The media, the social media, lies and our Israel
I can recall summer of 2006; I was at my parents home in Toronto watching the news and being utterly shocked at the stark difference in the way the media coverage of Israel is. On one hand I go online and read articles about death and destruction of Israel and Israeli’s and even hear about it from family and friends within Israel, and on the hand no significant mention in the media.
No mention of the bombardment of Haifa by Hezbollah Katyusha rockets.
No mention of a man riding his bicycle and being killed by a rocket and countless other unreported atrocities making the world think we are the aggressors and turning public opinion against us – but this is not new and not surprising.
My concern today is the amount of ridiculous biased reporting, blatant lies and ignoring of facts by simple people with their computers to respectable news outlets.
For example, videos which if an intelligent person watched them, would be able to say that they do not feature Israeli’s or Jew’s but rather Islamists or people of Arab Decent – are being shared rapidly all over Facebook. Not too long ago a friend of mine from high-school in Toronto posted a video of a Lebanese family abusing a Syrian (refugee) boy and the description of the video was changed to “A Palestinian boy being beaten by Jew’s” when clearly you can hear Arabic in the background and there are countless article’s pertaining to this particular video in Arab news sites.
A person who know’s nothing and does not bother to study facts will spread these lies.
Another source that makes me rather uncomfortable is VICE news. I used to read this magazine when I was a young girl and my brother would have stashes that he would grab from record stores for free and today I enjoy their documentaries and specials – except for anything pertaining to Israel. While 4 civilians (thank G-d for my unit, the Iron Dome) have died and countless were injured by Hamas rockets and mortars VICE only covers Gaza, with snippets of Israel and with a very cynical and disregarding tone.
What happened to journalism? What happened to common sense and research? Why is there no credibility? No ethics?
It is defiantly our responsibility to combat these wrong doings but the fact that they are happening anyway, is always going to be mind boggling and disappointing.