I have more from the English Al-Jazeera site. Once more, we must remember that they tone down their rhetoric drastically for their English readers. Everything I've heard about the Arabic versions of their stories is that it's many degrees more virulent and anti-Western. I'm sure you've seen the direct quotes about how American soldiers are known to be "trigger happy."

Against this backdrop, real Marines are in Iraq dodging real bullets during their shifts, only to turn around and work even harder for the Iraqis in their off-hours, building schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. Now they are setting up Iraqi television stations in the hope of getting unbiased information out to the people and combatting the obscenely one-sided version of events Al-Jazeera puts out there.

It's especially interesting to me that one cannot do any kind of a cut-and-paste from the Al-Jazeera English-language site. Any time I try to highlight text, I'm simply bounced to the top of the same page. They apparently do not want to be quoted.

In an article headlined "Israelis Better at Manipulating Media," one Dr. Toine Van Teeffele (a Dutch academic) makes the following statement about the way the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is couched in the Western press:

Palestinian violence is dramatised and looks somehow aggressive by nature. On the other hand, the structural violence and illegitimacy of the occupation is less emphasized in most Western accounts.

. . . looks somehow aggressive by nature.
Innocent men, women and children getting blown up in pizza parlors and shopping malls strikes me as "aggressive by nature," no matter how academics might want to spin or "contextualize" it. (Yes--the same article explains that the conflict isn't "contextualized" enough. Amazing.)

the structural violence and illegitimacy of the occupation is less emphasized . . .
"Structural violence" is another great phrase, apparently conceived by sophists, for sophists. If one side is behaving obscenely, and the other is not, we can always pretend they are equivalent by ascribing "structural violence" to the Israeli side--even if we can't show them engaging in the real kind.

The Palestinians were the ones who--aided, I'm sure, by accounts seen on Al-Jazeera of American evilness--cheered in the streets when they heard thousands of Americans were killed in the WTC towers on 9/11.

Don't let the Iraqis be led down the same misguided path: let's make sure they hear and see both sides of every story. Send your donation to the Spirit of America today. Please.

Posted by: Attila at 04:29 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 It's especially interesting to me that one cannot do any kind of a cut-and-paste from the Al-Jazeera English-language site. Any time I try to highlight text, I'm simply bounced to the top of the same page. They apparently do not want to be quoted. Works fine for me. You might try "View Source."

Posted by: Christophe at April 22, 2004 05:03 PM (2rBIo)

2 Perhaps they only want power users to quote them; maybe they're just snobs.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 23, 2004 12:31 AM (q85Vj)

3 hiya, you may wanna try, highlighting the text, then go up to Edit, Copy. seems to work on some sites. good luck tony lavanway south haven, mi

Posted by: tony lavanway at April 25, 2004 07:09 PM (yJrQ5)

4 That's what I was doing: trying to highlight the damned text. It wouldn't let me.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 25, 2004 11:22 PM (q85Vj)

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