How Reginald D Hunter headlines could shed light on anti-Israel conditioning
For several years, but more urgently since Oct 7th, I have been looking for some way to demonstrate how biased coverage – perhaps not even intentionally biased coverage – of Israel-Palestine has influenced perception.
I have looked for some way to get across to the more intelligent in the pro-Palestine lobby – and even to some Jews who have also been influenced by wave after wave of hostile coverage – how the inclusion of certain information and facts in a report, and the careful exclusion of certain information, facts, context or background, has been such a pernicious driver of Israel-hate and has, as a direct consequence, inflamed and reignited Jew-hate.
More urgently since Oct 7th, because it was on that day – or maybe the day after – that Israel-hate exploded, and instantly began metastasising into Jew-hate. And as we all know, that happened because, following a savage, unprovoked terrorist attack in which more than 2,000 Israelis – including babies, infants and OAPs – were slaughtered, butchered, beheaded or raped and 100s more Israelis (again including babies, infants and OAPs) were abducted, Israel began pounding Gaza. Not to kill or harm Palestinian residents of Gaza but to destroy Jihadist perpetrators.
The carnage and destruction in Gaza that followed was tragic but avoidable (and not just avoidable by not perpetrating mass slaughter and not raining rockets on Israeli towns and cities for 10 years.) But avoidable if those who planned and carried out the slaughter and abductions of Oct 7th, had wanted to avoid it. and had not installed their tunnels, terror infrastructure and rocket-launchers in the heart of Gaza’s civilian population. But they did so, fully aware that a war to remove them would wreak carnage and destruction. And fully aware that such carnage and destruction would incite vicious Israel hate because the Gaza images and headlines that flashed across the globe followed more than three decades of relentless anti-Israel bias; three decades in which coverage had conditioned viewers and listeners to perceive Israel as the aggressor and to perceive Palestinians as “victims.”
While decades of anti-Israel bias in the media, started the anti-Israel fire – notably the BBC and in The Guardian – biased reporting was so effective in changing the perceptions of viewers, listeners and readers, that after a while confirmation bias, the echo-chamber effect and egregiously corrupt bodies such as UNRWA and Amnesty,were able to effortlessly amplify and replicate all the lies and libels – though biased media coverage (again, notably the BBC and The Guardian) continued to stoke it and keep it smouldering.
None of this, of course, is news to Jews, a majority of whom know that while Israel is not perfect, it is a decent, liberal democracy that is most emphatically not the demonic, colonising “apartheid state” its enemies claim. Most Jews also see that Bibi Netanyahu, though also not perfect, is merely a right-wing prime minister who – like most of his predecessors on both the Right and Left – is forced to defend his nation from existential threat. Israel’s enemies, on the other hand have been initiating hostilities for 70 years, using wars, intifadas, cascades of deadly rockets and the slaying of non-combatants in terrorist bombings and shootings across the globe as well as all over Israel to try to end Israel’s existence. Yet the Palestinians are consistently perceived as the “victims” while Israel, defending itself from 70 years of existential threat, is perceived as the “aggressor.”
So, as we have acknowledged, this inversion of reality is – in the view of many – the direct consequence of three decades of media bias; of reports that are selective with facts and include only the information that fits a certain narrative, and carefully omit any context or background that might allow viewers and listeners to understand why certain events took place. The kind of coverage, in other words, that cumulatively and over time will condition some people to be full-blown Israel-haters and Jew-haters and will condition other people – often decent, liberal people – to the deluded idea that they are not bigots, racists and antisemites if they believe the world’s only Jewish state “deserves” to be annihilated for defending its population.
But what could demonstrate – for the sceptical if not for the outright haters – that distorted coverage may have “conditioned” them? How could I show them that media coverage over an extended time may have played such a huge part in altering their perception of Israel and that the perception they hold may not be accurate?
And then lo, a comment on my Facebook post in relation to the Reginald D Hunter row, provided the perfect example. You will remember that Hunter is the UK-based American comedian who delivered a joke at his Edinburgh gig equating Israel with an abusive husband. The joke was in my view, a perfect example of how casual antisemitism – so unconscious and subliminal that the right-on perpetrator doesn’t even realise that it is antisemitism – is spawned by endemic anti-Israelism. A couple in the audience (possibly Israeli, but definitely Jewish) objected to the joke, leading to an “ugly” incident that was reported in The Telegraph. Other publications piled in and within days RDH was being perceived as a racist monster, and the audience as an antisemitic “mob.”
Following a bit of back-and-forth on my post about the nationality and identity of the “abused” couple , a comment appeared from an RDH fan claiming that many salient facts had been omitted. The couple, he claimed, had been “offered a refund of the ticket price by Reginald.”
The comedian, he tells me, also offered to “pay their expenses out of his own pocket.” But, says the fan, the couple “became aggressive” and were “clearly trying to incite a response” from the audience, and that this “incitement” went on for several minutes during which time, the audience were “gradually losing patience” and began “heckling the couple.” The fan then declares that “when you accuse an audience of being ‘racist scum,’” you will “incite a response.”
Hmm, “incite a response” eh? Maybe we’ll come back to that, but in the meantime, in order to make the point about media distortion, we need to think of Reginald D Hunter as “Israel,” of the audience members as “Israeli citizens” and of the “abused” couple as – ironically – “Palestinians.”
According to the Hunter fan, what actually took place at the Edinburgh gig was significantly different from how the event was reported in the press. I wasn’t there so I do not know. I am merely highlighting the fact that many people who were also not there believe RDH is a vile bully due to the coverage of the incident – that is coverage that in this fan’s view, did not accurately reflect the reality due to the selective inclusion of certain information and the omission of such things as context and salient facts. Taken together, this – according to the fan – has created an entirely false perception of the incident and of Hunter.
The RDH fan is suggesting that this coverage has made the real victim, Hunter (Israel) seem like a racist monster and has made the put-upon audience (Israeli citizens) seem like a “baying mob.” Meanwhile, the perpetrators – the angry couple (the “Palestinians,” who according to the fan “incited” RDH and the audience) – are perceived as the “victims.”
And that, dear reader (and dear sceptics or even haters), is how biased coverage of Israel has been changing reality and altering perceptions for 30 years.