartoonist". This shit is syndicated in hundreds of American newspapers.

[Duckie]

That is possibly the greatest cultural and socio-economic analysis of the racial turmoil in the middle east ever.

[Elfdart]

That's taking it too literally-- the point was, a party that cannot in any way be considered "neutral" or "objective" owns a share in the very media that is reporting on the situation.

It would just be redundant if right-wingers bought into FOX.

Buying a small percentage of a corporation that is committed to creating a certain kind of product gives you almost no chance in hell of changing the company. If I became super rich and bought 5% of Coca-Cola stock, what chance is there of getting them to stop selling soda?

Rupert Murdoch produces two things:

1) Trashy entertainment (reality TV, Page 3 Girls, FOX TV)

2) Right-wing agitprop and whoring in many other ways for right-wingers in the UK, US, Australia and Israel on TV, in print and on radio.

He churns this out even though most of his publications lose money. So what chance do you think there is for someone to buy into Newscorp and change the product? The answer is obvious. As Dean Vernon Wormer would say:



Zero... point... ZERO!

[hongi]

There's some fruit-hatin' going on too (from Little Green Footballs).

If you look carefully, in between the Juice and All, someone has inserted 'zionist'. I guess they realised they were going to look anti-Jewish if they just left it as it is.

[Elfdart]

Oh this is nice:

On January 11, an estimated 10,000 people rallied in front of the Israeli consulate in midtown New York in support of Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip. The rally, which was organized by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in cooperation with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, featured speeches by New York's most senior lawmakers. While the crowd was riled to righteous anger by speeches about Hamas evildoers, the event was a festive affair that began and ended with singing and joyous dancing.

LINK

Sen. Chuck Schumer highlighted Israel's supposed humanitarian methods of warfare by pointing to its text messaging of certain Gaza Strip residents urging them to vacate their homes before Israeli forces bombed them. "What other country would do that?" Schumer shouted from the podium. Gov. David Paterson appeared on stage wearing one of the red hats distributed to demonstrators as symbols of the red alerts some residents of Israel endure when Palestinian groups fire rockets their way. Paterson cited the many Qasam rockets that have fallen on Israel as a justification for the country's operations in Gaza, a military assault that has resulted in over 800 casualties and thousands of injuries.

Then Paterson highlighted the anti-Semitism that has followed in the wake of Israel's attack on Gaza, highlighting the beating of a teen-age girl in France. "This kind of anger and hatred spreads like a disease," Paterson said, "and one thing I've always pointed out is there's no place for hate in the Empire State."

But hatred was plentiful at the rally Paterson addressed. Right in front of the stage, a man held a banner reading, "Islam Is A Death Cult." Rally attendees described the people of Gaza to me as a "cancer," called for Israel to "wipe them all out," insisting, "They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children." A young woman told me, "Those who die are suffering God's wrath." "They are not distinguishing between civilians and military, so why should we?" said a member of the group of messianic Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch group that flocked to the rally.

No one I spoke to could seem to find any circumstance in which they would begin to question Israel's war. No number of civilian deaths, no displays of human suffering -- nothing could deter their enthusiasm for attacking one of the most vulnerable populations in the world with the world's most advanced weaponry. There are no limits, no matter what Israel does, no matter how it does it.

There's more at the link.

What a ghoulish bunch of fucktards these people are. Schumer and Patterson are even worse -pandering to this mob of genocidal morons. Trent Lott was removed from a leadership position in the Senate for praising Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday. Schumer should pay the same price but he won't.

[Darth Wong]

Ooooh, they warn people before they hurt them! How wonderful!

The Mafia does that too.

[Elfdart]

I doubt the IDF does any such thing, for the reasons I spelled out before.

[SirNitram]

Even "liberal" media outlets like Huffington Post are chock full of IDF camp followers and fanwhores like Alan Dershowitz who claims that IDF atrocities are perfectly legal. Not only do they run this kind of excrement on their front page, they vigorously censor any posts that bring up his column in the Jerusalem Post calling for Lidice-style retaliation against Palestinian civilians.

HuffPo sides with antivacciners. Nuff. Said.