Monday, August 14, 2006

Perspectives on bias

Israel's Haaretz newspaper offers a, "Postwar self test: Are you an anti-Semite?"

One of the more fruitless debates between critics and supporters of Israel, is where to draw the line between candid criticism of Israeli policy, and anti-Semitism.

As a public service, we present the following post war self-test, to assist readers in placing themselves along the continuum which stretches from taking rational issue with Israeli policy, and ends in Jew-hate. ...

3. You are CNN. When Lebanese civilians are killed, injured or rendered homeless in Israeli air strikes, you identify the victims as Lebanese civilians and elaborate on their suffering. When Israeli civilians are killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks, you should:

A. Identify them as Israeli civilians and elaborate on their suffering.
B. Identify them as Israelis, thus calling into question whether they are civilians.
C. Omit them, and elaborate on the suffering of Lebanese civilians.

Guess which choice CNN habitually used? Then we have a certain Lebanese perspective:




Translation: "Smile son, or they might think we are anti-Semitic."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home