Fair & balanced (Israeli edition)

by on April 8, 2011 59
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Here is the headline on YNet regarding the Israeli attack on Gaza and the Hamas rocket fire into Israel:

Ynetheadline

In the time it took me to put up this post, the headline on the article has already been changed to "8 additional mortars explode in south."

About Adam Horowitz

Adam Horowitz is Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine

{ 59 comments... read them below or add one }

  2. annie says:
    April 8, 2011 at 10:41 am

    wow, what human being could write something like that?

  3. eee says:
    April 8, 2011 at 10:48 am

    Right, so when mortars are being shot at Israel, Israelis should mostly be concerned about collateral damage sustained by the enemy because our army was attempting to suppress the attack? What do you think we are, idiots? You do not want war and its consequences, do not shot mortars at Israel.

    • Avi says:
      April 8, 2011 at 11:10 am

      You do not want war and its consequences, do not occupy a few million people for 44 years.

      • eee says:
        April 8, 2011 at 11:54 am

        “You do not want war and its consequences, do not occupy a few million people for 44 years.”

        As if before 1967 there was peace.

        • Avi says:
          April 8, 2011 at 12:21 pm

          eee April 8, 2011 at 11:54 am

          “You do not want war and its consequences, do not occupy a few million people for 44 years.”

          As if before 1967 there was peace.

          You’re right. Seriously.

          The original sin is important.

          So, I’ll go back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

          That is to say that Israel is a colonial project. It is the LAST colonial power in the world.

          As soon as it decides to join the neighborhood, instead of being the thorn that it is, you will have peace.

          Comprende?

        • eee says:
          April 8, 2011 at 1:31 pm

          Avi,

          As soon as the neighborhood understands that the Jewish state is here to stay, everybody will have a better life. And if that means no peace, so be it. Nobody said getting and holding a Jewish state is going to be easy.

        • Woody Tanaka says:
          April 8, 2011 at 1:55 pm

          “As soon as the neighborhood understands that the Jewish state is here to stay, everybody will have a better life. ”

          LOL. Yeah, those darn Arabs. If only they proposed a peace plan with Israel, oh, I don’t know, perhaps back in 2002 at the Beirut Summit of the Arab League by then-Crown Prince, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and re-endorsed it at the Riyadh Summit in 2007 — call it an Arab Peace Initiative, if you will — promising Israel full recognition in exchance for a just solution to the Palestinian issues, I’m sure the Israelis would have JUMPED to accept it.

          Damn them for their lack of understanding…

        • eee says:
          April 8, 2011 at 2:22 pm

          Since “just solution” means right of return and the end of Israel as a Jewish state, naturally Israelis were not enthused. The only solution is by negotiations. The Palestinians should sit down and negotiate.

        • Woody Tanaka says:
          April 8, 2011 at 3:33 pm

          “Since ‘just solution’ means right of return and the end of Israel as a Jewish state, naturally Israelis were not enthused.”

          Oh, those darned Arabs. If they only announced, publically, that there would be, in this “Arab Peace Initiative,” something like, say, a provision that there would be a “just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution No 194.” The inclusion of such an expression — “to be agreed upon” — would certainly calm any Israeli paranoid fears about the right of return because, obviously, the end result wouldn’t be something that Israel wouldn’t “agree[] upon.”

          Darn those pesky Arabs for not issuing such a public document, which might have been reported by news outlets such as the BBC on Thursday, 28 March, 2002, 17:10 GMT.

          If they’d done such a thing, giving Israelis a clear path to everything they’ve always PROFESSED to want, why then the Israelis would have been bursting out of their buttons to get right to work accepting that ol’ Arab Peace Initiative.

          Darn those Arabs for not proposing one. Darn them all to heck.

        • Kathleen says:
          April 8, 2011 at 6:32 pm

          historical facts get in the way of the myths.

        • Citizen says:
          April 9, 2011 at 5:01 am

          Yeah, eee, 9/11, two wars, our dead & maimed soldiers, tens of thousands of dead Arabs, more billions of US tax dollars to Israel, and hopefully bombing Iran–it ain’t easy getting and holding a Jewish state. And not a shred of credibility left for Uncle Sam at the UN either. Americans really do need to face the music and slash America’s budget.

    • Woody Tanaka says:
      April 8, 2011 at 11:20 am

      “…so when mortars are being shot at Israel, Israelis should mostly be concerned about collateral damage sustained by the enemy…”

      Any civilized person would be more concerned about the innocent civilians, fellow humans (not “collateral damage,” as you put in Orwellian fashion), who were killed rather than a couple of damn chicken coops.

      Or does that disgusting Israeli comment about fingernails apply to chickens, now, too??

    • Shmuel says:
      April 8, 2011 at 11:21 am

      What do you think we are, idiots?

      Haaretz.com (English edition) somehow managed not to trivialise the deaths of five people:
      IDF strikes kill five in Gaza as barrage of mortars hits Israel
      Cross-border violence continues for second day despite Hamas announcement of unilateral cease-fire on part of all militant factions.

      And even Ynet did a somewhat better job on its second try:
      8 mortars explode in south
      Mother, daughter killed in Gaza airstrikes following fire of altogether 19 mortars, Qassam rocket which damaged chicken coops, factory in south. IDF: Hamas operating from within neighborhood, using civilians as human shields.

      Even moral relativists can show a little sensitivity every now and then.

    • eljay says:
      April 8, 2011 at 11:43 am

      >> What do you think we are, idiots?

      Israelis in general? No. You? Definitely yes. And a hateful, Zio-supremacist one at that, too.

      • eee says:
        April 8, 2011 at 12:02 pm

        Yes, yes, we can have this back and forth and in the end you will tell me that Israel should not have been founded where it was founded and therefore has no right to defend itself. So why complain about headlines in Israeli papers and not say outright what you believe?

        And of course, every Israeli or person that believes Israel has a right to defend itself is a “Zio-supremacist”.

        • eljay says:
          April 8, 2011 at 12:27 pm

          >> And of course, every Israeli or person that believes Israel has a right to defend itself is a “Zio-supremacist”.

          There you go being an idiot again. Please stop using your “common sense” and try using some real sense for a change.

          Like any other nation in the world, Israel does have a right to defend itself if it is attacked while minding its own damned business. But it’s not minding its own damned business.

          Even if one were to completely ignore the fact that Israel was born of violence, land theft and ethnic cleansing – something that only an immoral turd of your ilk could ever consider a “required” evil – the fact remains that Israel is engaged in ON-GOING aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder of Palestinians, and it refuses to engage in sincere negotiations for a just and mutually beneficial peace.

          As long as Israel “stays the course”, people like you who whine about self-defence while your “big, clumsy, drunken dancer state” does its best to wipe Palestinians off the map will continue to be nothing but hateful, immoral Zio-supremacists.

        • eee says:
          April 8, 2011 at 1:18 pm

          In short, Israel has no right to defend itself because its very existence is not minding its own business. Very helpful eljay.

        • lyn117 says:
          April 8, 2011 at 10:54 pm

          You are right, Israel should not have been founded where it was founded.

          Regarding whether it has a right to defend itself, that’s irrelevant because it’s the one doing the attacking.

        • Citizen says:
          April 9, 2011 at 5:04 am

          Eee, existing is an active verb. Actions have consequences.

  4. Jim Haygood says:
    April 8, 2011 at 10:48 am

    If Hamas now deployed a phalanx of tanks to repeatedly roll back and forth over those ‘damaged chicken coops’ in order to crush them to bits and kill every last hen and rooster — as the IDF did at the Sawafeary chicken farm — then both sides could call it even, huh?

    Oops … Hamas doesn’t HAVE any tanks! No fighter jets, bombers, attack helicopters, navy frigates, destroyers or air-to-ground missiles either.

    Oh well, scratch the equality idea. For now, Goliath (that would be Israel) runs roughhshod over his puny attackers.

  5. Shmuel says:
    April 8, 2011 at 10:58 am

    And at haaretz.co.il (Hebrew edition):

    Barrage of mortars at western Negev; damage to chicken coop
    The other mortars fell in open terrain causing no damage. Palestinians report that 2 Hamas militants and 3 civilians were killed in IDF attacks today.

    • annie says:
      April 8, 2011 at 11:32 am

      (Hebrew edition):

      they know then. they know for western consumption it is not polite to give a chicken coop top billing over the death of civilians.

      nakba denial is alive and kicking in israel. i wonder if this suggests it is generally accepted among hebrew speakers the lives of palestinians have less value than a chicken coop.

      how distressing we have one amongst us defending the article. this ongoing dehumanization is the enemy of ‘never again’.

  6. eljay says:
    April 8, 2011 at 10:59 am

    >> The army added that apparently civilians had been harmed in its retaliatory strikes.

    The IDF apparently hasn’t heard that “the PRESENT is what matters”, and that it’s important to “look to the future” and to “humanize ‘the Other’”. Oh, wait, that only applies to the Palestinians. I keep forgetting that Israel is entitled to “belligerent reprisals” even if it “started it”.

    >> But by far the most extensive damage was done to a number of chicken coops. “I built one of the coops by hand, and it will need to be rebuilt,” said Hashi Rubin, of the kibbutz in which the mortars exploded.

    Maybe they were terrorist chicken coops. Oh, wait, I forgot again: Only Palestinians have terrorist chicken coops (and chickens).

    Y’know, I can’t undertand why Hamas would be firing mortars into Israel, seeing as how Israel has halted all ON-GOING aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder, and has offered to engage in sincere negotiations for a mutual and beneficial peace. Oh, wait, it hasn’t.

  7. Avi says:
    April 8, 2011 at 11:02 am

    This brings back memories from the years when Israel was occupying southern Lebanon. Every other day, Israeli jets would take off from bases in northern Israel, fly over to Lebanon, often to the Lebanese Beqaa Valley, and bombard villages.

    Israeli radio would report these attacks as follows:

    “Air Force planes attacked terrorist bases in Lebanon today. All our planes returned home safely — כל מטוסינו חזרו בשלום”.

    End of story.

  8. David Samel says:
    April 8, 2011 at 11:07 am

    While I don’t think this prioritization surprises any of us – after all, damage to my fingernail is more important than the lives of your family members – I am surprised that no one at ynet said, “Wait a minute, this looks pretty bad.” Wouldn’t they be at lease a little embarrassed to present the article this way?

    Of course, the “human shields” mantra acts to shift the entire blame to Hamas for not only the dead (kosher) chickens but also the less tragic death of (treif) Palestinians. Don’t blame the killers; they are being reluctantly forced to kill. Were the innocent mother and daughter being held against their will by the rocket launchers? Were they voluntary shields and willing sacrifices for the PR value? Did the IDF, which supposedly had the bad guys in their gunsights, also see the mom and girl, and reluctantly pull the trigger? Were the other two dead identified as “Hamas gunmen” by their age and gender – they were male between the age of 12 and 75 (the article says one victim was a 55-year-old man – good enough)? Did the rockets originate from the location of the “retaliatory” Israeli strike, and were the Israelis hoping to kill the people who launched the rockets, or did they just figure that everyone in the neighborhood must be guilty of allowing rockets to be launched? Were the “gunmen” also the rocket launchers? Surely a reputable news organization like ynet is digging into these questions at this very moment, and not simply regurgitating the official explanations of the government and military.

    If killing humans is an appropriate response to the damage to an Israeli chicken coop and presumably the death of some chickens, what would be the appropriate response to Israel’s bulldozing of a major chicken farm in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 31,000 chickens?

    • Avi says:
      April 8, 2011 at 11:30 am

      Surely a reputable news organization like ynet is digging into these questions at this very moment, and not simply regurgitating the official explanations of the government and military.

      The process of socialization in Israel, requires that every Israeli view himself/herself as a victim, a perpetually self-centered victim.

      As a result — and I’m certain that you know this already — everything to do with ‘manufacturing consent’ (Chomsky) is geared toward that exceptionalism, that sense of Only WE matter. Only WE count. It is so pervasive that the Ministry of Education, magazines, newspapers, comics, songs on the radio, movies on TV, statements by celebrities, pretty much everything and everyone remind the people every waking minute that Israel is surrounded by barbarians and that Israelis are special.

      During the Golf War, for example, Israeli radio was saturated with nostalgic, morose songs — ala We are under attack, again. Why must they hate us so much? Thus, the indoctrination and socialization is multi-faceted. It aims to emotionally manipulate the target audience.

      To think that only yesterday,
      I was cheerful, bright and gay,
      Looking forward to, but who wouldn’t do,
      The role I was about to play


      But as if to knock me down,
      Reality came around
      And without so much as a mere touch,
      Cut me into little pieces

      Leaving me to doubt,
      All about God and His mercy
      For if He really does exist
      Why did He desert me
      In my hour of need?
      I truly am indeed,
      Alone again, naturally

    • Shingo says:
      April 8, 2011 at 4:19 pm

      Of course, the “human shields” mantra acts to shift the entire blame to Hamas for not only the dead (kosher) chickens but also the less tragic death of (treif) Palestinians. Don’t blame the killers; they are being reluctantly forced to kill.

      I guess the same argument could’ve made of the negligence of operating school busses so close to Gaza that they are within range of anti tank missiles.

      Human shields again?

  9. Shmuel says:
    April 8, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    The process of socialization in Israel, requires that every Israeli view himself/herself as a victim, a perpetually self-centered victim.

    To look at it from another angle, the dehumanisation of Palestinians is essential to garnering public support for and active participation in Israeli government actions. This was incredibly (even crudely) apparent in Israeli TV broadcasts during the Gaza massacre of 2008-9, to cite one example.

    As Aldous Huxley wrote, “when particular men and women are thought of merely as representatives of a class, which has previously been defined as evil and personified in the shape of a devil, then the reluctance to hurt or murder disappears.”

    • eee says:
      April 8, 2011 at 12:17 pm

      Shmuel,

      Dehumanization is Palestinians attacking on purpose a school bus with an anti-tank missile. What exactly should I feel towards Palestinians when they support such action? And if in the end all you plan on saying is that Israel has no right to defend itself because it is a colonialist power or something of that vein, then save your breath.

      • Shmuel says:
        April 8, 2011 at 12:29 pm

        3e,

        Huxley put his finger on it. The dehumanisation lies in thinking of “particular men and women … merely as representatives of a class, which has previously been defined as evil and personified in the shape of a devil”. Those who fire at a school bus do it, and those who trivialise the deaths of “particular men and women” by lending greater significance to a damaged chicken coop or by thinking of them “merely as representatives of a class” that fires at a school buses.

        • eee says:
          April 8, 2011 at 12:45 pm

          Shmuel,

          No death should be trivialized but in war, by its very nature, we categorize people into classes. When you shoot at an enemy soldier, you are not shooting at that particular person because of what he specifically is, you are shooting him because he is a representative of the class you call “the enemy”. This is obvious and trivial and every society at war operates this way. So why the venom directed at Israel?

        • Woody Tanaka says:
          April 8, 2011 at 1:31 pm

          Shorter eee:

          No death should be trivilized but, here, let me trivialize some for you.

        • Shmuel says:
          April 8, 2011 at 1:32 pm

          3e,

          Dehumanisation is unnecessary or necessary to a far lesser degree for the killing of combatants. It is essential however, especially in the long term, to desensitise soldiers and civilians to extensive “collateral” damage, collective punishment, disproportionate violence, targeting of civilian infrastructure, etc. (not to mention occupation, dispossession and colonisation, but that’s another story).

          I went through the Israeli educational system and army, and lived most of my life in Israel, but the extent of the dehumanisation of Palestinians really hit me watching a special edition of “Yoman ha-Shavua” (main weekly news show on Israel’s state-owned channel 1) in January 2009. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t watched Israeli TV in a while, or maybe the propaganda was particularly crude, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed while still living within Israeli reality.

      • kapok says:
        April 8, 2011 at 12:36 pm

        A school bus, hmm? Were the settlers using innocent children as a shield?

    • Avi says:
      April 8, 2011 at 12:32 pm

      The process of socialization in Israel, requires that every Israeli view himself/herself as a victim, a perpetually self-centered victim.

      the dehumanisation of Palestinians is essential to garnering public support for and active participation in Israeli government actions.

      Yes. The two go hand in hand. Both are required to repeatedly reinforce one another.

      The victimhood legitimizes (and aims to cancel out, if you will) the brutality, which is then reinforced and facilitated by the dehumanization.

  10. eee says:
    April 8, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    Here is the page for the Palestinian news agency:
    link to maannews.net

    Can anyone show me where the news is of the Israeli teenager who is fighting for his life following the Palestinian rocket attack on the school bus?

    Talk about burying news. How about not reporting it at all. According to your theories, what does this say about Palestinian society?

    • eljay says:
      April 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm

      >> Can anyone show me where the news is of the Israeli teenager who is fighting for his life following the Palestinian rocket attack on the school bus?

      It is very unfortunate that one Israeli teenager was injured and is fighting for his life.

      Accoring to this article, 13 people have been killed and 40 have been injured in Gaza.

      I hope that makes you feel better, you hateful Zio-supremacist.

      • eee says:
        April 8, 2011 at 1:25 pm

        Eljay,

        So what are your theories about Palestinian society? What “deep” conclusions are you going to come to? Are they “dehumanizing” Israelis?

        Just so you know, a few minutes earlier there were many more kids on the bus, so it was pure luck that only one was injured badly. The number games are meaningless. It is the intention that counts. If you intend to kill me, I will pound you until that intent is mitigated.

        • eljay says:
          April 8, 2011 at 1:56 pm

          >> If you intend to kill me, I will pound you until that intent is mitigated.

          As you were writing that statement, it should have occurred to you that the Palestinians have every right to think exactly the same thing and to want to act in exactly the same way.

          But your hateful Zio-supremacism blinds you to reason and leaves you with only your “common sense” which, as you have amply demonstrated, is worthless.

        • eee says:
          April 8, 2011 at 2:26 pm

          Eljay,

          But where did I deny that the Palestinians have the right to think in the same way? Of course they do. If they think that I intend to kill or harm them then they have the right to pound me until that intent is mitigated. You know, that is why wars are fought, when both sides don’t trust the intent of the other.

        • Donald says:
          April 8, 2011 at 4:37 pm

          That’s an interesting implied suggestion, eee. So maybe the US or someone should give Hamas sufficient weapons to give your side the same sort of pounding you give them, until your intent to steal land and practice apartheid and kill Palestinians is, ah, “mitigated”.

          It wouldn’t be my first choice of policies.

        • eljay says:
          April 8, 2011 at 6:54 pm

          >> But where did I deny that the Palestinians have the right to think in the same way? Of course they do. If they think that I intend to kill or harm them then they have the right to pound me until that intent is mitigated.

          You’re *so* close! Now all you have to do is make the leap:
          - from your abstract acknowledgement that they have a right to think that way IF they think Israel intends to kill or harm them,
          - to the concrete understanding that they (some of them? most of them?) do think that way because Israel IS killing and harming them (and stealing and colonizing their land, etc.).

          I sincerely hope you are able to make that leap.

        • eee says:
          April 8, 2011 at 7:28 pm

          The whole purpose of having a Jewish state is to be able to potentially have the power in a clash of wills and intents to be able to give the other side a bigger pounding and not always be on the losing side. If your policy is to arm Hamas because you think their cause is just, go ahead and do that. Naturally, my aim will be to stop you.

          The Palestinians think their cause is just. I and most Israelis believe that our cause is just. We will either reach an historical compromise about how to divide the land and live in peace or we will fight. Since we have fought several wars with the Arabs and Palestinians what leap of faith do I have to make to understand that most Palestinians think Israel is harming them? Why would they fight wars if that was not the case???

        • eljay says:
          April 8, 2011 at 7:37 pm

          >> eljay: I sincerely hope you are able to make that leap.
          >> eee: If your policy is to arm Hamas because you think their cause is just, go ahead and do that. Naturally, my aim will be to stop you.

          I hoped. And you failed miserably. Oh, well…

        • eee says:
          April 8, 2011 at 7:58 pm

          Eljay,

          You need to overcome your comprehension problem. I stated many times that evil was done to the Palestinian refugees in 1948. I think this evil is justified because it stopped a greater evil but I understand that Palestinians think what happened to them is not justified and therefore would want to fight me in order to change the situation. So what exactly is your point? Where do you see the lack of symmetry?

        • eljay says:
          April 8, 2011 at 10:00 pm

          >> eee: You need to overcome your comprehension problem.

          Coming from you, that’s quite funny.

          >> eee: So what exactly is your point?

          I guess my point now is that you’re a bigger idiot than I had imagined. I leave you to wallow in your hateful Zio-supremacism.

          >> Potsherd2: You had hope for EEE???

          For a moment there, yes, I actually had hope. But after that last post, it’s entirely gone.

        • Citizen says:
          April 9, 2011 at 5:22 am

          Eee, what is the greater evil that justified the Nakba? That justifies how the people in Gaza are treated too? And how exactly do you justify this means to your end? Please apply Kant. Can’t you?

    • lyn117 says:
      April 8, 2011 at 11:18 pm

      link to maannews.net

      Where’s the reports of all the civilians killed in Gaza in the NY Times?

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