P U L S E
January 9, 2009
Dear Friends:
I am deeply humbled by all the words of encouragement and appreciation you have directed my way. Things were not turning out the way I had expected and as a result the hiatus turned out to be far longer than I had anticipated. I am still tied down by my responsibilities, but the outrages in Gaza have imposed their own demand. Ann and I agreed that we would be remiss in our responsibilties if we remained AWOL during this crisis. For this reason we have decided to launch a joint blog, Pulse, which you can find at Pulsemedia.org. We are also joined in this effort by Robin Yassin-Kassab, Ludek Stavinoha and Dave Thomson. As the activities on our own respective blogs would be mostly suspended from now on, I would encourage you all to update your bookmarks with the new URL (fanonite.org will soon also point to the new blog).
Thank you once again for your support, and your patience.
Yours,
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Another Chorister for Israel
January 9, 2009
Nidal El-Khairy
On February 29 last year the BBC’s website reported deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai threatening a ‘holocaust’ on Gaza. Headlined “Israel warns of Gaza ‘holocaust’”, the story would undergo nine revisions in the next twelve hours. Before the day was over, the headline would read “Gaza militants ‘risking disaster’“. (The story has since been revised again with an exculpatory note added soft-pedalling Vilnai’s comments). An Israeli threatening ‘holocaust’ may be unpalatable to those who routinely invoke its spectre to deflect criticism from the Jewish state’s criminal behaviour. With the ‘holocaust’ reference redacted, the new headline shifted culpability neatly into the hands of ‘Gaza militants’ instead.
One could argue that the BBC’s radical alteration of the story reflects its susceptibility to the kind of inordinate pressure for which the Israel Lobby’s well-oiled flak machine is notorious. But, as I will show in subsequent examples, this story is exceptional only insofar as it reported accurately in the first place something that could bear negatively on Israel’s image. The norm is reflexive self-censorship. Read the rest of this entry »
