Occasionally, HonestReporting breaks out of the English-speaking world to examine media bias in other languages. Below, please find items from Norway, the Middle East, and France.
===== NORWAY =====
The Stavanger (Norway) Aftenblad newspaper published an article headlined, “The Palestinians’ ‘Ground Zero'” (Feb. 8, 2003). Norwegian journalist Ingeborg Eliassen reports from Ramallah where she interviews the Palestinian chief of police who uses the alias Abu Rabbia:
“His building is one of the few still standing in the otherwise completely razed complex of president Yasser Arafat. This symbol of the Palestinians’ local autonomy is now reduced to a pile of rubble, in the same way as the symbol of capitalism’s power and authority, the World Trade Center.”
The newspaper unfairly equates the IDF’s tearing down of PA buildings for self-defense, with the terror attacks that killed thousands at the World Trade Center.
Read the article at:
vhttp://aftenbladet.no/magasin/article.jhtml?articleID=151900
Comments to editor-in-chief Tom Hetland:
[email protected]
Comments to the author, Ingeborg Eliassen:
[email protected]
===== MIDDLE EAST =====
Televised segments of Friday sermons from throughout the Middle East are now available at memri.org as streaming video. The subtitled video includes sermons focusing on subjects such as U.S. policy and the Arab world’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons.
Excerpts from the videos include:
FROM BAGHDAD MOSQUE: “Who are you, oh Bush, you little dwarf, to threaten Muhammad, and the sons of Muhammad?!” – Sheikh Bakr Abd Al-Razzaq Al-Samarai (Nov. 8, 2002)
FROM GAZA MOSQUE: “Reject and condemn what Bush has done, this crazy man — Allah, wreak vengeance on the Jews and the Americans.” – Sheik Ahmad Abd Al-Razek (Oct. 4, 2002)
View the 10-minute video:
http://www.memri.org/video
Read the transcript:
http://memri.org/video/segment10_friday_Sermons_from_middle_east.html
===== FRANCE =====
A new film entitled “Decryptage” (“Decoding”) claims there is a persistent campaign by important sections of the French media — most notably the leading daily, Le Monde, and the international news agency, Agence France Presse — to blame Israel for the Palestinian violence.
The film details evidence that the Palestinian Authority planned the intifada even while it was involved in peace negotiations with Israel, details that were ignored or glossed over by French media.
The film also includes footage of how Palestinian children are educated to hate Israel and Jews. It also strongly criticizes the portrayal by the France 2 television channel of the crossfire death of Mohammed Al-Dura in Gaza — which investigations later showed he might have been killed by a Palestinian bullet.
“Decryptage” is playing to packed houses in a Paris movie theater, JTA reports.
