71–80 of 183 posts
http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011122...
And I just saw an interview with PJ Crowley about Egypt. There is no US reporter that would ever ask such tough questions as the Aljazeera interviewer. No way.
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> In reality it's just an illusion that it's something objectively better. Why do you say that? They do seem to have a better and broader news coverage. > "Israel: The ugly truth" ... Notice something out of proportion here? No. I think it is a well written article. Are you implying that anyone criticizing Israel should be automatically discarded on the basis of intolerance?
> Are you implying that anyone criticizing Israel should be automatically discarded on the basis of intolerance? You don't seem to have listened. It wasn't about that one article, it was about their coverage of the issue, which is skewed in one obvious direction. And by the way, the article is nothing more than a bunch of anecdotes misrepresented as an accurate representation of the issue (the article itself even ack…
Sorry. I meant they seem to _me_ I wasn't asserting a general truth. I am just one of the HNers here. So it is more of a personal observation.
> Look, it even comes with allusions to the comparison of Israel and the Nazis!
---- excerpt from first article ------
In mid-January, dozens of young Jews attacked Muslims at a mosque in Yafo or Jaffa, the historically Arab city just south of Tel Aviv. An Israeli media outlet reports that the youth, who were armed with stones and Israeli flags, shouted "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to Arabs" just as the Muslims were preparing to pray.
When the police arrived, they did not arrest any of the assailants.
------- end of excerpt -------
Sure I wasn't there on the ground witnessing this, but I believe that story to be true. Why? Because other stories on Al-Jazeera seem to _me_ to be true. Yes I throw the word "seems" around too much, this is all just my person observation, but I try to be as objective as possible.
They list other incidents, about 3 or 4 total.
Imagine that your local American small town a group of white youths attacked a black family. And then there would 3 or 4 similar racially motivated incidents. I believe nobody would blink an eye if _any_ media source would start writing editorials wondering about the resurgence of racism in the region. If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism. It seems denying it and covering it up, is a larger sign of a problem.
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As I mentioned below, I find it disingenuous that people often use the term 'anti-semitic' when they mean 'anti-Israel', as if any judgement on the actions of the state of Israel automatically implies hate of Jewish people.
Not only that. Jewish people are not the only Semites. Arabs are Semites too. The word anti-semitic has totally lost all of its literal meaning, much like the word hacker.
This whole comment thread has me extremely disappointed with HN.
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
What is this RealPlayer thing? sounds like a virus.
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MEMRI is a Israeli non-profit organisation to "aid the understanding of the Middle-East". It is not by any means objective. Its goal is mostly to find inflammatory or antisemitic fragments in Middle Eastern media and provide them to a Western audience. I looked at the fragment on the MEMRI site and it was devoid of any context. Airing a speech does not imply endorsement. (Most, if not all, American media outlets have…
Actually, MEMRI is an American non-profit, which in principle doesn't accept financing from any government ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Media_Research_Inst... ): Apparently the mere inclusion of Israelis (I recognize 3 Israeli names out of the 7 listed in its staff page) is enough to label it "Israel's PR department". Al Jazeera, on the other hand, have received so far over $160m from the Emir of Qatar…
Every time Al Jazeera is brought up, people claim that it is anti-semitic, racist, anti-US, etc. But to that I say: so what? Do you think Americans are that stupid that they won't see antisemitism? Do you think we're little children who can't think for ourselves? As the old adage goes, "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer". If Al Jazeera is indeed "the enemy", then all the more reason to make Al Jazeera…
> when Al Jazeera started, the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. And many people believe that the BBC is biased when it comes to covering Israel. For example: http://honestreporting.com/bbc-responds-to-flotilla-inquiry-...
Since it's a difficult skill, like it or not the identity of the group espousing the belief does play a role in coloring the credibility. It is one of the multitude of variables by which human's judge potential correctness. My personal coefficient for BBC is higher than most of US cable news (and honestreporting.com as well). The coefficients are issue specific too, though there is a certain issue independent component that different issues inherit from the base.
It so happens that there are issues that I care about, for which there are no US main stream source that has significantly positive coefficient. It is for (not uncommon) situations like this that I need alternative sources like Al Jazeera. In addition to un-affiliated blogs
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> Are you implying that anyone criticizing Israel should be automatically discarded on the basis of intolerance? You don't seem to have listened. It wasn't about that one article, it was about their coverage of the issue, which is skewed in one obvious direction. And by the way, the article is nothing more than a bunch of anecdotes misrepresented as an accurate representation of the issue (the article itself even ack…
> "They do seem" as a claim on it's own has no persuasive power. Sorry. I meant they seem to _me_ I wasn't asserting a general truth. I am just one of the HNers here. So it is more of a personal observation. > Look, it even comes with allusions to the comparison of Israel and the Nazis! ---- excerpt from first article ------ In mid-January, dozens of young Jews attacked Muslims at a mosque in Yafo or Jaffa, the histo…
Israel is 7.5 million people with 75% Jews. That provides a large enough pool of incidents of Jews attacking Muslims to draw from just because there are a given number of violent people in any country. Now they can easily misrepresent these stories because you can cram an article with them. You can't do intuitive statistics with a country of 7.5 million, or even 500,000. You need to do statistics, period. Anything less is irresponsible, and any article from any organization that tries to interpret anecdotes into patterns when you're drawing from such large sample pools is not practicing professional journalism. And with Al Jazeera's "In Depth" page basically dedicating it's Israeli/Palestinian focus on these types of articles, there is little room to interpret there ME coverage as objective.
> If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism.
Because there's never any evidence except these anecdote based articles. At a certain point, if you want to make such a serious accusation that deviates from the assumptions that people operate on, the burden is on you to prove it, with some sort of comprehensive proof.
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> when Al Jazeera started, the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. And many people believe that the BBC is biased when it comes to covering Israel. For example: http://honestreporting.com/bbc-responds-to-flotilla-inquiry-...
True, but pick any notion and there would be some people who believe that. The question is whether the belief is correct or not. Correctness is hard to determine in the absolutes. It is a skill that adults usually acquire to a lesser or greater degree from experience and corroboration. Since it's a difficult skill, like it or not the identity of the group espousing the belief does play a role in coloring the credibil…
If you're looking for a solid US based news agency, I would suggest PBS news. They have a pretty high 'coefficient' in my book. They've been covering the various Arab riots quite extensively.
Main site: http://www.pbs.org/newshour
Nightly news: http://video.pbs.org/program/979359630/
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As I mentioned below, I find it disingenuous that people often use the term 'anti-semitic' when they mean 'anti-Israel', as if any judgement on the actions of the state of Israel automatically implies hate of Jewish people.
Not only that. Jewish people are not the only Semites. Arabs are Semites too. The word anti-semitic has totally lost all of its literal meaning, much like the word hacker.
http://www.ibishblog.com/blog/hibish/2010/12/16/arabs_and_an...
anti-Semitism is not the optimal term for anti-Jewish sentiment, among other things because there are other Semites than Jews, but it is the one we have, and comes with a long history and a well-established meaning. Rather than critiquing the term or coining a neologism to substitute for it, speakers of English should simply understand the term's history and commonly accepted definition and use it accordingly.
edit: corrected typos