Israel Under Fire: Media Holds Off Until Palestinians Die
November 11, 2012 15:55 by Simon Plosker
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Over the past 24 hours, Palestinian terrorists have fired some 70 rockets and mortars into Israel from Gaza, wounding three Israelis, causing damage to property and sending a million residents of the south into bomb shelters.
In fact, rockets have been fired at Israel on a regular basis. As of October 2012, over 800 rockets had been launched at Israel from Gaza since January 2012.
But what does it take for the media to sit up and take notice of the security situation emanating from Gaza?
- Not the firing of an anti-tank missile at an IDF jeep on the Israeli side of the Gaza border on Saturday, which wounded four Israeli soldiers. This was picked up by wire services such as the AP, but not republished widely at all by other media outlets.
- Not the blowing up of a massive tunnel from southern Gaza towards Israel by Palestinian terrorists on Thursday, also reported by AP but less so elsewhere.
- And certainly not the aforementioned rocket barrages.
When it comes to the mainstream media, we see two trends at work:
1. If it bleeds, it leads: Unless Palestinians are killed or injured, it simply isn’t news. Of course, this skews the situation precisely because Israel has had to take measures to protect its civilians from rocket attacks. Bomb shelters, the Iron Dome anti-missile shield and the use of sirens to warn of attacks have all ensured that the civilian casualty figure remains mercifully low. But just because Israelis are not dying in tangible numbers, it does not diminish the seriousness of the situation and the suffering of the residents of Israel’s south.
In the latest example, several Palestinians have died and around 30 injured as a result of Israel’s actions against the terrorists. Only after this have the media bothered to report on the deteriorating situation.
2. It all started when Israel fired back: Thanks to the late pick-up of the story by the media, many headlines focus on the Israeli counter strikes and the Palestinian deaths rather than the Palestinian terrorism and rocket fire that have plagued Israel for such a considerable amount of time prior to this latest escalation in violence.
Typical of this is the Washington Post‘s headline:
The media does a disservice when they fail to report on Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza that disrupt Israelis’ daily life, yet do not cause mass casualties. If the media ignores violent attacks from Gaza, any Israeli operations to stem the terrorism will be devoid of vital context, contributing to the image of Israel as the provocateur and aggressor.
Take a look at your local media. How are they covering this story? Are they covering it at all?
Take action now – click and share the IDF’s image above and check out and share HonestReporting’s slideshow on this very issue.
Israel Under Fire: Media Holds Off Until Palestinians Die | Blogs about Israel aggregation
4:58 pm
Nov 11, 2012
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Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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EthanP
5:33 pm
Nov 11, 2012
I assure you, that the interpretation the MSM puts on Israeli response is not an accident. If you have seen the corrupt bias of the MSM in the Nov 6 election. you would know that we no longer have a “free” press. A free press require media to be balanced. I expect media bias. But in the past it was: some left, some right=balance. Now the MSM is composed mostly of anti Israel left wingers. So is the Democratic party. I have not forgotten the DNCs reaction to the Jerusalem as capital of Israel vote, even if most of my fellow American Jews Have.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Ed
9:00 pm
Nov 11, 2012
Its not left or right. There is a growing pro-Zionist socialist movement in Europe. The anti-Deutsche movement and popular leftist publication such as Jungle World in Germany, a number of anarcho-Socialist groups in Holland, France and Belgium have responded to the co-option of the socialist globalization critique by the radical right and the incent between the Social Democratic and Communist movements with Islamists—- groups like the Muslim Brotherhood have been anoited by them as Umma-Socialists. Its not left or right, its anti-semitism with a new mask. Anti-Zionism is unless anti-National, inclusive of any concept of any nation states, purely anti-semitism by nicer words.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Asher Garber
4:09 pm
Nov 12, 2012
Sorry, Ethan, but if your parameters suggest we had a free press back in 2000, then you are sadly mistaken. If you can remember, George W Bush’s crew pulled off their stunts in Florida the same year that Yasser Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s peace deal without a counterproposal and plans to start the second Intifada. So save your political speeches about bringing light regarding da Libruls, okay?
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Mike lampard
8:34 pm
Nov 11, 2012
Sadly, I have come to expect this from the Western media whose integrity have long been very suspect in my eyes. I thinkthat we can pay too much attention to what other people, nations, opinions, or commentators think, and ‘so what’ if the media give us a bad time. They are more and more employed by people whose life style, although may be materially rich, but are poverty stricken in matters such as understanding, wisdom and integrity. This is what makes the Western nations such garbage, representative of the people who inhabit them. The media approach to Isreal is more a comment on them and the nations sponsoring them than ever it is on Israel.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Shaya
8:54 pm
Nov 11, 2012
The problem is this is old news. Yes the media is biased and disappointing. It is sad and frustrating but it has been going on so long that Israel’s lack of will to end this situation and to allow this to become the status quo has jaded many of us. If Israel doesn’t give a damn then why should we? Words and bluster, shooting at empty fields, supplying electricity and tax funds to the very people who are trying to kill you solves nothing. Israel’s enemies attack her so often that the only time it is news is when Israel fires back! My heart is with the people of Southern Israel but their government is as great a risk to their safety as is Hamas. Good luck.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Simonson
12:57 am
Nov 12, 2012
What is worse and has not been mentioned, is what it happening to the Christians and Jews in the Arab Nations touched by the “Arab Spring”. The people´s hate is vented against these minorities and against anyone who is against AlQuaeda and the Islamist Brotherhood Terrorist Organizations, now financed by Obama US, Quatar, England, Saudi Arabia, France, etc . This is happening in Libya, Egypt, Syria and other nations (specifically in Syria, where more than 90% of the so called “Rebels” are in fact AlQuaeda and Brotherhood Terrorists). Truth and “protection” by the UN, are concepts buried forever by this organism. What is Libya NOW?
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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steven L
9:23 pm
Nov 11, 2012
The west and the mass media are disappointed because of the incompetence of the Arabs to damage Israel in any way, form or shape.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Tuvia Fogel
10:25 pm
Nov 11, 2012
The media want dead Palestinians? I say OBLIGE THEM!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Ed Frias
12:55 am
Nov 12, 2012
All things must come to an end, and it really is time for Gaza to come to an end. It was a failed experiment, anyway — the terrorists “Palestinians” aren’t capable of normal life.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Ed Frias
12:56 am
Nov 12, 2012
Yall Palestinians are nothing but crack pipe welfare recipients. Ya get billions $ of international aid, and some of it comes from Israel and the US. Why don’t ya make lives of your selves, make businesses, farming ect. and? learn how to to work, for your families instead of wasting all the money on C-4. I’m against abortions, but you are the exception..
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hfiers
11:31 pm
Nov 11, 2012
When will “enough be enough”? It is time that Bibi, the Knesset, and the IDF to step up opertaions. What other country would put up with this nonsense? How many Israeli citizens are we waiting for to be killed?
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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alisa
12:02 am
Nov 12, 2012
it is the media everywhere: in belgium it is the same; we must force them to tell the whole truth, not only what they want for their agenda
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Daniel Moskal
12:29 am
Nov 12, 2012
I say for each rocket that is fired in to Israel,they have to respond in the same way,that is sadly the only way to maybe stop the rockets,and then the media will have something to hold against Israel,but as we now very well,they are doing it any way.So lets give them that.If that would be the case in any other country like Turkey they would go in to Gaza with bulldozers and destroy the whole strip.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Ed Frias
12:56 am
Nov 12, 2012
Why does Islamic Jihad and Hamas send rockets from a school praying that the other side return fire and kill some of it’s children. That’s Gaza today. The Arabs are the only people in the world that go out day by day figuring ways to get their children to die in front of the world press.
What a sick demented society these Pals are.
Then again, the Pals know Richard Falk and his ilk wont criticize Palestinian child abuse.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Ed Frias
12:57 am
Nov 12, 2012
How long would Mexico or Cuba last if they fired rockets into the US on a daily basis? Israel has shown tremendous restraint to these attacks from Gaza for years. Let’s not forget the joy in Gaza too when our twin towers came down on 9-11.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Larry
12:58 am
Nov 12, 2012
I marvel at the word “militant” as use by the media. Depending on the situation, the appropriate word(s) should either be murderer or attempted murderer.
Independently of the problems in Israel, I watch in horror as the Neo-Nazis that are demonstrating “militantly” today in Poland.
My aunts, uncles and grandparents were victims of and executed by Nazi “militants”.
The ONR and the All Polish Youth are demonstrating side by side. Both groups seek a Poland “free of Jews”.
ONR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Radical_Camp
All Polish Youth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Polish_Youth.
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Ed Frias
12:58 am
Nov 12, 2012
How about not supplying our enemies with water, electricity food and fuel while they are trying to kill Jews.
Only Jews do that. What next? Send Swiss chocolate in return for every rocket?
Israel needs to stop playing defense to the thousands of rockets being fired at them and punish the Gaza regime and its terrorists where it hurts. Cut the electricity to Gaza and turn Gaza into a parking lot.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Ed Frias
12:59 am
Nov 12, 2012
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/161967#.UKANpofAedI
Gaza Savages Time Rockets to Kill Children
Direct hit reported on a home in Sderot. More than 100 rockets hit today, many timed for end of the school day.
Gil Ronen
11/11/2012,
A direct strike on a home in Sderot was reported after 7:30 p.m. Sunday evening, as Gaza terrorists continued to fire a barrage of missiles at Israeli civilian men, women and children.
Initial reports said no one was injured despite the direct hit.
Many of the rockets fired Sunday were timed for the end of the school day, in order to try and kill or maim children. More than 100 rockets were fired during the day.
A Be’er Sheva resident named Barbara told Arutz Sheva: “They timed the attack at just the time all the kids got out of school…mine too!! First time I was ever close to hysterical was today.”
“This has to stop,” said Gershon, another resident of “the capital of the Negev.”
“The rocket attack was at 13:58,” he said, “when all the kids were walking home from school and I was on my way to pick up my daughter. The whole city should keep their children home until the rocket attacks stop.”
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Metatron
1:04 am
Nov 12, 2012
Boycott all those media outlets that do not report accurately on Israel. Run campaigns to have others join with us on the boycotts. If we boycott, their advertising revenues will drop. Enlightened self-interest may turn the trick.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Mike Robbins
1:07 am
Nov 12, 2012
One rocket is an Act of War. One rocket fired at civilians is also a War Crime.
Israel MUST annex all liberated historical Jewish homeland and all land taken in wars of aggression against it, and then deport all Muslim terrorists, subversives, criminals, disloyals, and enemy aliens to their respective countries (e.g., Egypt, Jordan, Syria) as appropriate.
Muslims are treated better and have more opportunity in Israel than in Muslim countries. Jews and Christians are oppressed, forcibly converted to Islam, murdered, enslaved, and expelled from Muslim countries as commanded by the Koran.
What if Israel and all non-Muslim countries treated Muslims the same way Muslim countries treat Jews and Christians?
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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Marc R
2:46 am
Nov 12, 2012
Great comments! Israel has to decide to finally put an end to this bomb shelter way of life. Gaza has to be cleaned out the most efficient way possible. It must be swift and brutal! Then, the focus must be on Hezbolah. After Gaza, they will see the handwriting on the wall.
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Rachel K
9:24 am
Nov 12, 2012
I like to think that at last the BBC is getting what it has deserved for years of mis-reporting where Israel is concerned. True their problems aren’t because of this but hey, they are losing the the almost blind belief they’d.
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SBSteelers
11:08 am
Nov 12, 2012
More from the Washington Post’s – The headlines “Israel Fires into Syria after STRAY (emphasis mine) Mortar Strikes Army Post”. The WP implies the mortar was meant for the Syria/rebel conflict and strayed onto the Golan Heights, which by the way, was “annexed” by Israel. I guess the mortar was supposed to go north but the wind blew it south. How did the WP know it was a stray? They didn’t. They made assumptions – and just wrote it up as if it were true.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
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martin
10:59 pm
Nov 12, 2012
For too long Israel had no interest in Hasbara, believing that their actions were justified. They allowed theArabs to continue their actual war against them in using all and any means, including libel, slander and misrepresentation.
For too long they have allowed the shelling of the south, responding with threats and aircraft strikes that kill very few terrorists. what a waste of fuel, wear and tear and fuel.
Israel must strike harder than they receive. Proportionate response is called for. for every shell fired against Israel, she must response equally. Just imagine. If this had been tghe proper response after all this thime, the problem of Gaza would be history.
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