Friday, July 1, 2011

An analysis of the vocabulary and the images used by the Spanish media regarding Israel (II).

On Monday, June 27, 2011, Público published an article under the title Cinco años (Five years) by Eugenio García Gascón, regarding Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006, and negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians regarding exchanges of prisoners. The third paragraph of Gascón's article reads as follows (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"Prime minister Netanyahu, like his predecessor Olmert, hasn't shown a great interest in the liberation of the soldier. Hamas demands the liberation of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, some of them being militiamen responsible for deadly attacks and strikes, and Netanyahu seems not to be in favour of such exchange."

Now please notice what Gascón wrote in the fourth paragraph of his article:

"Some Israelis remember that during his first mandate, between 1996 and 1999, Netanyahu freed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of Hamas in exchange of three Mossad agents arrested in Amman when they wanted to murder Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas in the exile. Meshaal currently lives in Damascus and Sheikh Yassin was murdered in Gaza by the Israeli aviation during the second intifada."

So, according to Público and its journalist Eugenio García Gascón, Palestinian terrorists who killed innocent Israelis and are currently under Israel's custody are "militiamen responsible for deadly attacks and strikes" instead of "criminals responsible for terrorist attacks", while the Mossad wanted to "murder" Khaled Meshaal and the Israeli Air Force "murdered" Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in spite of the fact that they were enemies of Israel (as well as criminals) during wartime.

This exemplifies again how the Spanish mainstream media distorts reality when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians.

Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousThursday, July 28, 2011 10:10:00 PM

    So according to you, the IDF who killed around 1200 civilians in Lebanon in 2006 and around 800 in Gaza in 2009 were also "criminals responsible for terrorist attacks", I understand. Because civilian victims are the same here and there. I mean, if we are to talk about distortions, let's talk about all of them. Combatants are the same here and there. And I am writing to you from Israel now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MidtskogenFriday, July 29, 2011 4:24:00 PM

    Regarding the Lebanese and Palestinian civilians killed during the Second Lebanon War and the Operation Cast Lead, Hamas and Hezbollah are well known for their policy of using civilians as human shields; in the case of Hamas, the organization itself admits and praises such a policy.

    So, regarding civilian casualties in those wars, there are two main possibilities:

    i) Civilians unintentionally killed by Israel when being used as human shields by Hamas and Hezbollah.

    ii) Civilians intentionally killed by Israel.

    I guess both of these facts happened. There's not a single war in History in which one of the parties at conflict never inflicted unnecessary damage to civilians. Even during the Second World War and the subsequent occupation of Germany, there were many cases of human rights violations involving the Allies as the perpetrators.

    Israel is of course not an exception. Israel itself judged some of its own soldiers many times. That's of course bad, and nobody here tried to tell that Israel always does it well.

    My point here is that the Spanish coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict is biased against Israel, and that the Jewish State is not as guilty as told by the Spanish media.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)