I really don't think all the information *is* out there. There is a superficial resemblance between the coverage on US channels and the coverage on other news channels, but the emphasis is different. I've just had a conversation with a couple of Americans (from Texas) on my fb page, and the things they came out with - things they thought were facts from watching your news - were completely false. Needless to say, the person who started the thread deleted it, which I thought was a shame because it was actually a fairly reasonable and non-acrimonious dialog between people with diametrically opposing views (ie, mine and theirs).
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. This is a report on Fox, and it is basically nothing more than pro-Israel propaganda (and anti Obama propaganda, which of course is also the Fox agenda), riddled with falsehoods and misleading statements.
It begins with the heading "At least five world leaders reach out to Israel before Pres Obama".
Opening commentary
"Back in Israel the threat of death is raining from the sky tonight."The threat of death? From Hamas rockets? No Israelis have been killed by Hamas rockets, which are largely symbolic and rarely cause major damage (they do not carry explosive warheads). Meanwhile the Israeli air force was pounding denseley-populated areas of Gaza, killing and maiming hundreds of innocent civilians. Not a word about that.
"...in a country where they have effectively been at war now for days."At war? Where one side is effectively unarmed and the other side has the best-equipped army in the world? There is no "war". Israel is slaughtering Palestinian civilians who are prevented from leaving and prevented from building bomb shelters. Fish in a barrel.
Next they show rockets being fired "from Gaza". Commentary
"We are told the terror group Hamas fired nearly 100 rockets into Israel..."Where is the footage of the missiles being fired into Gaza? The missiles that demolish apartment blocks and kill families?
The "terror group" Hamas? Hamas is the democratically-elected government. The elections in which they were elected were demanded by the US government, which refused to oversee "peace talks" with unelected representatives. When Hamas was elected - not the desired result - the US government refused to deal with it because it was a "terror group". How is it a terror group? Because it tries to defend Gaza against attacks from Israel? I don't like Hamas much myself, but they're not a terror group.
And again no mention of the altogether more destructive missiles Israel fired into Gaza, only the rockets (they're rockets, not missiles) fired by Hamas. And no mention of the fact that these rockets rarely cause fatalities and are really little more than a token gesture of resistance.
Also no mention of the fact that the areas these missiles are being fired at were formerly Palestinian towns that were seized by force by Israel (the Palestinian inhabitants of Sderot were forced out of their homes and sent to refugee camps in Gaza. The town was originally called Huj).
"It was not until today that leaders from around the globe, including the UK prime minister, Angela Merkel of Germany, and others (photos of Stephen Harper, Francois Hollande and Ban Ki-Moon) had reached out to Benyamin Netanyahu....""Reached out" implies support. I know that Ban Ki-Moon, for one, didn't express support for Israel, but called for "restraint". But what the report avoids mentioning is that the majority of the world's leaders expressed disapproval - and in some cases outrage - of Israel's actions.
She then introduces a rabid Zionist (and Obama critic), Ben Shapiro, who launches into a racist, pro-Zionist rant, in which he says - without any sense of irony whatsoever - "How can you tell people to stop defending themselves?"
He then goes on to claim that when Hamas and Fatah formed a unity government last month, Obama didn't try to prevent this. But here's the nonsense of it: Netanyahu refused to talk to Mahmoud Abbas because he didn’t also represent Hamas. But when Abbas formed a unity government, Netanyahu refused to talk to Abbas on the grounds that he had become linked to Hamas. Now he says he can only talk to him if he breaks with Hamas.
The presenter then goes on to talk about
"the likelihood of ground troops invading the Palestinian territory now..." Is she aware at all that Israeli forces already illegally occupy most of Palestine? She raises this prospect as if it was something new. And then she says:
"All hell could be breaking loose there tonight, Ben..." Where is she talking about? Israel? All hell breaking loose in Israel? What on earth is she talking about? There is zero threat to Israel beyond Hamas' worthless rockets. But all hell had already broken loose in Gaza, a fact that she either didn't care about or didn't like to mention.
"Israel is in a full-blown war now with Palestine," she says. A full-blown war in which one side has nuclear weapons and the other side is essentially unarmed except for rockets that are little more than glorified fireworks. Palestine has no tanks, no ships, no air force, no helicopters, no armoured cars, no machine guns. Instead of making this imbalance clear, the impression is given that there is a war going on between two equally-matched armies. The only "war" going on here is a war by heavily armed Israeli forces against an unarmed and defenseless population.
"The catalyst for this latest terrible fighting..."What fighting? There has been no fighting!
"...was the murder of those three Israeli students, who were kidnapped and murdered..."But who were they murdered by? Hamas denies involvement. But in any event Palestinian children are murdered almost every day by the Israeli army, and by "settlers". Why are three Israeli "settlers" more important than the thousands of Palestinians who've been murdered? Why should their murder be the "catalyst" for anything? Simply because it's such a rare event for Israelis to be killed, that's why. The furore over the killing of these students highlights the fact that Israel is a safe place to live - the safest place on earth, in fact - while the murder of Palestinians is such a regular occurrence that it is taken for granted. There is no furore when Palestinians are killed. Palestinian deaths are not a catalyst for anything.
And of course she is wrong in any case. The reason for the rocket attacks was the shooting dead of two Palestinian teenagers by Israeli snipers.
Followed by the murder of two more Palestinians by Israeli soldiers supposedly searching for the missing students (in fact the bodies of the student had been already been found, but this was kept secret for a week).
The students' murder was clearly being exploited by the Israeli government as the pretext for a new offensive against Gaza, as collective punishment for the unification of Hamas and Fatah. The students may even have been killed by Israeli intelligence (the kidnappers were overheard when one of the students tried to make a phone call, and he spoke Hebrew). It wouldn't be the first time Israeli intelligence had killed Jews (or Americans) in a false flag operation. In any event this Fox presenter makes no mention at all of the four Palestinians murdered by the IDF. Nor does she mention the Palestinian teenager who was burned alive by Israel settlers. She only knows about, or she's only interested in, Israeli victims.
Shapiro then claims that the three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped by "Hamas Operatives". There is no evidence to support this claim, but she doesn't challenge him. Nor does she object when he goes on to accuse the Obama administration of being a
"Jew-hating administration". Here in Europe - and of course in the ME - Obama is condemned for his support of Israel, and he is regarded as the most pro-Israel president ever!
Talk about differences of perception.
She points out that it was Obama who approved the missile defense system
"that they are using so effectively in Israel..."It isn't effective at all. In fact it only intercepts a small percentage of Hamas' rockets. Lucky for Israelis that the rockets are relatively harmless.
And he replies that
"The president of the United States still is going to sign over money to Israel because it would be politically unpalatable not to do so". Really? Why is that? Because he would then be accused of antisemitism? The element of blackmail is transparent here.
Shapiro:
"It's only a matter of time before one of these rockets hits an Israeli population centre..."And then what? Some building will sustain light damage? Unless a Hamas rocket actually lands on someone's head, the chances of anyone being killed is fairly remote. They don't explode on impact (as Israeli missiles do).
Presenter:
"It's incredible to think of those millions of Israelis in basements and bunkers right now, worrying about getting bombed to death." In Gaza, people ARE being bombed to death. Children are having their arms and legs blown off. Whole families are being blown to bits by Israeli missiles. They don't have bunkers to take shelter in, because they aren't allowed to build them. In Israel, millions of people are NOT taking shelter in bunkers, because most cities in Israel are well beyond the reach of Hamas rockets. In Tel Aviv, life goes on as normal. And in the few towns within range of Hamas's qasams, many of the people have moved to stay with relatives in other parts of Israel. Having to go to the bomb shelter when the warning siren goes off is little more than an inconvenience (Palestinians have neither shelters nor warning sirens). And some of the residents of towns like Sderot and Ashkelon are actually camping out on the hills, watching the missiles as if they were watching a free firework display, and cheering when missiles from Israel explode in Gaza, killing innocent men, women and children in their beds.
So if this is an example of the kind of coverage Americans are getting (and obviously it is), then it's no wonder they are supportive of Israel. This is blatant propaganda of the worst kind. There is no attempt at all to be objective, or to present the view from the other side. This is straightforward pro-Israel propaganda.
