;.cFrustration & humiliation, general
;.l1,2,63,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.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,
FROM 10/28/96 ON, I WILL NOT OUTPUT MB* DOCS; THEY WILL BE PKZIP'DAND SENT DOWN TO DB ON DISC OR E-MAIL

MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David Bedein, Israel Resource, Bet Agron Press Center
       37 Hillel St., Jerusalem 94581
       Tel:  02--236-368;  FAX:  02--6255-119 Att: DB
       E-Mail:  media@actcom.co.il
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-6656-572; FAX:  972-6-6656-554
DATE:  
RE:    Fallacy of predicating feelings of political/military
movements -- Palestinian "frustration and humiliation"  (Take 2)
REF:   
------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                      
A recent media-cliche has been to predicate "frustration" and"humiliation" of the Palestinian movement to create a mini-statein Judea-Samaria + Gaza.                    

Having been cultivated by the international media, this cliche washarvested by Chirac in his speech to the instantly-reconstituedPalestinian Council:  "I am aware of the frustrations andhumiliations you may feel."  
l2
	One must admire the locution 'which you may feel'; itwas, as Perry Mason would say, a 'leading question';prompting the Palestinians to plead "frustration andhumiliation" via western media to western decision-makerswhose world-view is shaped by western mores.   

l1
Nowadays its most politically correct to respect everyone'sfeelings, particularly their frustration, humiliation, and thelike; Bill Clinton built a bit of a career atop the logicaloxymoron that he could "feel the pain". 
l2
An emotive refinement of what Marcuse called 'repressivedesublimation';  they take back AFDC and slop out sympathy.
l1

	One should realize that the new media-cliche "Bantusulands"is represents the demand that a Palestinian mini-state includepractically the entirely of Judea-Samaria, with territorialcontiguity; "Bantusulands" are understood as isolated enclavessubject to the sovereignty of another power.

	I'm interested in the notion that the media are talkingprimarily not to the general reader, but over their heads, incode-phrases, to decision-makers.   The reader then serves merelyas a prop; an excuse for heads-of-state and their courtiers toaddress each other unofficially.   Too, much bluff and deceptionenters into the game, under the guise of off-the-record leaks fromhighly placed sources.
	Indeed, the whole matter of news becomes increasingly, withthis Piece Process, a hall of mirrors, with everyone lying toeveryone else, especially their constituents.  The game is toweave from those lies myths that are acceptable to one'scontituents and one's sponsors' constituents, and within which onecan advance one's actual interests.
	I had previously assumed that decision-makers in the USA (andother important coutries, if any) were influenced by the media. On that assumption, it becomes important to counter media-bias. If, however, decision-makers are following their own agenda andusing the media only to influence their constituents, thencountering media-bias becomes a very secondary priority; even ifone media-cliche is discredited, the decision-makers, workingthrough the media, will always find another way to get theirconstituents to endorse what the decision-makers want to do.
.p
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David Bedein, Israel Resource, Bet Agron Press Center
       37 Hillel St., Jerusalem 94581
       Tel:  02--236-368;  FAX:  02--6255-119 Att: DB
       E-Mail:  media@actcom.co.il
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-6656-572; FAX:  972-6-6656-554
DATE:  
RE:    
REF:   IHT 10/26-27/96 (Craig Whitney, NYT News Service)
------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY:  Unobjectionable, but what the heck:
                                                        
"overzealous Israeli security guards"
l2
STYLISTIC ANALYSIS:
This is like, higher-level journalism; analogous to higherlevel programming languages.  The units of higher-levels arecombinations of lower-level units.  
	Definitions:  
	"lower-level journalist" (obs.)  A reporter who putswords together to describe a fact.
	"higher level journalist".  A writer who puts clichestogether to promote a politically correct preconception. (See:  TIME).

UNSTYLISTIC ANALYSIS:
	Like, a year ago some folks thought they'd been a bitunderzealous.  The boys are just trying to keep their jobs.
	OK:  The guards were not "overzealous" and Netanyahu didnot "apologize" (as Israel English radio/TV put it); heexplained and expressed regret for an inavoidableinconvenience.                                      
	Only Jon Immanuel pointed out (JP  ____) that it wasChirac who shoved the guards, not the reverse; and thatChirac had set up and staged the incident to dramatize hisargument, as a way of pandering to the PLO [KYA rather thanCYA], that what Israel is doing "is not security, butprovocation."
	Chirac is a most excellent ass;  the Arabs offer Francea carrot (oil) and stick (terrorist attacks), and Chiracstops playing with his nukes and falls nicely into line.
l1
-----------------------------------------------------------------
.p
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David Bedein, Israel Resource, Bet Agron Press Center
       37 Hillel St., Jerusalem 94581
       Tel:  02--236-368;  FAX:  02--6255-119 Att: DB
       E-Mail:  media@actcom.co.il
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-6656-572; FAX:  972-6-6656-554
DATE:  
RE:    
REF:   IHT 10/26-27/96 Op Ed (William Piaf)
------------------------------------------------------------------
                                           
SUMMARY:  The columnist admonishes Western Europe to supportChirac in his "demands" (!) that Israel -- oh shucks:  roll overand play dead.
	Piaf occasionally seems to be a clear, honest analyst; pityhe favors our enemies.  
l2
	Well hell's bells; there's lots of gentlemanly facists;they wear  discreet anti-semitism like a silk  ascot on a St.Louis parvenu.
l1

"Mr. Clinton's own signature is on those terms" [of the Osloagreement.]
l2
COMMENT:  Yup.  So is the private watermark of the Presidentof the Great Western Slash 'n Burn Paper Company; but nobodytries to make him a plenipotentiary.
l3
But CRY THEE MERCY:  If the USA is a co-signatory  inthe land-for-peace deal, I'd like Block  Island, with atleast 3 for the windmills.  In exchange, I'll promisestop tilting at same.                

l1
"Israeli colonization of the West Bank"
l2

COMMENT:  Yup, but how did Piaf get to see those stockades,high on the windswept expanse of the mudflats above thecrawfish pools, built to hide the secret tunnels to ourdiamond mines, mined by enslaved Palestinian labour.
	More precisely, Israel built a few bedroom downs onunarable and uninhabbited land between Arab villages.  Whydid Israel built those vulgar 20th century commuter villages,instead of Farming the Land like the Noble Arab [with only adonkey, a wood plow, and a tank-truck of banned pesticide?]. Because Israel would not take farmland from Palestinians.
l1

"there would be no piece process had it been left to the UnitedStates.  It exists because of Norway's initiative ..."

l2
COMMENT:   Ok ok, so Piaff ain't the most honest and/orperceptive thinker.  If Norway didn't exist, it would havebeen necessary for Peres/Beilin, with Rabin as figurehead
l3
(we will always remember him as a Roman bust)
l2
to invent it, as they invented the possibility of peace.
l1
.p
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David Bedein, Israel Resource, Bet Agron Press Center
       37 Hillel St., Jerusalem 94581
       Tel:  02--236-368;  FAX:  02--6255-119 Att: DB
       E-Mail:  media@actcom.co.il
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-6656-572; FAX:  972-6-6656-554
DATE:  
RE:    AN AUDIO-VISUAL PROJECT FOR A RAINY DAY
REF:   
	N.B.:  If nobody steals my best lines, I'm wasting my time.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Chairperson Poopoohead has a certain charm, shown in his Englishradio interviews, that makes one long for the straightforward --whatever -- of Jaye Edgar Hoover.  

	OK:  One ought to run a radio spot juxtaposing the spiderlylines of Poopoohead with the speeches of the Half-hung HousePainter (whom Lords Chamberlin & Hawhaw found to have some charm). They have much in common, eg a tendency to incline towardfalsetto.   

	Like:  I am trying to believe that The Leopard Has Changedhis Spots, but it would be easier if he did not persist inbringing his lunch to our conferences.
            

                      
.p
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David Bedein, Israel Resource, Bet Agron Press Center
       37 Hillel St., Jerusalem 94581
       Tel:  02--236-368;  FAX:  02--6255-119 Att: DB
       E-Mail:  media@actcom.co.il
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-6656-572; FAX:  972-6-6656-554
DATE:  
RE:    
REF:   Newsweek 9/30/96 (Contreras)
------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY:  An inoffensive article, except for the Photo caption[for which the Editor, not the Writer, must be held responsible.] 

PHOTO & CAPTION:

 The accompanying photo is of a settler with his hand on a semiautomatic, but he is strolling, accompanied by his wife.  
	Only the caption is objectionable:  intentionally ambiguous: "Evoking fears of another Jewish bloodbath:  In Hebron's OldCity."  
	This is a classic media-bias trick:  Insinuate a falsehoodwith words that, taken literally, cannot be said to proved to doso.
	In this case the insinuation is that the Jews will cause thebloodbath  -- the implicit reference is of course to the massacreat the Cave of the Macpelach 
l2
by a physician who apparently went temporarily insane underthe long-term influence of Kach xenophobic ideology, and theimediate influence  of alcohol,  to which he apparently wasalmost  entirely unaccustomed
l1
but literally, the caption could be referring to a bloodbath of,not by, Jews; a re-run of the 1929 riots [which the averagereader, already aware of the massacre of Arabs by a Jew at theCave of the Patriarchs  learns of only when or if he gets half-waythrough the article]
                                                     
.p




Who cares; at this stage I'm more interested in picking out commoncliches that appear to be very minor instances of bias, but givearticles anti-Israel PRE-SUPPOSITIONS.
	Presuppositions mean that whatever the writer says, howeverfairly he address the incident described, there's a tilt from theoutset.

OK:

"In downtown Hebron, where 450 right-wing Jews live amid 25,000Arabs..."
l2
COMMENT:  Practically a miniscule ammount; they should havethe courtesy to do us all a favor and cease to exist.  Likegetting out the last few spots of dust from one's kitchen. (The Germans were rather fond of such tidiness.)  

All the media agree:  the Jews in Hebron are an affront toArab sensibilities.  Why are they an affront?  But that's soobvious, only a fool would ask, so don't ask  or folks willknow  you're a fool.
	What affronts the Arabs about the Jews is that we existindependently in what they take for their land.  Again, thatwas the German attitude.
	One ought to make more of the essentially facisticnature of the Palestinian movement; and note that the proNazi sympathies of eg Haj Husseni and Sadat were more nearlyproto-typical, than aberrations.



NEW TRICK FOR ANALYSIS:  Keep the syntax, change the content, note the contrast:  "On Manhattan's posh Upper East Side,where 450 blacks live amidst 25,000 Pastyfaces..."
 

                                                        
