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Richard Landes at Second Draft: demonstrating how the MSM contributes to the Palestinian cause by hiding reality — 20 Comments

1. “Among other things, he is the person who uncovered the media’s compliance in shaping the al Durah story into anti-Israel propaganda,”

   I have always been pro-Israel, but somewhat open to the complaints of the Palestinians, until I started following the al-Durah story, and then branched out into a study of the past (and then-future) actions of Hamas and its kindred.

   I lost all sympathy for the Palestinian cause, although not for the people suffering under its tyranny; even though many are complicit in it, they have been lied to and threatened by violence from their own leaders to the point that I don’t think they can make any unbiased response at this point — particularly so long as the West and the UN collaborate with Hamas & Co. including, now, Iran.

2. CNN and BBC do this with everything. They will never stand up to Palestinian propaganda, just like they will never stand up to Linda Sansour or report on Rotherham. Just like they never called out the actresses who petitioned against Switzerland extraditing the convicted Polanski to the US. I read today about the Norks now supplying chemical weapons to Assad and the Russian hacking of the German Defense Dept and Administration. These were not news for CNN Int, but gun control was. This is how we are presented to the world. It’s no wonder so many hate us.

3. The so-called Palestinians have talked themselves into a corner.

   One is reminded of the crazy diplomacy of Gamel Nasser circa May 1967.

   He talked the Arab street — and the Arab elites — out onto a limb.

   Which the IDF simply cut off.

   1) Gaza started life as a rump military outpost and watering hole. Its water tastes lousy, BTW.

   (The good water is up around Tel Aviv.)

   When the Egyptian forces collapsed in 1948 they fell back onto their tiny garrison at Gaza.

   2) The big build-up of Egyptians ( nee Gazans ) occurred after the war. It was at this point that Egypt expanded its base there — and encouraged Egyptians to settle there.

   3) The above history explains why Hamas and the PLO/PLA are split. While they are all Arabs, they come from two camps.

   4) This is also why a THREE state solution ought to be on the table. ( As IF ) For Hamas is never going to suffer the PLA and vice versa.

   5) As for motivation, Hamas is more fanatically anti-Jewish than Adolf Hitler. Genocide is their openly proclaimed policy — and has been from the very first. It’s then ironic that way back when, Israel actually favored Hamas as against the PLO/PLA. (!!!)

   &&&

   I believe that the Arabs — that’s what they call themselves in Arabic — Arafat ( in Arabic ) derided the very term Palestinian — have foreclosed practical negotiation.

   As seen with Saddam and Nasser, Arab politicians stake out absurd and extreme positions all the time. It’s in the nature of their Arab culture — that of the Big Man — of winner take all.

   THAT’S the reason why all negotiating with Arabs is an act of futility.

   They jump to extreme positions — and then never trade away ANYTHING.

   You’d never see an Arab trade away the Sinai for a peace treaty.

   Look at the crazy politics of Yemen.

4. Hey, “hands up, dont shoot” right? The Israeli/Palestinian conflict isnt the only war of narratives we’re currently loosing.

5. Blert, re item 5. Muslim anti-semitism is baked in the cake. Watch the video again. “The trees cry out: There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” They are quoting the Koran.

6. Islam hangs upon Muhammad’s repeated claim that Allah is the author of the Qur’an and that it was perfectly dictated by the archangel Gabriel to Muhammad for transcription.

   Muslims recognize that in the Qur’an they have been repeatedly and directly commanded by Allah to destroy the Jews. Muslims recognize that in the Qur’an they have been directly commanded by Allah to never relinquish even one grain of sand to the infidel. Those are theological imperatives. The devout support it and the ‘moderates’ cannot directly challenge what Allah has proclaimed.

   The motivations for the mass media’s deceitful support for the Muslim position are threefold; moral cowardice in the face of murderous fanaticism, leftist animosity toward what they view as the last colonial outpost of the West and, secular revulsion at a singular religious identity.

7. The late John Campbell, editor of Analog Science Fact and Fiction, devised a word, “hyperinfracanidmania”. Exaggerated sympathy for the underdog. There is no consideration as to why the party is a loser. Crime, corruption, incompetence, irrelevance, nothing matters but that a lot of people dislike them. The hypers, or the liberals ,automatically make them heroes.

8. Richard Aubrey –

   I’m never going to remember or use that awkward word, but I’m glad someone’s noticing the mental condition, which is real. “The Little Drummer Girl” syndrome is in there.

   William S. Burroughs talked about big bullies and little bullies, in terms of baboons presenting their asses to be sodomized. The underdog baboons scheme only to become the biggest, most dangerous baboon around.

   When the Israelis last went into southern Lebanon versus Hezbollah, there was a Palestinian who became known (by some) as the “Green Helmet.” He indeed wore a green helmet, almost but not quite as though he worked for the UN. He would drive furiously from one bombed structure to another, each time “discovering” and holding up the same dead baby, weeping and carrying on. The image of this same dead baby appeared on AP, Reuters, CNN, etc…

   Those in the West who automatically wish to feel sorry for the underdog, indignant as the overdog, had their emotions successfully tweaked. The Palestinian Arabs have bee playing this game for a long time now. It works. It’s effective.

   But who knows how that baby died? And it certainly didn’t die in 6 places at once.

   Among those in Western Civilization for whom Christianity is no longer of much interest (such faith having become associated primarily with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Bakker and other such buffoons), which almost a priori includes the intelligentsia en masse, there survives an idealistic or selfless impulse which may lead to “do-gooder”ism either vicarious or employing one’s own life. The impulse is emotive rather than cerebral.

   Secular humanism at its best and worst. The narcissism involved as prime motive force means the objective may soon devolve into just wanting to feel good about oneself. To be seen — even if just in the mirror — as a good person, who sticks up for the underdog in every case.

   Rachel Corrie comes to mind. Henning Mankell.

9. I think people are getting fed up with this sort of thing. People can’t judge everything the media says, but sometimes the media talks about something they can judge, something the viewer is an expert in. If they get something wrong, it plants a seed of doubt, what else are they getting wrong?

   It can be a little thing. I think everyone has experienced this. For instance, it’s easy for people to pretend at expertise, but some things take time and practice. For instance, for me, it doesn’t matter how liberal a person is. If they speak and read Chinese, I value their opinions on China. They’ve put in a lot of time learning the language.

   On the other hand, certain words are shibboleths. And some people learn the shibboleths, and try to use them to prove their expertize. Take Obama. Obama say Pakistan “properly”. He must know a great deal about it. But he doesn’t say Qatar properly. And he doesn’t say Beijing properly. Why? Because he doesn’t speak Arabic, he doesn’t speak Chinese, and he doesn’t speak Urdu.

   But Petraeus on the other hand, says Pakistan properly. He says Beijing properly, and he says Qatar properly. Does he speak all these languages? No, but he’s an expert in the field; he talks to people that speak the languages. And he’s done time in those countries.

   That’s why we made fun of Obama’s over-pronunciation.

10. I don’t think it matters how Obama—or anyone—pronounces things (we all have our accents and our various ignorances, and these don’t necessarily have anything to do with our intelligence or wisdom, or lack thereof).

    All I’d ask is that he’d just respect the Constitution and the USA and its citizenry. All of its citizens.

    And stop being a thug.

    And stop lying most of the time.

    (Is that really too much to ask for?….)

11. GB,
    There is a lot of built-in anti-Jewish sentiment and exhortation, in the Quran, which is a huge problem.

    Another huge problem is that the Islamic faith, as I understand it—or significant branches of it—believe that although Judaism claims to have preceded Islam, the Quran (and Islam) is “truer” (as it were) than the Hebrew Bible (and the Jewish faith)—and in fact Islam actually preceded the Jewish faith, chronology be damned!. Hence it is perfectly logical for them to hold that the Hebrews/Jews perverted the “true faith” of Islam (even though the Jewish faith, and Bible, may be claimed—by those self-same perverters—to have preceded the Islamic faith, and Quran, chronologically).

    Hence Judaism is a religion of lies whose purpose is to pervert—and subvert—“the true faith”, i.e., Islam, in this case).

    (Indeed, there are many who would find that counter-intuitive absence of chronology a perfectly reasonable proposition…. And yes, it is especially helpful if one has paranoid tendencies, and/or believes in a faith/ideology/culture that encourages and promotes such tendencies….)

    Nonetheless, there are, in the Quran, sections (oft-quoted, for what it’s worth—though not worth all that much, apparently) that indicate that Palestine belongs to the Jews:
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/177182

    (To be sure, proponents of such views are extremely courageous given the milieu in which they must try to get their message across….)

    And although there is, most “unfortunately”, a very high rate of virulent anti-Jewishness in the Arab and Islamic world, it is not all monolithic…

    So that there will always be surprises—this astonishing interview, for example:
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/kuwaiti-pundit-says-israel-a-legitimate-state-not-an-occupier/

12. Don’t forget to bring along Flat Fatima to spice up your mideast coverage:

    http://thepeoplescube.com/current-truth/flat-fatima-revolution-in-news-photography-t798.html

13. dexiansheng Says:
    March 1st, 2018 at 12:17 am
    I think people are getting fed up with this sort of thing. People can’t judge everything the media says, but sometimes the media talks about something they can judge, something the viewer is an expert in. If they get something wrong, it plants a seed of doubt, what else are they getting wrong?
    * *
    The problem is our susceptibility to the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect, where we recognize that some newspaper (book, magazine, tv program) is absolutely wrong about the topic we know about; then go to the next article on something we aren’t an expert in and totally believe what they say.

    https://www.omsj.org/blogs/gell-mann-effect

    (FWIW, I read Murray Gell-Mann’s autobiography, where he describes the origin of the syndrome relative to his own reactions, which was “popularized” by Michael Crichton.)

    “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

    In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story—and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

    That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.

    But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.”

    * * *
    I think that we do actually recognize this effect, perhaps subconsciously, which is why we eventually depend on “trusted sources” for our news (e.g., Andy McCarthy on the political-legal beat, or Judith Curry on climate science, or J. E. Dyer on foreign intrigues).

    Crichton is pointing out that the trust is an individual matter of your evaluation of specific experts measured against your own knowledge (or their track record for reliability), and can’t be applied to the newspaper / magazine / tv show / blog in general, the reporters or contributors having varying degrees of knowledge and bias.

    Of course, the Left and the Right have different “trusted sources,” which is part of the difficulty in solving problems and having conversations, but the principle is the same.

    But then – if they are wrong on what WE know, and so probably wrong on what we DON’T know, why read anything at all? Somebody must be right about something!

14. Related:
    http://jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain/231367/truth-deir-yassin/

15. Barry, Arabs regard lying to be an art form.

    Some of the lying that occurred during the reconstruction of Iraq — frustrated by Iraqis blowing up// burning down their own assets — strains credulity.

    And we’re not talking about the guy in the street, rather the most educated socially connected players.

    Simply put, they ALL do it.

    It’s a social norm for them.

    Then, they lie about lying, but of course.

    A typical lie would cover the fact that a construction project is way, way behind schedule, and that even the foundation is not yet poured.

    It eventuated that Americans had to send other Americans out to verify all ‘ground truth.’ There were simply NO Iraqis that failed to lie at the drop of a hat — with many an Oscar winning performance, too.

    So, it’s as if — for all practical purposes — you’re dealing with children — three-year old children — standing over a broken cookie jar.

    To the American mind, why tell a lie that is CERTAIN to be exploded, which is certain to blow-back upon oneself?

    To the Arab mind, let’s see how long I can keep my BS levitated?

    And the more absurd, more extreme, well that’s all the better.

    I give you the crazy lies from Cairo during the first day of the Six Day War. Those lies were directly responsible for the loss of Jerusalem, as they made the Jordanians make all of the wrong moves.

    Strangely, but true, the Jordanians did NOT prioritize holding onto Jerusalem. Instead they let an Egyptian general order them into an insane attack intended to split Israel in half. That’s where all of the missing Jordanian defenders were sent. (!) They did so based upon the lies spewed out of Cairo.

    If left to their own impulses, the Jordanians would’ve hunkered down for an infantry fight all across Jerusalem. As 1948 showed, that would’ve been a nightmare battle for all concerned.

    Dyan was astounded at how rapidly his parachute boys took the key positions. Nothing followed expectations — for both sides.

    We see this lying culture with most immigrant Arabs. They can’t shake it. They all operate like the rag merchant in “Casablanca.”

    I give you “Clockmed” … or these latest hijab sisters — awarded an astounding $180,000 because they had their booking photo taken.

    What a scam.

16. Neo – here is this year’s definitive article about the Purim holiday.

    EVERY normal-thinker/political conservative should send this article to any liberals – and especially liberal Jews – that they know.

    http://www.seraphicpress.com/purim-the-deeply-anti-progressive-jewish-holiday-3/

17. It is my observation that part of the problem is that Israel incites Arab supremacists because the Jews, who were second class citizens in the Arab world, had the arrogance to throw off their oppression, and worse, rather than failing, are doing better than their betters– a real kick in the teeth to an honor/ shame culture with the ‘best’ religion.

    Another part of the problem is that the eschatology of Islam says that the reestablishment of Israel kicks off the end times.

    So one might say their denial to recognize Israel, denial to recognize Jewish history and the inscrutable denial that Jews are real Jews– are theological loopholes to get Muslims off the hook for the holy war which, according their most excellent book, must be initiated when Jews return to Israel. Maybe it’s a humanitarian effort on their part, (or heresy depending,) to stave off the apocalypse.

    Plus, they are supposed to win, but, there’s the other problem.

    Of course, because I am Jewish, I feel the need to apologize for writing that, sorry.

18. “hyperinfracanidmania”

    Wow… too many syllables for me. I’ve always just gone with the three ‘W’s.

    Wealthier? Oppressor
    Whiter? Oppressor
    More Western? Oppressor

    Seems to end up at the same place as hyperinfracanidmania, though.

19. Somebody must be right about something!

    The Holy Spirit is right and accurate. Humans are always wrong or lying about something or other.

    In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story—and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

    That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.-Aesop

    That happens all the time here. I don’t call it an effect of amnesia but rather of the basic human reliance and trust in self proclaimed experts that aren’t worth the value of the paper their credentials are printed on, sheepskin or no sheepskin.

    When humans are listening to those they perceive as “experts”, their brain shuts off like they are in front of an idiot box. This is part of our monkey see monkey do learning process.

    That’s when I proclaim myself an expert, it’s always a result of a competition against another expert. The self proclamation is a hidden joke in itself.

20. How great is it that immediately following Ben David’s comment mentioning Purim is a comment by Esther?

    The rest of you can look it up.

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