Over 50% of Germans equate IDF with Nazi army

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Agathon
Nazis? No.

Apartheid? Pretty much.

The 20% of the Israeli population who are arab which are citizens have no apparteid. The Palestinians who are citizens of the PA are treated as citizens of a foreign country because they are a foreign coutnry. Every country in the world gives benifits to its own citizens which don't cover foreign citizens.

No one can honestly make the claim that Israel has aparteid since the dividing line isn't Jew or Arab but citizen or noncitizen.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Pekka
Come on not you too Oerdin? What is European MEDIA?
Oh right, there is not such thing. You mean Guardian? Hardly. Just some leftist rag the publish in the UK.

I've seen several studies which examine coverage of the mideast conflict in the media of countries like Sweden, Germany, and France and the conclusion reached has been everytime the Palestinians commit a terror attack it is a tiny article buried in the back of the paper while anything which would reflect poorly on Israel is plastered all over the front page. The conclusion from studying the many reports published leads alot of people to believe that many large European new agencies are biased towards the Palestinians and against Israel.

This truth is reflected by the fact that 51% of the German population seems to have no fricking clue as to what the true facts are.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Agathon
It's the USA that doesn't get fair and balanced reporting. Even Israeli media are to the left of your rags, and Ha'aretz is often well to the left of the Grauniad.

Boy are you dumb. There are many many many different new sources in the US and not just Fox News. I can think of five 24 hour news stations and five major national media networks just in TV alone not counting radio, print, or the internet. We simply have lots more choices and lots more view points available in our media then your average European viewer from, say, Sweden or Finland. The entire spectrum is covered from communist to libertarian.

[Jaguar]

Oerdin
Agathon
Agathon owning my soul

[Ramo]

Because they ban libertarian news sources in Sweden and Finland.

[Pekka]

I must disagree. Until I see that study myself. And who made it. Who can say without any question in their minds that this particular study didn't have an agenda? Of course it's possible it's conducted properly.

Fact remains. There is no European media. IF you want to follow the biggest few, BBC and the likes, it's still not European media. It is media that is in Europe, but it's not European media, it doesn't speak for all medias just by being the biggest. But it can be said it's the most influential, maybe.

So what.. this is about how much space every case gets? That's pretty weak IMO. And for the record, they even rarely get into our media anymore, both of them. They both get buried inside pages, because it just happens so often that basically we have other things happening in here too. While it is important subject, it's not and shouldn't be #1 every damn day. Not even if IDF does something. So if that's front page news every time, then maybe it shows little bias, yes. In certain medias.

I have yet to see one that actually does that. And my sources are many.

why would you say 51% of Germans have no idea about the true facts? Of course many of them don't have true facts, but you can still form that opinion having all the facts, it just means it's a little weird interpretation of the situation.

In any case, the worst euro rag can't be as bad as FOX .

[Pekka]

Right and that's your ****ing problem. You have 2394820958204958 news sources, and they all tell the same story differently.

Granted, we only have few, but at least they still focus on reporting the news and not entertainment. Learn about our news before bashing it.

Besides, we get the news you get. We get our own news as an EXTRA to top that. Well CNN is CNN Europe but anyway, you get the idea. I don't know about news in Sweden, but anyone who tries to boost their OWN news comparing to ours is making themselves pretty foolish looking.

[Dinner]

Pekka, I was responding to Agathon who was claiming US viewers didn't have choices and that Fox News was the be all and end all of American media. I was pointing out that there are lots of dramatically different news sources easily available on TV, in print, on radio, and on the internet in the US so his stupid attack on American media was just that, stupid.

[Pekka]

AH ok.. sorry. My bad... Forget what I said then.

Yes, I would agree with you on that.. FOX does not represent US media. Just like Guardian doesn't represent European media .. well.. they do in their own part, but they're not the prime examples of either one of them. Just prime examples of the failed ones.

[Kropotkin]

I've seen several studies which examine coverage of the mideast conflict in the media of countries like Sweden[...]and the conclusion reached has been everytime the Palestinians commit a terror attack it is a tiny article buried in the back of the paper while anything which would reflect poorly on Israel is plastered all over the front page.

Bull****. Take it from someone that consumes swedish media on a daily basis; A palestinian terror attack is not buried in the back of some paper. As it's untue in the case of Sweden, I suspect that it's not much more true for the other countries mentioned either.

Because they ban libertarian news sources in Sweden and Finland.

Bull****.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

European papers are great the Ilta-Sanomat leads the way

[Firelad]

I shall not bother you with a lengthy quotation of a post which you have already read, and will only say that I am referring to Axi's post (the before people started arguing with him about a silly metaphor instead of addressing the arguments )
Very true in some respects, not quite true in others.
While the attitude of some people here to the whole shebang is quite appaling (better to say: extremely appalling), it is not that strong a view with the general populace, or at least not among the more decently educated classes. Which makes a difference between what happened in Germany regarding the Jews '33-'39 and what is going on here, as far as public resistance to the phenomenon is concerned. However, there are a few points that are important to mention:
The effect of public opinion, at least as far as the action in the field is concerned, is quite feeble. The people are very proud of their freedom to criticize, but they do all they're told when they're actually in the Army. All of you who speak of the (more or less) humane attitude of the public shouldn't forget that it's the same public who serves in the Army and empties magazines into dead kids, puts severed heads on stakes and forces people to play their fiddle for soldiers at checkpoints. There was a very good article about the subject in a paper by a famous Israeli writer, which I have unfortunately lost. Despite the common aversion and said article, nothing really is done to address the issue.
The reason for that is a little more subtle than remarks about the evil and savagery of the Zionist Government or whatever.

The biggest reason for the difference between the Nazi and Israeli atrocities to be in kind and not in degree is simply the psychological process that affects soldiers on occupation duty. Fear and personal danger (real or concieved) as well as a feeling or power and superiority de-humanizes the occupied population, and that emotion de-humanizes the occupying force in turn. Remember how Jews weren't really treated like or considered to be human beings? It's not just anti-semitism. It takes a lot more than that to make a normal person (and you must admit that not all, or even most, Nazi soldiers were psycopathic monsters simply because there were so many of them) slaughter civilian population as casually as I eat chicken.
This is the important part. Axi has already outlined the important reasons for Israel not to descend to the pit that the Germans have in WWII - and I fear that for all the arguably superior intellectual and moral power of the general population in Israel as compared to that of the Germans during their Nazi period, were it not for those reasons we would descend into that pit nonetheless. Simply because, and let the excuses be what they are, as a popular cliche in these parts says, the Occupation kills. It kills the spirit and leaves the body an empty shell to be occupied by demons, and leaves what's left of humanity and conscience in self-loathing agony.
And after the episode of the fiddler it can be truly said, that the Jewish people has lost much of its right to its own legacy - that of the Holocaust.

And to end in a happier note: it does seem that good things are happening in our region, and let's all hope, instead of flaming each other, that they will not betray their promise.

~Marc

[RGBVideo]

The telephone poll of 3000 "non-migrant" respondents, which was taken in May and June

Why are we arguing over a bogus survey?

the Ilta-Sanomat leads the way

Ilta-Sanomat
Helsingin Sanomat

[Dinner]

The effect of public opinion, at least as far as the action in the field is concerned, is quite feeble. The people are very proud of their freedom to criticize, but they do all they're told when they're actually in the Army.

Israel, like America, has strict laws where soldiers can refuse orders if those orders violate the laws of war. Beyond that soldiers do not have a right to make policy or to question orders; the exception is for commissioned or noncommissioned officers who privately wish to advise their commander on a different course of action but never should they question the commander’s authority in front of the men. Their job is to carry out the orders of the legally elected government as long as the orders do not break the laws of war. It simply would not do to have privates questioning every order they receive (Gee, I’m scared and I don’t want to try to take the enemy position. ).

I know that you were a draft dodger who bailed out on his civic responsibility because of some misguided opinion that Israelis were some how committing war crimes. I personally think you are a very misguided person but if the Israeli state won’t berate you then neither will I. I personally had certain misgivings about the motivations for the war in Iraq but I never the less went to Iraq and did my patriotic duty because I recognize that the time to influence or change policy is during elections. It is during elections that the will of the people is expressed and to claim that you aren’t bound to follow the policies which the elected government, again as long as those policies don’t violate the laws of war, is arrogant to the extreme and entirely undemocratic.

To claim that the Israeli Army has a policy of “emptying whole magazines into kids” or is mounting heads on pikes is just stupid. Soldiers in all nations are strictly bound by rules of engagement and in Israel, like America, individuals who break those rules are severely punished. I for one would love to see an end to the occupation of the Palestinian Territories but does it gain security for the people of Israel if the PA controlled territory just becomes a safe haven where terrorists can plan and carry out terrorist attacks against more innocent civilians?

Hopefully, the Palestinians will soon elect a government which really does want peace. It’s clear to any one who’s bothered to pay attention that Arafat has sponsored and condoned numerous terrorist attacks while claiming to be working for peace. Arafat never wanted peace unless that peace was achieved by destroying Israel. Maybe the new leader will be different but I’m not sure that will happen.

[BeBMan]

Oh, stupidity is on the rise....maybe that explains why we did so bad in PISA I and II