MovieChat Forums > Relentless: The Struggle for Peace in Israel Discussion > Bias or Balance?

Bias or Balance?

posted 20 years ago by Firefairy
10 replies | jump to latest

The first comment on this movie makes me wonder if the person who wrote it actually watched the movie out of interest, or simply wanted something to portray as pro-Jewish propaganda. Contrary to anti-Semitic claims of a Jewish media conspiracy, reporting in many supposedly unbiased news outlets is extremely skewed towards assuming and reporting the worst about Jews and Israel, and minimizing reports of acts of anti-Semitism and violence against Jews.

HonestReporting.com is a website that very openly works to make certain that news about Israel and Jews in general is presented fairly. Note the word: FAIRLY. As in no bias toward either side. Not as in biased towards sympathy for Jews. This movie is a piece of that effort. These are images that are not shown on the majority of international news sources, and they should be. Not because they dehumanize Palestinians, but because they are things the Israelis see and have to deal with.

Showing Israeli actions and responses to these things without showing the situations and actions they are responding to is like showing someone in a fistfight without showing how the fight got started. Worse, many news sources follow the Palestinian line of unprovoked Israeli aggression without even mentioning the Israeli side of the story, which is roughly the equivalent of believing one of the combatants when they cry out that "he started it!"

Given the fact that the other side of the story gets regular play in international news, I see no reason why the makers of this movie would need to make a point of the fact that Palestinians get hurt as well. Look at their website, and you see many examples of the pro-Palestinian bias expressed in major media sources, with links to the original material so that you don't have to take their word for it. I did some searching, and even in the extremely openly pro-Israel and pro-Jewish news sources, I couldn't find equally glaring examples of bias in the other direction.

I am of the opinion that one reason the general news sources are biased toward the Palestinians is that it is difficult for the individual reporters to believe the actions of the Palestinians, and the only framework in which they can rationalize those actions is that of the Freedom Fighter. Unfortunately, there is another framework in which those actions make even more sense; that of the holy war, where those who manage to kill the enemy with their own death are eternally rewarded in heaven.

This movie did not make me feel that the Palestinians are inhuman. In fact, it brings out the extremely human side of actions that would otherwise be so incomprehensible as to be difficult to believe. When you hear one message over and over, from every authority figure, and people who disagree with it are horribly killed, it becomes very persuasive. When children too young to know better are taught by their fathers that all their problems are due to the Jews, it would be unreasonable to expect them to want peace. The problem is, that unless you know these things are happening to the Palestinian people, you have no idea of what is actually causing them to act the way they do on an individual basis, and you have a completely invalid framework for understanding them.

When government officials say one thing to the world at large and another to their own people, when they claim to want peace but tell their people that there will be no peace while Jews live, there is a journalistic responsibility to make sure that both messages are obvious to the citizens of the world. As the major news sources have abrogated that responsibility, in this case, HonestReporting.com has taken it up. I think they have done a very good job.

[–] asa1776 20 years ago

The Middle East Media Research Institute, at http://memri.org/ - it offers English language reporting on what is being said in the Middle East papers. This is something that is available almost no place else. It may shock many Americans to discover that the majority of the Arab world teaches as standard curriculum in its schools that Jews are born with horns, or that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/protocol.html) are true. I would ask anyone who wishes to be TRULY informed about the Middle East to examine this site. Here are some of its accolades:

"The respected Middle East Media Research Institute.. ."
- Roll Call, May 26, 2003

"I hope you receive MEMRI's publications. I do. I find its material – translations and analyses of poisonous articles, hate-filled statements and slanderous accusations – vitally needed for the fight against antisemitism in the Arab world. Policy makers, legislators, teachers, and news commentators greatly benefit from its efforts to use truth in the service of peace."
- Elie Wiesel, May 22, 2003

"the indispensable scholars at the Middle East Media Research Institute"
-The Weekly Standard, May 26, 2003

"Thanks to the translators at the Middle East Media Research Institute,Americans can get a much better sense of the message coming from the Arabic-language press throughout the Middle East. Their work helps combat those who would murmur messages of peace and tolerance to Western ears, and then incite hatred and extremism to their countrymen in their native tongue."
- National Review Online, May 20, 2003

"You know, you've got things in the Saudi papers running now that thanks to the Middle East Media Research Institute we can read in English translation."
- FOX News, May 16, 2003

"As I was writing this column, I received an E-mail from Memri, the organization that opens the minds of those who cannot read Arabic by distributing almost daily translations of Arabic newspapers and government pronouncements."
- A.M. Rosenthal, New York Daily News, May 16, 2003

"MEMRI, the indispensable group that translates the ravings of the Saudi and Egyptian press..."
- Weekly Standard, April 28, 2003

"The role that MEMRI is playing in bringing the voices of the Arab and Muslim Reform – from Arabic into English, to the world – has been absolutely invaluable for everyone who cares about this process and wants to follow it."
- Thomas Friedman, May 6, 2003

"Let me first express my appreciation to MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, for invaluable work they’re doing. At a time when the line of division between the civilized world and terrorism is as clear as it is today, MEMRI’s enormously effective work, on behalf of truth, civilization, open press of all types, is deeply appreciated by many of us in the Congress."
- February 4, 2003, Tom Lantos (D-CA), Ranking Democrat of the Committee on International Relations Congressman

"… the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute, which performs the invaluable service of translating Arabic media and sermons into English…"
- January 13, 2003, The Weekly Standard

"… translations from Arabic on websites like www.memri.org let the rest of the world know what Saudis and other Arabs are saying to each other…"
- January 13, 2003, Newsweek

"… the evidence on MEMRI, the estimable Middle East Media Research Institute, www.memri.org ..."
- January 7, 2003, United Press International

"This quote, as many others from the Middle East, can be found on the indispensable website www.memri.org"
- December 19 2002, Die Welt (Berlin)

"It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the work of MEMRI, which sheds lights on aspects of the Middle East that our enemies would prefer to go unnoticed. MEMRI is simply an invaluable asset to any journalist or anyone who wants to understand the Middle East."
- December 13, 2002 National Review, Rich Lowry Editor

"It is to the translations circulated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) that we owe what we have now learned about what appears in Arabic-language newspapers and television broadcasts, as well as what is preached by Islamic clerics in their weekly sermons."
- September 9, 2002, Commentary, Norman Podhoretz

"If there were justice in the universe, the MiddleEast Media Research Institute would already have been awarded some kind of special-achievement Pulitzer Prize. MEMRI has pioneered the careful translation, and dissemination to European and American audiences, of print and broadcast news sources in the Arab world. The group's work now pops up everywhere; here in the States, hardly a week goes by when some major daily or cable news show doesn't make use (generally without attribution) of a MEMRI translation… For more information from and about the Middle East Media Research Institute, see their website at www.memri.org. And if you're able, please consider sending them a contribution."
- June 12, 2002, The Weekly Standard, David Tell

"www.memri.org - What they do is very simple, no commentary nothing else. What they do is they just translate what the Saudis say in the mosques, say in their newspapers, say in government pronouncements, say in their press."
- October 1, 2002, BBC

"MEMRI is an invaluable source for anyone seriously interested in the Middle East."
-Professor Bernard Lewis, Princeton University, September 3, 2001

"The single most important resource for understanding what is happening in the Middle East today."
-Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize winner, October 4, 2001

"MEMRI, an invaluable research service."
-Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner, October 16, 2001

"MEMRI is the most important research source for the Arab world of which I know and it has been immensely helpful to me and to just about every other serious person who writes about the Middle East."
-Martin Peretz, Editor-in-Chief and Chairman, The New Republic, October 9, 2001

"I am full of admiration for the work MEMRI has done … in its dedicated exposure of Arab antisemitism. Until MEMRI undertook its effort to review and translate articles from the Arab press, there was only dim public awareness of this problem in the United States. Thanks to MEMRI, this ugly phenomenon has been unmasked, and numerous American writers have called attention to it."
- U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, May 1, 2002

"If there were justice in the universe, the Middle East Media Research Institute would already have been awarded some kind of special-achievement Pulitzer Prize. MEMRI has pioneered the careful translation, and dissemination to European and American audiences, of print and broadcast news sources in the Arab world."
-David Tell, The Weekly Standard, June 12, 2002

"… the excellent Middle East Media Research Institute"
-Former CIA director James Woolsey, June 10, 2002

"Plenty of journalists leaned heavily on MEMRI's translations, citing 'the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute.' In fact, 'invaluable' has been written so often before MEMRI's name that one could have been forgiven for thinking the word was part of the name. MEMRI served as an antidote to darkness, as a way not to be ignorant.… The veil has been lifted by MEMRI."
-Jay Nordlinger, National Review, May 6, 2002

"I have always considered MEMRI to be an invaluable research tool."
-Richard Cohen, nationally syndicated columnist, October 5, 2001

[–] jordi121 18 years ago

Right.. Something that is run by a bunch of ex Israeli military, is sure to be objective.
Please. Stop trying to spread hate. You're just as bad as the idiots who write "jews are born with horns".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,773258,00.html

[–] asa1776 18 years ago

you criticize MEMRI, and then post from the GUARDIAN???

Hello kettle.

[–] jordi121 18 years ago

I criticise MEMRI... Period. I only posted the Guardian link because they took the time to find out who actually runs it.

[–] asa1776 18 years ago

You are simplistic and easily led. I could post an in-depth rebuttal, but I don't care enough about you to bother. So keep believing the problems in the Middle East are half and half in blame, and that Israel is a modern South Africa. Post anything you want back, I'll neither read it or respond to it. A thread in the backwater of the Internet read by nobody isn't worth the effort.

[–] jordi121 18 years ago

Wow.
Sorry for trying to make you think from a differen't perspective. I'll stop now.

[–] off2hell 18 years ago

Of course, knowing who's bringing the facts, sheds more meaning on the facts themselves, but the point is, that MEMRI is bringing facts!

Yes, it's an Israelian organization, everybody knows that (at least in the news I read), but the stories it brings are not made up out of some wild crazy minds - MEMRI surveys the Arab and Muslim Middle Eastern media and brings us the stories, it thinks are importent for us to know about (not forgeting from were they were taken and the importence of the author and news org).

For exemple, most of what Hizzballa and Hamas say are just lies, but when they say the truth (and usually, it ain't public) we don't dismiss it, we hear it and think about it. The fact that it was brought forward by our enemies is not as importent as the accuracy of the information.

[–] mangalita10 18 years ago

You criticize the Guardian, and then quote Faux News and the National Review?!?

[–] abarbella 18 years ago

face of the matter is, whether it's telling the truth or not, it's biased. niether side can live alongside each other in peace and both sides you violence that's that pick up a newspaper and you got your information right there.

[–] dmc-spqr 17 years ago

If its not biased, then that would be a 1st.