NZ Friends of Israel has been observing the responses to the latest wave of violence between Arabs and Jews with concern. 

The David vs Goliath story is misleading

The conflict has been narrowly portrayed as a David versus Goliath conflict supported by snapshots of “disproportionate” death tolls, “home-made” rockets contrasted with sophisticated state of the art military technologies, and forced evictions. 

Just relying on this information alone to decide what stance to take on the Middle East conflict between Jews and Arabs is risky. 

Perpetual refugee status keeps the conflict from being resolved

In nearly all modern conflicts, displaced peoples are resettled, so that they can rebuild, and get on with their lives. 

Not so in the Middle East, where neighbouring countries, in order to keep the dispute with Israel alive, refused to allow refugees to resettle, but instead have refused them citizenship and turned temporary refugee camps into institutionalized ghettos. 

Some 750,000 Jews have also been displaced through the Middle East conflicts.  They are unheard of today, because they have resettled in other countries, a vast number in Israel.  They have gone on to live their lives. 

For the Palestinian Arab refugee, they are stuck in a twilight zone, unable to get on with their lives, dependent on foreign aid, because Arab political leaders, including their own, will not accept a Jewish state in their midst.  In so doing, creating a long-running humanitarian crisis. 

Ironic, as the establishment of Israel, as a homeland and refuge for Jews, under international law, was, in itself, a humanitarian response to the Holocaust and a recognition of how widespread and deadly Anti-Semitism was in the world. 

As long as the world continues to fund this institutionalized victimhood, the Middle East conflict will persist.

The will to continue funding is heavily shaped by how media cover the Middle East Conflict.  

Ethical journalism is what we expect but not what we get

In the West, we value ethical journalism.  We expect factual and balanced reporting.  But commercialization and the human need to be “relevant” means that many journalists have abandoned these ideals and have taken sides when it comes to Israel. 

By doing so, they have become unwitting instruments of propaganda. 

Hamas’ tactics are clear.

• Initiate a wave of violence to draw an Israeli military response.
• Embed Hamas operations near civilians and civilian structures such as hospitals, schools and even UN facilities so civilian casualties are inevitable.
• Milk the civilian casualties for all their propaganda value to win Western hearts and minds.
• End the conflict to maximise cost-benefit of campaign.
• Repeat when foreign aid begins to wane once more.

On the TVNZ news, a woman rants at the camera, saying no one would accept being evicted from their homes.  Well, yes we do.  If we can’t pay our bills, debt collectors come.  If we don’t pay our rent, then we are evicted.  Even in New Zealand. 

Headlines skew the narrative and show bias

Headlines are powerful.  They not only determine how many people will read an article, but a headline changes the way people read an article and the way they remember it.

To illustrate how bias comes through in headlines, here is a sequence of headlines on the Gaza conflict run by Stuff. Every effort has been taken to make this collection exhaustive but one or two may have slipped through: 

24 April: Worst round of cross-border violence between Israel and Gaza Strip in months

11 May: Jerusalem protests: The violent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police explained

11 May: Nine children killed in Gaza as violence intensifies with air strikes, rocket attacks

12 May: Israel, Hamas trade deadly rocket fire as confrontation escalates

13 May: New Zealand raises international law violations with Israel, expresses ‘grave concern’ over escalating violence

13 May: How Hamas pierced Israel’s famous Iron Dome shield

13 May: The three biggest US airlines are suspending flights to Israel.

13 May: Dozens killed in Mideast conflict that recalls 2014 Gaza war

14 May: Gaza hospitals were already struggling with Covid-19. Then the bombs fell

14 May: Israeli tanks pound Gaza ahead of possible ground incursion

14 May: Israel-Palestine conflict: Gaza ceasefire ‘not enough’ – Palestinian minister

14 May: Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Ongoing attack on Gaza Strip

14 May: Fighting between Hamas, Israel escalates as efforts to secure truce begin

15 May: US joins international effort to de-escalate the intensifying conflict in Gaza

15 May: Ending injustice is the only path to assuring Israel’s security

16 May: The moments before the bombing: Inside the Gaza media building destroyed by an airstrike

16 May: Media outlets demand Israel explain its bombing of news offices in Gaza

16 May: Israel airstrike in Gaza destroys building housing international media

16 May: Islamic nations hold emergency summit on Israel-Gaza attacks

17 May: The toughest tourism gig right now? Selling Israel to Muslim visitors in Dubai

17 May: Israel-Palestine conflict: 10 minutes of heavy airstrikes hit Gaza City as Hamas rocket attacks continue

17 May: Calls mount for Gaza-Israel ceasefire, greater US efforts

17 May: Associated Press’ top editor calls for probe into Israeli airstrike

18 May: Why is accountability for alleged war crimes so hard to achieve in the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

18 May: Green Party puts forward parliamentary motion to declare Palestine a state

18 May: Israeli strikes hit Gaza tunnels as diplomats work for truce

18 May: Israel-Palestine conflict: More airstrikes on Gaza mark second week of unrest

19 May: Palestinians go on strike as Israel-Hamas fighting rages

19 May: Israeli police say two killed in strike launched from Gaza

20 May: Now is the time for NZ to be brave, and stand up to Israel and China

20 May: As a Jewish New Zealander I am ashamed by Israel’s long history of inflaming tensions in the Mideast

20 May: Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu ‘determined” to continue Gaza operation

20 May: Palestinian Kiwis worried for families in Gaza as bombs rain down

20 May: Israeli air strikes kill six, large family home destroyed in Gaza

21 May: Israel agrees ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza to end 11-day conflict

21 May: Israel-Palestine Conflict: The media is ‘dehumanising’ the nation of Israel

21 May:  Israel unleashes wave of strikes in Gaza despite pushback from US President Joe Biden

23 May: Vitriol and double standards are directed against Israel

23 May: Egyptian mediators hold talks to firm up Israel-Hamas truce

A review of these Stuff headlines shows that they overwhelmingly present Israel as the antagonist.  Of the 39 headlines only two mention Hamas’ indiscriminant rocket attacks and only one mentions that Hamas’ attacks are war crimes under international law, and even then only within the body text, not in any headline. 

Amidst this barrage of biased headlines, even the NZ government’s call to de-escalate is twisted to be seemingly addressed toward Israel and not toward Hamas.

It’s not surprising therefore to see a growing wave of anti-Israel sentiment resulting in pro-Palestinian rallies being held around the country.

The NY Times, in its daily update, lengthily summarises the “toll” of the latest conflict by numbering the Arab deaths, separating out children from the rest of the statistics and describing the damage to infrastructure and housing.  But only briefly mentions Israeli death toll with no further elaboration.

The real background tells quite a different story

The oft-mentioned East Jerusalem “eviction” is a legal dispute between tenants and their landlord and arises from long standing unpaid rent. 

There are other cases regarding ownership disputes opened by Jewish owners who were themselves displaced after Jordan illegally annexed East Jerusalem but returned after Israel won the 1967 War.  Now these Jewish owners are seeking reinstatement through the courts. 

The Israeli courts have shown themselves to be politically independent and scrupulously so.  It’s prosecution of past Prime Ministers and even the current Prime Minister, show that the Israeli courts are not intimidated by political power and that no one is above the law.

These court cases are ongoing and we should wait for their outcome before reacting.

Israel is accused of disproportionate use of force.  But there is no question that Hamas and its allies are themselves using deadly force.  Militarily, we would expect the amount of force should be sufficient, to stop the attacks.  They haven’t stopped which suggests insufficient force has been applied. 

The bombardment of Homs in the Syrian War is an example of how conventional warfare is conducted by the rest of the world.  By the end of that siege, Homs was nearly levelled and looked like Stalingrad after it’s siege in WW2. Israel’s targeted strikes are comparatively humane, considering that its enemies use its own civilians as human shields.

Disinformation is a part of war, so reserve your opinions

Finally, we urge everyone to restrain themselves from jumping to conclusions during a military conflict.  It’s been said that truth is the first casualty of war.  This conflict is no different.  Both sides will be wanting to manage the public narrative to their own advantage.

It’s not until after the conflict is over that independent foreign observers can report on what really happened.  For example, in the 2014 Gaza War, it wasn’t until journalists returned to their home countries that they were able to safely report that Hamas was using civilians and civilian infrastructure, including UN facilities as shields.

NZFOI

NZFOI: Well said…

The Levant is a complex place. I don’t understand it. I suspect that many of those who live there struggle to come to grips with its long history and interlocking internecine grievances, real and imagined.

So, I am not going to proffer my view on the rights and wrongs of the various resentments that continue to boil over into violence in that troubled region. My sympathies lie with the State of Israel. I lay no claim to objectivity.

What I can, and will, comment on is the way the latest conflict is being covered in this country and the reaction of a number of our citizens who have elected to wade into this difficult area with the confidence and certainty of a dilettante at a gallery opening.

The latest burst of activity began, according to news stories, with a fracas at the Al Aqsa mosque. No one died.

In response to this, or at least in the immediate aftermath, Hamas, the governing body of the Gaza Strip, unleashed thousands of rockets towards Israel. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) reacted. This isn’t a shock. The first responsibility of a state is to defend its citizens.

I’d say sending a barrage of rockets is a declaration of war, a casus belli, that would justify invasion and occupation of the enemy. Israel did not do that. They elected to target selective military infrastructure and political leaders they feel are responsible.

In any military engagement there is the risk of civilian casualties. The IDF claims that Hamas use the civilian population as human shields but that, regardless, they maintain that they are taking great care to avoid collateral damage.

On the face of it, this claim stands up. If the IDF wanted to inflict mass civilian deaths on the Palestinian population they have the means to do so. None of this should be controversial. Even if you believe Israel is illegitimate, the facts point to a limited military response rather than total war. It is true that the death toll is lopsided, if we accept uncritically the casualty figures from Hamas, but this reflects the effectiveness of the Israeli defence systems rather than any proof of disproportionality by the IDF.

However, this has not been the reaction by some in these islands. What we have seen is media coverage heavily concentrated on the attacks by the IDF in Gaza and on local anti-Israeli protests which, in my view, has created the impression of an unconstrained bombardment of the civilian population.

I am not going to claim that all those who make false statements about Israel suffer from anti-Semitism. To do so would require opening a window into another’s soul and there is another explanation that I think fits: hyperbolic claims against Israel are rewarded in the potent currency of social media likes and re-tweets.

You don’t need to hate Jews to appreciate that making outlandish and sometimes false claims against Israel will get you on the news and be rewarded with praise for your compassion and humanity. But I do not believe this is a complete explanation of what we are observing. While Hamas and the IDF exchange rockets and invective, there is another conflict 2000 kilometres to the south: Yemen. Here, on this blighted desert land, a war by proxy between Saudi Arabia and Iran has claimed over 200,000 lives.

If the real concern was the deaths of children, we would have marches, protests and parliamentary resolutions flying out faster than a barrage of Hamas rockets about what is happening in Yemen. There isn’t. What we have is an obsession with Israel and her failings that is absent for any other global conflicts.

Hanging like a spectre over this drama is the Holocaust, the event that in many ways led to the creation of the Israeli state. We like to gloss over this tragedy as a historical anomaly, a creation of a fevered Teutonic mind that we are excused of responsibility because we fought the National Socialists.

This is a misreading of history. The genocide began after the war was declared and the allies did not go to war to save European Jewry. Rather we have used it as an ex-post rationalism to bolster our moral superiority. This crime was a European one, and it was the culmination of a millennium of hostility to the descendants of Isaac, son of Abraham.

All Western nations, including our own, have been tainted with the stain of anti-Semitism. From the crusades and the expulsion of the Jews by Edward I, through to forced conversions, blood libel, pogroms, ghettos and grotesque characterisations, no western nation is without sin.

There are valid reasons to critique Israel. The settlements, blockades and universal healthcare are all things that trouble me. If I lived there, I would be as contrarian towards their government as I am to my own. There are many who feel strongly, some with cause and others just responding uncritically to media coverage, about the plight of the Palestinians.

But there is also vitriol, lies and a double standard that is applied to and directed against Israel; some of which may be driven by ignorance and a desire for attention, but there is an undercurrent that does not look like good people with honest intentions campaigning against a perceived injustice. To me, it has a darker feel of an ancient hatred repackaged for a modern era.

Damien Grant is a Stuff columnist.

Source

NZFOI: Nice to see Stuff publishing a balancing opinion piece after David Galler’s naive views were published yesterday. Next time, we wonder if Stuff will publish the pro-Israel opinion article first? Here is Juliet Moses’ views on NZ media’s treatment of the current conflict.

A few days ago I rang my friend, who lives in Tel Aviv, to see how he was doing during this latest round of war between Hamas and Israel, which has seen over 3000 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza, and some from Syria and Lebanon. “Are you going out at all?” I asked. “Sure”, he answered nonchalantly, “I took my son to the playground today. There’s a bomb shelter built into it – we have 15 seconds to get in when the siren goes off”.

My friend worked on the Israeli negotiating team trying to achieve peace with the Palestinian people. He has Palestinian friends. He does not support the Israeli Prime Minister.

Dehumanising an entire nation and its supporters, who just happen to be the vast majority of Jews, is perpetuating injustice and oppression, not fighting it. The Israel I see portrayed in the media, by politicians, and by others, is not the Israel I know and love.

It has become detached from reality and context, an abstraction, caricatured, villianised, a symbol of what’s wrong in the world, a repository for a person’s woes, an ideological flag-post. It seems we need a “narrative” these days, with a goodie and a baddie. Israel isn’t a narrative, and like every other nation, it encompasses people who are somewhere inbetween.

I think of the staff I met at Zvi hospital near the Syrian border in 2016, who were treating Syrians injured in Syria’s civil war.

I remember George Deek, the young Christian Arab diplomat taking me around Jaffa, where his family has lived for over 300 years, including to a beautiful Ottoman Empire mosque.

I still salivate when I think of the traditional lunch, chicken maqlooba, we had in a Druze family’s home in the Golan Heights. And that reminds me of the same dish I enjoyed visiting a non-profit centre set up for Bedouin women in the Negev.

I think of Ikey, recounting the gripping fear he felt in the lead-up to the 1967 war, when he was a young boy and Israelis thought the state was about to be wiped out by invading Arab armies, being told to collect stones and whatever projectiles he could and go up to the roof.

I think too of the Palestinian people I have spent time with in the West Bank.

I’ve met many politicians, including the Palestinian Prime Minister. But the person who had the most profound impact on me was Ali, who I have met with twice. He co-founded, with a Jewish man, “a grassroots movement of understanding, nonviolence and transformation among Israelis and Palestinians”.

Ali told me that both Jews and Palestinians must realise that the land does not belong to them, but they belong to the land. He recognised that his people’s identity is rooted in victimhood, and that needed to change.

I also dined near Bethlehem with an Israeli and Palestinian, who are part of a “parents’ circle”, who each lost a daughter in the conflict. They call each other “brother”.

I think of the female Palestinians – the journalist who bemoaned the deteriorating freedoms, lack of elections, and corruption under Fatah’s leadership, and the activist who was concerned about the regression of women’s rights.

There’s Palestinian billionaire Bashar Masri who is building the first planned Palestinian city in the West Bank, Rawabi, hailed as “the cornerstone of a new, modern, viable Palestinian society”. He believes Palestinians must show the world that they are not just victims and can build a state. He abhors the fact that the Palestinian Authority leaves its people living under its control in refugee camps.

And I remember the Gazans I met who worked at the border crossing, who talked of how much they despised Hamas, the terrorist group that oppressively rules Gaza.

Most Jews and Israelis yearn for peace, and want to see Palestinians have their own state. But Jewish people carry both the scars of a world without a Jewish homeland and the knowledge that it has provided refuge for millions of Jews from a post-Holocaust Europe, Iraq, Iran, the Soviet Union, Yemen and Ethiopia.

Israelis also carry the scars of the second intifada, which followed failed peace talks, when they sent their children off to school in separate buses in the hope that at least one wouldn’t return in a body bag (the Palestinian people still pay the price too, with a security barrier and checkpoints that were not there before).

Israelis carry the scars too of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, displacing 8000 Jews from their homes, in the hopes of peace, which brought them a terror state and the rockets they are bombarded with. That is not a risk they can take with the West Bank, and so the status quo remains, even though pretty much no one likes it.

Despite being a majority in Israel, its Jews have the mindset and anxieties of a minority, given their neighbours. In a state one half the size of Canterbury, their margin of error and survival is very small. Standing at the borders with Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, all controlled by Iran and embedded with its proxies, who repeatedly call for the destruction of Israel, this is easy to understand.

Indeed, only someone who has the privilege of not living that way and who has no empathy, could fail to understand that. It is easier to be moralistic when your life is not at stake. That includes some Jews who feel the need to apologise and proclaim that they are one of the few “good Jews”. Other Jews, however, have learned that appeasement doesn’t work.

• Juliet Moses is spokesperson for the New Zealand Jewish Council.
• Source

NZFOI: Nothing new. Gullible. No root cause analysis. Lays the blame on Israel’s shoulders alone. Implies Arabs can do no wrong. Once again. And no sustainable solutions proffered. It would be interesting to see if, in the interests of ethical journalism, Stuff publishes an opinion piece with the opposing view, in a timely manner.

I am not the only proud Jewish person who is deeply disturbed by the violent unrest currently engulfing Israel and the Palestinian people. I am not alone in feeling embarrassed and ashamed by Israel’s long history of inflaming tensions in the region, and I am not alone in being deeply concerned about the impact of this cycle of perpetual violence on the local population and the wider diaspora.

No matter the rights and wrongs that may have initiated these hostilities so long ago, in the absence of a resolution or an accommodation that brings lasting peace, there will be only one end to this, a result currently playing out in front of our eyes: a steady but irreversible brutalisation of all involved to the point where even children become legitimate targets, or their killing accepted as collateral damage “for the greater good” by both parties, leaving both populations fatally changed forever.

Read the whole article.