Tuesday
Jun012010
Gaza Flotilla: A Short Note on Why Our "New Media" Are Essential
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 8:44 
I'm just going to post this extract from an article by Donald Macintyre of The Independent of London, noting the background that EA made the decision to start LiveBlogging during the Gaza War of 2008/9, and let readers draw conclusions:[Jonah's Hill overlooking the port of Ashdod] was near as we could get --– and reminiscent of the so-called "hill of shame" from which we were forced to watch Israel's bombardment of Gaza during the 2008-9 war, having been excluded from entering the territory.
Once again we had no access for most of the day to those on the other side – then it was the Gaza population, now it was the passengers. And this time even telephone contact was impossible, with the passengers' mobile and satellite phones having been temporarily blocked or confiscated.
Whether intentionally or not, the quarantining of reporters from the several hundred activists brought ashore at intervals of several hours yesterday helped to underpin a sophisticated and comprehensive Israeli media operation that ran through the day.
For the most part, Israel commanded the air waves as comprehensively as they had commanded those of the south-east Mediterranean in the early hours of the morning.
At Jonah's Hill, officials from the Israeli military and government departments fanned out among the reporters, relaying with courtesy and fluency their version of events.
This in turn was reinforced by a stream of analysis and explanation by politicians and sympathetic analysts in the live television coverage throughout the day and, by late afternoon, there was the aerial black-and-white film, supplied by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), of commandos landing aboard the Mavi Marmara.
The core message was that the deadly violence was started not by the Navy but by activists on board the vessel who had attacked Israeli forces.
And that Israel was within its legal right to carry out the operation in international rather its own territorial waters because it could not be sure that the flotilla did not pose a threat to its security.
tagged Gaza War, Israel, New Media, Palestine in Middle East & Iran
Gaza War, Israel, New Media, Palestine in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (15)
[...] Enduring America Read More [...]
[...] Gaza Flotilla: The Text of the UN Security Council Statement NEW Gaza Flotilla: A Short Note on Why Our “New Media” Are Essential NEW Blaming the Gaza Flotilla: Text of US Remarks in Security Council NEW The Flotilla: Has Israel [...]
There is no New Media. There is only ONE media. Most people enter the field of journalism (blogging online and print) because they "want to make a difference" (as defined in liberals' terms), but in journalism school, they were taught that they need to hide their biases. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case in journalism schools as they now encourage students to freely express their biased opinions. "Liberal views are the righteous ones, so it is ethical to express manipulate/indoctrinate your audience, the readers." So, journalists feel justified in doing what they originally wanted to do: Instead of reporting all sides of an issue fairly, they manipulate the public into believing what they believe. They have the ability to manipulate an unsuspecting public and they do it. Just take a look at this cute little piece. -- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/world/middleeast/01flotilla.html?hp" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/world/middlee...
Let's face it: the vast majority of blogs are left-of-center blogs. I challenge Enduring America as I challenge the rest of THE media -- please give us clear, IMPARTIAL and OBJECTIVE reporting and analysis.
israel 's repel from a helicoptor on a night op, w/ night vision equipment but their weapons are paintball guns - YEAH RIGHT
hey dave i been friends with eanews for almost a year and half and i can tell u he is not liberal...eanews is independent...critisizes both sides ...face it buddy israel is in deep shit... you will not get away with murder
[...] data speaks for itself. The data for the Gaza strip was unavailable, probably a combination of Israel controlling the press inside the country and the numbers being too low to [...]
“The vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well – 83% of likely voters said the media is biased in one direction or another, while just 11% believe the media doesn’t take political sides.”
"And no wonder. News programming today often makes little distinction between news reporting and commentary, and the journalist is often as important as the news itself."
http://eastwikkers.typepad.com/eastwikkers_/2007/03/i_objective_rep.html" rel="nofollow">http://eastwikkers.typepad.com/eastwikkers_/200...
On Newsnight last night they said at least one Israeli had some kind of Uzi submachine gun, so the paintball gun thing isn't the whole story. (Link here I think http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8718036.stm, though the video may not work outside the UK.)
Tehranweekly,
As silly as it may sound the IDF forces did go onto the ships with paintball guns. If you remember the Basiji even started shooting people with paint guns. It simulates an attack and the body upon being hit with red paint causes the person to flee or submit. A number of sources, articles, and activists aboard the boats have all said the IDF came on board with paintball guns!!
Thx
Bill
On Newsnight last night they said at least one Israeli had some kind of Uzi submachine gun, so the paintball gun thing isn't the whole story. (Link here I think, though it may only work in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8718036.stm)
So... what about the content of the story. Did Israel not in fact suppress news gathering? Maybe you can help us. Correct this view. But Israel's propaganda machine continues to sound like the down is up, black is white, 2 + 2 = 5 Ahmadinejad type stuff on this particular incident.
And, the Lee Atwater playbook is oh so tiresome. The irony is that you sound like Sean Hannity or a certain other celebrity talking about the "lamestream media" when decrying bias. I welcome a good debate, but there are still many center-right and far right sites out there where you may be happier.
I'm also wondering how crack these commandos were...
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e20133ef7b0154970b-550wi" rel="nofollow">http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.a/6a00d8...
Mike,
Thanks for the update. I was able to render the video. I have not said they did not have guns or Uzi's. My point was in reference to the IDF soilders who boarded via the helicopter. The video Ali provided clearly shows them with paintball guns(at the end of the video you can clearly see the outline of paintball gun with the prominent ball container on top--if you've ever seen a paintball gun you'll know what I am talking about.) As for the actual guns I did see several videos with IDF soilders with machine guns. However the only ones I saw were in boats. In one video it showed the IDF getting pelted with a box of plates, other objects, water, and even a stun grenade(someone missed that during the inspection for weapons prior to the flotilla setting sail.) Even through the barrage you can see one guy pointing the gun but during the entire video they never fired. I would have to imagine the secondary wave probably did have machine guns though. The IDF correctly surmized it was to dangerous to drop people with live machine guns. All it would have taken is one machine gun being taken(like the pistols that were swiped) and a lot more people would have been dead including many of the IDF soilders.
Thx
Bill
Very simple. It's Israeli soldiers, they've been told to take over the ship and so they have done. I would never dare to go down this rope into the violent crowd, but they did - and won. Commanders screwed up, but soldiers are heroes. And G-d bless their restraint; it could well end up with dozens of killed. Try to pull this trick on the marines of any other country.
I don't think they surmised it was too dangerous. According to this logic, let's send them all to the battle unarmed. I think they grossly miscalculated the aggressiveness of the crowd. They should have known better after getting the strong resistance when attempting to board the ship from the boats, but they still proceeded sending down troops with peacekeeper/crowd control mindset, instructed to argue and convince, use paintball guns to control the mild violence and handguns only in extreme danger. Bless them for their professionalism - they could easily kill dozens of protesters had they used the guns from the beginning. The second wave, I hope, arrived properly armed.