;.cTime
;.l1,2,64,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l4,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
;.l5,25,75,192,2,127,25,0,
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David bar-Ilan, Eye on Media, Jlem Post
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-757572; FAX:  972-6-757554
OCB E-Mail (to 4/96):  100310.15116@compuserve.com 
DATE:  3/13/96
REF:   TIME 3/18/96, sub rec'd 3/13/96
------------------------------------------------------------------
                                      
Cover:  Shimon Agonistes; Moral Dilemma:  "Peace or Revenge?:Israel's Terrible Choice"
COMMENT:  Even Kierkegaard would dither at that, tho not long.
"`Appeasement or Self-Defense?'"
ANALYSIS:  The best a whiteman can expect from the folks whobrought you "an eye for an eye".

Inside photo:  Lisa Beyer at the Jlem Bus station, pen & paper.
COMMENT:  From that she writes this stuff?
Notes that "Jamil Hamad [who lives in the West Bank] sought outHamas insiders for their assessment."  
COMMENT:  If he's still alive, he was a liar.
Assisted by Eric Silver, he should never fall off his barstool.                          
l2
N.B.: World opinion, with orchestration by Peres (Clintonplaying 2nd fiddle as fast as he can) has responded to therecent terrorist attacks by rallying to pre-empt asubstantive Israeli response.  Closure of the terrritories --ie, excluding the Palestinian work-force from pre-67 Israel - has come under orchestrated opposition; Clinton's latestspin is the notion that Hamas aims to stop the piece processby bringing the Palestinians under unbearable economicpressure (not by obvious means of local economic sabotage,but by manouvering Israel into closure).
l1

Text:  "With a mob outside screaming for blood"
"Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres took it all in."
l2
COMMENT:  The calm at the eye of the storm.
Notice how the 5-word title builds a stately cadence in a waythat could not be achieved by, eg, an epithet such as `Mr.Mouse_brains'.
l1
`He was like a rock' says Uri Dromi, director of the governmentpress office.
l2
COMMENT:  Another disinterested source heard from.
l1
"If his answer to the bombings was too soft, his constituentswould throw him out of power as punishment ..."
l2
COMMENT:  't'aint quite caning.
The Israeli electorate as an irrational mob seeking revenge.
l1
General remark:  This one was really written with a trowel: "sangfroid", "bearing up well under the strain", " `the pain oflonliness'"
"`to respond to this kind of carnage with discipline, notoutrage'"
Cf. also Scheeman, NYT Week in Review.  C'mon Israel, you can takeit.  Stop whining and crying, you are not alone.

Brings in the Dirty Duck (vile canard) of the Week:  Hamas isrooting for Netanyahu.  "So Hamas' strategy has a better chance ofworkng if he [Netanyahu] comes to power."

Photo:  Puzzling in two respects:  a provocatively dressed youngwoman stands on a sort of pedestal; and a soldier (pale greenberet) apparently stands on the side of the demonstrators.
.p
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David bar-Ilan, Eye on Media, Jlem Post
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-757572; FAX:  972-6-757554
OCB E-Mail (to 4/96):  100310.15116@compuserve.com 
DATE:  3/13/96
RE:    English News 
REF:   English Radio News 3/13 PM; concluding snippet
CC:
------------------------------------------------------------------
              
Beats the drum for the duck-of-the-week:  the media has incitedthe people against the government by its gory/bathetic coverage ofthe terrorist attacks.
                                                     
.p
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David bar-Ilan, Eye on Media, Jlem Post
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-757572; FAX:  972-6-757554
OCB E-Mail (to 4/96):  100310.15116@compuserve.com 
DATE:  3/13/96
RE:    
REF:   Newsweek 3/18/96 (sub rec'd 3/13); Jerry Adler
CC:
------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     
Appropriately ironic about both the PLO and the Peres-Clintonsummit.

"Following the massacre at the Hebron mosque ... Hamas ...begantargetting Israeli civilians."
L2
COMMENT:  I don't know if the former was more than, at most,an excuse for the latter.  It is not, if I recall, mentionedin Hamas statements.  
ANALYSIS:  Lo the Noble Savage, Uncut Palestinian.
Western sentimentalists tend to miss the sophistication, bothstrategic and media-oriented, of the Palestinian movements. As if Palestinians don't watch CNN.
So Hamas is seen as atavistic fundamentalism, motivated byrevenge that is triggered by Israeli outrages and deeds ofderring-do; not as part of an international politicalcampaign supported by major states.   In fact, thePalestinian movement seems quite cold-bloodedly to discountthe deaths of its own masses, at least.
l1                                         
Sidebar:  interview of Netanyahu by Bartholet, who tries twoshots:  South African Bantustans (Netanyahu parries by denying asovereignty/subjugation dichotomy), and then the Best Shot of thePhantom Taxi-Driver:  "You critics say that you sometimes appealto what is worst in Israelis, a desire for revenge and a blindnessto to the plight of others ..."
l2
COMMENT:  Return of the Eye-for-an-Eye People.
Netanyahu:  "In fact we appeal to the better nature ofIsraelis: grace under pressure."
ANALYSIS:  Thinking for oneself can get you out of mediacliche traps.  And keeping to what are pejoratively termedshort sound-bites -- ie, short, self-sufficient sentences --can save you from editorial distortion by ellipsis.

 

