It astounds me how poor Israel is in public relations. The amount of easily disproved anti Israel propaganda disseminated by media is staggering. This guy here does more all alone than the rest of Israeli PR
NYT anti-Semitic?? They constantly play down the ‘Israeli’ Haganah’s actions; they are more critical of student protests than they are of an American-sponsored genocide …
Ryan, I know you have a sore-spot about the New York Times, and you resent or at least criticize them for not having more vets on staff. With respect, I would suggest that you have a kind of reverse bias of that which you are accusing the Times for having. Because your main life experience is in the military, you think only people like you can legitimately understand or report on military related stories. But personal life-earned expertise can also provide blinders which allow us to see things from a very limited point of view.
Reporters, from the Times or anywhere else, have to report on all kinds of things they know nothing about, so mistakes are made inevitably, but overall the profession of journalism is supposed get more hits than misses and I think that is true of more times than it is not (not counting internet click-bait and similar sources of information). In my time as a television producer, at various times I had to do stories about the Roman Empire, the Arab Israeli conflict, the death of James Dean, the history of Islam, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holocaust, Leonardo Da Vinci, the melting West Antarctic Ice sheets and on and on, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I was not always correct, as hate mail from viewers would sometimes remind me but I did my best and I generally did pretty well.
The idea that one flawed news story had some giant geopolitical effect is kind of simplistic. Actually, the Times has long been criticized for being pro-Israeli and the suggestion that they are anti-semitic (if I understand you correctly) is just silly. And Israel didn’t fall from International grace from a single event or news story. They have been on the path they are currently on, for many, many years. The entire peace movement and the Israeli left in general was destroyed by the Palestinian suicide bombings of the second Intifada (I was in Israel at that time). They have been marching resolutely to the right ever since, with terrible costs to the Palestinians. In spite of international condemnation over many years, they have continued their very severe occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and increased the influence of the right wing settler movement, including a stated desire by these right-wing parties to annex the West Bank. The Gaza war is just the most recent action that has attracted such almost universal international condemnation.
Other than the fact that I disagree with your entire premise in this case, I always enjoy your posts.
One other thing about the astounding victory of the rebels. Turkey saw that Assad was weak and it was a brilliant opportunity to get rid of Assad. That allowed Turkey to turn their militias in Syria loose and topple the Assad regime. Once done, that frees up the Turkish aligned militias in Syria to turn their sights on Erdoğan's and Turkey's real enemy: the Kurds.
It astounds me how poor Israel is in public relations. The amount of easily disproved anti Israel propaganda disseminated by media is staggering. This guy here does more all alone than the rest of Israeli PR
http://travelingisrael.com
Bravo!
NYT anti-Semitic?? They constantly play down the ‘Israeli’ Haganah’s actions; they are more critical of student protests than they are of an American-sponsored genocide …
Unintended consequences can be serious
Ryan, I know you have a sore-spot about the New York Times, and you resent or at least criticize them for not having more vets on staff. With respect, I would suggest that you have a kind of reverse bias of that which you are accusing the Times for having. Because your main life experience is in the military, you think only people like you can legitimately understand or report on military related stories. But personal life-earned expertise can also provide blinders which allow us to see things from a very limited point of view.
Reporters, from the Times or anywhere else, have to report on all kinds of things they know nothing about, so mistakes are made inevitably, but overall the profession of journalism is supposed get more hits than misses and I think that is true of more times than it is not (not counting internet click-bait and similar sources of information). In my time as a television producer, at various times I had to do stories about the Roman Empire, the Arab Israeli conflict, the death of James Dean, the history of Islam, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holocaust, Leonardo Da Vinci, the melting West Antarctic Ice sheets and on and on, from the sublime to the ridiculous. I was not always correct, as hate mail from viewers would sometimes remind me but I did my best and I generally did pretty well.
The idea that one flawed news story had some giant geopolitical effect is kind of simplistic. Actually, the Times has long been criticized for being pro-Israeli and the suggestion that they are anti-semitic (if I understand you correctly) is just silly. And Israel didn’t fall from International grace from a single event or news story. They have been on the path they are currently on, for many, many years. The entire peace movement and the Israeli left in general was destroyed by the Palestinian suicide bombings of the second Intifada (I was in Israel at that time). They have been marching resolutely to the right ever since, with terrible costs to the Palestinians. In spite of international condemnation over many years, they have continued their very severe occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and increased the influence of the right wing settler movement, including a stated desire by these right-wing parties to annex the West Bank. The Gaza war is just the most recent action that has attracted such almost universal international condemnation.
Other than the fact that I disagree with your entire premise in this case, I always enjoy your posts.
Israel IS just running around indiscriminately killing innocent people though. The IDF and Israeli government are the bad guys in this story.
"The way to get it right is to hire good people."
Ryan once again gets to the heart of the matter.
One other thing about the astounding victory of the rebels. Turkey saw that Assad was weak and it was a brilliant opportunity to get rid of Assad. That allowed Turkey to turn their militias in Syria loose and topple the Assad regime. Once done, that frees up the Turkish aligned militias in Syria to turn their sights on Erdoğan's and Turkey's real enemy: the Kurds.