Part 7: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

[AndHarry]

Thread 1 - started when 3 Israeli boys were found murdered

Thread 2 - Operation Protective Edge

Thread 3 - Operation Protective Edge, the wider conflict and international involvement

Thread 4 - Operation Protective Edge and the different views in Israel and the wider international community

Thread 5 - in which Operation Protective Edge came to an end and the discussion continued

Thread 6 - themes of the conflict, what happens next and how ordinary people can get involved

Welcome to Thread 7.

err no i never did say that a few people doing something forms an impression of a whole people.

that was your leap and now your paraphrasing your leap as if it was my words.

your snide and dishonest posts are getting a bit wearing.

You said it'll change how people see Israel.

Why will the actions of a tiny minority of Israelis change how people see Israel? Surely it's the same as the actions of a not so small minority of Palestinians changing how people see Palestine?

Nothing devious or snide or indeed inflammatory or ialamphobic or even racist. Nice try though :-)

And I note that you still haven't explained your bizarre assertion that saying that Europe hasn't done a good job protecting Jews is offensive to British war orphans.

Or shared with us anything islamophobic or inflammatory that I have said.

Just as yruapita hasn't explained why Shiite is a racist term (because it isn't where I come from - maybe she uses it as a deragatory term) .

Totally bonkers!!!!

Although you're giving me and dh some amusement when he asks me for the latest update on this thread :-)

what i said is just a little up there for anyone to see who cares to see it rather than your spin of it.

i'm glad you find being massively rude and sarcastic amusing.

No, I find your outlandish claims and baseless insults amusing.

As in 'do you know what they said today, apparently I'm racist because I said Pakistani Shiite'

Cue dh rofl!

But I still note the lack of explanation.

No spin, quoting directly from what you said. I'll c&p later in case you've forgotten.

I do also like the irony in
'I'm glad you like being sarcastic '

You make me laugh Thb!

Shakshuka
3 things. Firstly, I didn't claim what I did was rigorously scientific but since you don't know how I coded things you have no basis for calling it 'totally subjective'. The 'neutral' comments I cited show my approach. In fact I think 'in the early days Abbas was respected for his clean and simple living' is double edged with the implication that NOW he's corrupt, but I actually coded that as neutral. Equally, I coded 'Netanyahu fought in the ME war' as neutral though I'm sure many would view that as commendable. I think your accusation of my bias is unfair and certainly unfounded.

Secondly, you consistently overlook key points: this is totally NOT about 'truth' (is there such a thing???), it's about TONE and CONNOTATION. Sorry to use caps, but want this to be clear. Here's an example. "And in spite of (reader thinks oh dear, something negative coming; 'in spite of' is also more negative connotation than 'despite') all his pragmatism, abbas faces (rather confrontational/aggressive, not cooperative at all) a right-wing Israeli prime minister with whom he cannot (the negative is clearly linked to abbas's ability, rather than to the situation or with the israeli pm) find common ground." Ends with a clear sense of failure overall, which undiscerning readers will have picked up without knowing why. A virtually identical idea ('truth', if you prefer) is expressed about netanyahu. "Political differences (no blame attached to either party) with US president Obama has meant (no fault again, it's just something inevitable) a difficult working relationship (people sympathise with those in difficulty, the reader gets the sense that things are working) between (nicely cooperative) the 2 leaders (equal, respected/respectable standing). Completely different reader message - not netanyahu's fault, things are difficult and they're both equal. See how the 'truth', which is ostensibly the same (difficult negotiating position), is masked with a negative/positive spin?

And finally, here are the verbs with their tenses. N- born (this is a passive/past participle - someone bore him, it wouldn't make sense to use present tense for this), serves, becomes, enters, becomes, loses, serves, serves, resigns, wins back, becomes (all present tense) and reelected (another passive/participle). A - born (a/a), studied, gained, held (all past tenses), appointed (passive), regarded (passive), elected (passive). None of the passives about either leader indicate the tense (is/was reelected?), so the reader automatically follows the pattern that's already been established, clearly indicating distance from Abbas and closeness to netanyahu.

Shakshuka I cringe reading your posts. It is the stance of people like you that give israel, and indeed all jews, a bad name.

Can you elaborate cleanmachine? What stance exactly and why would people extrapolate this to an entire religion that has a huge range of views and opinions? What particular comments make you cringe? What do you mean by "People like you?"

That was an interesting analysis QnBoudi.

Cleanmachine.

Its a shame you feel like that.

The thing is I'm only half Israeli and half Jewish so perhaps we can extend the bad name to only half the Jews and half of Israel? The other half would have to go to Britain (sorry guys)

Another post to share with dh this evening.

Qnboudi

The bias is inherent in all of us. We all have them, even if unintentionally. I used to be a researcher in social sciences so recognising how your a priori biases affect how you approach and conduct research was one of the first steps to take .

The only way to check would be to have a number of people recode to see discrepancies.

It is totally subjective how you decide between criteria. That's not your fault, it's just the nature of what you were trying to do.

Just like in the examples you gave and assumptions you made,.you made a call and that call is inevitably influenced by how you think about the situation.

You know, cleanmachine, you could just have said that you disagree with me on x,y,z points I made. Interesting that you decided, instead, that I represent both the state of Israel and the entire Jewish people for some bizarre reason. Perhaps you could explain or will it join yruapita's unexplained claim of grotesque racism.

Clearly giving any legitimacy to the Israeli narrative and experience is very upsetting for you.

Petition to Hammond calling for measures against settlement expansion, end to provocation and escalation of violence, and support for palestinian rights under international/humanitarian law - in case anyone hasn't seen it yet. www.palestinecampaign.org/urgent-take-action-east-jerusalem

Taking your example, Qnbourdi

And in spite of (reader thinks oh dear, something negative coming; 'in spite of' is also more negative connotation than 'despite') all his pragmatism, abbas faces (rather confrontational/aggressive, not cooperative at all) a right-wing Israeli prime minister with whom he cannot (the negative is clearly linked to abbas's ability, rather than to the situation or with the israeli pm) find common ground."

You see, I see that differently. I'm coming at this with my a priori biases: namely that the BBC is fairly neutral and that I detest Netanyahu.

So I see that piece as saying that even though Abbas is pragmatic (as opposed to Bibi who isn't), he's been lumbered with a partner who (because he's so far on the right) he can't find common ground (ie despite trying his best because he's a pragmatist).

Do you see how these kind of analyses are subjective?

And on the subject of langauge, I thought the language was very interesting in that petition you linked to.

I noted that Rabbi Glick who was shot was called a 'far-right Jewsih extremist' as though that makes it OK to shoot him (although all he is interested in to allow Jews to be able to pray on the Temple Mount - did you know that they're forbidden by the Muslim Waqf? Apparently religious freedom stops there) even though he is an unarmed civilian who has never called for any violence but the attempted murderer has no such label applied to him even though he was a known member of Islamic Jihad. Additionally, he was killed in a shoot out with the police (that little tidbit is also ignored).

Even though I have sympathy for some of the arguments presented, I'd never sign such a provocative and unbalanced petition.

Of course a petition uses loaded language: there's no need for the neutrality the BBC have pledged to, according to their own charter/guidelines. And yes, there's a degree of subjectivity involved in my interpretation (though not totally subjective) and it would be useful to have several people reiterate the coding to establish reliability (and just in case anyone can be arsed, I'm sorry for the mistake I made earlier - in that in fact I coded Abbas's early days of clean living as positive rather than neutral). It's interesting though that your interpretation of that sentence is given in paraphrase rather than referring to the original wording. But that's why I posted the links and my scores so others could replicate it. Just raising awareness of what I see as issues.

Cleanmachine - the post about Shakshuka was totally unacceptable. I'm not going to report it, because it says more about your prejudices than hers.

Can you imagine a similar statement in another context - eg "it's love cheats like ............ who give mixed race people a bad name". First it assumes that mixed race people have a bad name, which is in itself racist, and then it assumes that what one person does can be extrapolated to an entire group, which is equally racist.

Just catching up on some of yesterdays posts...

Yruapita, you say "Amnesty documented 8 instances in which israel attacked civillians without warning". I believe these instances would have happened after the 3,000 instances in which Hamas attacked Israeli civilians without warning. 3,000 missiles were aimed by Hamas densely populated Israeli cities, all without warning, before the Israeli retaliation.

With regard to the BBC bias, the terrorist attack in Jerusalem this week headlined on Sky News and in all the major UK news channels, but was not covered at all by BBC TV. It got a mention on BBC Radio 4 though and online. No mention on BBC TV of a dramatic and topical story at a time of heightened tension where a Palestinian was the perpetrator.

What's happening in that newsroom? Who thought, nah that's not a story, only a terrorist attack in one of the world's most volatile cities?

I don't think a petition needs to necessarily use neutral language.

But deliberately misleading is another story.

For each complaint Israel supporters make, there are several that the other side can make. Why is it so difficult to consider the proportionality of claim and counter claim? www.palestinecampaign.org/media-wont-tell-east-jerusalem/ Mega depressing.

Talk about spin and one sided!

Saying that all of Jerusalem used to be Palestinian completely negates the continual Jewish presence in the city. It wasn't only a Palestinian city. West Jerusalem was founded and built by the Jewish community due to the squalor in the old city.

And bringing up the 1947 un plan for Jerusalem is ridiculous - it was the Arabs who rejected it! And it was Jordan which occupied east Jerusalem and the old city.

And why shouldn't Jews pray on the temple mount? Or are only Muslims allowed?

Finally, there are outright lies. East Jerusalem residents can live and work wherever they like throughout Israel. They are not banned from living in any part of Jerusalem.

It is not true that all of Jerusalem used to be Palestinian, as that petition claims. I have Jewish ancestors who were resident in Jerusalem going back to the 17th century (including my grandfather) and their graves with my family name and dates can be seen today on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. They lived in Jerusalem during the Ottoman Empire and British Mandate and you can still visit the old hospital that my ancestors built there in the 19th century. I object to them being written out of history.

That doesn't mean that Palestinians can't live there too, of course. The truth is that both nations have strong claims in the city.

I do worry about petitions where they seem to feel their case isn't strong enough and therefore bolster it with lies.

Exactly my thoughts sergeantmajor.

It's ironic that an article titled 'what the media doesn't tell you about Jerusalem ' starts off with a pack of lies.

Recognising the Jewish claims to Jerusalem doesn't weaken the Palestinian ones (and vice verse of course).

I have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian cause but I don't think lying is necessary or needed. I know that I find it alienating. Like you said, even if iI'd like Israeli policies to.change, how could I possibly support a movement which denies the Jewish claims to Jerusalem?

Funnily enough, most Palestinian jerusalemites that I know don't do so. They know very well how important Jerusalem is to the Jews. They actually want a special status in any future peace agreement where they keep the benefits of being residents of Israel (social security, access to Israeli job market) while also being Palestinian nationals.

I've been reading about East Jerusalem on the human rights group B'Tselem's website. That makes for depressing reading.

That's where I go to for a lot of my info too halfdrunk.

Fantastic organization which is a credit to the state of Israel in my opinion.

They make no discounts for Palestinian violations and are equally critical of human rights violations of either side.

They also present the facts without the lies and incitement seen in some or the other links seen in this thread.

It is depressing reading especially for someone who has lived in Jerusalemwith friends on nboth sides of the city