Political Mavens » Name That Motive

One of the most one-sided A.P. reports I have ever seen came across the wire the other day, and I thought I’d share it with you.

Most of the subtly that marks the majority of the mainstream media’s anti-Israel/Zionist/Semitic reportage is abandoned here entirely and I wonder if this is the new trend.

The story is about Israel’s controversial new law against calling for boycotts, but what strikes me is that the report states a whole slew of disputable circumstances as fact, without so much as a hint that they have ever been in dispute.

The report is so riddled with the Arab revisionist “narrative” of the region’s history – at the total exclusion of the truth – that I would be surprised if the story isn’t posted as-is on every anti-Israel website in the world.

The story notes that the controversy over Israel’s new law aimed at Israelis who promote “settlement” boycotts “reflects a growing chasm separating Israelis who support the country’s 44-year-old occupation of the…West Bank and others who view the presence of soldiers and settlers in the territory… as a national calamity.”

So, first, they are neighborhoods in a disputed territory, not settlements in an occupied territory, but everyone, including the Israelis, have long since abandoned that language, which is too bad. It’s a battle lost making future ones even more difficult.

Second, the author gives us only the option of either supporting “a 44-year-old occupation” or of seeing the “settlers” and soldiers in the territory “as a national calamity.”

It is a foregone conclusion, as far as this reporter is concerned, that the Jews have no right whatsoever to any part of the area captured from Jordan in a war of aggression against Israel.

So much for objectivity.

This, let’s remember, is about a law which allows “settlers or settlement-based businesses to sue Israelis who promote settlement boycotts,” the story notes. Courts would determine whether a boycott caused financial harm and, if so, assess damages, it says.

It’s sad and embarrassing in-fighting between different Israeli perspectives, but, even according to this obviously pro-Palestinians reporter, the worst thing that happens from it, is a blow to “the nation’s democracy.” This is a serious problem, but there is no threat of mass executions or mayhem in the streets like we’re seeing across the Arab world.

The Israelis are concerned this law might “violate freedom of expression and could be illegal.”

Compared to Syrian officials mutilating and murdering teenagers, this should barely raise an eyebrow outside of Israel itself. I doubt such a debate in any other small country would make the news.

However, the New York-based Anti-Defamation League weighed in, calling the law a “disservice to Israeli society,” while supporters “denied the new law violated freedom of expression and the right to protest,” saying it’s meant to protect Israelis living in “settlements,” and “punish” those aiding Israel’s enemies abroad.

One Israeli cabinet minister called the law’s passage “the blackest day in parliament’s history,” because it will allow Israel’s enemies to claim Israel is not a democracy and does not respect human rights.”

Really. Again, Google “Syria and human rights” or “Libya and human rights, etc.,” and get back to me.

Some see the new law as part of “a siege mentality that seems to grow deeper with each diplomatic blow that Israel absorbs over its treatment of the Palestinians,” the story says.

The story does not describe this “treatment,” but fairly strongly implies it is terrible and not justified.

But, what we are talking about here are checkpoints and a separation barrier aimed at, and succeeding in, dramatically reducing deadly attacks against Israeli civilians, which had become a nearly daily occurrence before the measures, were implemented.

No one mentions that.

These measures are noted only by way of describing their inconvenience to Palestinians and rarely, if ever, include the historical context.

There would be no “fence” or checkpoints if there were no threat of suicide-killers or other murderers entering the country and blowing people up. Period.

It’s almost funny that the radical Palestinians and their backers seek to kill and maim as many Jews and Westerners as possible, and whine loudly to the West that their rights are being infringed on when barriers to their murderous plans are erected.

But, like the American Constitution, Israeli Democracy is not a suicide pact. And I favor policies that protect Israel’s Jewish character and citizens, while maintaining its freedoms to the greatest extent possible considering the fact that her enemies (and ours) seek to use those very freedoms as weapons against us.

This is the same difficult balancing act with which the entire Western world in struggling, and, mostly, losing to various degrees. (Google France and Muslims).

The story’s author, in illuminating the “dispute between left and right in Israel,” notes “a U.N. report accusing Israel of committing war crimes during a military offensive in the Gaza Strip in 2009, and a global uproar over a deadly naval raid last year on a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists seeking to break a sea blockade of Gaza.”

The author conveniently fails to mention that the U.N. report – the so-called “Goldstone Report” was largely recanted by its own author and that the flotilla episode was only deadly because Israel’s basically unarmed soldiers were viscously attacked by violent, armed “activists.”

The author also lists several new bills “nationalist” Israelis have recently suggested as needed to “preserve Israel’s Jewish identity and to fend off various challenges.”

These include a requirement for new citizens to pledge a loyalty oath to a “Jewish and democratic state” – a measure critics have called racist, the writer notes.

Let’s see…. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands…”

I fail to see the problem, here.

Another denies state funding to (note, it doesn’t threaten to burn down or kill the population of) any municipality that commemorates Israel’s 1948 creation as the “nakba,” or “catastrophe.”

I don’t understand why this has taken so long, frankly. I can’t imagine any country that would allow any segment of its population to publically mourn its creation without challenge.

“Small communities now have the authority to reject admission to applicants that are perceived as not fitting into their social fabric,” the also story notes – “another measure seen as targeting Arabs.”

I see it as a clever way to try and stem the takeover of the country by attrition and maybe a lesson the United States and other Western nations might want to examine.

“Nationalists” – clearly a term this writer uses to disparage Israeli patriots – “are also trying to take action against groups that “provide information that could be used to support war crimes allegations against Israel in court cases raised in other countries.”

She fails to note that this effort among European pro-terrorists to trump up “war crimes” allegations against Israeli leaders is an effort to internationally harass Israel and interfere with its ability to interact on the world’s political stage.

Meanwhile, little information relative to the barbarism going on in the Arab world is making headlines, mostly because those repressive regimes have nothing resembling a free press and they do have an unfortunate tendency to torture and kill anyone perceived as falling out of line with authority.

So, by eliminating free speech and blocking access to the press, the bad guys win the public relations war?

Can the world’s journalists be that stupid?

No, they can’t.

So, it must be something else.

Any guesses?