News Brief: Debunking the 5 Most Common Anti-Palestinian Talking Points

Listening to BBC today is insane. "Have the Palestinians been punished enough yet? Should Israel stop bombing or will that only encourage Hamas to launch rockets again?" The way they're framing this is just crazy. Nobody's mentioning how this all started with evictions and raiding the Al Aqsa mosque.

Matt

Well one reason Israel merits disproportionate coverage in the US is its supported and funded almost entirely by the US. Whereas Nigeria or Burma or Syria are not. This is certainly a reason we cover the topic.

Citations Needed

Thanks! I had listened to the BDS episode and remembered you had touched on it. The article I wasn’t aware of though, it’s very well written. The UN stuff is maybe easier to quantify because it’s essentially one entity. The various US and global news media are probably harder but not impossible to quantify how often Israel’s violence is reported relative to other Bad Guys. Let us know if you ever come across anyone that has done the research or has any useful figures.

This talking point is addressed in this article i wrote in 2017 https://fair.org/home/whataboutism-runs-amok-as-jake-tapper-rattles-off-trump-talking-points/ and in episode 7 on BDS Hope this helps

Citations Needed

One additional talking point I wish had been touched on is the notion that Israel’s atrocities receive disproportionate focus by the media and international community. Many will concede that yes they have committed human rights violations and yes they have violated the Geneva convention but argue that so do many other states, and that the disproportionate focus on Israel is inherently antisemitic. This argument, like most arguments ultimately resulting in accusations of antisemitism, usually just shut the whole conversation down. I would imagine it may be difficult to get qualitative data on this but does anyone know of any? Is there any research or data to support that western media gives Israel disproportionate attention?

"Isreal has a right to defend itself" they all say as they sound like sinclair media reading a teleprompter

A RHINO

They care now that Israel attacked a media building, how's that "clashes between two sides" going for you, journalists?: https://www.npr.org/2021/05/15/997124491/israeli-airstrike-in-gaza-destroys-building-with-ap-bureau

Matt

Thank you for this. I've spent years trying to teach people the truth about Israel, but it's so fucking hard to get through to people. I've been to Palestine twice, yet people who've barely even looked at the middle east on a map think they know better than me what I've seen. It would be cool if you could maybe boil this down to a short text we could share in social media?

Anne Martine Engebakken Grymyr

Someone asked me "if I thought Israel should exist" today and I used your rebuttals. Thanks for the assist and all you do!

Erin H