[antimedia] antimedia: I wish I could write....

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Posted by antimedia:
I wish I could write....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1154655358.shtml


   ....[1]like this. You simply must read this essay on press coverage of
   jihadis. Excerpting will not do it justice, I promise you, but here's
   a sample.

     In a sense the current conflict between Israel and both Hamas and
     Hizbullah underlines the importance of moral thinking in the life
     of nations and disputes between peoples. Tony Blair articulated it
     quite well to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council where he
     characterized it as a struggle between moderate, benign values
     versus the hatred and intolerance of fundamentalism.:

     âEven the issue of Israel is just part of the same wider struggle
     for the soul of the region,â Blair said. âIf we recognize this
     struggle for what it truly is, we would be at least along the first
     steps of the path to winning it. But I fear a vast part of Western
     opinion is not remotely near this yet.â

     The press coverage, in the tradition of âpolitics of outrageâ
     civil-rights media coverage, reflects and amplifies that moral
     dimension. But it since the 1960s many things have changed, and the
     media begins to resemble a parable of the dangers of moral
     confusion. As Blair puts in with his British understatement, they
     are ânot remotely nearâ understanding whatâs wrong.
     What has happened at Kafr Qana illustrates precisely how a highly
     moralistic press â committed without question to the value of human
     life, especially of children and other innocents â can invert the
     very imbalance at the core of the conflict and arouse a misplaced
     indignation that contributes to the very conflict it, in its
     moralism, deplores. After the collapse of the residential building
     in Qana, the media have presented the Israelis as those who show no
     respect for life, falling prey to the ghoulish strategies of
     Hizbullah in spilling everyoneâs blood including those of their own
     civilians for the sake of a PR victory. As a result they handed
     Hizbullah that PR victory and rewarded the very behavior that it
     thought it condemned.

   You cannot strike more directly at the core of what is wrong with the
   media today than this.
   The writer shares some appalling examples of the cult of death,
   examples that will have your hair standing on end, but his solution to
   the problem is not war but a media that has "the courage to stand up
   to the Jihadi death cult, resist their intimidation, and keep [their]
   moral compass?
   I could not agree more. Rather than fall into the trap of trading
   lives for lives, something the radicals salivate for, we could shame
   the extremists while elevating the voices of moderate Muslims
   everywhere if our media would simply tell the unblinking truth.
   Empowering moderate Muslims everywhere would go a long way toward
   cooling the hot fever of jihadis everywhere.
   But first our media must wake up. (Hat tip to my friend,
   [2]neo-neocon.)

References

   1. http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2006/08/02/501/
   2. http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2006/08/definition-of-joy-palestinian-style.html