Part 3: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[AndHarry]

New thread as part 2 is nearly full.

Part 1 is here.

Part 1 was started when 3 Israeli boys were found murdered.

Part 2 is here.

In part 2 we mainly discussed the legality and human consequences of Operation Protective Edge.

Son of Hamas founder speaking on CNN

www.israelvideonetwork.com/you-wont-believe-what-the-son-of-hamas-just-said-on-cnn

...this suggests an equivalence and makes the angst of the Israeli couple seem as equal to that of the Palestinian couple- well we all know this is an unequal 'conflict' in which one side is suffering a great deal more.

A horrible dehumanisation of Israelis. Apparently the grief of Israeli people isn't as deep or as important as that of Palestinians when they suffer a loss.

How dare you pour scorn on any depiction of grief.

I also hate the way we see the different funerals with the more western type funerals of Israeli soldiers given lingering shots and clips of speeches made etc as opposed to the shots of shrouded bodies being hurried through the streets. Yes, the funeral processes are different but if the bbc gave each Palestinian death the same level of detail as we have seen for some of the Israeli funerals it would be more balanced. In short, the dead soldiers are humanised and the Palestinians dehumanised in this imbalanced coverage of their funerals.

And your complaint that Palestinian funerals should slow down in the face of fire and that camera crews should take more time to get better shots so that you can wallow better in the grief of the bereaved families amply reveals your utter inability to understand events.

This is not being carried out for your entertainment.

Utterly shameless; and that is the most charitable way I can express my sentiments.

In gaza they still celebrate eid today and will not be stopping due to mourning . That is the spirit of bravery in Palestine and in line with the islamic ethos that eid is always celebrated even in times of adversary. During the ceasefire ( fake ceasefire - Israel fired throughout) people rushed to atms to cash money out for eid. They are still decorating their homes and buying sweets and gifts for their children. Israel will never ever succeed .

Still no news on those weapons sherazade?

mathanxiety you don't have the right to call anybody else shameless. I was trying to describe the biased presentation on the news, which presents the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis to us in a way which gives considerably more airtime to the (vastly fewer) funerals of the soldiers. Now I can accept that it was late and I may not have phrased it well but I can't see why a funeral on one side should be given so much more attention than on the other- look at the medialens article: the BBC only opened a live feed on Gaza the day that IDF members died in conflict.

I also think the BBC news encourages a sense of 'otherness' about Palestinians but I'm not sure how it does this- I don't get the same feeling watching other news channels.

Don't think anything I said dehumanised Israelis tbh- it is a factual truth that they are NOT suffering equally in this conflict (and nor should they be of course, but that goes without saying) and therefore it is highly misleading of the BBC to foreground the Israeli couple (in a larger image).

You read want you want to read and argue that black is white and the world is upside down until you are blue in the face, but the BBC bias shows in every second of its coverage of this conflict from the imagery to the airtime to the slightest editorial decision - and yet, oddly enough, STILL people can see through the lies of the Israeli govt.

Blimey Math you really do tar everyone with your own brush don't you- I don't watch the news for entertainment and I don't want to see ANYBODY's deaths, least of all the deaths of children. But should people die, I would like to see their deaths reported equally and not as though one life mattered more. Not sure why you found that so hard to grasp really except for the sake of wilful misunderstanding.

There's no question that there have been far more Palestinian than Israeli deaths and that Gaza is a far more dangerous place to be - but I think one of mathanxiety's point was that grief is grief whatever the numbers.

Hello everyone, I've been following these very interesting threads. Some, ahem, very interesting viewpoints expressed.

Math,

Is the war for the Israeli's entertainment?

Israelis gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as military drops bombs on Gaza

Grief is grief no matter the matter the numbers is disingenuous. The point was that the media is biased, to emphasize Israeli suffering, thus downplaying Palestinain suffering.

Springheeled, that would be cognitive dissonance.

The cheering as bombs drop killing people is sickening. And people bringing their sofas as if it is some football match. The CNN reporter was right they are scum

Thank you frontierpsychiatrist you put it better than me! I don't argue that the loss felt is not devastating on any side, only that the coverage of loss is not equal and therefore is inherently biased.

My nephew works at the local tesco. They've stocked up on essentials as they generally make a killing during eid. He said they opened at 7 am and it is completely dead. No Muslims in a mad rush sticking up on butter, rice, milk, oil or puddings.

The manager is in shock. And panic.

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10152196518372405&id=543957404

"Israel does more than any other nation in the history of warfare to safeguard human life"

I was reading about protestors who take a shopping basket, fill it with the produce from Israel and then leave it on the store with a note explaining why. Little things, but if this was a concerted action in large towns on the same day it would have an impact. In the meantime I just emailed Tesco.

And yet, in contravention of international law, and not during warfare, they kill and maim residents of the lands they have invaded and control.

Have you looked at the link from CNN at the top of this page PJ?

Stop blaming Israel for everything.

springheeled thank you for taking the time to share your observations on the nature of the bbcs portrayal and how it exhibits it's bias. observing this stuff and being stunned that it seemed so flagrant to me is what made me give up on watching the news on television as it just made me so angry with both the bias and the insult to intelligence.

people sometimes watch things very uncritically especially because for a long time the BBC was seen as neutral and reliable etc.

it is good to actually analyse it and spell it out - if you're a tech head you could do an awesome youtube video of that analysis with the images to back it up.

or if you know a techie type person.

honestly think that would be a powerful piece springheeled. what seems obvious isn't always widely seen and the images and analysis put together can be very 'in your face' in a way that the penny properly drops iyswim.

honeybadger what this is making me see is that I have been bought up to see Muslims and all in the Middle East in a certain way. I mean, I don't think of myself as racist but I don't live in a diverse area and for example, I had to look up Eid this week and kept offering the guy I met on the protest water until he explained that fasting meant fasting!! I was quite ignorant. And I wonder if in a way it is because, if you don't know people in real life and you only see them represented in certain ways in the media you get this sense of 'otherness'- eg people wailing in rubble or in terrorist mugshots- and you have to work quite hard to read and listen to get over it- and I partly think the bbc coverage of this 'Gaza crisis' is fuelling the sense of otherness- I don't know, it's hard to explain.
But it reminds me of when I used to watch the news as a kid and for example believed that certain groups were very scary: that all Liverpool fans were scary drunken thugs and the miners were all loons and black people just wanted to riot all the time for no reason....how scary that the news, which is meant to inform, does so much to obscure and mystify the context of the images presented.
The protest on Saturday had the biggest range of people on it I have ever seen on a protest and it was great to meet so many people from all walks of life in a common cause. We all need to get out more!!!

a few hundred thousand shares of that video with a zillion comments would also possibly influence the bbc more than an email. bet we could get some of the online publishers to promote it.

if this is true what a fucking bitch

electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmakers-call-genocide-palestinians-gets-thousands-facebook-likes

oh absolutely - x posted with you there.

i lived a couple of years in the sinai and with trips in and out of mainland egypt and a couple (never again) into israel when i was fresh faced young thing, albeit an anthropologist, and you are immersed in an entirely different world view, perspective on history, perspective on power and it's role in history etc. i came back to england to resume my studies and was just training as an rs and philosophy teacher when 9/11 happened and then i was aware of just how radically different my perspective on global issues, culture, religion, power etc etc was from the average westerner - as in it really made it hit home that i had been.... othered by my experience (sorry if that doesn't make sense).

apart from that burst of living there for a couple of years i've travelled back and forth for few months here and there over a time span of 1995 to most recently last summer and therefore seen and been through a lot of changing history, politics etc there and with the perspective of the people there and hearing/seeing how things are reported there and what the different factions and tensions etc etc are. (i've resisted challenging what i felt was a bit of a simplistic analysis of the situation in egypt that i read on the thread earlier because it's off topic anyway and i'd find it hard to explain the complexity of what is going on within the different factions and... classes/mindsets/movements etc within egyptian people over the last two decades and on the ground knowledge isn't an 'authority' or as soundbite-like enough to be read iyswim and i don't fancy a kicking and created a huge diversion for the apologists).

what is amazing to see is so many people diversifying their perspective and knowledge without even traveling, without the motivation of.... affection, say, for a part of the world or a people or family or friends there.

for all the moaning and end of the world doomsayers only the internet and social media has allowed this expansion and growth of people's awareness and their increasing lack of dependence on their national, and obviously skewered, information sources.

sorry if this is mad off topic.

KareninsGirl Mon 28-Jul-14 10:56:24
Stop blaming Israel for everything.

I am not "blaming Israel for everything"

I do, however, comment on a policy of racial oppression, and the killing and maiming of thousands.

Do you suggest that I shouldn't?

Or do you have some defect which interprets that as "blaming Israel for everything?"

Add message | Report | Message poster KareninsGirl Mon 28-Jul-14 10:49:34
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10152196518372405&id=543957404

"Israel does more than any other nation in the history of warfare to safeguard human life"

--- youre joking right???? so they text people to tell them to leave the area, they leave the area to a safe area and the safe area is bombed, heard it all now

or are you referring to giving civilians a minutes warning to remove their families out of storey high buildings before they nuked them...is israel going to pay to clear the disgusting devastating damage and rebuild the homes theyve destroyed? If not why not? When is israel going to apologise to the world for killing countless civilians and hundreds of children.....who are the MAJORITY of the slaughtered and NOT "terrorists"

Pfft

one final observation is that as say my parents generation and above pass away there are going to be incredibly few people who are watching those national news sources uncritically and being able to maintain such a narrow, or nationalistic or whatever 'us' group they're in, view. the world is going to have to change but imho powerful elites who own the military might of the world don't give up easy so when people say revolution i don't feel entirely cheered by that because what it means is mass fucking slaughter and no guarantee of a decent outcome.

and i think this is one thing people around the world miss - gaza is a training ground. when people say 'we are all palestinians' you better fucking believe it. if human life is considered trash don't be thinking you're safe. 'if you tolerate this, then your children will be next'.