Concerning Israel, Don't Trust Proportional Journalism

Sunday, October 11, 2015 | Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

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The foreign media dealing with Israel has transformed from news reporting to malice.

Known for his crisp Facebook posts, Israeli Lev Solodkin is wondering how British people would have reacted if during WWII, newspapers had reported that "a 21-year-old German peace-loving pilot was killed by British security forces over British skies"?

This, however, is exactly the type of reports about Israel emerging from many respected media outlets.

UK newspaper The Independent is involved in such distorted journalism when it portrays the present stoning and knifing of Jews as legitimate "riots" and "clashes" carried out by peace-loving Palestinians. A Saturday issue of this newspaper reported that five Palestinians were killed and five Jews were stabbed. The headline and content of the report was every bit like that of an innocent Luftwaffe pilot flying aimlessly over Britain.

Though disguised as news, the Independent piece is a political manifest carefully crafted to create the impression of defenseless Palestinians killed during legitimate "protests" against murderous Israel. The paper's reporter spared no effort to make sure this point was not missed. The fact that armies around the world recruit 18-year-old men for active military service doesn't matter much to the Independent, which described the Palestinians involved as "boys."

"A 19-year-old Palestinian boy stabbed three police officers" creates the desired impression of criminal Israel killing defenseless, under-aged youths. In the same manner, to legitimatize the Palestinian violence allegedly sparked by the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, theIndependent chose to replace the Jewish Temple Mount with the Muslim "Noble Sanctuary" (Haram al-Sharif) to create the desired impression of who the real perpetrator is.

RT America (Russian Television) has done much the same in the way it chose to report on the "day of rage" that took place last Wednesday in New York City. The anchor gave American Palestinian activist Lamis Deek an undisturbed time to spew her venom. Deek did a fine job lying through her teeth about the reasons leading to the present Palestinian stabbing frenzy. Among her lies was blaming the Israeli government for allowing para-military settlers to rain terror on innocent Palestinians. Deek's rant went unchallenged.

The New York Times didn't fare much better. A headline from Tuesday inserts doubts about news coming from Israeli officials, thus conditioning readers to trust reports coming from the NYT's "proportional journalism."

For example, a headline concerning the killing of Eitam and Naama Henkin announces that "Israel says 5 from Hamas confess in Israeli couple’s killing." What "Israel says" is contrasted with what the NYT says, which is, "Israeli forces fatally shooting two Palestinian teenagers — one 13" who was "innocent and was shot in cold blood." The report goes on to give the names of innocent dead Palestinian "kids," while omitting names of Israelis killed by such innocent "kids."

The "peace-loving German pilot" type of journalism, euphemized as "proportional," has become so prevalent that it is no longer possible to escape, let alone justify it. Considering the means of news proliferation 70 years ago, Germans could barely hide behind the excuse of "I didn't know." Today, however, none but a villain could say the aforementioned reports are even worth the ink used for their printing.

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Sunday, October 11, 2015