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So, Now The Conflict in Gaza is Over Forever, What Have We Learned?
For starters, how about this (and forgive me if it seems a bit 'Spartist': We have seen the continuation of the school of thought, introduced by a supine news aristocracy and gratefully supported by various governments bowing to the constant need to assuage public opinion, that makes it a taboo to ever mention the strategic and economic reasons for war - or even to admit that any may exist.
Instead, the overriding flavour of any news report must reduce the conflict to the level of a woman's weekly human interest piece, tottering drunkenly from breathless, almost Dickens-esque descriptions of maimed children to dry transcripts of the statements on a particular morning's operation from the army spokesman.
How, I ask, does any of this give us the breadth of understanding that we need to deal with it on the level with which it deserves? Do we need to wait 100 years for a hysterically bloodthirsty, yet refreshingly hypocrisy-free paperback on the issue? Something like this, perhaps: http://tinyurl.com/dgzcdg
did you hear that chris_is_cool had sex?
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I missed the live feed cause I was at the pub, but I did catch 'Chris Had Sex EXTRA' when I got back. Is it just me or is Russell Brand just not as funny nowadays?
No no -
the one with the scraggy hair and light dusting of facial hair was the girl he slept with
It's over forever?
No one wants to be labelled an anti-semite and more recently no one wants to be seen as siding with terrorists...but at the same time no one wants to be killed by a bunch of ticked off muslims.
I think the issue really is that no one can actually put forward an opinion on this without risk of the highest levels of insult to some one or other so it's easier to go, "THIS IS A TRAGEDY! NO ONE CAN DENY IT!" and leave it at that.
I think the fear of being labelled an anti-semite is subsiding
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Shut up, Jew.
Not in the media.
True
I like how it's just not in the news anymore
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php
The biggest problem with the reporting of the Gaza conflict
is the bullying and histrionics of fervent Zionists who seek to conflate Israel with Judaism, rendering any criticism of Israel aggression "anti-semitism".
That and the whole "the first casualty of war is the truth" shebang.
And the fact that America doesn't really like talking abgout how much it needs to have a Middle Eastern presence as it's shit scared about A-rabs having all the oils.
Replace "fervent Zionists" with "most Jews"
Bullshit.
Nope
What are basing this on?
(apart from
undiluted crap, I mean)
The fact I'm Jewish and generally surrounded by Jewish people from all walks of life?
And you therefore speak for all Jews?
(apols - most Jews)
Just to clarify, you're seriously arguing that the majority of Jewish people strive to portray any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism?
only when I'm off sick
The Palestinians are the descendents of Shem too!
Or at least linguistically as much as the Hebrew peoples
Pedant.
I know you're right, but I think it's generally accepted that anti-semitic nowadys means "anti-Jewish"
And holocaust refers specifically to the Third Reich's treatment of the Juden
and definitely not to the Ottoman ethnic cleansing of Armenians or indeed to the 'other' six million who were gassed, poisoned, experimented on or left to starve to death in the various concentration camps of world war II... or to the 4 million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians that suffered a similar fate in Stalin's Gulags
or To the Rwandan Genocides
etc
ad nauseum
ad infinitum
I'm trying to illustrate that the 'general acceptance' of the phrase 'anti-semitic' as meaning 'anti-jew' is a weapon of war in itself
or
this argument is seriously tired and there's only a grain of truth in it
The word antisemitism was coined by an antisemite as a genteel alternative to "Jew-hating" which could be used in polite society. It then passed into the language as the mainstream term for Jew-hating. That's what words do. There's no Crusader-Zionist plot.
Saying that Zionists who talk about The Holocaust are intrinsically belittling other genocides is like saying that Ukrainians who talk about The Holodomor are belittling other terror-famines, and in fact like saying that Palestinians who talk about al-Nakba are belittling all "catastrophes" suffered by other peoples.
But your point that the other groups murdered in the Nazi genocide are given much less attention than the murdered Jews definitely has a political dimension to it, and this should be talked about more.
Finally, Stalin's barbaric repression of nationalist separatists in the USSR could definitely be seen as genocide, but it's clearly not of the same moral order as the Nazis trying to kill every Jew on the planet.
the discussion to which you are alluding
about the various political dimensions of real-life events being coined or wrapped up in terms that are easily digestible and are regurgitated without thought is an ENOURMOUS one that I unfortunately don't have time to devote to right now despite massive interest in it...
what I was merely attempting to point out was that to make a logical jump from criticism of the military actions of the state of Israel to being labelled anti-semitic is in itself absurd and is in fact doubly absurd in the specific instance because both Palestinians and Jews - along with almost all tribes of North Africa and the Middle East - are the descendants of Shem (or more specifically use the language groups that are labelled thus) and therefore Semitic
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That's funny, because one feature of all the coverage that I noted was a unsubtle airbrushing of any pro-Israeli viewpoint (and therefore the strategic viewpoint) from any explanation of why the war came to be. Moreover, everytime Israel do roll into Gaza or Lebanon or whatever this airbrushing gets more blatant. Part of this is due to the rabid-Zionist viewpoint becoming more fringe as time goes on - even actual Israelis don't really buy into it anymore.
Contrast this to the rabidly pro-Palestinian/anti-everyoneelse viewpoint, which has been allowed an unabated oxygen supply for a long time now. Partly I suppose because they shout louder.
Do you really believe this?
I'm not having a go, but I genuinely think you're getting an extremely distorted view of the media if this is really what you think.
I tend to read a couple of broadsheet newspapers and a couple of tabloids most days, listen to Today in the morning, BBC news in the evening and C4 news when I can, and far from there being an air-brushing of pro-Israeli viewpoint, if anything it's extraordinarily over-emphasised.
For instance, how many times were members of the Israeli government given time to put across their viewpoint? And how many times the Gaza administration?
...
...40/39.
You showed me.
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Try more
40/1
well
I'd imagine that the Gaza administration were more concerned with trying to avoid being killed in Airstrikes.
Note also
that the press were forbidden from entering Gaza during the conflict.
If you want the full unexpurgated version
read this;
http://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Civilisation-Conquest-Middle/dp/1400041511
it made me feel physically sick from almost beginning to end
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That's what Robert Fisk does.
Was it written in blood?
nope
it was written ON blood and OF blood
you should attempt to read it - it's probably in a library near you. I think it would satiated your thirst for a visceral description on life and death at ground level.
But to answer your initial post; I think it is in large part a symptom of the fact that the Israeli army controls physical entry and information flow into and out of Gaza. Newsmen and women have nothing to report first hand.
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The issues of the conflict that I'm talking about are in no way reliant on a constant flow of information from the ground in Gaza.
Moreover, the visceral descriptions of life and death at ground level, as you put it are exactly what we need less of, not more. And that's precisely the problem with the reporting we've been getting from the conflict - and I might add, from Robert Fisk, which may explain why he's become marginalised in recent times as the bringer of heat - not light.
Speaking of Fisk, while I appreciate your desire to bring me new things, I'm not unfamiliar with the writing of this man. He's an honest journalist, but he's also histrionic and doesn't really have any business trying to write dispassionately and without distortion about an an episode of our history (more importantly, an ongoing episode) that demands that approach.
When I do want some gore porn, I'll get right on that.
I'm sure the people living and dying at ground level
feel bad about all the ruddy visceral descriptions of war muddying the real issues of politics and economics for us in the west.
ha
very true!
it's all very easy to sit in our cosy offices and and shake our ring covered fist in front of our HD TV/Blueray player grrrr you naughty rapscallions you've ruined the sporting news Grrrrr
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That's really great.
I think that I've indulged you quite enough considering that the focus of this thread was supposed to be about the nature of war reporting using the recent goings-on in Gaza as an example - not about the Gaza conflict itself. But that's my fault, I suppose.
While I appreciate your obvious enthusiasm for this issue, it's clear you're not really able to carry on a discussion about it without sinking to the level of mealy-mouthed appeals to emotion - which is precisely the kind of thing I was trying to draw attention to.
You could have avoided typing all that
by just using the word "harrumph".
You're original post (it seems to me) was arguing that there is too much trite emotional reporting of the conflict (and you were talking about a specific conflict) and that it is somehow verboten to discuss the reasons for the conflict.
Well, the reasons for it have been laid out pretty comprehensively by the Israeli government, human suffering is pretty fucking integral to war, and as for "dry transcripts" of operations you mention... how would you like the media to frame military statements?
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Frankly, you're wrong. I may have referred to Gaza specifically in the title of the thread - the rest of the statement was speaking generally. It certainly wasn't an invitation to start waffling on about how anti-semitism isn't what it once was.
Secondly, while anyone who's interested can find out exactly why Israel chooses to do the things it does - that's not really anything I'm interested in. I'm speaking of the language of strategic and military analysis being almost entirely absent from coverage of many recent conflicts to a degree unthinkable from even ten years ago. And while sure, how can you report on war if you don't have reporters down in the thick of things, gathering shit? However, if this is at the expense of competent analysis of this raw material then we gain nothing from having it.
This is an issue of what editors let into their newspapers, not whether Israel is right or wrong to bomb hospitals and whatnot. That you couldn't see this just shows that you've become too close to this particular issue, as has, it seems, a significant portion of the news reporting apparatus in this country. Or to put it simply (and for the second time) - you are bringing us heat, not light.
Lastly, 'dry' in the context of a transcript is not a pejorative term, it's descriptive. I expect all transcripts to be dry.
OK
I think you're wrong when you say this is an issue of what editors let in their newspapers, and wrong to say this is radically different from 10 years ago.
If anything is to blame for a lack of analysis in conflict reporting, it is the after-effects of the Vietnam war, whereby it was demonstrated to the US government that control of information is absolutely integral when it comes to securing support and ultimately achieving victory - a lesson which all other first world governments swiftly cottoned on to.
The information is simply not out there as the media is only informed of what whichever government and military decide will be best.
the book itself
is notable for its gore
however, the complex web of political and historical forces in action behind the various conflicts and conflagrations are extremely well composed in this book, though Fisk himself admits that he is a war correspondent first and foremost
I honestly think that, while not being definitive, it is absolutely essential reading on the subject
Oh, I see.
You're just trolling.
Do you know how it feels to be down in the dirt
With a bullet in your breast and blood on your shirt?
Lying in a bloodpool,down a pit...
Covered with the corpse and the blood and the shit!!!
How does it feel to have a gun at your head
When you know that you'd be much better off dead?
Looking right down through the barrel of a gun...
Don't try to tell me that you think it's fun!!!
Prayin' for your mercy,don't say you see the light
What difference does it make if the good lord's right?
At the end of the war,the survivors are none
Because a war is a loss...a war can't be won!!!
You're just another soldier and you're doing the dyin'
You're a symbol of a nation...so,boy,stop crying.
Hero of a war,such a man so brave
A medal's worth nothin' when you're lyin' in your grave!!!
(chorus:)
Do you know the pain...marching into history,marching into war?
Can you feel the shame...marching into misery?you function as a whore!!!
Do you know the pain...marching into history,marching into war?
Can you feel the shame?
War...fair!!!...war...fair!!!...
5 o'clock in the morning and they shout out your name
But they don't...really care,'cos you all look the same.
Now this...is the army,and we train to kill
Our job is to give you that fighting...will!!!
So,get off your knees and stand straight like a man
Do I have to tell you twice to make you understand?
Freedom has a price,and that price is blood
So chase the motherfucker right down in the mud!!!
(chorus:)
War...fair!!!...war...fair!!!...war...fair!!!...war...fair!!!...
Ignore all your feelings,just go alle the way
'Cause if you don't,then death...is the price you have to pay.
This ain't peace and love,no,man,this is war!
So don't...even ask what you're fightin' for!!!
Just search and destroy,never question a lie
You don't...wanna bite the bullet,boy,you don't wanna die.
Don't try to tell me that you couldn't kill a man
That's a load of fucking bullshit,boy,I know you can!!!
(chorus:)