Pierre Rehov Explains How and Why the Press is Anti Israel

with thanks - http://www.afsi.org/MEDIA/reasonforbias.htm
Pierre Rehov answered the question of why the press so anti-Israel in an interview with Jamie Glasov (Suicide Killers, frontpagemag.com 12/12/05)

FP: Why do you think such a large percentage of the international media supports Arab propaganda? Why is anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel so cutting edge and fashionable?

Rehov: There are many complicated reasons for that. First of all, let's quickly review this good old anti-Semitism which is crawling nowadays among left wing intellectuals, Jews being represented as the rich and powerful, as opposed to the poor Palestinians. So-said intellectuals love things simple to understand, powerful images, such as Che Guevara being a hero, and Arafat's Kefieh representing a symbol of resistance against oppression.

After the explosion of communism and the USSR empire, communism has been exposed as an evil, intolerant, oppressive and inefficient system. I cannot imagine what must have happened to people who, in good will, saw Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro... or the red Khmers as symbols of their beliefs. They then had to identify with a new cause, a new set of poor to protect and defend with ideas.

A lot of journalists, in very good faith, think of themselves as intellectuals and freedom fighters at the same time. They believe that they are the last real adventurers of this world and they keep deep inside the pride of being the only counter-power to governments. This is healthy, as long as it doesn't become perverted.

In the field, actually, when you have to work in the Palestinian territories, the game itself is perverted. One has to remember that there is no freedom, no security in the Territories.

Journalists risk their life, but maybe less than in Iraq, and definitely less than in most African countries, not to talk about Chechnia or Tibet.

The Israel-Palestinian conflict is for them an easy way to stay, in their mind, the heroes that they believe themselves to be. It is so easy to just stay safely inside Israel, send a Palestinian team to do the work, and then, when everything is set, to appear in front of a camera with a bullet proof vest and a helmet.

The price to pay, though, is that you then have to send only the kind of news that Palestinians want you to spread. You end up on prime time with this simplistic image of a poor Palestinian kid throwing a stone at a tank. Nobody then wonders, what is this kid doing on a battle field ? Where are the parents? Who is this guy hiding behind him with a kalachnikov? Would the kid be there if this was really dangerous? How old is the soldier facing him? Perhaps only two years older... etc.

Once a journalist told me: "We have 30 seconds to tell this prime time story called "Intifada Al Aqsa." The story was written by Palestinians and Israel plays the bad guys. Write your own scenario and the media will buy it.

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