Israel's haters drunk on bias

Written by Jim Fletcher Monday, 21 June 2010 02:57

The only reason I'm writing about media bias against Israel this week is because of the comment from a reader.

An e-mail popped up early in the week and the reader asked, in the context of my previous contention that international media are biased against Israel, "What are you drinking?"

He was incredulous – and angry, apparently – that I would suggest such a thing.

This is quite fascinating, since we both live on the same planet and see the same events. Yet we come to completely different conclusions.

This is what I call "a debate of the obvious." It is a phenomenon of our day.

Bias in publishing is a scourge. It is blight. It is ubiquitous.

Some of it is conservative, yes. Yet … notice that liberals never move to the right; they are consistent in the presentation of their beliefs. Conservatives, however, will too often move left. Witness the March 26 diatribe from Geraldo Rivera, who cleverly identified himself as a Zionist during an appearance on "Fox & Friends."

Ranting about the failure of Bibi Netanyahu to doom his people to a second Holocaust by giving in to the demands of the Palestinians, Rivera presented his anti-Israel bias, behind the mask of … Zionism!

The thing is, anti-Israel media bias, spread across the globe, is a 24/7 industry. From the odious Muslim tracts that float through the alleyways of Cairo, Islamabad and Jenin, to the mind-numbing drip of Israel-bashing in The New York Times and The Washington Post, Israel is clearly in the crosshairs of print reporters, toothy anchors and anonymous bloggers.

And it comes from all directions, including what could be considered odd channels.

Consider the April 2010 National Geographic report, "Parting the Waters." The magazine's editors (the iconic periodical was virtually hatched in the evolutionary shadow of Louis and Mary Leakey) rarely miss an opportunity to bash Israel.

The usual suspects are trotted out with some frequency: Israel oppresses the Palestinians, oppresses Palestinian Christians and lays siege to Bethlehem.

Now, it's the water that the Jews are stealing. Often, media outlets will present the Israelis as virtually living in water parks, while the Palestinians blink and blink in the scorching deserts, feverishly flailing at the mirage of the oasis.

Of course, it's a lie.

While photos of Israeli water parks are shown to the world, for some reason, photographers never seem to stumble on Palestinian water parks, such as the Mukhmas Funland Park in Ramallah.

Moving beyond the water stories, one is chagrined to read Fareed Zakaria's whopper about Israel annexing Gaza and the West Bank. The toothy Zakaria, host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," considered to be an expert in international law, has actually posited that Israel at some point in the past annexed these territories. This is a common myth, told around the world, and Zakaria has plenty of company.

Then there are the Arab chums among American mainline Christian churches.

For the past several months, the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been posting links to articles that denigrate the Israelis. One such site, run by Al Manar, a Hezbollah-owned television station, trots out the lie that Israel has been tunneling under al-Aqsa Mosque.

Here's an irony. I've been to al-Aqsa, and the only tunneling has been done by the Arabs. On the inside of the Eastern Gate, a series of steps has been built that lead downward to an underneath, massive mosque. This underground structure and burrowing has so weakened the Temple Mount complex that Israeli and Jordanian archaeological experts had to be called in to keep the Old City walls from collapsing. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, have the Israelis tunneled.

But our friends the Presbyterians, their anti-Israel animus pulsating, lead their own people to believe the Jews are undermining Palestinian holy sites.

These are but a handful of examples of the lies told about Israel and the Jews on an hourly basis around the globe. Expect it to continue.

Also, expect to hear more anti-Israel critics chatter and click, denying the very anti-Israel bias that hangs in the air like a thick London fog.

When a writer writes, the ideal to strive for is truth. Whether it's a novel, biography or news story, writing is a rich privilege and a sacred honor. It's very frustrating when those given the gift of writing sully it with hateful bias poured down the throats of readers.

That's what I've been drinking.