Journalists hit as Israel fired at Lebanon were clearly marked as press, CNN analysis shows
Journalists hit as Israel fired at Lebanon were clearly marked as press, CNN analysis shows
You're viewing a single thread.
Media after media I see this same echoed sentiment and emphasis on emotional imagery from the attacks in Israel, which while absolutely devastating, was not done in isolation. I have yet to see anyone among my normal news circles raise the fact that there have been 10x the civilian Palestinian deaths in recent decades as there has been Israeli.
Are peoples' brains that short-sighted they can't comprehend this or what...? Or is it just that these journalists are so fearful of being witch-hunted for contrarian thoughts?
Its manufacturing consent .
The US state department picked a side in this conflict over 3 decades ago. The state-run media like PBS and NPR pick up the propaganda lines naturally. The national media such as NYT and NBC value their state dept contacts and armed forces advertisement dollars more than they value journalistic integrity.
After 30 years of the manufacturing consent feedback loop, here in the US we end up with a national media ecosystem that is more sycophantic to Israel than even the Israeli media. Haaretz features dissenting opinions that you can't find in national US media.
This metaphorical frog started boiling decades ago, finally most of the water is boiling off and it's really starting to stink.
I'm familiar with the notion of Manufactured Consent and to be clear I agree with much of what you say. Though I think it should be noted that neither NPR nor PBS are state-run. At least, nowhere near comparable to something like RT or even BBC or Al Jazeera.
A majority if their support comes from viewers. However, that being said, some of the larger donors and sponsors to both of these news outlets originate from a specific ethnicity, which I believe may put the reporters and columnists in a bind.
Ultimately it's risky business to go against the pro-Israeli sympathetic sentiment right now. Journalists risk being shunned or worse, accused of being antisemitic or sympathetic to terrorists.
Take a look at the breakdown of PBS funding for example.
31% comes from government, which makes it nearly impossible for PBS to have substantive dissent against state department propaganda.
30% comes from businesses and think tanks. These type of organizations do not give out of the kindness of their hearts, so what exactly are they buying? It is no surprise that, for example, their coverage of the green new deal is so negative when fossil fuel companies are giving millions.
And 31% comes from "individuals". Note that individuals is not the same as viewers, it is a black box that probably includes a few individual wealthy megadonors as well as many kindhearted viewers.
So yes, I stand by my assertion that PBS is state run media. If you think an uncoordinated bloc of individual donors is PBS' main constituency then you are being duped.
(Also note: the ethnicity of the donors does not matter, it is their ideology that is the driving force)
To include local state and municipalities in that to suggest some big bad state has a say in what is being run, versus the direct control of true state media like RT, for me, requires a MASSIVE amount of ink to connect those dots and make such a false equivalence comparison. Despite my grievances with our government, we are not the Kremlin. We are not an authoritarian state that is dictating what PBS member stations run or informing their journalists. If you have any direct evidence of this whatsoever, then I'll reconsider.
Moreover, PBS and NPR tend to have some of the most objectively accurate reporting and educated, critical listeners among literally any media outlet. Even if we entertain it being state-run, then overall I'd say it's working as best as could be expected for any institution to run.
Being generous, that total isn't even a plurality of total funding; in spite of foundations and corporate givings, those are ostensibly not government entities either. Often they're non-profits like CPB.
As such I'll generally remain where I was in saying that, yes, PBS is certainly considering its big donor sources in what it broadcasts; but to equate it to full-on state run or propaganda is a non-sequitur.
Your first paragraph suggests that either you do not understand how manufacturing consent works, or you are in disagreement that it is a valid theory of media. There is no false equivalence, no non-sequitur, just different methodology.
The comparison to the Kremlin and RT is an important one, because propaganda from PBS is so much more effective than RT. Polls consistantly show that the vast majority of Russians do not trust their state-run media. In contrast, polls show an overwhelming trust in PBS. RT lies much more often, but PBS lies much more effectively.
I agree that PBS and NPR do lots of good work, much better than most of the alternatives. They produce well-informed, well-intentioned neoliberals with built-in blind spots. My whole thesis here is that these blind spots do exist and they are intentional.
The current media blitz in the US feels so much like the post 9/11 lead up to the war on terror. It is scary. And PBS is playing the same role, manufacturing consent now just like it did back then.
The problem is that you haven't substantially elucidated what "propaganda" PBS is broadcasting in the first place; mere vague examples or one-off biases such as in the case of Israel is not proof of some grand scheme of strings pulled by government, direct or indirect. For example, I feel you're playing loose with accusations of lying by PBS or NPR, but if I ask for evidence thereof, you may only be able to at best evidence falsehoods — which again, does not prove intent to deceive in the case of a lie.
The reality is that there quite literally no single perfect source for news; though with that being said, there is certainly a gradient of quality across news media outlets, for which you yourself admit PBS/NPR consistently perform at the top. So I struggle to see the overarching point you're trying to make here. Yes, I was critical of PBS and how they covered these recent events in a knee-jerk reactive fashion (though I will say their special report the other night was far more objective), but that doesn't mean I'm willing to take it down as some propagandized "state media," when it's ostensibly not state-run nor even state-funded by plurality.
The thing with Russia and RT is that they've effectively eliminated all other independent sources of journalism, and so what remains are only Kremlin-backed media outlets. Regardless of peoples' alleged trust in RT (I'm interested in seeing these studies), the entire mediasphere in Russia is pushing one single narrative, and over time that will become the new reality.
The current media blitz in the US feels so much like the post 9/11 lead up to the war on terror. It is scary. And PBS is playing the same role, manufacturing consent now just like it did back then.
I definitely do see some of this. What's even more amusing is that David Brooks made a comment during his segment the other night saying something along the lines of, "I had thought we had a lot of good reasons to go into the middle east after 9/11, but then I was proven wrong," — then he basically doubles-down on supporting Israel. Not even considering the root causes for this rise in radicalization that are abundantly obvious.
Journalists have a narrow line to tread between recognizing the rise of right-wing extremist and antisemitism in the world, being told to point to it as terrorism, and then turn around and watch as Jewish civilians are attacked and then weave a thread between terrorism and a humanitarian crisis. I don't envy them when the viewers are completely uninformed or firmly in one camp over another; for there isn't much more controversial the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
So far within western media I've only seen certain segments of the BBC and Amna Nawaz of PBS give fair coverage.
People keep stating statistics like they indicate some sort of obvious bias or preferential treatment for one side or the other. More Palestinians have been murdered by Israel than Israelis by Palestine because the Israeli government actually tries to protect their own citizens, hamas literally uses Palestinians as human shields and stokes aggression and resentment to further the conflict. Both sides fricking suck but you can't just say a surface level observationa nd present it like it gives some moral superiority to one side or the others.
Is it possible Israel is able to kill more people because they are funded by western powers and use missiles, airstrikes, tanks and sniper rifles while Palestinians throw rocks and homemade rockets? And you are also saying a surface level observation which gives moral superiority to Israel.
Israel decided to invest in a automated solution for shooting down hamasi rockets and minimise their own casualties. Hamas has done shit all to protect Palestinians, I can't recall a single proactive step from them even close to rivaling the dome. My point wasn't Israel is clean, it was there's an already present imbalance in motivations related to the deaths on each side and saying "more Palestinians are dead" so Israel bad misses the f*cking point of how many Israelis would be dead if Israel gave as little thought about them as hamas does for Palestinians. Only a charlatans tries to attribute any moral superiority to wither side here, they both have and will continue to commit warcrimes. Neither is any better than the other and both absolutely suck.
I mean how the fuck would Palestine pay for something like the dome? Or even install it in the Gaza strip, it is completely cut off from the rest of the world. Even in the Westbank Palestine doesn't have the ability to use a big chunk of their land for economic purposes because the Israeli forces keep occupying it, so again, how would they fund such a system?
Are you kidding me? You are saying the Palestinians don't care because they don't have an Iron Dome? Do you know how much money it costs to operate something like that? Israel has received billions of dollars through military aid from western powers, Palestinian people don't even have enough food or medicine and you expect them to build a multi-million dollar defense system?
Do you have any data that shows those deaths of Palestinians in recent decades were a result of unprovoked attacks by Israel?
Do you think Palestinians can achieve anything good for themselves by starting violence?
At a certain point it is no longer about "who hit first" but about "who hit last".
The biggest issue is the attacks are not proportional. Just like 9/11 what happened in Israel to flare this up again is but a drop in a bucket of years of lived experience of those in Gaza. It doesn't justify any of it but it does provide important context.
And fuck Hamas.
There can be no context for violence that hamas has shown recently, solely because it was aimed for citizens who did nothing to them. Anyone who doesn't understand this also has to answer how exactly this helped anyone anywhere, other than accepting that hamas only wanted to kill more Israeli with no meaningful purpose in mind.
Right, that's one way to deal with Terror, ignoring the reasons the terrorists became that way and killing everyone close to them to avoid new terrorists.
What reasons? You can't reason with people who want to kill and create terrorists out of their own citizens. They have the internet so they could at least educate themselves on how history and terrorism work, how they could live fine as is, without resorting to violence. How they will not live fine if they practice terrorism.
Propose a better way to deal with terrorism, or just accept the reality.
how they could live fine as is, without resorting to violence. How they will not live fine if they practice terrorism.
Well that's quite literally not true. People in Gaza can not "live fine as is" because they are cut off from the whole world, relying on an enemy nation to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered. People in the Westbank aren't allowed to use their own land because Israel is keeping it occupied and keeps building settlements.
You can’t reason with people who want to kill and create terrorists out of their own citizens
This is true, but kinda unrelated to what I said. I said there are reasons people become terrorists. Whether or not you can still reason with them after that point of radicalization is not what I was arguing.
Propose a better way to deal with terrorism, or just accept the reality.
"Either solve an unsolvable problem, or accept that bombing civilians is an acceptable solution" isn't really an argument, it can be turned around to justify the terror the Hamas is spreading: "Propose a better way to deal with the occupation of our land and the killing of our people, or just accept the reality". It's just an absurd.
People in Gaza can not "live fine as is" because they are cut off from the whole world, relying on an enemy nation to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered.
Well guess what doing terrorism will bring them? Certainly not getting new connections in the world. If they wanted to do anything positive, they wouldn't build rockets in the first place.
I said there are reasons people become terrorists. Whether or not you can still reason with them after that point of radicalization is not what I was arguing.
The reason being: hamas propaganda. You can't justify those reasons. They need to be rectified properly. Israel existence is not one of those reasons.
"Propose a better way to deal with the occupation of our land and the killing of our people, or just accept the reality".
Accept all the help from the world you can get, and do the rest yourself. Build infrastructure, hospitals, universities etc., not rockets. Just stop being terrorists and making more terrorists.
Depends. How far do you want to go back? The aborigines of Palestine were Arabs. But throughout the 20th century we saw provocation as land was continuously annexed for Israel to the detriment of the local Muslim populations.
In recent decades, does it matter? If Israel is pretending to play the high ground here, why is everyone feigning complete ignorance to massive civilian collateral damage when they as a non-terrorist state SHOULD be held to a higher standard?
To that end, do you really think their bombing civilians isn't going to radicalize the surviving family members...?
As for Hamas' goals, I have no idea. But then again, the world is talking about them. Like any toddler for lack of words on the world stage, throwing a tantrum is the only way to get attention.
Yes, there is no use in looking in the past. What matters is the future. Israel is now trying to secure a safe future for their citizens. On the other hand, I don't believe hamas had any thought about what would they achieve by starting violence again. So it is hamas who does useless things, not Israel.
Getting attention by violence doesn't seem to have worked well for anyone who started it.
Radicalizing civilians is not something that can be avoided, especially when current hamas propaganda does basically the same thing.
The future right now is that Israeli forces are committing ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Israel is not at all in any way or capacity trying to secure a safe future for their own citizens and got the Palestinians.
What you said here is illogical.
-
If ethic cleansing is what's happening right now, then why exactly was it not done before? Nobody would've stopped them anyway. If they really wanted it, that is.
-
Hamas did not at all in any way or capacity try to secure a safe future for Palestinians by killing 1000 people in Israel.
-
Leaving terrorists as is will guarantee more terrorism.
- Israel did this every day for decades
- No, they didn't, I agree
- Exactly. And Israel is a terrorist state.
- Not seeing it. If it's done for decades why does Palestinians population growing?
- See 1.
If it’s done for decades why does Palestinians population growing?
- Because of the high birth rate. It doesn't matter if Palestinians live today still, the key point is that Israel is systematically committing ethnic cleansing. But no you're right, let's wait until the last Palestinian is dead before we condemn Israel and cut off aid.
- What is that supposed to mean?
- I don't see how Israel is actively trying to do any damage. I see Palestinians think killing Israeli is their life purpose. Therefore the only ones who want genocide or cleansing are Palestinians. If they don't attack Israel, Israel doesn't attack them.
- It means "3. See 1." - was likely a mistake or autocorrection.
There are ample sources that show exactly how Israel does that
Generally, human rights organizations hsve taken a stance that denounced Israeli state terrorism and apartheid against Palestinians.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
Israel has been accused of genocide on multiple occasions (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinian-un-envoy-accuses-israel-genocidal-campaign-against-gaza-2023-10-10/ is one recent example) yet no sanctions are ever placed on them
Look at all the fucking UN resolutions condemning Israel so far. It's so shameful that Israel is allowed to continue this.
1969: 11 December: Resolution 2546: Condemns Israeli "violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms" in the occupied territories
1983 19 December: Resolutions 38/180: Calls all nation to suspend or sever all diplomatic, economic and technological ties with Israel. Condemnation of Israel on various topics including occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, war in Lebanon and the annexation of Jerusalem.
Etc, etc
My own family were terrorized by Israel's Deir Yassin massacre, the news of it spread everywhere and they decided to flee and ended up in Jordan after armed confrontation with Israelis where many were killed or went misding. Life in Jordan was frankly shit as a family of Palestinian refugees and I really admire my grandmother for standing up from that.
Screw Israel. Because of them I had to live as a second class citizen in anothe country where I never felt home and always had less opportunies and protection than others who were Jordanian despite being granted a citizenship. I'm happy my grandmother at least didn't live long enough to see this shit unfolding after she lived through 1948 and lost everything in it. She deserved to go back. If any of these UN resolutions were followed she would have been home, happy and healthy for once in her life without having to become a goddamn refugee. Israel ruined so many lives, Israel removes whole families from existence. These are facts, and worse of all Israel's human rights violations are always overlooked.
-
Securing a safe future is very well the goals of Palestinians, including Hamas in their very charter. The difference is Israel seeks to maintain status-quo because they're living comfortably with a massive GDP largely dependent on foreign aid and tourism. Meanwhile Palestine are confined to ghettos / open-air prisons as they look on for what Israelis took of their ancestors' land.
Also I completely disgree on your notion of producing more terrorists. Israel has only two choices: make more terrorists, or commit genocide against civilians yet to be radicalized. Otherwise your argument doesn't make logical sense. But ultimately if we step back and choose other options as opposed to reactive violence, there are other ways in which Israel has agency to change this.
"By killing Israeli we will achieve our safe future", sure.
If they can have their own television in their "open-air prison" surely they can have pretty much anything else. Build infrastructure, not rockets.
"Ancestor's land" huh? Maybe first make yourselves look like a civilized people? When you become a terrorist, you lose all culture and therefore any rights for your ancestor stuff.
Defending against terrorism is not a genocide.
I mean, what the fuck do you think Israel has done to the native Arab populations there for decades on end...? Why is it a one-way street for you? You do realize that more Palestine civilians have died at the hands of Israeli soldiers than Israeli civilians from Palestinian terrorists... Riiiight.... ?
If they can have their own television in their “open-air prison” surely they can have pretty much anything else. Build infrastructure, not rockets.
So I can do whatever the fuck I want to you in my prison, so long as I give you a television and an antenna...? Interesting. Think that through a bit more.
“Ancestor’s land” huh? Maybe first make yourselves look like a civilized people? When you become a terrorist, you lose all culture and therefore any rights for your ancestor stuff.
Has it ever occurred to you that we were terrorists when we firebombed and carpet-bombed 90+ Japanese cities? Did it ever occur to you that many civilians died in Dresden, Germany...? It's all about context, my friend. Hell, Americans were terrorists when we defied the British monarchy. If someone literally took ships full of people to YOUR land, and then slowly began displacing and annexing your land as you continue to wane into poverty, yeah, you would get pretty upset, too. Hence the famous adage, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
You have little empathy; that is, you lack the historical awareness or capacity to place yourself in the shoes of these people.
You do realize that more Palestine civilians have died at the hands of Israeli soldiers than Israeli civilians from Palestinian terrorists... Riiiight.... ?
You do realize that math doesn't allow anyone practice terrorism, right? If you justify terrorism with that nobody will listen to you, and rightfully so.
So I can do whatever the fuck I want to you in my prison, so long as I give you a television and an antenna...? Interesting. Think that through a bit more.
The point is, if you call such a life "a prison" you have no idea what a prison really is. Can they build? Yes. Can they educate themselves? Yes.
Has it ever occurred to you that we were terrorists when we firebombed and carpet-bombed 90+ Japanese cities?
Has it ever accured to you that you are justifying terrorists who do terrorism regularly and are teached to do so by hamas?
It's all about context, my friend.
You are avoiding the context. The context being a current state of the world society. If Palestinians really want to come out from their "prison" and connect to the world, someone should've told them that regular terrorism will not lead there.
You have little empathy; that is, you lack the historical awareness or capacity to place yourself in the shoes of these people.
Hell yes, I will never want to put myself in the shoes of people who want to and enjoy killing. The lack of historical awareness is on Palestinians though.
Perhaps the real terrorists are indeed the squatters stealing slowly stealing land and killing the majority of civilians throughout this conflict...(hint: Israel).
Your arguments are not even remotely compelling but utterly deflective while excusing mass atrocities by Israel.
Perhaps? Or perhaps terrorists are those who teach their children they need to kill Jews.
So is it about the land or the killing? How exactly do you think doing terrorism will help "unsteal" any land?
Are you excusing mass terrorism by Palestinians? I think you do. Is that what you call "compelling"?
Permanently Deleted