Demonizing Israel Through Methods of Reporting

Nadene Goldfoot
Josephus was a Jew who wrote history for his Roman captors.  He wrote about the siege of Masada and how all the960  inhabitants living on top of this mountain had killed themselves rather than be taken captives by the Roman conquerors in a time between 66-73 CE.  .  He was writing for a Roman audience and if he did not please them, most likely he wouldn't live very long and would have died a ghastly death. Some even think he was writing for a Jewish audience.   He had to slant his material just a little and still write very descriptively about what he was seeing, perhaps with some embellishments as well  Today people are questioning his slant on the reporting and how accurate his report was   It was interesting enough for writers to base their book from with "Antagonists" by Ernest K. Gann and "The Voices of Masada" by David Kossoff.

There are underground smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.  They are used to smuggle weapons into Gaza. Not only weapons but materials are brought in to construct rockets and missiles to rain down on southern Israel.   Iranian terrorist trainers enter Gaza through these tunnels.

Rugaya Izzidien wrote about these tunnels for the New York Times on May 29, 2012, but took a different slant on them, something more palatable for the readers. Arabs are the good guys and were humanized while the Israelis were demonized as the bad guys.  The use of the tunnels was only said to be the artery to bring in needed supplies, like everything you can think of; food, building materials, clothes, electronics, cars, wedding supplies and writes that Gazans consider the tunnels a regular accepted route for their period in the "blockade."  Then of course the reporter goes on to mention that the tunnels are targets in air strikes because they seem them as an illegal  smuggling route.

The writer neglects to tell the readers some important facts that are left out, like Israel makes sure that there is the importation of thousands of all manner of goods that are brought into the Gaza Strip every day.

What we know about journalists is that they also have political sympathies and it shows up when they write, even though they are told to remain neutral and just print "the facts."  the facts turn out to be opinionated facts.  .  Many reporters are even more far left of their audience.  One person, Professor Aarebrot of Norway,  is trying to make the case that a journalist can write without any slant  They may be expected to, but too often it just doesn't happen.  The personal views of journalists have an impact on how they report.

Even Glenn Beck has that happen to him.  Being very conservative, he spoke about the shooting in Norway at a camp and said: "There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics?"

Frank Aarebrot, a scientist,  retorted by calling Beck names and comparing him to Joseph Goebbles.  He showed his side and that he is a Labor Party supporter.  Both men could not hold back their opinions and take on the situation at all.

Dan Rather, former anchor on CBS, and 60 Minutes, canceled a  scheduled appearance on the O'Reilly Factor on Fox News evidently to be able to appear on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart to argue that there is no left-wing bias in the mass media.  Walter Cronkite, of CBS Evening News was also considered by O'Reilly to be a very left-wing guy which he didn't hide well at all.  Bernard Goldberg stresses that most journalists don't really see themselves or their work as biased and think of themselves as smart, well-meaning and educated people without prejudice.

We go along with that thought and allow them to be referred to as the Enlightened Class in the USA.  Their job is to spread enlightened values to us masses.  Their job is also to dispel myths and ward off evils and the conservatives who carry superstition and primitive dogma.

I note that Fox News has an afternoon program about 5 reporters, 4 conservatives and 1 of the Enlightened and they love to give him a bad time, but he dishes it out and takes what comes well.  It's the grooviest program to see how people who disagree with each other can banter freely and not get all hot under the collar over some very dicey subjects.  Also what's terrific is that 3 of these conservative reporters are beautiful lawyers, more like models, who are  wonderful role models for young women who can see that you can be intelligent, most knowledgeable and yet sexy as well.

Then there are newspapers who will not print anything positive about Israel.  Dos this not sell newspapers?  Evidently not.  They'd rather take the slant of the left and print only bad press about Israel.  There is no balance because those of us who try to write rebuttals against a particularly nasty letter rarely ever  get it published, even for those of us who do a lot of writing.

The lesson of all this is that one has to be very careful in reading the written page to find out the truth.  Reporters, especially those on major media must be taken with a grain of salt until all is checked out.  At one time Portland had a morning paper, the Oregonian, and an evening paper, the Journal.  Each took a different political viewpoint and one had the chance to compare and contrast to come to a better evaluation of events, but it's much harder today.  We should be thankful that at least a few conservative viewpoints are still existing on TV.  There isn't much hope for newspapers as they are running into the red and dying out.  We don't want to be at the point where we have one source for news from just Big Brother.

These are important points to keep in mind when reading about Israel.  Much of the material out is slanted heavily against this little state.  Dig out the truth.  A source that is positive is not an evil source.   They just may know something the others may not know or don't want to know.  

Resource:  camera, alert@camera.org the NY Times has tunnel vision on the Gaza Tunnels
frontpagemag.com/2012/06/06/is-it-nonsense-to-talk-about -a-leftist-media-bias/print
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/masada.html
  

Bill Clinton Guilty of Not Faulting PA: Allows Distancing Prospects For Peace

Nadene Goldfoot

The problems facing Israelis today with the PA continually attacking Israel were also happening in 1990 with Bill Clinton as negotiator with Arafat, head honcho of the PLO terrorists, now Fatah.  Saul Singer, columnist for the Jerusalem Post,  wrote many essays about Israel's struggle after 9/11.  Israel was practicing  excessive military restraint, probably due to so much pressure from its "friends", that the net result was that the numbers of deaths just climbed and terrorists have become more brazen. 

Israelis pulled out of Lebanon, as written about on November 15, 2000 and was only there to stop terrorist attacks when our South Lebanese Army allies, the Christian militia under Major Hadad collapsed.  This unfortunately made Fatah and Hamas think that Israel could be "slowly bled into withdrawing from territory." Well, it worked.  We pulled out of Gaza completely in the name of peace.  Arafat used force and negotiations together with a negative response on all negotiations.  Israel has had to learn that we need to defeat terrorism  and that this is important in the negotiating that goes on.  When we give an inch, the terrorists go about trying to take a foot.  Now negotiations have ended. 

For 30 years Israel has done everything possible to give the Wakf (Islamic authorities ) control over the Temple Mount.  They even allowed them to dig a huge hole in its surface with heavy machines without any archaologists supervising which is actually against Israel's Antiquities Preservation Law.  The reason they were bending backwards trying to be more than fair is that for 2,000 years Jerusalem had become our symbol to return to Zion.  We had hoped that the Arabs there would see the moral and historic right of Israel to exist in the land and that they would not suffer from us being there.  Such hopes in September 2000 were bashed and so far is being received with the opposite attitude.  the Arabs are busy trying to erase all evidence of Jewish living in the land.  They deny it and teach just that.  We were never there.  Moshe Dayan would turn over in his grave if he knew. 

Israelis have wondered for years if a Palestinian state is necessary to keep Israel Jewish and democratic.  Now it's obvious that such a state is a "Trojan horse" threatening Israel's existence.  Ariel Sharon had turned around and had come to the idea that it was necessary and would work.  The fact that Fatah has reconnected with Hamas terrorism tells me that it isn't so anymore.  They have chosen war instead of peace.  Well, we can't sit back today and be wimps.  Netanyahu has taken the stand that they cannot kill our people and if they do, we will strike back. Israel is doing just that with this wave of violence that is happening in Southern Israel right now.  . 

Saul Singer wondered in 2000 if the world can defeat terrorism.  It's been 11 years now and we are just learning how to do several things about it with Israel's help being they have been attacked far longer than any other country has been and have learned from it .  Saul said  that fighting against terror is a struggle for human rights, freedom and democracy.  I see that Europe is giving up on the struggle and giving into demands like allowing Sharia law into their other laws as the preferred way out.  I can understand that after the devastating World War II that they would rather do anything than go through that again.  It's like they all suffer from PTSD when you mention sticking up for your rights.  It took Jews 2,000 years to get over losing their land in 70 CE , suffering from pograms and murders, burnings and plain old anti-semitism besides  a horrible Holocaust taking 6 million lives to cause them to know that they must establish their ancient homeland once again and it was time to do so now.

It amazes me that the terrorists are showing their colors now with such violence just before Abbas goes to the UN on September 22nd.  In my mind, it's showing me that they aren't willing to be a member of society and live peacefully with their neighbor, Israel.  Not fullfilling the requirements for such a meeting also tells me this.  What I am sceptical of is the logic the UN will use in deciding on this matter. 

Saul brings out that before September 11th we were all unaware that our civilization was in competition with another way of life.  We are from a pluralistic society and have fantastic values and love different people and ideas as well as food.  We need to remind the secular society we are up against that our values are most worthy and that they should pay more attention to them instead of fighting us all.  It does look to me that they are trying to pick up where Adolf Hitler left off. 

Glenn Beck is going to broadcast from Israel on August 24th and his program is called "Restoring Courage".  That's what the Western world needs to regain; courage.  It's time. 

Resource:  Confronting Jihad, Israel's Struggle and The World After 9/ll by Saul Singer 2003

The Contraversial George Soros, Multimillionaire

I've been watching the Glenn Beck show which has been running a 3 day program about George Soros because Beck is very concerned about the motives of this powerful financier. I had heard of Mr. Soros as the backer of J Street, an organization stepping on the toes of AIPAC, saying they are concerned with Israel but showing it in their way and not supportive of the present government, necessarily. Knowing that they were being supplied with money from Soros was quite a revelation. Then I heard of Soros's activities during WWII.

"Throughout three programs this week, Mr. Beck has portrayed Mr. Soros, a billionaire investor and philanthropist, as a “puppet master” who is “notorious for collapsing economies and regimes all around the world” and whose “next target” is the United States. Citing Mr. Soros’s statements about the decline of the dollar, Mr. Beck said, “Not only does he want to bring America to her knees, financially, he wants to reap obscene profits off us as well.”




Today Abraham Foxman of the ADL criticized Beck for mentioning that at age 14 Soros was helping an anti-semite confiscate property from Jews who were being sent to prison camps. I might mention that Beck is very supportive of Jews and of Israel as I have watched programs of his where he was one of the few people backing Israel.

Soros was born as Schwartz Gyorgy on August 12, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary. When age 13, which was then March 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary. He found work at the Jewish Council who were elected to carry out anti-Jewish measures. Soros had the job of handing out deportation notices to people. When interviewed about it, I saw that he did not have any remorse about doing what he had to do then. This was a very hard-hearted statement to say in an interview that would be seen by many people. Today he is an atheist but says that he is G-d. I'm not sure if he is saying this tongue in cheek or if he is coming to actually believe it. He certainly has money to use to control people today so must be feeling like a puppeteer at least.

In 1936 his family changed their names to Soros because of the anti-semitism of the day.

He immigrated to New York city in 1956 and is an American citizen now. He's known as the man who broke the bank of England. He made one billion dollars during their 1992 financial crisis.

Beck gave his audience a terrific amount of information about Soros. I would think that Foxman did not see all three programs about him. Beck continually tells his audience not to take his word for anything but to do their own research. However, Beck has help doing this and comes up with facts not readily available to me in many cases. I admire him for digging so well for facts. I think it takes a company of people to dig up the facts Beck has and to be able to piece them together in a time line like he has done and then prepare a talk about it with visual aids. It is most alarming to find out how many many organizations he controls with his money. His political aura is not that of the tea party, I can tell you that much. He is more of the Alinsky type of thinking. I did tape his 2nd program which is loaded with this information.

George supports legalizing marijuana. He says that China has to fix the global currency crisis.
Whatever happens in our economy now, Mr. Soros may have been behind the scenes controlling the acts. I believe after watching Beck's three programs that Soros may be the playwright as well.

PS 11/13/2010 9:34PM Evidently Simon Greer, Jewish, is another George Soros groupie and is head of the Jewish Funds for Justice, another group against Israel as much as Glenn Beck is for it. He is raising quite the ruckus over Glenn pinpointing him. It's most disapppointing to find out about this meshugana Soros being anti-Israel with all the where-with-all to talk other Jews into following his lead. How can they be so gullible? It looks like money can buy common sense and then bury it in some cases. How sad.

Reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/us/12beck.html
http://www.georgesoros.com/articles-essays/entry/china_must_fix_the_global_currency_crisis/
http://bigjournalism.com/klarrey/2010/11/13/groups-funded-by-soros-network-back-soros/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros