Antisemitism and the Media- Part I

Antisemitism seems to have become mainstream, nowadays. Anti-Israel sentiment is dismissed by those who espouse it, as mere policy disagreements with Israel and its actions. However, this anti-Israel sentiment rises to the level of rank antisemitism when a double standard is employed by Israel’s critics. These critics seem to expect more from Israel than what would be expected from other countries in a similar position.

Israel has been bombarded with thousands of rockets from Gaza, since the unilateral withdrawal that took place in 2005. After this unilateral withdrawal, the Palestinians destroyed structures and greenhouses that were left in usable condition, and then elected a terrorist organization to govern in Gaza. Thousands of rockets then began to rain down on Israel, from positions deep within Gaza and from areas closer to the border with Israel.

In response to these rockets, Israel is has been encouraged to utilize restraint and not to respond militarily. Israel’s leaders exercised enormous restraint for an inordinate amount of time until December 2008 when they launched Operation Cast Lead into Gaza to rout out the terrorists launching these attacks and to destroy their firing positions. World leaders and others who criticize Israel and claim that the Gaza campaign was disproportionate should ask themselves what their responses would be if faced with attacks launched against their civilians from enemy territory. Would they permit such egregious behavior towards their own citizens without responding in kind? I highly doubt it. But Israel is expected to absorb such attacks without reacting.

This double standard has been more pronounced recently in the aftermath of the Gaza flotilla incident. Israel has placed a blockade on Gaza that is permissible under international law, to prevent the importation of goods and supplies that could be used by Hamas and other terror organizations to construct smuggling tunnels and produce other items that can be used against Israeli civilians. In an obvious attempt to run the blockade, the Free Gaza movement organized the flotilla. Everyone knows that activists on the Mavi Marmara attacked the Israeli commandos (the video clearly shows this), but Israel is still accused of using disproportionate force, In addition, members of the media and the international community conveniently forget that Gaza also shares a border with Egypt, which participates in the blockade of Gaza, along with Israel. Much of the media also did not accurately report the story of this altercation, and in fact, some media outlets (specifically, Reuters) altered photographs of the incident to obscure the fact that many of the activists on the Mavi Marmara were armed with deadly weapons. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Reuters has altered photographs in an attempt to implicate Israel in unethical and inappropriate behavior. Photographs of Beirut during the 2006 Lebanon war were altered to infer that the damage to Beirut was much greater than it actually was.

I doubt that this will be the last time that Reuter’s unethically does this.