This grotesquely unbalanced article was published in CBC online on March 21:
After several long articles by CBC discussing Obama's visit to Israel, this one was meant to be the article covering his short visit to Palestine. However over half the article was not discussing Obama's visit at all, but spoke of two rockets that had been fired into Israel from Gaza. The message that CBC clearly wants to convey here is that Palestinians are incorrigible, and they are always at fault. CBC's message is Orwellian. It turns reality upside down. Recently CBC mentioned as an aside that a 16-year old Palestinian was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. There was no follow up. But these two innocuous rockets warranted supplanting real news about the Palestinian position as it must have been expressed to Obama.
Also it is worth noting these inane quotations in this article from Israelis, and the glaring fact that there is not a single quotation from a Palestinian:
1) "We will be closely watching Palestinian President Abbas today to see if he condemns these attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians," a senior Israeli government official in Jerusalem said after the attack. Whether Abbas condemns this incident or not is irrelevant. He has publicly condemned Gaza rocket attacks many times in the past. Given the suffering of Palestinians and the brevity of his meeting with Obama, he must have had bigger priorities.
2) Yossi Haziza, a Sderot resident in whose courtyard the first rocket exploded, was looking at the walls of his home sprayed with shrapnel and shattered windows.
"I wish this was merely damage to property but my eight year old daughter and my wife are terrified," Haziza said. "We just want to live in peace. We don't want to keep having to run to bomb shelters." There is no doubt that some Israelis suffer because of the currrent lack of peace, but the suffering of Palestinians is a thousand-fold worse than the suffering of Israelis. Citizens on both sides want peace, but there is no reason to believe that Israelis, who prosper under the status quo, want it more than Palestinians who suffer terribly under the status quo.
Also it is worth noting the inane quotes given by Obama in the article, and the fact that CBC reports them without analysis and showing how hollow they are:
1) U.S. President Barack Obama ....said Thursday that Palestinians deserve a sovereign state, and "an end to occupation and the daily indignities that come with it."
"Daily indignities" - One would think that getting shot in the head is more than an "indignity". The amount of suffering that is imposed on the Palestinians by the occupation (which should more accurately be described as "ethnic cleansing") is horrific, involving imprisonment, bombings, shootings, house demolitions, destruction of livelihoods and olive trees, theft of crucial water resources, loss of land, and the list goes on. There is no way these can simply be described as "indignities". Obama's language may be diplomatic, but it is also disgraceful, and CBC should say so.
2) "We don't consider [the settlements] to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace," he (Obama) said.
The settlements serve only one purpose which is land expropriation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Obama's convoluted remarks that they are "not constructive" carry as much meaning as someone saying, "Killing people's children does not contribute to friendship with them." CBC should have pointed out how devastating the settlement building project is to the welfare of Palestinians and the possibilities of peace, and not just echoed Obama's inane statement.
Finally, how is it that CBC has space for all these inane, useless, meaningless quotations that would fit nicely into an Israeli propaganda piece, but does not quote a single Palestinian, either an official or a man on the street? Certainly there is something fundamentally corrupt about CBC's reporting on the Middle East.
Palestinians 'deserve a state of their own,' Obama says
U.S. president visits with Mahmoud Abbas in West Bank city of Ramallah
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/21/barack-obama-israel-visit.htmlAfter several long articles by CBC discussing Obama's visit to Israel, this one was meant to be the article covering his short visit to Palestine. However over half the article was not discussing Obama's visit at all, but spoke of two rockets that had been fired into Israel from Gaza. The message that CBC clearly wants to convey here is that Palestinians are incorrigible, and they are always at fault. CBC's message is Orwellian. It turns reality upside down. Recently CBC mentioned as an aside that a 16-year old Palestinian was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. There was no follow up. But these two innocuous rockets warranted supplanting real news about the Palestinian position as it must have been expressed to Obama.
Also it is worth noting these inane quotations in this article from Israelis, and the glaring fact that there is not a single quotation from a Palestinian:
1) "We will be closely watching Palestinian President Abbas today to see if he condemns these attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians," a senior Israeli government official in Jerusalem said after the attack. Whether Abbas condemns this incident or not is irrelevant. He has publicly condemned Gaza rocket attacks many times in the past. Given the suffering of Palestinians and the brevity of his meeting with Obama, he must have had bigger priorities.
2) Yossi Haziza, a Sderot resident in whose courtyard the first rocket exploded, was looking at the walls of his home sprayed with shrapnel and shattered windows.
"I wish this was merely damage to property but my eight year old daughter and my wife are terrified," Haziza said. "We just want to live in peace. We don't want to keep having to run to bomb shelters." There is no doubt that some Israelis suffer because of the currrent lack of peace, but the suffering of Palestinians is a thousand-fold worse than the suffering of Israelis. Citizens on both sides want peace, but there is no reason to believe that Israelis, who prosper under the status quo, want it more than Palestinians who suffer terribly under the status quo.
Also it is worth noting the inane quotes given by Obama in the article, and the fact that CBC reports them without analysis and showing how hollow they are:
1) U.S. President Barack Obama ....said Thursday that Palestinians deserve a sovereign state, and "an end to occupation and the daily indignities that come with it."
"Daily indignities" - One would think that getting shot in the head is more than an "indignity". The amount of suffering that is imposed on the Palestinians by the occupation (which should more accurately be described as "ethnic cleansing") is horrific, involving imprisonment, bombings, shootings, house demolitions, destruction of livelihoods and olive trees, theft of crucial water resources, loss of land, and the list goes on. There is no way these can simply be described as "indignities". Obama's language may be diplomatic, but it is also disgraceful, and CBC should say so.
2) "We don't consider [the settlements] to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace," he (Obama) said.
The settlements serve only one purpose which is land expropriation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Obama's convoluted remarks that they are "not constructive" carry as much meaning as someone saying, "Killing people's children does not contribute to friendship with them." CBC should have pointed out how devastating the settlement building project is to the welfare of Palestinians and the possibilities of peace, and not just echoed Obama's inane statement.
Finally, how is it that CBC has space for all these inane, useless, meaningless quotations that would fit nicely into an Israeli propaganda piece, but does not quote a single Palestinian, either an official or a man on the street? Certainly there is something fundamentally corrupt about CBC's reporting on the Middle East.
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