H-Hour

The Story TV news won't tell

DudeMan

i am sorry i am not really impressed by this report at all, it seems to be a reputable newspapper but it doesnt to my knowledge offer the guys name who wrote it.

and his story about the bad israelis who killed the innocent arabs is laughable.

he critisizes the BBC who said that a lynch squad killed 2 israelis soldiers referring to an incident that happened two days previous. he also by default puts these arabs in a posotive light because the avenge the deaths of their citizens,

however, to my knowledge police officers do not open fire on unsuspecting bystanders going about their lawful buisness, he makes no attempt to reconcile the original problem and find out the reason for the shootings, then palms off the beeb for being biased..

hello alarm bells started ringing here, he has just done the exact same as he is accusing, it is hypocracy in clear black and white writting.

as for the statistics of students, i am wholly scheptical about those and i would want to read the full reports i know for fact that alot of people with a GCSE education thats up to 16, may actually have studied that area, i did, i know that the israelis were baisically given the land by the British and Americans during British rule and that the conflict about the boarders has been going on for lik well years...

im sorry his argument critisises bias yet he himself is utterly bias. its hypocritical.

H-Hour

It says who wrote it at the top, in italics.

DudeMan

ok i did not see it, however that does not excuse any of the other things i said, his writting i still hypocritical and bias,

his arguments are also flawed as one i have mentioned

Geisha

Interesting. Even if exaggerated, I'm willing to accept that a slant like that exists. Is that slant only in British news, or do we have it in the US too because we've supported Israel in the past? I always had the impression that the whole mess in that particular area was our fault for displacing what are now called Palestinians in favor of Jews essentially deported from Europe, and that the Israelis were ultimately only the most recent military occupiers in at least 3 bloody millennia, but I might be mixing up my history... I'll go look up some stuff for real now, but I thought for the sake of comparison I'd state what I "thought everyone knew" (as if everyone thinks what I do!)* and that I don't know for certain if my current belief comes from associating with history buffs or from the US media.

* intended to be read as Wry Humor, sarcasm directed at self, not other posters

Geisha

It looks like I wasn't too far off.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html

One would hope the UN would be fairly neutral in this, but this page seems to me to oversimplify the case. When I read it, it looked like the Israelis were always interested in the oppression of Arabs.

I like this page better, but it comes from the US library of congress...

http://www.countryreports.org/history/israehist.htm
...this link might not work, it said the text was some kind of temporary search result. I think it makes some clear distinctions about when the tensions first developed, and it appears to me to be almost completely about overpopulation of that parcel of land. Everything was fine until there were just too many people to spread themselves out and easily ignore religious and socio-political differences (the "Westernized" Jews versus the local feudal Arabs). Everything else followed naturally because the Jews from Europe understood how to implement the British state allotted to them, and the various proposed Palestinian states failed because their political structure just didn't work that way and it takes a long time to learn a new one (cough, cough, Iraq). So everyone in the Middle East - Israel, Egypt, Syria, what is now Jordan - grabbed chunks of what was supposed to be the Arab half of Palestine, and they keep passing it back and forth until the displaced Arab farmers finally figured out how the system worked. Succeeding generations have turned to terrorism and have decided they're not going to get stuck with the crappiest land left in the area, or no land at all, even if they did sell off all their land themselves under economic or military pressures (cough, cough, Native Americans).

I found it interesting that Israeli-sympathetic sites claim that a large (unspecified) number of the Arabs now claiming rights to "Palestine" settled at the same time as the European Jews, following WWI. Apparently everyone was trying to take advantage of British farming technology & military protection from the Turks during the creation of the new states. I feel that while this is possible, it is probably grossly exaggerated.

So back to the original point. My sympathy isn't for Israelis and it isn't for Palestinians, it's for civilians on both sides... and if one side isn't getting representation for it's civilians, and the representation is presented as unbiased, that's irresponsible reporting.

H-Hour

Interactive Guide to the History
Very small on details, but it remains neutral that way.

Global Issues.Org - Palestine and Israel
I believe this is a fairly balanced source, with a lot of information.

As for your question about US vs. UK. I have not lived outside of the US, but the concensus seems to be (for better or worse), that US coverage tends to favor Israel and Euro coverage tends to favor Palestine. I have not heard directly about the UK, only the US/Euro comparison.

The accusations of US media bias in their coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are numerous. I chose to share this link because a) the author has a long-standing record in the Middle East for the organization he is criticizing and b) this article was more moderate in it's accusations then most I have read.

H-Hour

Agreed. Our understanding of the conflict is shaped by the politics and militants of both sides, which excludes crucial elements of the problem. For instance, a terrified populace and a crippled economy.

USN_Squid

H you oviously have some education on this topic. The whole thing is very confusing to me because I do believe the news we see here in the states is not the whole story. But can you, or anyone else who knows, explain something to me. Why can Palestinians work in Israel and even hold gov't positions and citizenship, but they cannot in surrounding Arab countries like Syria, Lebanon and Jordan? What's the story behind those countries not permitting the Pals to settle in there?

__________________

H-Hour

Well, in Jordan, Palestinians who fled 1967 or before were offered full Jordanian citizenship (so said our Palestinian Jordan citizen taxi driver). I don't know about Syria and Lebanon.

Here's the story on the MAJORITY of the cases of Palestinians. The Palestinians are classified refugees, and UNRWA is the UN organization that is set up to monitor and take care of Palestinian refugees. If they give up that classification, in order to become a citizen of another country, then they are, in effect, giving up the right to the land they fled in 1948 or 1967 and the aid provided by the UN. In other words, now they're not refugees, but they become the poorest of citizens in a country that does not really want them. Most are packed into refugee camps in many surrounding countries.

DudeMan

yes true however due to the black september hyjackings i believe the Jordanian acceptance of the palestinians became obselete, infact jordan declared an all out war on palestinian insurgents that hyjacked and there was widespread fighting in jordan.

since then the jordainian governemnt understandably desired less and less to do with the conflict.

As for right now, my theory is that refugee camps are vital to the conflict, infact the poor treatment of refugees is a breeding ground for new suicide attacks, leaders of many arab organisationd against the occupation such as hamas and ealier the Palestinian liberation organisation preyed on people living in the camps.

treated as the worst of the worst these people were offered money for their family to leave the camps if they would blow themselfes up for the cause. keeping these people in refugee camps is keeping the conflict alive, it is why the roadmap for peace continually tries to secure more land and homes for these people to move into. and i believe is the reason why many of the nieghbouring arab countries who want to see the USA and its allies embarresed will ot go out of their way to acccomidate these people.

that plus the fact that everytime another arab nation has entered into armed conflict with israel they have lost, is rael have the weapons from the western countries and British and american special forces up until recently (unless they still are i dont know) were training the israelis army in the new prevention of terror and so on. it became less profitable for the arab nations to become involved for fear of reprisals.

Wolfie

The thing I always found funny was Palestinians claim that they were displaced from their homeland......

Weren't the Jewish people displaced from their homeland by the Palestinians first?

If we are going to use "who was there first" arguement as justification of who belongs there, then the Jewish people would have more rights than the Palestinians.

In 1948, the UN established both a Palestinian state and a Jewish State (now Israel). Palestinians did not want the Jewish people living next to them (quotes from that time period had some calling for the Jewish people to be pushed into the sea and exterminated). During WWII, the Jewish people were hunted down and killed by Palestinians just because they were different (British forces kept this from happening before WWII but once Germany took over, the Palestinians were given free reign to do whatever they wanted to the Jewish people).

Palestinians are allowed to become a part of Israel with full rights given to them by the government (own land, vote, work, hold office, form political parties, etc) but there is still a deep sense of hatred and superiority of the Palestinians over the Jewish population that this would never happen.

DudeMan

yes this is true, and it makes me laugh also when people say that the israelis are an occupying force, because if you think about it, since the egyptians pushed the jewishj people from israel in the first place, the whole area was under arab occupation not jewish.

however when the israelis state was created by the UN not by armed israelis they were still seen as military occupiers. when infact their military only really came about only some years before.

you see again another reason why this guy is a total asswipe, im sorry but i have passed judgement now, from your quote h-hour and im not aiming it at you, but from your quote about students believing that the palestinians were the occupiers, well infact that 35% were correct, i think i was even agreeing that the palestinians were the opressed until wolfie sparked my memory of this situation (which i should have picked up on earlier....duh fricken numb niuts. ) ifact those students are right, and the fact thatthey are right is over looked. it is a clever way of using statistics, blurting them out and putting a spinon it to make the reader question their own beliefs and follw his, it illustrates again a hypocratic argument in which this guy slates the bbc for in actual fact reporting the situation.

i will not deny that there probably is a slant on the news to some extent but this guy has been in the field too long, he has contracted the hostage syndrome or whatever its called, he has spent so much time with them that he now believes what he is told automatically.

H-Hour

I think you ought to check the bias of your sources for this information. The facts are correct, in theory. But the thrust of the argument (equal rights) is false. Here are a few examples of how Israeli Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens:

-Palestinians are very rarely given permits to build houses, while Jewish Israeli's are almost always given permits to build houses. A video made by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
-It is nearly impossible for a Palestinian to immigrate to Israel, including those who may have lost their citizenship by being out of the country at a bad time, while it is very easy for Jews.
-It is difficult for Palestinians to obtain legal travel documents to exit and re-enter the country.
-Many classified ads in Israel include a line, "Military Experience Required". Because Palestinians are not allowed to serve in the military, this is a code word for "Jews Only".


I also disagree with the idea that there is a deep hatred of the Jewish population, but admittedly, we could both find plenty of sources for each of our opinions. I think the hatred is a minority on both sides - though there is plenty of anger. The National Religous Party has publicly called for the extermination or removal of all Palestinians from Israel, as well. I believe these opinons are a minority on both sides.


Ok, this paragraph is very hard to understand. I'm not sure if I even understand you correctly, but I think you are saying that you believe that the Palestinians are the occupiers. Is that correct? Then you say something about %35 being correct. The %35 percent was listed as the percentage that knew there were more Palestinian casulaties then Israeli casualties, which, if I'm understanding you, still has no bearing on your argument.

Israel's internationally recognized borders do not include the West Bank or Gaza.
The CIA World Factbook - Israel
Of special note, at the bottom it says:

So I'm not sure where you get the concept that the Palestinians are the occupiers. My only thought is maybe you meant that they were the occupiers at one time (though I'm still not sure when or how that would be). However, that still wouldn't have any bearing on the statistics you had a problem with, since they were dealing with the conflict in it's current state.

luna

Just to point this out, and I by no means intend to instigate anything- but by this premise, wouldn't Native Americans have more entitlement to North America than the US?

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