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Sunday, May 20, 2007

American Media SUCKS when Reporting about Israel

I often criticize the media for their bias as well as their ability to completely ignore any story that does not fit in with their bias.

A great example is when they report on Israel, they constantly show the damage that Israeli retaliation causes without bothering to go into detain about what brought about the retaliation.

Let me show you a headline and you tell me if you have seen it in OUR media?

"Pope denounces attacks on Israeli border towns"

Well, search, hunt and comment about how many American news sources have reported on this.

Have you found any American news sources or are you still looking?

That is my point.

So, the article that I showed the headline above includes some details.

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday denounced rocket attacks on Israeli border towns that provoked Israel's armed retaliation, and appealed in God's name for Jerusalem to use moderation and for Palestinian authorities to "neutralize" violent forces.

"The clashes among Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip and the rocket attacks against inhabitants of the nearby Israeli cities, which prompted armed intervention, are provoking a bloody deterioration of the situation," Benedict told pilgrims in St. Peter's Square.


Read the rest..

A new blog called Israel Politik has stated the problem elequently:

Recently, the Israeli city Sderot has been attacked with dozens of deadly missiles, launched with impunity by the terrorist group Hamas. It’s a shame that the international media has yet to cover these attacks with any seriousness. If Lisbon, London, or Lyon were attacked day-in and day-out with 80 pound projectiles packed with explosives designed to kill, maim, and destroy innocent civilians the story would be plastered across every front page and every TV screen in the world. Unfortunately, this story has only received coverage when Israel decides to take appropriate defensive actions and target the people launching these missiles. The world ignores the bombing of Sderot homes, schools, nurseries, kindergartens, synagogues, and parks at its own peril. If we allow terrorists to launch missiles with impunity at an Israeli city today, it will only be a matter of time that terrorists will begin launching missiles at other, more ‘tele-visible’ cities, tomorrow.

That is it in a nutshell. Rockets sent to kill innocent civilians in Israel are ignored and yet when Israel does what any country has the right and the obligation to do, which is protect itself, then the media decides to report on it, half the time ignoring the actions that caused Israel's REaction.

Our news media SUCKS, plain and simple. They do not report anymore, they get news, determine if it matches their political agendas and THEN decides to report on it if it has, basing their report more on opinion than on facts.

In the meantime the city of Sderot has been declared an emergency war zone because the rockets keep falling.

Where is the outrage? Where is the coverage?

Perhaps these reporters will do a better job next time, because they got to witness the sheer horror of what Israel has to live with day in and day out.

American reporters witness the sheer terror of rockets in Sderot



How can I begin to describe the experience I went through yesterday? How can you capture the shaking ground, the unbearable noise of the impact, the tears, the screaming, the mothers in hysterics -- how can you, the reader, feel what I felt, see what I saw -- just by reading these words? I ask you, leave your homes, your offices, your classrooms -- and step into this world for a moment, into Sderot.

It was a type of scream I couldn't recognize, half laughter, half terror, complete madness.

The first 'TSEVA ADOM' alarm went off as I was across the street from my office, borrowing a friend's computer on the fourth floor of an apartment building. Like usual, we stepped into the corridor -- the safest place in the house -- and waited. 15? 14? 13? I had gotten to twelve when I heard the screaming. A type of scream I couldn't recognize, half laughter, half terror, complete madness. 11? 10? it fell. Maybe a block away at most. Everyone in the apartment raced outside, and it wasn't until 30 seconds later -- when I woke from my daze - that I realized the screaming hadn't stopped. I was about to step outside to join the rest when, 'TSEVA ADOM'. Again. 15? 14? I had barely reached 13 when it crashed, shaking my entire body -- half a block away.

My phone rang: it was my boss Natasha, telling me to immediately come back to the office, as the fourth floor of any building was not safe. I grabbed my roommate Jackie who had come with me for the day, curious about my work in Sderot, and together we ran back across the street, as quickly as we could -- into the office. Natasha looked us over, then asked if we had heard the scream. She explained that a young mother was pushing her child in a stroller, when the first 'tseva adom' alarm went off. Rationally speaking, she would have had enough time to pick up her child and rush with him into a nearby basement. But instead, she toppled over the stroller, child inside, and herself fell to the ground -- screaming. She did not cease until Natasha and the others who ran out of the apartment lifted her and her child, and carried her into a neighbor's apartment. How often have you read about Sderot's 'anxiety victims'? What do you picture -- heightened blood pressure, breathing at a faster pace? No -- it is this woman's body, convulsing, flailing. It is her inability to think or move rationally -- to protect her child. She was only able to collapse, hitting the ground, as if the tremor of her beating fists would keep away the Qassam.

Natasha, Jackie, and I sat in the office -- trying to keep working. That's what you do in Sderot. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. We didn't get through much as every few minutes we would get phone calls from hysterical parents. It was 7 o'clock, parents were still at work -- their children alone at home. All I could hear was Natasha screaming, "Calm down? CALM DOWN. LISTEN TO ME, BREATHE! I WON'T TALK TO YOU UNTIL YOU BREATHE. Listen, your children are fine. No, I don't know why they're not picking up the phone. They probably ran downstairs. I SAID CALM DOWN." Every few minutes another parent would call, having heard that a Qassam fell by their home -- unable to reach their children.


Read the full story. Get a feel for what it is like for Israeli's. Understand that when Israel fights it is because they are being attacked and ask yourself why you do not see mention in our media about the anxiety attacks they suffer, the flashbacks of watching their spouses and children die as well as a hundred other things every single day of their lives.

On one hand I feel bad for the American reporters, on the other, maybe those reporters at least will start to cover what is actually happening in a fair and balanced way.

I will not hold my breath.

The next location was in an apartment complex which houses mostly invalids, senior citizens, and single mothers. The qassam fell directly into the center of the complex. We came across a man standing, staring at the damage. He showed how a shrapnel had flown through his window and into his apartment. "My neighbor? she was just watching T.V? a shrapnel went through her wall and into her eye." Location after location, gruesome story after gruesome story, 'tseva adom' after 'tseva adom', boom after boom. It felt endless.


Would you not expect, in fact, DEMAND that your government do everything in their power to stop this madness, if this was you? Your neighbor? Your childrens school?

They are and they will continue to do so, but the international community and especially the press must start to let people see the horrors that the Israeli's must live with every day.

Later that night, Jackie and I drove back to Tel Aviv with the two reporters, amidst 'TSEVA ADOMS' and the sound of qassams crashing nearby. In the car, we wondered what our friends were doing back in the States -- studying for finals, or perhaps celebrating their completion. We were trying to avoid missiles - funny. Back in Tel Aviv, we were unable to go up to our room. We were too heavy with guilt knowing that merely an hour away, people were suffering without help. We decided to take a walk, and soon after, a nearby construction site made a noise all too similar to the qassams. Jackie ran to a bus stop nearby, and screamed, crying, pounding her fists against the walls:

"I'M JUST SO ANGRY! PEOPLE ARE DYING, SUFFERING, AND EVERYONE IS SO SILENT! WE'RE AN HOUR AWAY, AND NO ONE CARES! WHY ISN'T ANYONE DOING ANYTHING, WHEN THEY CAN DO SO MUCH?"

As I write this, Qassams are falling in Sderot. Children are screaming, mothers are collapsing in despair, doctors are pulling pieces of shrapnel out of the bodies of Jewish people, and you are reading this article out of the comfort of your home.


Just a day in the life of the Israeli's, one that our media finally got to see up close and personal.

Finally and American reporter captures the truth.

So, can you find much on THIS story in our media? Take a look. I doubt it.

For those so ignorant that they would claim Israel's troubles are because they were given land in the Arab heartland, your ignorance comes from not looking for the truth but by believing the lies you have been fed.

The birthplace of the Jewish people is the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael). There, a significant part of the nation's long history was enacted, of which the first thousand years are recorded in the Bible; there, its cultural, religious and national identity was formed; and there, its physical presence has been maintained through the centuries, even after the majority was forced into exile. During the many years of dispersion, the Jewish people never severed nor forgot its bond with the Land. With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish independence, lost two thousand years earlier, was renewed.

They were there FIRST, then they were simply given back their OWN land.

Archeology in Israel has provided a valuable link between the country's past and present, with thousands of years of history unearthed at some 3,500 sites. Many finds attest to the long connection of the Jewish people with the Land of Israel, including Solomon's stables at Megiddo (Jezreel Valley), houses of the Israelite period in the City of David (Jerusalem), ritual baths at Masada, numerous synagogues and the Dead Sea scrolls, containing the earliest extant copy of the Book of Isaiah in still-legible Hebrew script. Excavations have also revealed vestiges of other civilizations which left their imprint on the Land over the centuries. All finds are recorded, and historical sites are carefully preserved and marked, for scholar and visitor alike.

I suggest you do your research before showing your ignorance and repeating the lies that the Arab community has been telling for so long.

The desire of Jews to return to their historical homeland was first expressed during the Babylonian captivity after 597 BCE. This became a universal Jewish theme after the Jewish-Roman wars, which included the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 CE, and the exile that followed. The Jewish diaspora and the population that stayed in the Land of Israel continued to see it as their spiritual home and as the Promised Land; there is no evidence of any interruption of the Jewish presence there for the last three millennia. For generations, the universal theme of the ingathering of the exiles and the re-establishment of the kingdom of Israel carried mostly religious overtones due to the belief that the Jewish people would return to Zion with the coming of the Messiah, i.e., after divine intervention. Throughout centuries, some Jewish leaders proposed or attempted a return, but they were in a minority.

It is time to stop blaming Israel for doing nothing but trying to live and it is time for our media to start reporting about the atrocities committed against the Jewish people.

Our media SUCKS, but they can either try to right this, or they will enter into extinction themselves, becuase these days, a simple seach through a search engine can tell us the truths the media hides and verify the lies the media tells.

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