Topic: big media
Given the ceasefire postures in all the news last Sunday we only returned to this opinion piece today by the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (from the Sydney SunHerald sister paper to the SMH, in response to Julia Irwin MP the week before).
Just defence despite death toll - Opinion - smh.com.au 18 Jan 2009
Also we note that arguable or even valid claims of anti semitism are being rolled out by the Friends of Israel today in the press as another diversion from the horrific body count and $billions in damage to public infrastructure in Gaza - contained in a sidelplay in The Australian (article and lower section of the opinion page).
We detected this attempted shift in focus before by the F of I promotion of the Holocaust WW2 backgrounder pieces 10 days ago as if to guilt trip any critics of Israel with its reputed 4th biggest army in the world smashing Gaza.
Our quick notes on the selectivity of the Goot piece are instructive of the special pleading and sophistry by the dominant power in this tragedy. Here's a list of omissions by Goot:
1. Omits 4 months food blockade by Israel on the UN supplies to Gazans which can't be confused with Hamas weapon smuggling, with this starvation tactic a prelude and cause of the latest conflict. The SMH front pager yesterday 19 January quoting UN senior representative in Jerusalem (an Australian) Maxwell Gaylard, spikes this excuse for the blockade on Hamas as in reality a collective punishment on Gazans for their election of Hamas. Otherwise why blockade the UN relief supplies also? As the UN has stated 50% of people in Gaza are children and 45% of these are suffering anaemia. The blockade is clearly a constant low level form of torture and violence on the Gazans;
2. Omits the air strike by Israel killing 6 Hamas on November 4th 2008, day of the USA federal election as probably the first breach of the ceasefire, as reported by UK The Guardian;
3. Omits the political reality that 30% of Israeli society today, as reported by Haaretz, support a pardon for Yigal Amir the Israeli Jewish assassin convicted of the cold blooded murder of peace maker Labour Prime Minister of Israel Yitzak Rabin in late 1995. Amir has been sentenced to life in gaol. However Amir has been permitted to marry and visits by his wife and now young son born in 2005. Yigal Amir is a hero of the 500,000 strong illegal squatter movement in Israel who systematically steal Palestinian land and want to expel the Arabs from Gaza in the cause of a theocratic Greater Israel. These voters will be part of majority coalition politics in the Feb 2009 Israeli election.
Earlier today we were asked by a staffer of a big media organisation what was our interest in the media coverage on this topic really. It's a fair question. The answers are:
1. Democratic recognition of the voices of thousands of Australians opposed to Israel's attack in Gaza to be fairly represented as per the rally in Sydney last Sunday;
2. Avoidance of a nuclear arms race that envelops the whole world originating from that region;
3. Professioanal exposure of false media practice including spin and censorship exercised by the dominant power in that region and it's local loyalists;
4. Expose of the sinister illegal squatter movement in Israel;
5. Truth, justice and peace for all parties concerned in the conflict particularly the weakest.
In short all the usual community media objectives that have informed our work for over 15 years in the non government sector on environment and peace issues, inlcuding as an elected representative of the Bondi Ward in Sydney 1995-1999. That's our name there on bronze plaque at Waverley Library 3rd on the list:
