Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Ahmadinejad pimps media

Ahmadinejad Superstar - Fiamma Nirenstein

CNN and Time Magazine outdid themselves by giving this well-known Holocaust denier a cover story glorifying him and turning him into a star of Hollywood proportions. The media went further than its usual apology for terrorists, giving the maniac from Teheran an even larger platform to express a new gem: that there are no Jews in the State of Israel - only Zionists.

There is nothing strange about the press presenting different points of view, however abhorrent. What is inexcusable in this case is the moral relativism with which the issue was treated, as though blatant anti-Semitism on the part of a world leader is no different from a movie actress talking about her midlife crisis. The media, in its desperate search for new stars, becomes a very dangerous equalizer in times of the war on Islamic terrorism.

Another example is the way Hamas is treated journalistically. Reportage using the term "National Unity Government" to describe a potential merger between Abu Mazen's Fatah party and the party that advocates in its charter the killing of every last Jew is a serious abuse of communications. The phrase "National Unity Government" is supposed to refer to the joining of political parties within a democracy. The confusing of language and images does enormous political and moral damage to freedom and democracy, precisely in a time when we are supposed to be defending these values with all our might.
(JCPA-Hebrew, 1Oct06)

Arabs Still Openly Call Jews "Their Dogs," Even in San Francisco -
Joseph Abdel Wahed
I was at the anti-Israel demonstration in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco... The demonstration, organized by a Palestinian group called Al Awda, was loud, boisterous, and passionate. Suddenly and shockingly, demonstrators began chanting in Arabic: "Al Yahud Kelabna," or "the Jews are our dogs."
(Chronwatch)

1 comment:

LHwrites said...

Acknowledging a powerful leader of a country that has lately seixed the upper hand in its strategies is not the same as glorifying. Letting his viewpoints be aired is about free press and serves to show the differences between his country and the free world---there will be no similar portrayals of Bush in the Iranian press.
The sad fact about the Palestinean "unity government" is that it was no doubt, in large part, a reaction to the perceived war against Islam that was started by the US once we went beyong Afghanistan, and began to invade sovereign nations, at the same time as pushing around the Palestinean elected government with our demands. The demands were right for a long term peace, and Abbas, being somewhat knowledgeable, tried to conform, but it seems it was the wrong time to listen to the US. Extremism is just one result of extreme actions. What we can hope, is as has been the case in Iraq, when extremists get into power sharing, they cannot get along, and hopefully, they will eventually be rejected by the same people who elected them. It will remain to be seen whether they will relinquish their legitimate power once they have held it. But that will be a problem for another day, perhaps.