As a nation that "claims" to be both democratic and fair minded; we expect much higher standards and a better code of conduct from Israel, than those inmates in charge of the asylum, who want to annihilate her.
And with each new illegal settlement/over the top reprisal; that perception of democratic fair play/inherent decency, is further eroded.
And with it the sympathy Israel used to receive from the holocaust.
Now they are seen little better than Nazi SS, trying to put down rebellion/resistance in illegally annexed/spoils of war territory.
The Palestinians are portrayed as downtrodden, because they are.
And by the most powerful, richest nation in the area!
That's the problem rather than skewed reporting!
Who can blame the media, when all we see are, might is right, bombed out ruins, and brokenhearted homeless mothers holding innocent dead babies. Well done, you really nailed that one, didn't you!?
Ever thought of flooding "those tunnels" with Co2?
A more intelligently lead people, wouldn't have fallen for the endless sucker punches and have ended this conflict, a very long time ago; with a two state solution!
But no, that would have prevented more ILLEGAL settlements on more annexed land, wouldn't it!? Well? Yawol?
And given the havoc being currently wrought by Isil, never a better time/perspicacious perspicuous opportunity, to settle this "self created" harm for once and for all!
And having done that, offer some help to end the threat of Isil.
And with that offer, get the media, moderate Muslims and much of the Middle East, back on side again!?
What is needed is the wisdom of Solomon, (my enemy's enemies are also my friends) rather than the Nazi like acquisition of patently purloined territory; and at the behest of a so called leader, (click, seig hiel mine Fuhrer) who seems to be doing anything else, including endless blame shifting, than sue for peace/settle this matter.
And given the archaeological evidence found by Jewish scholars, is patently destroying the Moses's myth, and the all claims founded on that myth!
Not before time!
Rhrosty.

Yes, Falk's reply is idiotic, but Israel is a special case because its own leaders actually requested it to be treated as a special case!

When Ben Gurion and Aba Eban were asked "what right have you over this land?", they waved the bible in reply. Well that book also tells that the Jews are supposed to be an example and a "light unto the nations", also that their right over the land is not automatic, but depends on their preserving of morality, hence the extra scrutiny.

Relatively little interest in Israel at present compared to Iraq and Ukraine.

However the following factors increase interest in Israel:

- the large Jewish diaspora in the West including those who constantly write about Israel

- that the US (King of the mainstream media) is interested in Israel

- Israeli spokesmen usually speak good English

- English is easily reported

- there are a large band of reporters in Jerusalen and Tel Aviv

- Israel's always good copy for photos and videos

- Israel intentionally generates "News" to justify constant coverage.

Israel and her woes get a lot of media coverage simply because of the media's love of bodies and destruction and they can get that safely and easily there.
Good hotels, transport, and communications, and a nice little war just down the road to keep the editors happy, then back to the poolside for a quiet drink, who wouldn't prefer that to the personal danger and hardship required in any other currently active field of dispute or terror?
Both sides of the conflict have dedicated and professional media teams who have decades of experience, and they're playing to (with?) an all too willing audience of largely untrained "journalists" with little concept of media integrity or ethics, let alone relevant skills.
What they produce then goes into the mill of editorial influence and vested interests and out comes the rubbish we all see now.
Great media system, hey?

We have witnessed yet another "slaughter of the innocents" in Gaza and the best defense from Singer is to say "Look at all those other nasty bullies - why not criticise them?"

It is a great pity that Israel is giving Jews a bad name because the majority of diaspora Jews are totally opposed to Israel's ruthless despicable behaviour.

Read Chomsky's article (www.tomdispatch.com) for a clear explanation of Israeli duplicity.

Dear Rhorsty,

Wow.

And to think you were posting this kind of diatribe just a month ago.

“When Hamas continue to cower like craven cowards, hiding behind women and children! Israel just can't win! If they don't react! Then an emboldened Hamas, will up the ante! And take the current war outside Gaza's borders! Personally, I would continue the campaign, until Hamas hollers uncle, and sues for a lasting peace! This off and on again risible rubbish, just allows them to rearm and redeploy, and can only continue, until ordinary Palestinians stand up to them; saying, if we are going to be killed anyway, then it should be at a time and place of our own choosing; and against the very madmen, who are patently prosecuting/perpetuating this war!”

I'm interested in the shift mate, if indeed there has been one. What has prompted it?

Dear Stan1,

Agreed.

I read Chomsky's piece on Huffington Post. What a brilliant summation. Forgive me but I thought it is such an important article that I would give it a direct link.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175892/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_the_fate_of_the_gaza_ceasefire/#more

Dear Singer,

You wrote;

“Organisations such as HonestReporting and CAMERA expose inaccurate reports appearing daily in the most widely read and supposedly reputable international newspapers, television stations, radio networks and on-line publications.”

Duplicitous rot. These are lobbying groups for Israel and there is nothing independent about them.

Thanks Rhorsty.

One day David you will wake up to the fact that it is not so much the Jewish people that the 'regressives ' hate as it is the God of Israel. You should also see that the existance of Israel today as foretold by the Lord Jesus Christ and old testament prophets is nothing short of a miracle. In the end, unfortunatly after much bloodshed Israel will still stand and its enemies will be crushed. Israel reminds the regressives and others that the God of Israel and the Messiah lives. That they can't swallow that fact as they have set up their own perverted codes of 'morality'. Yes Israel is a great nation whose morality far supercedes its enemies which annoys the regressives even more. The regressives are winning the propaganda wars but are to stupid to look at history and see that taking on the God of Israel is just plain dumb.

The world has already seen the arrogant proclamation that a dreamed-up “Aryan” ethnic group was chosen by history to be overlords over submen in ever-increasing areas of the world in order to seize Lebensraum for themselves. And to plunge the rest of the world into millions of deaths in the process.

I’ll take it further. I understand that I could presume to trace my own ancestry to Celts, who originated, I believe, in a corner of now-Austria. I cannot imagine anything more vile and racist (in the accepted meaning of the term “racist”) for people with an ethnic ancestry something like mine to demand the brutal expulsion of the inhabitants of that part of Austria to set up a “homeland” for us as overlords, more “special” than the rest of the 7 bn inhabitants of the earth. I can’t imagine anything more cringe-making than to claim that I don’t have a “homeland” in Australia where I and my family were born and live (like Jews) AS EQUALS with everyone else.

Jews , like Celts and even self-styled “Aryans”, already have homelands as equals in dozens of countries in Europe, Britain, the Americas, Oceania. If they suffer racist discrimination (as in some Arab and ex-Soviet countries) they are quite able to select and adopt homelands AS EQUALS in the above-mentioned decent countries. It’s the “as equals” bit that sticks in the Zionist racial supremacists’ craw.

Israel is a contemptible racist oppressor on Palestinian land, an insult to the people (including Jews) of the rest of the world, and a source of danger of a nuclear holocaust throughout the planet. I rejoice, however, in the observation that the world is inexorably, however slowly, grasping the message and Israel is losing the hearts-and-minds war on which their continued existence in the face of resistance by those who won’t accept submen status in their designated and shrinking Bantustans.

"Israel .. its army is certainly one of the most moral armies in the world" ... this one always gets me, what a load of trollop
a video i just watched reminds me of how moral the IDF is, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx_Si8x32Ec
Why did the moral IDF kill 32 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank in the last 3 months?

David Singer Zionism and Judaism are not the same. Someone of your education should know that; but no it's part of the propoganda of the Zionists

The so-called “God of Israel” central to Runner’s little homily was invented by a uniquely rapacious tribe or group of tribes which proceeded to cobble together a sort of “Mein Kampf” expressing its immediate ambitions for conquest in a “Pentateuch” full of dreams about an imaginary God supposed to replace all other gods and issue a “Covenant” deeding already occupied land in the region to – guess who? − those who dreamed him up!

The morality of the authors is shown in their own text to be similar to that of the vicious killers rampaging today as the Islamic State. See for example Deuteronomy 20:17 at http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/20-17.htm for a picture of those who claim to speak for the “God of Israel”.

#Rhrosty

You state:
"A more intelligently lead people, wouldn't have fallen for the endless sucker punches and have ended this conflict, a very long time ago; with a two state solution!"

A two state solution was proposed or available to be created in:

1. 1922 with the creation of the Mandate
2. 1937 by the Peel Commission
3. 1947 by the United Nations
4. 1948-1967 when the West Bank was occupied by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt and not one Jew lived in either area as they had all bee driven out in the 1948 invasion of Palestine by six Arab armies.
5. 2000/1 by Israel
6. 2008 by Israel.

Every offer was rejected by the Palestinian Arabs and their Arab brethren. They have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Who are the suckers?

#Yuyutsu

I am glad you are of the opinion that Falk's reply is idiotic. It shows you how supposedly intelligent people can make fools of themselves and what weight you can really put on anything they say.

I am not aware of Ben Gurion and Eban waving the Bible. Can you refer me to your source for this claim?

I do know that Eban said the following in Newsweek on 2 December 1974:
"Palestine comes into modern history as a region extending on both sides of the Jordan,comprising the present sovereign territories of Israel and Jordan and the administered areas of the West Bank and Gaza. Of this original Palestine, 80 per cent became an exclusively Arab domain through the separation of Transjordan from Palestine"

I can tell you what Ben Gurion said before the UN Special Committee on Palestine on the meaning of the term "Jewish State" - if you are interested

#G'day Bruce

A fair summation - except swallowing Hamas propaganda without checking the facts leads the media to highly inaccurate reporting.

#plantaganet

Good to see you concentrating on Ukraine and Iraq. You should also include Syria and Islamic State in your sights.

There is a much larger Muslim diaspora in the West than Jews and a whole lot of Western countries that are interested in and have vast interests in the 57 Moslem States around the World. They all speak impeccable English too.

The media seems to have learnt that having reporters in the Middle East other than Israel has become a real hazard that can result in the loss of your head. That is a sure way to keep any reports of the horrors suffered in Syria, Iraq, Libya or Darfur making the front pages.

#SteeleRedux

Trying to denigrate HonestReporting and CAMERA will get you nowhere. They have been responsible for retractions being made to scores of inaccurate articles in papers such as the New York Times by drawing attention to factual errors that occur on a very regular and frequent basis.

One that would interest you is the saga of Nidal Badran whose family including himself and ten children were reportedly killed by an Israeli bomb that hit their house. His family were not killed - but it turns out he was a terrorist who was subsequently killed along with two other terrorists meeting in a mosque at 3.30 in the morning.

Have a read from HonestReporting on the late Mr Badran.:
http://honestreporting.com/journalist-revisits-the-gaza-family-mistakenly-declared-dead/

Here is another good read from CAMERA:

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=52&x_article=2828

Can give you countless numbers of similar articles exposing the media's inability to publish accurate articles.

#Emperor Julian

How do you feel about the 57 Islamic Nations in the World including 22 Arab states - opposed as you are to the existence of just one Jewish State?

Were the Jews in the "decent countries" of Poland,Germany,France and Hungary treated as equals?

Be careful about spruiking your Celtic ancestry - you might just have some Jewish blood in your lineage.

http://ichthys.com/mail-Celts-Galatians.htm

http://jahtruth.net/celtisr.htm

Wouldn't that be a revelation?

If your ancestors came from "now- Austria" they could have been among those kicked out of Eretz Yisrael by the Romans who ended up in Austria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Austria

#markjohnconley

If you want to know why 32 Palestinian Arabs (your figure) have been killed in the West Bank in the last 3 months - read these articles.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-killed-by-israeli-fire-during-west-bank-clash/

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.600472

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/israel-kills-palestinian-west-bank-clashes-2014724213831750431.html

Jew-hatred is Jew-hatred period - whether it is preached against Jews who live in Israel or Jews who live in London, Paris, Sydney or Miami.

Singer, like the organ grinder's monkey, is churning out his duplicitous propaganda again and, instead of ignoring it, well-meaning folk are responding to it again as they have done a thousand times before.

Low intelligence is defined as: doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome.

Can't you accept that Singer is a one-man Jewish smoke-screen!

Mr Singer, I think it is worth responding to you because of others who follow the thread.

What on earth gave you the idea that I’d give a tuppeny if my Celtic ancestry turned out to be Jewish? Not that your links suggesting it was had any validity as they were the ravings of religious kooks. Three of my (mostly Scottish) Celtic ancestors it seems were Irishmen transported to NSW for gun-running which means they were fighting a foreign occupier of their homeland as Hamas is. Although glad they weren’t something vile like Redcoats, I am defined like everyone else (including yourself) not by my ancestry but by my life choices. As a racist you would find that impossible to comprehend.

“Were the Jews in the "decent countries" of Poland, Germany, France and Hungary treated as equals?”

The relevant verb is “are”, not “were”. Then, thanks to the heroism of millions, the answer turns on its head. The baleful supremacy of the Church of Rome, cobbled together in the fourth century by a Roman dictatorship and a rogue sect, has linked with hereditary aristocracies to suppress human decency throughout Europe, and one product was the separation and victimisation of the Jews. This separation was and is encouraged by racists within and without the Jews themselves who are its first victims. Marat lamented that the execution of aristocrats stopped too soon in post-Revolutionary France (one result of which was the disgraceful treatment of Captain Dreyfus a century later).

A Jew living in Oceania, the Americas, Britain, Ireland, Europe is a fully equal citizen, not hereditary overlord or subman. Overlords and submen are created in Palestine by the Zionists. The world doesn’t need and can't afford either and is slowly, with encouragement, coming to realise it.

david singer, unbelievable, did you actually read those links you posted? shoot yourself in the foot by all means
and as usual your mischievous incorrect propaganda "anti-semitic" claims; for honesty's sake look it up in a dictionary; is not "anti-Zionist", Judaism and Zionism are not synonymous

Hi David Singer

This would be a good topic about Israel for your next article:

"Israeli soldiers from elite wire-tapping unit refuse to use 'extortion', 'blackmail' on Palestinians" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-13/israeli-soldiers-refuse-to-spy-on-palestinians/5741492

Cheers

Pete

#DavidG

I am surprised you would describe people like Emperor Julian, SteeleRedux and markjohnconley as persons of "low intelligence". You never know maybe there are more things we are capable of agreeing on after all.

#Emperor Julian

Your Jewish heritage is becoming ever more clear as you recount your family history. From "now Austria" to Ireland to Australia - the classic story of the wandering Jew.

Being gun runners in Ireland fighting the British your ancestors sound very much like the Jews who fought the British Army in Palestine after Britain reneged on the obligations it undertook under the Mandate for Palestine to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine.

Give me your full name and ancestors names starting from "now Austria" and I can try and definitively establish your Jewish roots.

Are the Moslems in the 57 Islamic States world wide "overlords and submen" over those who live there and are not Moslems?

#markjohnconley

Did I shoot myself in the foot? Please detail your reasons. Always happy to be corrected if you can point out why the links I referred you to are irrelevant. Until you do so - you are irrelevant.

#plantaganet Part 1

The ABC article you referred to is typical of the media imbalance that my current article deals with.

The ABC article - although since apparently updated - fails to mention that 150 other persons serving in Unit 8200 have signed a letter condemning their 43 colleagues who signed the letter referred to in Hayden Cooper's report.

The letter in response states in part:

"We are veterans of Unit 8200, soldiers and reserve soldiers, past and present, who wish to express shock, disgust and total renouncement of the letter written by our fellow soldiers, who chose political refusal over our unit," the opposing text said.

"This political refusal has no place in the army in general and in Unit 8200 in particular," it continued. "In the hour that reserve soldiers are called to serve their country, we put aside our preferences and political opinions and go to serve our country."

"We regret that our friends make cynical use of politics in their legal and moral duty to serve in the reserve unit, which in our eyes constitutes the highest honor, and seek [instead] to undermine the activities and achievements in the unit's defense of the country and its people..."

"...As those familiar with the unit for many years, we cannot accept the allegations of lack of ethical and moral principles of intelligence work in the unit," it said. "From our first days in the unit, we learned the importance of monitoring and collecting data in accordance with high professional standards and regulations."

"Both in regular and reserve services, we have witnessed many cases where the operation of the unit's intelligence capabilities resulted in the preservation of human life on both sides," it continued. "Even when ethical dilemmas arise on the job, and during the war, witnesses [of crimes] were and still dealt with in a mature and responsible manner, in line with the principles of international law and the code of ethics and morals of the army."

Why would the ABC fail to inform the public of this highly relevant document?

(Part 2 follows)

#plantaganet

(Part 2)

Israel will resolve the differences between its serving and reservist members in Unit 8200. It certainly won't do so by shooting or publicly hanging any of these dissidents as its neighbour Hamas has been doing in Gaza. It won't be murdering any of these dissidents as Israel's neighbour the PLO has done to people who sell their land to Jews.

What Israel cannot resolve is the mud thrown at Israel by seemingly innocent comments like yours deliberately designed to denigrate and delegitimise Israel.

Perhaps you can point me to any comments made by you anywhere regarding Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, the Australian intelligence services tapping President SBY's phone or the Americans tapping Angela Merkel's phone not to mention what must be occurring right now in Australia in relation to phone tapping and gathering of intelligence following its heightened security alert.

Enjoy the mudslinging - as no doubt others will who will flock to join you.

43 dissidents out of tens of thousands who served in this Unit becomes the big story for the ABC. A response by 150 others does not rate a mention.

That is par for the ABC course.

Hi David Singer

Thankyou for asking. See:

- Edward Snowden: should Australians be worried? 13 June 2013 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15120 and

- Wikileaks for re-election, 16 August 2010 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10820

also see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13752&page=0#238174

If you need help with your next article - on "Israeli soldiers from elite wire-tapping unit refuse to use 'extortion', 'blackmail' on Palestinians" http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-13/israeli-soldiers-refuse-to-spy-on-palestinians/5741492

just Sing out.

Cheers

Pete