By Daled Amos
If you are in the business of looking for examples of media bias, one endless
source is Donald Trump.
Another is Israel.
That is what Newsbusters has found.
They are part of the Media Research Center
(MRC):
The mission of the Media Research Center is to document and combat the falsehoods and censorship of the news media, entertainment media and Big Tech in order to defend and preserve America's founding principles and Judeo-Christian values.They even have a section on their site dedicated to Israel/Palestine.
In a recent article, they cover the problem of bias in the media coverage of
Israel following the Hamas massacre on October 7 -- namely, the pro-Israel bias of CNN.
That is what Christiane Amanpour and her fellow Arab journalists claim.
According to The Intercept, CNN has a double standard when it
comes to Israel, and
there is an anti-Arab climate at the media institution:
In the hourlong meeting at CNN’s London Bureau on February 13, staffers took turns questioning a panel of executives about CNN’s protocols for covering the war in Gaza and what they describe as a hostile climate for Arab reporters. Several junior and senior CNN employees described feeling devalued, embarrassed, and disgraced by CNN’s war coverage.I never would have thought of CNN harboring a pro-Israel bias.
Nor would I have thought of CNN having an anti-Arab bias.
Yet that is what CNN journalists claim:
“I was in southern Lebanon during October and November,” one journalist said. “And it was more distressing for me to turn on CNN, than the bombs falling nearby.”What is the anti-Arab bias this journalist is talking about?
...Instead of finding solace in CNN’s coverage of the war, the staffer continued, “I find that my colleagues, my family, are platforming people over and over again, that are either calling for my death, or using very dehumanizing language against me … and people that look like me. And obviously, this has a huge impact in our credibility in the region.”
The journalist posed a question to the executives: “I want to ask as well, what have you done, and what are you doing to address the hate speech that fills our air and informed our coverage, especially in the first few months of the war?”
...Another staffer disputed that characterization and noted that Arab and Muslim journalists walk a difficult line between feeling proud of working for CNN while facing pressure from their families and communities over working for a network with a pronounced pro-Israel bias.
The Intercept helpfully fills in the blanks:
Another newsroom staffer chimed in to object to the network’s uncritical coverage of statements by Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. “I think a lot of us felt very strongly about the fact that there were very senior anchors not challenging people like, comments like, the defense minister using what is considered under international law, genocidal language, ‘human animals,’ all of those things that made up the first seven pages of the South African legal case at the ICJ,” referring to the International Court of Justice.
...The staffer went on to say that Muslim or Arab journalists at CNN were made to feel that they must denounce Hamas to clear their names and be taken seriously as journalists. “I’ve heard this, where a number of younger colleagues now feel that they didn’t want to put their hands up to speak up even in the kind of the local Bureau meeting,” the staffer said. “People were taking their names off bylines.”
What The Intercept thought was the icing on the cake reveals
what is really going on. Criticism and objections aimed at Hamas are being
interpreted as attacks on Palestinian Arabs and on Arabs in general.
One issue is the alleged verbal threats. As far as the allegedly genocidal
comments by Israeli officials go, Yair Rosenberg at The Atlantic has an
article,
What Did Top Israeli War Officials Really Say About Gaza? that addresses this. He goes point by point, quote by quote, and
demonstrates that quotes directed at Hamas are being twisted to make it seem
they are directed at Gazans and Palestinian Arabs in general. That Arab
journalists would be expected to denounce Hamas terrorists for the massacre
and rape of Israeli civilians is hardly extreme. But the claim by these
journalists that such an expectation was unreasonable and unexpected is.
Another issue is that some of the claims by CNN journalists of their
reaction to alleged anti-Arab prejudice sound similar to what Jews have long
suffered, first on college campuses and now on the streets around the world.
We hear about Jews being told they need to condemn Israel or Zionism. For
years, the media has reported that Jews are afraid to do anything or wear
anything that reveals their Jewish identity. Now, Arab journalists claim
they are intimidated by the idea they should condemn Hamas or afraid to
raise their hand at a meeting.
This is reminiscent of CAIR's claims about rising Islamophobia.
Investor's Business Daily had an article in 2006 describing
CAIR's exaggerated claims about attacks against Muslims:
New FBI data on hate crimes reveal Muslim groups are crying wolf about exploding anti-Muslim abuses. They're actually shrinking, belying claims of mass Islamophobia.The article went on to point out that the data indicated that 66% of religiously motivated attacks targeted Jews, but 11% were carried out against Muslims.
FBI data showed that hate crimes against Muslims, while a reality, were
clearly declining.
But that did not stop CAIR from issuing its 2006 report where it said it
hopes "the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and
Congress will come to understand the full scope of anti-Muslim
discrimination and rising Islamophobia in our nation today."
Fortunately, CAIR is not the only source for hate crimes against Muslims:
The FBI report gives lie to CAIR's alarmist narrative of "Islamophobic" lynch mobs marching on mosques across America. In reality, Americans have been remarkably, and admirably, tolerant and respectful of Muslims and their institutions since 9/11.
There were 2,042 reported incidents based on religion. More than half of these (1,122) were driven by anti-Jewish bias. Incidents involving anti-Muslim (158) and anti-Sikh (181) sentiments remained at similar levels compared to 2021.
It's fair to ask if CAIR is still exaggerating reports of Muslim hate
crimes.
This issue of antisemitism vs Islamophobia can also be flipped around. We
hear the accusation that Jews weaponize antisemitism to deflect criticism of
Israel. Rarely is the accusation supported with examples. Some criticize the
IHRA definition of antisemitism for the same deflection, even though that
definition explicitly says not all criticism of Israel is antisemitism.
Compare that with
what some have been saying about Islamophobia for years:
Western Islamists utilize Islamophobia as a label for any criticism not just of Islam and Muslims but also of themselves. Any scrutiny of Islamist ideology and actors can be easily labelled as racist, an attempt by people with privilege to silence marginalized voices of color. This charge is made also against critics of Islamism with a Muslim background, as they too are not rarely accused of being Islamophobes.This reminds me of a report in 2011 when French President Sarkozy's advisor said Muslims should wear a "green star" to protest against a debate on secularism and Islam.
|
|
Abderrahmane Dahmane, former diversity adviser of French
President
Nicolas Sarkozy points to a green star during a
news conference
in front of the Grande Mosque of Paris on March 29, 2011.
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Then, too, Muslims claimed to suffer discrimination that rivaled, if not
surpassed, the suffering of the Jews.
The irony then was that the yellow star originated not with the Nazis but
with the Muslims themselves.
Just as the current upsurge of hostility against Jews and Muslims originates in no small part from the Hamas massacre.
Hate crimes exist, and there is more than enough hate to go around.
Just as the current upsurge of hostility against Jews and Muslims originates in no small part from the Hamas massacre.
