The spin on truth: media’s anti-Israel bias

I’ve often been asked how I go about gathering resource information for my columns.  I search politically and ideologically for the truth. However, this has become more difficult because the media is no longer about truth.  Sifting through a quagmire of polarization and partisanship is exhausting. Very few reporters “report”, and very few journalists take time to discover the “other side” of a story.  I diligently search for credible reports.  Without giving too much credence to “fake news”; deciphering truth from intentional misconception, spinning, or blatant lies; is not a job for the faint hearted.

I was raised listening to the BBC (British Broadcasting Authority).   My father would  sit by the radio anxiously awaiting for the first “bong” of “Big Ben”; eagerly anticipating the all too familiar crisp London voice that would take us on a 30 minute journey outside our small Mediterranean island.  The BBC was an  oracle; never doubting its ability to tell us the  truth.  At school it was the voice we took down shorthand dictation to at precisely 100 words a minute.  Our orderly life was fine tuned to the BBC.  So what’s my beef?  What changed?

My beef went into full spin as I recently listened to a BBC report on Gaza and the “plight” of the Palestinians.  Without attempting to diminish human misery and squalor, the story ran more on “plight” than on cause.  The report went into the detailed misery of Palestinian life in the “strip”; often without water, food, and electricity.  Israel was given two honorable “mentions”: the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in  recent “protests”, and incinerating  devices flown across Israel’s “occupied” borders.  I took exception to the blatant omission of the “whole truth and nothing but the truth”.  The truth is out there.  Between 2007 and 2014, the Gaza Strip was under Hamas; whose only mission in life is to destroy Israel.  When the Palestinian Authority took over, conditions did not improve and life remained status quo. Eventually the Palestinian Authority even refused to pay Israel for electricity it provided to the Gaza Strip. Hospitals and schools were hit the worst.  Egypt to the South, closed its borders allowing a trickle of assistance.   And Israel is the bad guy?

The situation in Gaza is not difficult to comprehend.  Israel ‘s right to exist should not be questioned.  The insidious claim that Israel “occupies” land  is founded in neither logic nor truth. In 1967, Israel was attacked by its Arab neighbors: a war it did not start or want, but finished and won.  A second  major attempt by the Arabs to take back what they had lost in 1967 was also futile.  It happened on Yom Kippur 1973;  Egypt and Syria  joined forces to take back what they had lost.  They never did.  Logically, one would assume that the lesson was learned.  Not so. Israel has since been unjustly labeled as “occupier”.  Land that it won in a war it did not start.  Those living in the Gaza Strip refuse to  live with Israel, they have instead been bred to covet Israel.  It is Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that continually subject their people to poverty and misery.  They would rather spend their time and resources hating and obliterating Israel than getting Palestinians out of squalor.

For an “in your face” revelation of what Hamas does in the Gaza Strip; one should talk to Pierre Rehov and Juliane Helmhold.  In May of this year, these two gentlemen took time to tape a segment on the “peaceful” protests.  They have footage of kids dragged by mothers and father to the border to be used as human shields. How much did Hamas pay these wonderful parents?  Listen to  women telling their children how great it was to kill Jews.  And watch as cameras are set up for the sole purpose of staging their “suffering” to the redundant international community like the UN and major networks.  The burning tires that caused clouds of toxic fumes was never denounced by any environmental zealot.  Where were the protests? Where was Al Gore?  Since May, hundreds of balloons, kites, and birds were flown across the border as IED’s (Improvised Explosion Device); for the sole purpose of killing Jews.  This is the “plight” of the Palestinians in Gaza.  This is their hopelessness as narrated by the BBC.  Hamas starves families while funding terror.  Hamas pays parents to sacrifice their kids in an attempt to gain world sympathy.  If it weren’t so evil it would be ludicrous. Anyone thinking that Hamas or the Palestinian Authority advocate peace needs a lobotomy.

Squalor does exist in the Gaza Strip.  Hamas has very little intention of improving conditions. Millions of dollars are spent in underground tunnels for the sole purpose of storing arms, rockets, and hate. Hamas needs the suffering as much as it needs funding. Both imperative to the same cause.  Media outlets like the BBC and CNN see no viewership in telling the whole story.  Suffering and global indignation equals ratings. The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem was a perfect opportunity for Hamas to pay and urge the “protest”.  Their disregard to human life is “business as usual”.  Douglas MacKinnon of the Investor’s Business Daily, laments how anti-Israeli bias is worn by the left leaning media like a badge of honor (May, 2018).  He makes the correlation between their hatred of Trump and Netanyahu to the bias in reporting.  Finding nothing earth shaking to report about the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, CNN went after the two pastors who attended the ceremony.  A non-story at an attempt to downplay the significance of the move and the friendship between the two nations.  Impotent reporting.

Unfortunately, anti-Israel and anti-Semitism has been given a high platform in elite circles.  Britain’s Labor Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn comes to mind.  It is a good example of the left gone wild.  The epitome of tolerance and social justice: the left and its minions in politics and media have raised the bar on hatred and vile behavior.  When it comes to Britain’s Labor Party and Jeremy Corbyn;  I don’t know what is more offensive, the pretense of outrage from the “global community” or Corybn himself?  The jury is still out on that. The pretense is still on and Corbyn is still spouting bigotry.  Where are the protests from the tolerant left?  The debate on the Gaza Strip is not over.  Waiting on the media and the UN to tell the truth is like waiting for a Scotsman to reveal what’s under his kilt.  Don’t hold your breath for any surprises!

Who stands for Israel?  Thanks primarily to US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, the US has unilaterally defended Israel and its actions against bias. But that is not enough.  The rampant and open anti-Israel sentiment in the media is dangerous.  Once impartiality is taken out of reporting all that we are left with is opinion and half truth.  All that we can hope for is that the majority of good citizens can see through the pathetic fog of biased journalism and its feeble attempt at the truth.  Douglas MacKinnon said it best: Israel is “… our last best hope in the region”. Ain’t it the truth!

Helmhold, J. (May 7, 2018). The Jerusalem Post.  Watch: Exclusive footage from inside Gaza reveals true face of protest. https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/WATCH-Exclusive-footage-from-inside-Gaza-reveals-true-face-of-protests-553655

Israeli-Palestinian conflict : Life in the Gaza Strip (May 15, 2018). Retrieved from: BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20415675

MacKinnon, D. (May 11, 2018). Investor’s Business Daily. Leftist Big Media Wear their Anti-Israel Bias proudly. https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/leftist-media-are-anti-israel/

Palestinian Authority ‘stops paying Israel for Gaza electricity’ (April 27, 2017). Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39730791

Yom Kippur War. Retrieved from: https://www.history.com/topics/yom-kippur-war

Helmhold, J. (May 7, 2018). https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/WATCH-Exclusive-footage-from-inside-Gaza-reveals-true-face-of-protests-553655