That's very interesting - I assumed it was widely available. I'm in South Africa and have been watching it as much as BBC World News or CNN, more so over the last few months. What I do like about it is that there's a fair amount of actual 'world news' - stuff from countries that are hardly on my radar.
Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
151–160 of 183 posts
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
you must be very unhappy with this "journalism" thing then. Have you ever seen that journalists would do statistics on anecdotes? Most of them have trouble researching and pointing to similar accidents that happened in the past. I don't think anybody would base any serious policy on an article in the news. So there is not much reason to perform real science on it. When you're putting together anecdotes of racial atta…
I think there is a double standard that is being applied and it is rationalized and back-propagated from a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived criticism of Israel. All of the sudden statistical significance and probability distribution come in to play. I doubt it if New York times wrote an article about 3 or 4 racially motivated attacks in New York and wondered if there is resurgence in racism, if everyone would accuse…
>> I think there is a double standard that is being applied and it is rationalized and back-propagated from a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived criticism of Israel.
>> All of the sudden statistical significance and probability distribution come in to play.
You've got it completely backwards of course. Asking for statistical proof of racism should be the standard, and the criticism should be of those who don't have that proof, not of those who deviate and begin asking for it. It's pretty alarming and telling that those arguing that Israel is racist are blatantly complaining that too much proof is being asked of their accusations of racism. Any decent humanitarian should not want the accusation of racism to be thrown around so easily by the media, otherwise its potency as an accusation is diluted. As it has been by exactly the type articles like on Al Jazeera, and as evidenced by the number of people even in this thread who so casually accuse a country of racism by nothing more than HN posts and Wikipedia articles.
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I remember from posts on HN by Israeli citizens, but of ethnically non-Jewish background its not quite the clear picture you paint. Leaving aside Palestinian civilians who do not have recourse to the same civic laws and roads as Israeli citizens, Israeli Arabs do not have the same rights even legally (let alone inconsistent application of existing laws) as Jewish citizens. These discrepancies crop up in dif…
You really are mistaken. The hearsay of some hackernews posts amounts to zero evidence, while you can verify the legal equality of races in Israel in any decent book. Unless of course, you want to grasp at straws like another poster here and argue that semantically a Law of Return is racist (even though many acknowledged non-racist countries have the same laws) or Arabs having the option to opt out of the draft is ra…
Here is a general observation (not just about Israel).
In places where race is an overt issue, and people at the highest political places earn their votes based on race, and therefore dependent upon people who are conscious of race rights, no amount of laws is going to stop a government from exercising racial preferences in its administration.
Countries like Fiji is an example.
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#154“Comcast, Charter, Time Warner, Dish Network and DirecTV all passed.”
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Mail is as far to the right as the Graun is to the left, the Torygraph is centre-right. Not to mention that the Graun is s tabloid now...
The Guardian is not a tabloid newspaper. The Telegraph is a broadsheet. The Guardian is also not as far left as the Mail is right, although that is objective and could be debated all day.
I think you mean subjective. Unless like the typical Graun reader you believe that it's everyone else that's biased...
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It could, for example, balance it out by recruiting 50% via the Graun's big rival, the Daily Mail, but it doesn't. I don't think hiring through a tabloid newspaper would help the integrity of the company. You could have at least said the Telegraph.
The Mail is as far to the right as the Graun is to the left, the Torygraph is centre-right. Not to mention that the Graun is s tabloid now...
I think it's called a "Berliner"....
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's more like "black," which comes from a PIE root meaning "to burn," and is thus closely related to the word "bleach."
You can't look at the roots of a word and declare it "wrong" because it doesn't precisely match the original usage. That would wipe out a lot of everyday language.
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's obviously not the case that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. However, it should be equally obvious that some is; surely the anti-Semites that do exist will criticize Israel. So the question is how to distinguish the legitimate criticism from the anti-Semitic criticism. I don't have an answer to this question, unfortunately. One (flawed) test that's often proposed is to see whether the criticism is propor…
I criticize the Indian government all the time. But I find it strange that for my criticisms to be taken seriously I also have to criticize all other countries equally. I may be the most anti Indian person in the world, but should that discredit my criticism if its valid ? I got thrown off by the terminology "anti-Semitic criticism". From the context it seems to mean: criticism by an "anti Semitic" person, you probab…
>From the context it seems to mean: criticism by an "anti Semitic" person, you probably meant "criticism that has no truth in it"
Sorry, my other comment skipped this question. What I mean by anti-Semitic criticism is criticism motivated by anti-Semitism, and, separately, criticism that attempts to exploit the emotional weight of the Holocaust (e.g. "the Zionists are the new Nazis" or subtler variations thereof).
The former of these might be legitimate criticism in some cases, yes, but tends not to be, and even when it is, bear in mind that most people are totally clueless about the world. If Joe Sixpack hears ten times as much criticism of Israel as Saudi Arabia, he'll assume that Israel is much worse than Saudi Arabia, even though this is clearly not true (unless you happen to be a Wahhabi Muslim, I guess). I remember hearing of a survey conducted in China where Chinese on the street were asked how big they thought Israel was and some answered that it was probably about as big as China. I can't find it, but I did find an article where the Chinese ambassador to Israel describes something similar: "I explain to [other Chinese] that Israel only has seven million residents – barely a small town in China," he says. "They find it hard to believe. I understand them." (source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961612,00.html)
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The military draft does not apply to certain ethnic groups, because Israel doesn't want most of them in its military forces. Absolutely fascinating. Where did you hear this? The draft doesn't apply to non-Jews because Israel doesn't want to force its Arab citizens to fight other Arabs. However, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are encouraged to join the military or civil service and they serve alongside Israeli Jews…
The draft doesn't apply to non-Jews because Israel doesn't want to force its Arab citizens to fight other Arabs. However, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are encouraged to join the military or civil service and they serve alongside Israeli Jews or in their own units. In fact Druze men have mandatory conscription. Check the law again. The draft applies to all Israelis but exemptions can be granted. And in fact have bee…
> Check the law again. The draft applies to all Israelis but exemptions can be granted. And in fact have been granted to Arabs. The conscription of Druze men is a consequence of their not having been granted a special exemption.
True but this doesn't mean non-Jewish Israelis are barred from serving in the military or civil service.
> I was not saying it was good or bad. I was citing it as evidence that different races are treated differently under Israeli law.
Right but if this is practiced in hundreds of countries around the world, it's a moot point.
Re: Why can't people in US watch Al Jazeera?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
So all news sources are equally truthy? There's no such thing as perfect objectivity, but there are shades of gray.
You need to look for a news source that is financially incentivized to do "just the facts". Organization such as Reuters, AP, AFP etc sell "raw news" to TV stations and newspapers, which then put their own editorial on it. The same Reuters feed goes into the BBC as goes into Sky News. So if you really care, just read Reuters and make up your own mind.
But just because analysis implies some point of view or bias doesn't mean it's not valuable. I'd rather get a variety of editorial viewpoints than just straight facts for which I may not have sufficient context.