Israeli Repression and the Language of Liars

[Panag]

Originally posted by Ned


Natan, I personally am sick and tired of leftist hatred of Israel and the United States. One simply cannot discuss issues with them logically. The are wedded to their belief system to a degree that facts and logic have no place. They believe propaganda and dismiss evidence. They cannot accept a conclusion logically arrived at if it inconsistent with their belief system.

I am very concerned that the EU leftists here on Apolyton represent the majority view in the EU. If they do, then the EU is very far gone down the path of becoming enemies of the U.S. They have already sided with the blood-soaked Arafat. Soon they will side with that heroic leader of martyrs, the fugitive Osama bin Laden. French leftists, not Pakistan, will give Osama the bomb to use against New York. When Manhattan is fried, leftist Europeans will join their Islamic brethern to errupt joyously into the streets with Bush is the anti-christ banners, loudly proclaiming their solidarity with bin Laden and Arafat as true leaders in the struggle against decandent capitalism.

Mark my words.

hi ,

well , Ned , not much to put with it , is there ,....

after they have used the left to be there frontline soldiers , the little that remains shall be put to work as slave's , ..........

Arafat is still on the wanted list in some countries , .....however there is no money on his head like in the states , ......

have a nice day

[Natan]

Natan, I personally am sick and tired of leftist hatred of Israel and the United States. One simply cannot discuss issues with them logically. The are wedded to their belief system to a degree that facts and logic have no place. They believe propaganda and dismiss evidence. They cannot accept a conclusion logically arrived at if it inconsistent with their belief system.

If you are reffering to our Leftists here on Apolyton, I disagree - they are generally quite willing to discuss specific points in a logical fashion, at least as much as anyone else with an ideology. On leftists at large, I cannot make a reasonable judgement. But I do think there are some double-standards at work in the moral thought of many leftist groups and individuals.

[CyberGnu]

Ahh, yes, and perpetuated by the notoriously left wing news agencies CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NYT, LATimes, Washington Post, BBC etc etc...

Life sure gets a lot easier if you believe that every news agency that doesn't agree with your views is part of a propaganda campaign, doesn't it?


Now, I realize that this might be hard to understand for someone who is used to Israeli media, where news is what the goverment says is news, but western media employes these people called 'journalists'. The job of these 'journalists' is to find out what the thruth is, and the media only prints that. Since the truth seems to be quite far removied from that the JP reports, I guess there is only two options... All western media is part of a huge conspiracy (which would incorporate a fairly substantial number of the so-called 'self-hating jews), or maybe it could be that the JP is deliberatly lying...

Wake up.

[Sirotnikov]

Cyber, it would be nice if instead of talking out of your ass like you usually do, you would come here and watch the israeli ews.

[CyberGnu]

Natan, are you referring to this:

Apparently it is of greater concern that Israel calls itself a Jewish state than that the Syrian government is drilling holes in people's insides with hot iron rods.

?

If you can find ANYONE, leftwinger or not, to actually defend the syrians practice of drilling holes in peoples inside, I'd be very interested.

If you start a thread about how horrible this is, you would most likley get one or two 'yep' replies, before the thread dropped to the bottom of the first page... No one contests this.

The reason we see these threads, however, is that there are several israeli apologists who insist on defending Israels crimes... And while we might never get the apologists themselves to reform into moral beings, we might get a yet undecided reader to realize the right path...

[CyberGnu]

Excellent rebuttal there, siro (no pun intended).

Why don't you do some simple checking. Take todays JP, and try confirming the stories in there, without resorting to sources such as 'IDF spokesman', 'intelligence sources' or 'Israeli radio'.

Since you live there, you might even call the JP yourself and ASK about the sources, and see what you get. From the week when I actually checked the JP each day, I found that roughly 20% of what the palestinians supposedly did was plain lies, about 70% was unsubstantiated, leaving about 10% of real news. Note that I don't equate the substantiated 10% with 'appearing in western media', but referring only to stories with actual sources. However, these stories also correlate very well with I could read in the NYT.

[Sirotnikov]

gnu - you have no idea what really happens here.

why don't you come check?

[Sirotnikov]

gnu- i do the same with international news agencies. and they fail to report most of the things which go on here.

could you please tell me what were the plain lies?

[Natan]

I'm not reffering to threads on Apolyton, but to the general level of attention recieved in left-wing outlets - i.e., The Nation, the Guardian, etc. In fact, this isn't a phenomenon limited to Israel; the United States and its allies get all the criticism in every conflict and on every issue. Thus Colombian paramilitaries can be demonized while the crimes of the FARC go unnoted, Pinochet is bad while Castro is good, there is some criticism of Saudi Arabia's version of Sharia law but none of the far nastier things going on in say, Sudan, and so on.

[CyberGnu]

Natan, I never read any of those papers, so I can't really say anything. But who are you referring to then when you say 'the left-wingers here on apolyton'? As far as I know has Che never referred to these papers... Mobious might, but from I can tell does he also read BBC as well...

And I'm personally not a left winger. By european standards I'm hardcore right-wing, by american I'm somewhere in the middle. (Blue dog democrat, if that tells you anything).


Siro, I'd love to visit if you'd sponsor me... My salary goes to rent and trips to visit my gf right now...

Those stories that you say 'does not get reported in western media', thy are, AFAICT, unsubstantitated.

You really don't seem to understand the concepts of journalism. the difference between a newspaper and a goverment media outlet is that a newspaper is supposed to critically evalute the stories, and only print news with actual backing.

A goverment media outlet, on the other hand, prints whatever it can find that will further the cause of the goverment (or, occasionally, the causes of the particular political leaning it supports).

So I can't for the life of me unerstand why you choose to belive that the JP is the word of truth over a reknown instituion such as the NYT. The only reason I can guess at is that you don't want to believe the NYT, since it reveals your country as the oppressor it actually is...

[CyberGnu]

siro, your name implies that your family migrated from russia, right?

If so, ask your parents if they have a copy of 'pravda' around. compare Pravda to the JP, and you'll see the quite a few similarities...

[Natan]

Usually the article is from a website like alternet or some other Communist/anarchist website. But it's all working on the same principle, which is that if you discuss only on the crimes of America and its allies, it becomes a lot easier to support (or at least make excuses for) every third world dictator who comes along.

And yes, there are apologists for the Syrian regime - Patrick Seale, for example. And there are certainly apologists for the FARC, Castro, Qaddafi, etc.

You're never going to know anything about the region if your knowledge of it is limited to 1-page summaries (with occasional 4-page human interest stories every few monthes in the magazine section) written by people who have little background inside the region for people who have even less background in it. In fact, much of what journalists report is based on what they get from the local media.

I'm not sure how you came up with those statistics on J'lem post accuracy. I'm particularly interested in how you determined that 20% of the contents were fabrications; since that implies you were able to prove they were false.

[Promethus]

CyberGnu

some points:

the difference between a newspaper and a goverment media outlet is that a newspaper is supposed to critically evalute the stories, and only print news with actual backing.

Supposed being the key word. This used to be more true than it is today.

Because:

A goverment media outlet, on the other hand, prints whatever it can find that will further the cause of the goverment (or, occasionally, the causes of the particular political leaning it supports).

Change the word "goverment" to "Corporate" and you have todays "Western" News outlets.

We must read different NYT papers (although I didn't know there was more than one).

[Sirotnikov]

gnu - my parents and myself as well are very aware of that thank you.

being actual immigrants i think we can evaluate it better than you.

and say, gnu, what sources other than govt. did the press have for this whole al-qaeda business? none?

[Ned]

CyberGnu, Why is that we see on this forum that Israel killed 20,000 in bombing attacks on Sidon and Tyre and that hundreds of civilians were massacred by the IDF in Jenin. These are examples of pure propaganda asserted as fact by the left.

As to double standards, look how differently the left treats E. Timor and Israel. The facts are similar. In E. Timor, the Portuguese pull out and the Indonesians invade. A struggle ensues which leads to a large loss of life by both sides. It ends with the international community stepping in to end the slaughter and repression. This is held up as a glorious achievement by the left.

The only difference is that the Jews won when the Arabs invaded. But, rather than accept the result, the Arabs have continued to make war on Israel. Israel has longed for peace with the Arabs only to be met with unacceptable demands and further wars.

The aggressors in both cases are those who want to incorporate a separate people into a larger empire, deny them liberty, and to slaughter them at will.

But the left extols the brave struggle of the people of E. Timor while condemning the Jews of Palestine. The double standard is clear.