one reason why israel is so good at Propaganda

[useless]

How can you report about children or civilians dying/being harmed without actually, you know, showing any images that substantiate it?

 

[Quackers]

They don't?

I never see dead children on the BBC, do you?

 

[useless]

I didn't just say dead children.

 

[Quackers]

Ok..i don't see dead adults on the BBC either.

 

[useless]

"Dead/Being harmed" i said, with the implication of civilians being in harms way, apologies i didn't make that exactly clear.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I watched the BBC 1 O clock news.

The newscaster was saying that Israel were gearing up for another assault on Gaza. What images did we see during this part of the programme? A room full of innocent, cute Palestinian children.

Stinks of propaganda to me.

Normally I'd agree. In this case though that is pretty much the core of the story. There is no 'military situation' to cover, since the Israelis have a military and the Palestinians frankly don't and everyone knows this conflict is going to make absolutely no change in the relative strength of the combatants. There is no diplomacy to cover since there is none in progress or even being attempted. The only story there is really is Palestinian casualties. While I don't think the Israelis are targeting children there doesn't seem to be any shortage of them being killed, which does make the situation somewhat unique, so that is going to feature in the coverage.

 

[bhsup]

How can you report about children or civilians dying/being harmed without actually, you know, showing any images that substantiate it?

Have you ever read any reports about battles that predate the mid-19th century? I imagine you have. We know they happened. If they couldn't be reported without graphic images, we would not even be aware conflict existed before, oh, say the Mexican-American War.

 

[kochman]

The question was silly. Good way to point it out bhsup.

We don't have to show misery to understand misery is happening.
It's something that some people may not want to see...

 

[useless]

Have you ever read any reports about battles that predate the mid-19th century? I imagine you have. We know they happened. If they couldn't be reported without graphic images, we would not even be aware conflict existed before, oh, say the Mexican-American War.

We live in a society that is saturated with TV, so it stands that there is a higher burden of proof now, beyond just writing. I also wasn't literally arguing that we wouldn't know things existed if they weren't shown on TV or pictures.

Jesus Christ.

The intellectual dishonesty here is staggering.

 

[kochman]

Showing graphic suffering of children is not necessary.
It doesn't happen because it turns people off, and media isn't in the business of turning people off.

If you want that gruesome stuff, it exists on the internets, and you can seek it out, rather than having it thrust in your face as main stream news often is in the workplace, etc.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What images did we see during this part of the programme? A room full of innocent, cute Palestinian children.

Showing graphic suffering of children is not necessary.

Not only not necessary, but in this case apparently not happening...though I have been in some pretty miserable classrooms...

 

[bhsup]

We live in a society that is saturated with TV, so it stands that there is a higher burden of proof now, beyond just writing. I also wasn't literally arguing that we wouldn't know things existed if they weren't shown on TV or pictures.

Jesus Christ.

The intellectual dishonesty here is staggering.

I wasn't being dishonest. I tend to read things quite literally most of the time. What you wrote came across to me exactly as I responded to it.

@Timsup2nothin: I just noticed your reply to my post from yesterday. I'll get to it later. Sorry. If I forget, PM me.

 

[useless]

Well then i apologise.

Sorry Bhsup.

 

[classical_hero]

No. You have to prove that the risk to civilians was not excessive compared to the military advantage gained from making the attack. As per the Geneva Conventions you have already been cited.

We all know what the military advantage is from attacking such a place. Virtually nil. Whereas the risk to civilians is roughly one dead per four attacks.

Obvious war crime.

Each rocket has the potential to kill civilians and you say there is no military purpose. What world are you living in?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/183554#.U9qjsXgUNpg

Customs officials at southern Israel's Ashdod port discovered hundreds of ball-bearings and cement mixers in a Turkish shipment of "humanitarian aid" to Gaza on Wednesday, raising fears the cargo could have been used by Hamas to support its ongoing war against Israel, according to Channel Two.

While both items have civilian uses, both have played a central role building Hamas's rocket arsenal and its vast network of "terror tunnels" into Israel.

Terrorists in Gaza regularly use ball-bearings to maximize the lethality of locally-made, short-range Qassam rockets. Unlike other, more powerful long-range rockets and military-grade mortar shells smuggled into Gaza from state-sponsors such as Iran, Qassam rockets have a relatively small warhead. But while the explosion itself may be relatively "small", the rockets are also packed with shrapnel - including nails, razors and, most commonly, ball-bearings - which are scattered throughout a relatively wide radius upon impact, maiming or killing anyone in the vicinity.

The co-opting of hundreds of tons of concrete supplies by Hamas to build its underground tunnel network, used to store and transport weapons as well as carry out attacks inside Israel, has also been well-documented.

The timing of those specific items of "humanitarian aid" is particularly suspicious; Gaza's civilian population are hardly appealing for fresh supplies of ball-bearings, and rebuilding targets struck by the Israeli Air Force while it is still operating over Gaza's skies seems a rather unfruitful endeavor.

Obviously there is a big need for ball bearings in Gaza for humanitarian purposes of course.

What a silly article. Just picking the above, we know perfectly well how many rocket attacks there are. Our position is not that there is no cause for any action at all (an obvious strawman) but that the response is excessive to the point of constituting war crimes and that the solution is diplomatic, not the worn-out and counterproductive one of bombing Gaza.

Diplomacy has failed every time and yet you think it can work this time. I fail to see how the response has been excessive. Just because civilians die doesn't mean a war crime has been committed. There have been thousands of attacks on Hamas terror targets and yet the potential for each attack to kill plenty of civilians n huge. If Israel has been excessive in their attack then we could easily be in a situation that makes Syria look like a walk in the park, where in that country civilians are the target. Israel has done its best to minimise the civilian deaths when Hamas does its very best to cause civilians to be in harms way. If you can't see that they you clearly blind to the tactics of Jamas and are basically in a strange way supporting their tactics by blaming Israel for daring to respond to attacks.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Diplomacy has failed every time and yet you think it can work this time.

Israel has never participated in diplomacy. Eventually bigger powers sit down and work out a deal and impose it on Israel and whoever they are fighting with. Usually the terms are favorable to Israel by a pretty good margin. Israel then points to the deal they agreed to as if they came up with it themselves and complains from the moment it is signed until it breaks down about whatever terms did not go their way.

This time there's no major power that seems likely to speak for the Palestinians in Gaza, so it looks like the slaughter will continue until Israel gets tired of it.

 

[Ajidica]

Diplomacy has failed every time and yet you think it can work this time.

It worked with the PLO. When the Israeli government tried a military solution to the PLO by invading Lebanon, all they accomplished was loosing a lot of the sympathy they had built up, engaging in war crimes with their Phalangist allies, and completely mucking up an already screwed up country that sort of was on the path to stability under Syrian peacekeeping.*

As far as can be established the Israeli government is not conducting and has no plans to conduct a diplomatic offensive at the Unity government to extract concessions from Hamas. However, all they are doing currently is wrecking what little progress had been made in diplomatic talks with Fatah and demonstrated to Hamas that the Israeli government is fundamentally unwilling to have any sort of diplomatic solutions on Palestinian statehood.

Oh, and as should be obvious but you always seem to forget it, I consider Hamas to consist of a bunch of short sighted violent nutters who are also going about creating a Palestinian state in a completely unproductive way.


*It was the Christian government that had invited the Syrian government in to try and restore stability by fighting the largely Palestinian and Druze (at least I think it was them, blanking on the group) Islamic militants. Keep in mind there was no love lost between the Syrians and the PLO as the Syrians had helped the Jordanian monarchy during Black September. As the war dragged on Syria increasingly found its troops under attack by some Christian extremist groups as the Muslims were forced on the defensive. Certain Christian elements in the south decided to get Israel involved and the whole thing collapsed further.

 

[Tee Kay]

Antisemite!

 

[brennan]

Each rocket has the potential to kill civilians

A cowardly equivocation. The actual threat level is well known and extremely low. Far lower than the threat to civilians of the IDF 'defence'.

Diplomacy has failed every time and yet you think it can work this time.

Diplomacy fails because is is sabotaged by people refusing to make sensible offers. If they make sensible offers then it can work. Right now Hamas wants the blockade on Gaza lifted and the airstrikes stopped. Israel wants Hamas to recognise Israel as a state with the right to exist and a stop to rocket attacks. There's obvious grounds for agreement.

 

[kochman]

Israel has never participated in diplomacy.

Nonsense. It depends on the party in power, and even the Netanyahu eventually comes to the table (from his desired position of strength, which isn't necessarily a fault in a leader).
This type of inaccurate hyperbole is not helping anyone understand the situation.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The BBC is not impartial, it is partial to presenting the most juiced up story they can tell.

Oh never mind, this was so last page.