;.cmedia bias, Haberman, NYT
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DAVID BAR-ILAN, EYE ON MEDIA,  JERUSALEM POST
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Haon, 15170; Tel: 06-757572; FAX: 06-757554
RE:    MEDIA BIAS
REF:   New York Times Section 4, Oct. 3, 1993, Clyde Haberman
DATE:  10/31/93
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Since the Rabin-Arafat Treaty, anti-Israel bias in the foreignmedia is the least of our problems.  The damage the foreign mediacan do to Israel in creating a favorable image of the Palestiniansand an unfavorable image of Israelis now seems relativelynegligible compared to the damage that Israel (viz. the Laborcoaltion) is doing to itself in giving the PLO authority, land,political support, and money.

One might now anticipate and focus on media bias in an attempt todiscredit opponents of the Rabin-Arafat Treaty.  One should lookfor depictions of protesters and settlers as rabid.  

A foreign-media campaign against Netanyahu has gone on since hebecame head of the Likud; this follows in the tradition of attackson Begin ("rhymes with Fagin" as TIME said, in the quaint old daysbefore it mellowed) and (tho his personality presented far lesstarget) Shamir.

Although Netanyahu handles English better than most native-Englishwriters and speakers, he is typically characterized as inept,unprincipled, a media-oriented talking head.

There seems little indication that the Opposition will come upwith a better spokesperson, or even one comparable.  Arens, whosedour realism and sharp intelligence generated cutting one-liners,seems to have exiled himself from politics; Sharon's bombast getsreptitious, and B. Begin's English columns are a disaster; heshows no ear at all for the contemporary stye of English politicaldiscourse.  Native-English spokesmen for the settlers often comeacross very well on English radio -- calm and rational to a fault-- but lack the stature to become media stars.  Post editorialshave been exceptionally clear and reasonable -- again, almost to afault -- but the reading public tends to dismiss editorials assuch.  And besides, the climate of public opinion tends to bedefined by battles of sound-bites, not by reasoned debates of19th-century literacy.

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NOTES ON HABERMAN, NYT Sunday Oct. 3 Weekly Review (reprinted,Jlem Post, 10/4/93)

SUMMARY:  Tries to discredit opposition to the Rabin/ArafatAgreement as unrepresentative, fanatic and irrational; presupposesthat the Agreement is a fait accompli; urges Netanyahu to workwithin the context of the Agreement for relatively minor changes.


(A) "rightists...have accused him [Rabin] of lacking 'a Jewishmajority' a catch prhase that strikes moderate Likudniks asmorally racist and politically dumb."
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ANALYSIS:
(1) 'moderate Likudniks':  This shows the reader where toorient his sympathy; we all want to be 'moderate'
That is also the 'magic taxi-driver gambit' -- the writer'sbias is imputed to an unverifiable source
(2) 'morally racist and politically dumb'
A well-turned phrase.  The term 'racist' is getting a bitgauche; 'morally racist', whatever that qualifier means, hasa more moderate, intellectual ring
'politically dumb'
A very-well turned phrase; fine rhetoric.  'dumb' is a kids'word; we may not mind being extremists -- heck, everyone hasa secret desire to be a redneck -- but nobody wants to bedumb; that's a childhood trauma that we carry within us.
l3
REALITY CHECK:
Rabin did fail to achieve a Jewish majority in theKnesset vote on his Agreement; where 'Jewish' isdefined, not in the racist sense of excluding all ArabMKs, but in the political sense of excluding members ofparties whose express commitment has been to thecreation of a PLO state.  (That totals 5 MKs, 1 of whomis Jewish.)  Hence Rabin had 56 'Jewish' votes , aminority in the 120-seat Knesset.
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(B) "what the right has conspciously failed to do is provide aplausible alternative for the majority of Israelis who areexhausted by conflict and are ready to give this plan a chance'
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ANALYSIS
(1) -- Note the 'navigation words' that show the reader whereto steer his thinking -- 'plausible alternative' -- we allwant to be plausible, and to entertain options -- 'majorityof Israelis' -- we all must go along with the majority --'give...a chance' -- we all want to be generous-minded, andgive even the worst sinner another 'chance'
Note that 'give...a chance' implies that, if the recipientfails to make good use of the 'second chance', the donor maygo his way undamaged, and morally enhanced.
(2)  Note that Haberman has here been re-defining the termsof debate to Labor's advantage -- the notion that theprevious policy of the Likud government constitutued aplausible alternative to the Peres/Rabin Treaty is dismissedbefore-hand.  Haberman's presupposition -- shared by mostliberal and many mainstream comment-ers -- is that theAgreement must now be taken as fait accompli, ("we had nochoice"), and that rational criticism, plausiblealternatives, can only be articulated within the overallcontext of that Agreement.
l3
Regretably, this is where debate now stands.
When I say that the Jerusalem Post editorials are'reasonable to a fault' I note that they are addressedto specific weaknesses of the Agreement, and do notclearly state that the best option would simply be torepudiate it before the accumulated price of doing sogets higher.  Some blunders don't have happy endings.    
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(C) "Mr. Netanyahu...has come across as Dr. No...he bills himselfas a pragamtist.  Yet he strikes even some in his own camp ashaving been taken hostage by extremists and messiancs, bydoctrinaire small-party figures."
L2

UNDERLYING MESSAGE:
Yeltsin learned to take his cues from the USA; why can'tNetanyahu?
COMMENT:
The NY Times is the journalistic apologist, and in that sensevoice, of the US establishment; mass media sometimes addressindividuals directly, with the readership only as excuse.  
ANALYSIS:
Here one feels the USA is trying to co-opt Netanyahu.
(1) 'bills himself' -- the imagery is of a carnival huckster
(2) 'even some in his own party' -- again, the Phantom TaxiDriver gambit
Again, the imagistic meaning is:  Netanyahu, don't be trappedin a Khomeni- or Politburo- virtual reality, join the Team.
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(D) 'Likud should stop flailing its arms at a done deal, and focusits fire on specific perceived dangers in the accord.  It mustappeal more to the broad cetner where most Israelis reside, theysay...' [emph. added -- Phantom Taxi-Driver]
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ANALYSIS:  
Note the presupposition that the Agreement is a faitaccompli, that it cannot be undone.
l1

(E) "Tens of thousands [JP estimate 200,000; police estimate50,000; Habad estimate 'closer to 400,000'] of protesters took tothe streets...but they were top-heavy with young yeshiva students,settlers from the territories and black-hatted adheretns of theLubavitcher Hassidic sect..."
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ANALYSIS:
If the establishment can't discredit your numbers at ademonstration, they will try to discredit the individuals asunrepresentative.  (That's why in the USA '60's we often woretie-and-jacket to demonstrations.)  Note here the appeal toUSA readers' aversion to the exotic -- the assumption thatyoung men in tiny hats, and men in black apparel, are notrepresentative citzens.  (The image of 'settlers' as wildeyed fanatics seems well-enough established to need noelaboration.)
The writer's assumption is that there is a great pool of'normal' citizens who would have come to the demonstrationhad they agreed with it.  A sort of 20th-century replay ofthe storming of the Bastille.  But in fact middle-classcitizens do not ordinarily express their political opinionsby going out on demonstrations, especially when there is aclear risk of police conflict.

l1
(F) "these Likudniks...cannot accept that this former army chief,who captured the territories in 1967, is guilty of treason.  Andthey want nothing to do with the handful of fire-breathingvisionaries threatening to gun down the first soldier who tries toevict them from their West Bank enclaves."                  
l2
ANALYSIS:
(1) "this former army chief" -- Cf. Oliver North, "thisLieutenant Colonel" -- the modesty of facism
(2) "who captured the territories in 1967"
the sort of remark that still plays in the USA, but is apt tobe met in Israel with embarassed silence.
(3) "is guilty of treason"
L3
COMMENT:
No, Rabin has not been charged, indicted, tried, norconvicted; yet his actions, howerver unintentionally andunwttingly, seem likely to betray many Israeli lives (aswell as entire classes of the Palestinian population) ,and much territory, to Israel's enemies.
L4
The language of the street is not one of subtlety,but the "ordinary" people -- that is, people whodon't make a practice of of sophistry -- often godirectly to the correct conclusion, however ineptlyexpressed.
L2
(4) "gun down the first soldier"
In the USA Army in Vietnam the practice of shooting soldiersof one's own nation was called 'fragging'.  
There is an implication that this is a not-uncommon attitudeamong settlers.  In fact, respect for soldiers is one of thestrongest tabus in Israeli society.  (Respect for childrenand  young women are also far stronger in Israel than in theUSA).

   
