Daphne Anson: Media Cover Up: The Gaza Savagery That Does Not Meet Our Gaze

Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday, 3 April 2011

Media Cover Up: The Gaza Savagery That Does Not Meet Our Gaze

Beaten and tortured by Hamas: Asma Al-Ghoul

Remember how days elapsed before the violent sexual assault on Lara Logan, reporting for an American television station from Tahrir Square, was brought (and then only reluctantly) to public attention by Al Beeb and the rest of the we-love-to-pick-on-Israel gang? Well, it seems that despicable acts of savagery by Hamas towards female Palestinian journalists in Gaza have gone largely unreported in the mainstream media.

You'd think that some of those outlets, being so politically correct in general, would be chomping at the bit to report abuses against women. But there are two very good reasons for the veil of silence - an exclusivist fixation with demonising Israel and a paralysing fear of Hamas reprisal.

Professor Phyllis Chesler notes that in recent weeks

"at least eight Muslim Palestinian female journalists were physically beaten with clubs, iron chairs, and fists, stabbed and tortured with electric shocks by male Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip. Their cell phones, laptops, documents and cameras were confiscated. They were also arrested. Some were forced to sign a document "pledging not to cover such events [the Facebook-arranged pro-unity rallies demanding an end to factional in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah] again"'.

Although this does not bode well for women's rights in what Professor Chesler terms "the increasingly well-organized Islamist Middle East" her main point in drawing attention to this "male-on-female atrocity in Gaza" is that only a few journalists, who happen to include two Israelis, reported it.

'The mainstream media does not really care about what happens to Arabs, Muslims, or Palestinians," she continues,

'not even when they are fellow or sister journalists, women, and feminists. The media only cares when and if Israelis are allegedly the perpetrators, the murderers, the checkpoint "humiliators." Even when Israelis kill an armed Iranian-backed Palestinian member of Hamas in self-defense, even when the Israelis accidentally, with no malice aforethought, kill a British journalist or an Amrican "activist," the Israelis are not only blamed - films, plays, and documentaries are made about the "martyred" American Rachel Corrie or the "martyred" British filmmaker James Miller or British "anti-war" activist Tom Hurndall. Countless demonstrations have been held. In Miller's case the British government insisted on an investigation, and his family brought a civil lawsuit against an Israeli soldier.

The media was all over this even though an investigation strongly suggested that James Miller was killed by Palestinians "from the direction of the populated Rafah." Although people know that Palestinians routinely hide behind civilian hostages, deliberately target Israeli civilians, especially children, create their own "martyrs" (the Muhammad al-Dura case as well as the Rachel Corrie case immediately come to mind) - nevertheless, the media refuses to hold Palestinians accountable and refuses to believe that Israelis are innocent. The media knows full well that they will be killed or not allowed to "report" in Palestinian areas if they publish anything negative, anything true. By now, this habit is ingrained.'

6 comments:

Rob3 April 2011 at 15:18
I expect you have seen by now that Judge Richard Goldstone has essentially retracted his findings on the 2008-9 war against Hamas.

Original article here
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Daphne Anson3 April 2011 at 17:15
Thanks, Rob. Was just saying to myself that I'll have to post something about Goldstone.
Stable doors and bolting horses come to mind ...
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Rita3 April 2011 at 21:13
Sometimes one just feels like throwing and giving up in the face of so much manipulative malignancy of the main media and the enormous stupidity of those who swallow the Goebbels-style anti-Jewish propaganda.

It was reported that, when Lara Logan was pack-raped by those "nice and pro-democracy" Arab "insurgents" in Egypt, they shouted "Jew..Jew..Jew" although Ms. Logan is not jewish. Perhaps it will take the wide publications of those "details" which might wake up some of those in the 4th estate who have a modicum of thirst for truth left in them !

Lara Logan
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Daphne Anson3 April 2011 at 22:15
Yes, Rita, and those chants were omitted from many of the belated reports.
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Empress Trudy3 April 2011 at 23:13
With any luck they'll decapitate Anderson Cooper on live TV and the world will finally see what they've supported for so long.
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Daphne Anson3 April 2011 at 23:42
I don't know who Anderson Cooper is )off to google) but however bad he is, I'd wish that fate on nobody.
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The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.
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