The Daily News 2 - ICJS Radio program

Here is the daily news episode 2

or download file The daily news episode 2

A listener to our first Radio Program asked:

Is there any media bias against the Palestinians, and if so, what does ICJS do about it?

A:questioner raises good point. Should we be tracking, fighting any and all forms of bias wherever they occur? Should we perhaps be "really unselfish", focusing our attention primarily on imbalance against other peoples?

The long world history persecution against Jews teaches we're entitled to look out for ourselves. The same applies to any group which has a history of mistreatment. I combat media imbalance, not as as a kind of ivory tower project, a theoretical injustice which needs to be researched, but as a living effort to put a message out there.

Media imbalance against Israel intrinsically connected into the long torturous history of persecution which follows all kinds of activities which Jews undertake.

What's really ironic is that the forward-thinkers of last century thought that if the Jews had their own nation-state, persecution would cease. Alas how wrong they were! The persecution continues unabated. Indeed the worst critics are now saying that the activities of the Jewish state are now the PRIMARY CAUSE of antisemitism. We've come full circle. Israel's most vehement critics (like Ahmadinejad President of Iran) say: The way to eradicate anti-semitism is to eradicate the Jewish State.

It's a lingusitic sleight of hand: From the premise "antisemitism resulted in the creation of the state of Israel" we morph to "The creation of the state of Israel resulted in antisemitism".

Another linguistic sleight of hand: "Arab aggression precipitated the 6 day war and the occupation" becomes "The occupation precipitated Arab aggression".

Ruth Wisse says: "Since the territories were occupied as a result of Arab aggression, they cannot retroactively have become its cause"

So no! Because media imbalance against Israel is connected to real anti-semitism it becomes an important activity to combat this bias. And the Jewish community itself needs to lead.

Any other group in the world which fights bias against itself, has my admiration. No individual, No group, and no nation needs to feel embarrassed or ashamed to combat harrassment against it.

To get back to the original question: Yes, I have heard bias against Palestinians, against Arabs, against Islam. But not on the BBC, not in the New York Times, not on our ABC, not in the Age and not in the Australian. I presume editors neatly remove it - as indeed they should - but they don't remove it when it comes to Israel. Listen to an example of language which was allowed to pass un-edited in the SMH:

"[about Netanyahu] Beneath that silvery, Harvard-educated veneer there lies an unprincipled thug addicted to the use of Israeli military might and impervious to world opinion. .... It is a ferocious beast, the Jewish lobby. Write just one sentence even mildly critical of Israel and it lunges from its lair, fangs bared"