csua.org/u/ghs -> blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/07/a_conflict_viewed_through_very_1.html
World Opinion Roundup by Jefferson Morley A Daily Survey of What the International Online Media Are Saying A Conflict Viewed Through Very Different Lenses Are Americans being given a very different view of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict than their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere? Yes, according to commentators in Muslim and European media.
editors of the Jordan Times are especially critical of the US television coverage. "Not only the Lebanese and Arabs but any educated, broad-minded person equipped with the necessary tools that do not allow him to succumb to the mighty propaganda machine have, over the past few days, all the reasons to be furious at the coverage by major US networks of the tragedy unfolding in Lebanon."
Western media has dropped the ball," according to the managing editor of the Daily Star in Lebanon. "The vast majority of Western media reports do not accurately portray the fact that the vast majority of the dead are civilians, most of them women and children," wrote Marc J Sirois on Thursday. "For the most part Western television viewers, newspaper readers, and Web surfers are reading highly sanitized versions of the news, spun in such a way as to dilute the brutality of the Israeli onslaught and especially to ensure that blame is placed squarely on Lebanon in general and Hizbullah in particular." In the English-language Arab media, the civilian toll, not Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, is the central issue.
columnist for Dar Al-Hayat, a popular Arab daily, "It may only be described as severe and radical collective punishment. In the crushing confrontation that is taking place, the Jewish State shows an instinctive inclination to regard its people as ...
the Gulf News in Dubai, wrote that the UN and the Arab League "sent a clear signal to the Arabs that the international community is not interested in protecting their lives against a state-sponsored terrorism." Hezbollah should have known better, said a former Kuwaiti oil minister, precisely because Israeli retaliation against non-combatants should have been predicted.
"Maybe Nasrallah did not think about the repercussions of his actions. When he captured two Israeli soldiers, maybe Nasrallah didn't expect such a bloody response from Israel. This should be counted as a blunder committed by Nasrallah. He should have known Israel is an enemy which doesn't show any mercy and deals with Arabs in the bloodiest possible manner." In other words, the West long ago stopped caring about Muslim civilians.
net that "the same racist impulse that considers Israeli lives worth more than Arab lives is at play here. I have no doubt that the lives of Arabs never meant much for the descendants of colonial powers in the region. Covering Civilian Casualties In European media, the civilian toll in Lebanon is often seen as trumping all other considerations.
German broadcast network Deutsche Welle said "it is absurd and inhuman to constitute a new order in Lebanon based on this suffering and misery of innocent people."
Wednesday's Washington Post reported, the "High Civilian Price for Both Sides." The differences can be seen in what editors and reporters think is most important.
The Post: "Israeli airstrikes hit targets in Beirut's main Christian enclave on Wednesday as hundreds of US citizens boarded a cruise ship chartered to evacuate them to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. In southern Lebanon, Israeli troops carrying out a cross-border raid clashed with fighters of the radical Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, which fired more rockets into northern Israel."
AFP/Naharnet News: "At least 55 civilians were killed on Wednesday as Israeli jets and gunboats pummeled towns and villages across Lebanon and tens of thousands of people fled a conflict that both sides defiantly warned would have no limit. In the bloodiest day since the fighting erupted eight days ago, two Israeli children and one adult were also killed in a Hizbullah rocket attack on the holy city of Nazareth while two soldiers were killed in clashes with the group's fighters."
The Guardian of London reported on the incident in detail: "The scene was littered with small plastic sandals, several caked in blood. Ismael, the father of one of the children, sat on the edge of the crater, his head in his hands weeping. Only children here,' he said, referring to the militant Islamist group that kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and which Israel says it is targeting in the wave of attacks.
interviewed one of the children as part of a longer story. Another incident that drew attention was the Israeli bombing of two vehicles in which at least 18 people died.
"They had been among residents fleeing villages close to the Israeli border and were killed when missiles struck a car and a minibus near Shamaa, hospital sources said.
the Pew Global Attitude survey conducted earlier this year. That survey found that 48 percent of Americans sympathized with Israel as compared with 13 percent who sympathized with Palestinians. Americans are also more likely than the people of any other country to regard US policy in the Middle East as "fair," according to Pew pollsters. In one 2003 survey, 47 percent thought US policy in the Middle East favored neither the Israelis or the Palestinians. The disparate reaction to Lebanon's civilian casualties may simply reflect the larger beliefs of the societies in which journalists work.
Western media guilty of not telling the real story in Lebanon" --Roy Greenslade, Guardian blogger, United Kingdom: "for the most part western TV viewers, newspaper readers and web surfers are reading highly sanitised versions of the news, spun in such a way as to dilute the brutality of the Israeli onslaught and especially to ensure that blame is placed squarely on Lebanon in general and Hizbullah in particular."
US Media Favors Israel in War in Lebanon" -- Kazinform, Kazakstan news agency: "An American reporter once reminded me that we cannot blame the American people for their limited, one-sided understanding of what is happening in the Middle East. It is the American media that must be chastised for its disproportionateness."
op-ed columnist Richard Cohen published a screed so offensive, and so outrageous, that it should prompt every clear-headed individual to shun the American capital's paper of record and cancel their subscriptions forthwith."
"The disparate reaction to Lebanon's civilian casualties may simply reflect the larger beliefs of the societies in which journalists work." American's bigoted view of the Mideast is formed by the deeply biased reporting. When it comes to the Middle East we have no free press - we are the most self-censored press in the world. Posted by: David | July 21, 2006 02:49 AM I really hope we can blame the American media for the callous disregard that has been shown by the US leadership to the bloodshed and destruction in Lebanon. Otherwise we would have to wonder how Americans, always depicted by the Hollywood fairytale as caring, compassionate and highly moral people, can bear to watch children being massacred in large numbers while they tut tut about the horrible terrorists. He was almost in tears over his concern with the 'murderous' and 'immoral' nature of stem cell research at the same time that he gives the go ahead to another week of slaughter of innocent civilians - most of them real, living children. Posted by: PW | July 21, 2006 03:26 AM Thank you for this review. America has been propagandized for decades about the Middle East and Israel. Israel long ago chose violence as its way of dealing with its neighbors and the United States became its willing enabler, with hundreds of millions of dollars per year (OUR dollars) going to Israel for the purchase of weapons of war to use against poverty-stricken Palestinians and, later, Lebanese. Hamas and Hezbollah were the result of Israel's previous actions. The legislation passed by the Congress yesterday trumpets to the world the nonsense that Israel is in danger of annihilation and is therefore justified in its war against the citizens of both Palestine and Lebanon. Will Israel's continued campaign of death and destruction lead to peace? Posted b...
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