Sunday, September 03, 2006

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

This documentary is a very calm, very rational and unemotive look at how the Israel/Palestine conflict is protrayed in the US media (in case you didn't know, the basic conclusion is that it systematically portrays Israel as the victim and Palestinians as terrorists). Footage from US TV and quotes from newspapers show exactly how the same phrases are applied over and over to make Israel look like it is simply defending itself agsint crazy Palestinians who have no reasonable demands and are only interested in the destruction of Israel. US coverage is put in stark contrast to the BBC's coverage of the situation which is far more even handed.

Everyone in the US should watch this so that they can get a glimpse of what their media are hiding from them and what their politicians are doing in their name, with their tax dollars. Everyone else should watch this because it's simply an excellent documentary.

Us Europeans shouldn't be too smug though. As sites like Media Lens show, just because coverage of these issues is better over here than in the US, that doesn't mean that there is no bias over here.

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