;.cNewsweek 10 Jun
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l3,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
;.l4,25,75,192,2,127,25,0,
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
DATE:  7 June 96
RE:    
REF:   Newsweek 10 Jun 96 . Joe Klein
CC:
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SUMMARY OF TIME & NEWSWEEK 10 June:
	Worrisome, because I expected much worse, especially fromNewsweek.  Only mild Bibi-bashing in both.  In such a situation --eg the mild media reaction to the deportation of Hamas activists,and to the Qana shelling -- one fears that "the fix is in".  Hopethey don't know something we don't.

SUMMARY:  A few strokes of the old tar-brush, but not unreasonablyso (as-it-is-said 'anti-Semitism consists in hating Jews more thanis absolutely necessary').

COVER CAPTION:  "In Bibi's Grip
COVER PHOTO:  Netanyahu, in need of a shave, looking askancerelative to the camera, right fist raised and closed.
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[In the USA, they get real nervous when someone clenches hisfist.  Good way to get pre-emptively shot.]
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ARTICLE TITLE:  "And Now, the age of 'Bibi'
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[Like Dorothy Rothschild Parker would say:  Close your eyesand say 'Bibi' 200 times; maybe you'll get over it.]
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"...in a way 'Bibi' is the Israeli Clinton, a weird reverse-imageClinton."
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[Suddenly you are plunged into the Twilight Zone.

[Ok class, how do we prove, according to the Asymmetry ofWeirdness, that it's Bibi who's the negative?  Because anyonewith a name like 'Bibi' must be weird.  Pass the Flapjackswith Olestera please. ]
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"the courtly, prolix Peres"
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[Good turn of phrase.  Shows what journalism can do in itsrare detours from the freeway of agenda-driventendentiousness. 

If memory serves, Joe Klein started in the 70s as anexceptionally naturalistic urban writer with the BostonPhoenix/Real Paper.]
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"Netanyahu's knee-jerk bellicosity [cont.]"
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[ Ah.  Like Dorothy Rothschild (Parker) said, for a minute Iwas afraid I'd have to say something nice and sappy. 

LBJ and Nixon, in foreign and political affairs respectively, may have been largely governed by knee-jerk bellicosity; Idoubt that an Israeli politican with that attitude would past the army; Israel, unlike the USA, can't afford unwisebellicosity.]
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"[cont:] "seems the analog to Clinton's all-American empathy."
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[or "serial sincerity" as Maureen Dowd termed it [NYT WeeklyReview,  5?/__/96 ]
As-it-is-said:  "sincerity:  if you can fake that, you've gotit made."

Looks like a whitewash of Clinton to set off a blackening ofNetanyahu.  
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"And not even because he [Netanyahu] has wandered through the samesordid alleys of postmodern morality
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[Nice turn of phrase; but adultery ain't actually that new]
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having endured a humiliating sex scandal in 1993.
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[Makes it sounds like he was caught in Congress with thegoldfish of the neighbor's  boy who cuts his lawn.
Fact is that for yuppies, adultry is what adults do; it's nota sin on the order of magnitude of, eg, stealing someone'ssquash-court reservation.

Is the target readership for this paragraph maybe ChristianZionists?

That is:  one might see a newsmagazine article as more nearlyanalagous to a political speech than to an intellectualessay:  different parts are aimed at influencing, notnecessarily by force of reason,  different sectors.
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"he was considered too glib"
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[Shucks, that's the rosy-fingered dawn again; don't even askwho considered him, and on what basis.]
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"too inexperienced (he'd never held a major government post)
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[Tell it to Abba Eban & Madelaine Albright

Fact is that Shamir appointed Netanyhu as Deputy ForeignMinister to run things while David Levy went out for freelunches.
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"too hormonal"
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[Ah, political correctness coupled with Puritanism; used tobe one could only say that of sexually uppity women.]
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"too TV"
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[And Reagan?
 Great thing about Christian nations is how quick they canforgive and forget their own sins.]
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"I thought Meridor would be the one who emerged, " said anAmerican Jewish leader.  Dan's so decent."
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[Ok fans, now let's make junior ad execs and count theepithets per time-frame:  'decent' here comes in the sentenceafter 'too hormonal' 
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[Yuck:  makes one think of something one to buy frombulls' supplements after encountering an unpleasantdisruption -- makes one long for anything "decent"]
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and in the paragraph after "endured a humiliating sexscandal" -- which most readers no doubt have, and to avoidanother of which would gladly flee even to someone "toodecent"

Oy:  Motivational research news-magazines we got now?
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"Bibi was not too 'decent' or decorous.  He made his move..."
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[In USA slang, to "make a move" is usually predicated ofseduction situations.

[Reminds me of a classic piece of Jacquie-bashing:
 USA 70s:
As memory serves:

" And then there was the man problem.  
   David Halbersam tore off to Laos with her as 
   did [somebody else ]
 
Here what emerges subliminally for a USA  reader is USAslang, "tore off a piece of ass" .  
	The trick is to have 'as' occur as the last word on theline, even though it is syntactically the first word in aphrase.  In the time-gap in which the reader shifts to thenext line, the hanging word attaches itself to the verb ofthe preceeding phrase, hence we move from "tore off to Laos"+ "as did [somebody  else"] to "tore off...as", with a shortmove from 's' sounded as 'z' to 's' sounded as 'ss' /

OK, I just wanted to show that it can be done; I ain'tnecessarily projecting these analyses from my ownimagination.  

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"Netanyahu was just too intemperate, too associated with rightwing extremists"
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[In contrast to right-wing moderates?
 Son, there ain't no right-wing moderates.  If they wasmoderates, they'd be on our side.]
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"Just after Oslo, I watched Netanyahu lead a hateful rally ofsettlers chanting 'Israel is in danger.'"
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OK: did Netanyahu lead the chant [as an average uncriticalreader would take the passage to assert] or was he a featuredspeaker at (and in that sense, could be said to have "lead") 
the rally.

There's a ambiguity here, and from a lst-rate writer (or evena TIME Senior writer) that can't be excused as unintentional; so it may be faulted as intentionallymisleading.

Good news is that the writer was in Israel  as little as 32months ago.  
Bad news is that he disregards subsequent rallies in whichNetanyahu is on record -- recently thoroughly discussed inthe media -- calling on "extremists" -- or in retrospect,provacateurs --  to be temperate.  

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"It seemed a rude, vestigial sort of anger
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[As opposed  to gentlemanly irony?  
 Anger is rude, and vestigial; Leary blamed the dinosaurs.But it does have survival value, at least until Meshiachcomes.]
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"In the years that followed, there were many such nights."
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[OK, that compounds the duplicity.  There were many suchrallies.  It is not clear if there were any, let alone many,rallies in which Netanyahu led anti-government chants.  It isclear that there were some in which from the podium he calledfor a stop to such changs.]
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"And after ... Rabin was murdered,  Bibi seemed too tarnished toever lead the nation."
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[I guess it was Dashiel Hammet who wrote, in the personna ofhis private eye, "I started counting the lies in thatsentence.  When I got to a dozen I quit."

OK: A picky point, but there is something tacky in callingsomeone in public print something practically no-one wouldcall him to his face.  Nor does one typically hear themsaying in the shuk, "Bibi seemed too tarnsihed".  So it's notreporting anything more than the reporter's own attitude.

To whom did Netanyahu seemed 'tarnished', excusing theremarks of Rabin's widow.  And on what basis could he havebeen said to have been 'tarnilshed'?  Had he -- as some didclaim -- abetted the assassination, by sins of omission ifnot (althouth some deliberately fudged that distinction) bysins of commission?
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"the noisy old hawk Ariel Sharon"
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[or: 'that fat buzzard'?] 
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"He may even -- eventually -- have to shake [Poopoohead's] hand, acommitment he couldn't quite bring himself to make during thecampaign."
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[Like I said recently -- maybe re a previous article by  JoeKlein -- in the USA they reckon anyone who won't shake aman's hand is next thing to some kind of limp-wristed faggot-- "couldn't quite bring himself" -- well, la-de-dah, andain't we better than everyone else in this here Democracy.]
l1

"The question now is wheter Bibi is ambitious enough to be wise."
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[Heck no.  But thanks for asking.  
And we'll be sure to call you before making any majordecisions.  
We ain't so bright out here in the Third World; must be thesun. ]
l1

.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
DATE:  7 Jun 96
RE:    
REF:   Newsweek  10 Jun (Masland)
       Reporters; Contreras, Dickey ("Gaza"), Nolen ("WesteBank"), Dennis ; Sonenshine (Washington) 
CC:
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Reasonable in  tone.

Don't know what those Gaza and West Bank by-lines mean.  Maybesomebody hired a taxi for the afternoon and went there long enoughto ask somebody a few questions.  

=================================================================
.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
DATE:  7 Jun j96
RE:    
REF:   Christopher Dickey, Interview of Leah Rabin
       [Photo by David Nivere - SIPA]
CC:
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INTERVIEW WITH LEAH RABIN
[by Christopher Dickey]    

Photo [David Nivere - SIPA] that seems contrived to appear asunflattering as possible; eg one doesn't use harsh light for anold lady, nor a black background for someone with white facepower.  The lighting highlights the wrinkles on her neck.  Lookslike something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Surely justifies the government giving her a full-time presssecretary.  Media sense she ain't got.   Sounds like an honestperson, quite embittered (for good reason).   Apt to become alaughingstock for the goyim; and  that's not good for the Jews. 

Dickey indeed;  the reporter insinuated himself into theconfidence of an old widow lady, and encouraged her to make a foolof herself, with no respect for her dignity.   As the widow of aformer leading civil servant, she is entitled to protection by thestate from such  nonsense.   Why should we let the goyim treatsomeone in that position as one more media-freak to be exploitedand thrown away. 

Reporters ought to be held responsible for what they write; andthose who abuse trust or go beyond the boundaries of decency oughtto be excluded from private interviews that reqire government cooperation.                           
	Ethical constraints can also be imposed upon photographs. 

In the USA it's a National Sport to set up and trash outcelebrities; but the USA has an inexhaustible supply of extrapeople.  

.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
DATE:  7 Jun 96
RE:    
REF:   Newseek 10 Jun 96; Ari Shavitt.
       Not clear if the article was written, in Hebrew or English,for Newsweek, or is a translation of an article in Ha'Aretz.
CC:
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Title:  The Tribal Vote
Subtitle:  A  surge of ancient Jewish identity pushes out themodern state.                                          
Photo caption:  Dangerous mix:  An ultra-Orthodox voterinJerusalem.
Photo: Yannis Berakis -- Reuter.  Two young orthodox men voting. You could give the photo to their aunt, if she's not an antiZionist.

OVERALL COMMENT: I've not yet addressed writings by Israelis, anddon't want to; it's a different -- context, I guess.

I don't find this article unfair; it makes a number of goodpoints, and is well-written, once one adjusts to an Israeliexhuberance of style.  The sub-cultural criticism cuts both ways;but I think the secular yuppies are more neatly flayed.                    
.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
DATE:  7 Jun 96
RE:    
REF:   Newsweek 10 Jun; Interview of Noa, by Carla Power
CC:
------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                        
Title:  The Death of Peace
Photo:  Uncredited; probably supplied by the singer.  Artful, andvery well-designed, with a trick-mirror effect.

Summary:  Should be good for the Jews; the singer represents theIsrael left at its best, and is strongly Zionist, and no fool.
A few strong statements notwithstanding, the tone of the articleis reasonable and affirmative.

But there is a risk that she could to some extent be used by themedia.  Eg:  "To me, Israel is not a Jewish state."  That's apt tobe misconstrued by non-Israeli readers as meaning, thePalestinians have equal rights to sovereignty in the present landof Israel.  But it was probably meant in an Israeli sense, where'Jewish' is contrasted, not with 'Arab' or 'Islamic', but with'Israeli'; meaning:  to a secular sensibility, religious Judaismis not an essential aspect of their identity.

"They killed peace on that day [of the assassination], and theykilled it again today [with the election of Netanyahu].

l2
Well, the opinion may be false, but it's not un-noble.  Andanyhow, poets and singers and young people have a certainlicense.
l1

"This generation is rotten to the core."
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[Jesus said it first ("generation of vipers"), or so somesay.  ]  Even from the context, though, it's clear she onlymeans that of about half the generation, at most.  












.p
