Every time Al Jazeera is brought up, people claim that it is anti-semitic, racist, anti-US, etc.
But to that I say: so what? Do you think Americans are that stupid that they won't see antisemitism? Do you think we're little children who can't think for ourselves?
As the old adage goes, "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer". If Al Jazeera is indeed "the enemy", then all the more reason to make Al Jazeera widely available!
Plus: when Al Jazeera started, the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. So while they worked for BBC, they were unbiased; but the moment they started working for AJ, they became biased and completely untrustworthy!!
IMHO, this opposition to Al Jazeera comes from the fact that they (AJ) don't tow the 'company line'. There's a carefully crafted story around which news is reported in the US ("US = good; Middle-Easterners = uneducated religious bigots; Israelis = poor victims who can't do no wrong; etc." ) ; unfortunately for AJ, they refuse to follow this line and hence piss off powerful people here.
And before someone starts putting words in my mouth: I support Israeli people, and want them to live secure, peaceful, happy lives in Israel. In other words: I support the Israeli people, but not necessarily the actions of their government.
As I mentioned below, I find it disingenuous that people often use the term 'anti-semitic' when they mean 'anti-Israel', as if any judgement on the actions of the state of Israel automatically implies hate of Jewish people.
Not only that. Jewish people are not the only Semites. Arabs are Semites too. The word anti-semitic has totally lost all of its literal meaning, much like the word hacker.
Anti-Semitism is a term that, in the western culture, is used to mean anti-jewish. When you treat it literally, you are ignoring a long and established history associated with it. See this for much more articulate explanation than mine:
<quote>
anti-Semitism is not the optimal term for anti-Jewish sentiment, among other things because there are other Semites than Jews, but it is the one we have, and comes with a long history and a well-established meaning. Rather than critiquing the term or coining a neologism to substitute for it, speakers of English should simply understand the term's history and commonly accepted definition and use it accordingly.
</quote>
It's more like "black," which comes from a PIE root meaning "to burn," and is thus closely related to the word "bleach."
You can't look at the roots of a word and declare it "wrong" because it doesn't precisely match the original usage. That would wipe out a lot of everyday language.
Heh! I had so far restrained myself from adding to the thread. But it tickles me a great deal to see how just an observation can fuel nay-saying and name calling. I never made a moral judgment and neither am I ignorant of the typical use of the word. But was not aware that such usage ruled out making observations that the well used and common rule of "anti-blah" does not apply in this case. Then I added another example were words sometimes do not mean what they are supposed to mean. Oh the outrage, I wonder were it comes from :).
<tongue in cheek>
If usage trumps correctness then English with an Indian accent is the canonical accent. After all there are more who use it. </tongue in cheek>
Summary: 226 million "native" speakers of English, plus 90 million with English as a second language. I'd suggest that the canonical English accent is actually American. And whilst it is true that India will probably overtake the US in this regard in the not too distant future, they too will probably be eclipsed by the Chinese (http://www.economist.com/node/6803197?story_id=6803197) before that happens.
Regardless, the traditional anglo-saxon countries will hold sway as the main proponents of English for a long time, as aside from the US there is also the UK (60-odd million), Canada(35 million), Australia(20-odd million), New Zealand (5 million), and South Africa (50 million) to throw into the mix, giving a total of somewhere around 500 million native speakers.
Whoa! No way India has 226 million "native" speakers of English. It still would be under a quarter million. But upvoted for checking. Tongue was very much in my cheek in my previous comment, so all can rest easy :)
but I've heard this repeated a few too many times recently
I havent heard it before and that is indeed strange given that I am Indian.
Antisemitism has never meant racism directed at Semitic peoples in general. It has a very specific meaning. Not only that, but 'hacker' doesn't have a literal etymological meaning ('hacker' is derived from...?).
This whole comment thread has me extremely disappointed with HN.
It's obviously not the case that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. However, it should be equally obvious that some is; surely the anti-Semites that do exist will criticize Israel. So the question is how to distinguish the legitimate criticism from the anti-Semitic criticism. I don't have an answer to this question, unfortunately. One (flawed) test that's often proposed is to see whether the criticism is proportional to Israel's wrongdoings as compared to the wrongdoings of other countries.
In any case, while I agree with what you're saying, quite often people say pretty much the same thing as a sort of misdirection to deflect criticism of their own criticism of Israel, no matter how unfair or misleading or just plain dishonest it is. If you go read some reddit comments on Israel you'll see anti-Semitism mentioned at least an order of magnitude more frequently by Israel's critics than by Israel's defenders.
I criticize the Indian government all the time. But I find it strange that for my criticisms to be taken seriously I also have to criticize all other countries equally. I may be the most anti Indian person in the world, but should that discredit my criticism if its valid ?
I got thrown off by the terminology "anti-Semitic criticism". From the context it seems to mean: criticism by an "anti Semitic" person, you probably meant "criticism that has no truth in it". Why cloud matters then, with terminology that is already too loaded to begin with ?
>From the context it seems to mean: criticism by an "anti Semitic" person, you probably meant "criticism that has no truth in it"
Sorry, my other comment skipped this question. What I mean by anti-Semitic criticism is criticism motivated by anti-Semitism, and, separately, criticism that attempts to exploit the emotional weight of the Holocaust (e.g. "the Zionists are the new Nazis" or subtler variations thereof).
The former of these might be legitimate criticism in some cases, yes, but tends not to be, and even when it is, bear in mind that most people are totally clueless about the world. If Joe Sixpack hears ten times as much criticism of Israel as Saudi Arabia, he'll assume that Israel is much worse than Saudi Arabia, even though this is clearly not true (unless you happen to be a Wahhabi Muslim, I guess). I remember hearing of a survey conducted in China where Chinese on the street were asked how big they thought Israel was and some answered that it was probably about as big as China. I can't find it, but I did find an article where the Chinese ambassador to Israel describes something similar: "I explain to [other Chinese] that Israel only has seven million residents – barely a small town in China," he says. "They find it hard to believe. I understand them." (source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961612,00.html)
Well, are you Indian or Pakistani? The unspoken condition of that test (which I already stated is imperfect) is that the person not have a direct personal connection to that country. I wouldn't necessarily call a Palestinian preoccupied with criticizing Israel anti-Semitic; I'd be a little more inclined to wonder about the motives of, say, a Belgian.
George Clooney is an American of Irish descent. Does his interest in Sudan (to which he seems to have little "personal connection") make you wonder about his motives?
No, it doesn't. There's a genocide on the order of millions going on there. Not really a fair comparison to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And for the third time, I don't think it's a good test and I don't really like being put in the position of defending it. My mention of it was descriptive, not prescriptive.
Not all criticism of Israel is anti-Jewish, but some can be. Just because someone claims an anti-Israel group is anti-Jewish, don't assume that they would whitewash all Israel critics as anti-Jewish.
But you see, everyone has problems with BBC. Israeli think it's anti-Israel, Putin says it's anti-Russian. In reality though it's simply not pro-Israel or pro-Russian. Just telling the truth infuriates lots of people.
It is possible to be both anti-Israel and anti-Russian, y'know. The idea that the BBC is any more "truthy" than any other news source is laughable; they're all run by humans after all. And the BBC recruits most of its staff through one route, the media section in the Guardian, which no-one would claim is anything other than a left-wing paper. It could, for example, balance it out by recruiting 50% via the Graun's big rival, the Daily Mail, but it doesn't.
You need to look for a news source that is financially incentivized to do "just the facts". Organization such as Reuters, AP, AFP etc sell "raw news" to TV stations and newspapers, which then put their own editorial on it. The same Reuters feed goes into the BBC as goes into Sky News. So if you really care, just read Reuters and make up your own mind.
But just because analysis implies some point of view or bias doesn't mean it's not valuable. I'd rather get a variety of editorial viewpoints than just straight facts for which I may not have sufficient context.
Standard procedure in the industry - the Times have the Educational supplement, the Graun have the MediaGraun (Sky, for example, also pushes the majority of recruitment requests through it. I'd also argue that the T is the more direct competitor.). Much is also put in trade papers like Broadcast.
I agree with the thrust of your comment in general; however, you're mistaken on one point:
>the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. So while they worked for BBC, they were unbiased; but the moment they started working for AJ, they became biased and completely untrustworthy!!
Edit: I honestly don't care about my HN karma, but I am curious to know why this was downvoted. I provided relevant information in a civil manner. I'd really feel better if someone could provide an explanation other than that people are using HN downvotes like reddit downvotes now. :/
I notice that your comment has been downvoted, so lest you think so, it is not me. I followed your links, and what I found is this: A media corporation refuses to disclose a report on an internal investigation on how it conducts its affairs. Yes, it bothers me that a public service body is stonewalling about an internal report. But when I transfer the setup to US say, it is not what I would call, unheard of.
I am certainly willing to concede, that it is not transparent, but isnt calling them to possess a "well-known" anti-Israel bias exaggerated ?
Well, I was trying to err on the side of caution with my sources, and I may have overdone it. There are more direct articles but from less reputable sources, like this one [1]. I don't know how to justify that something is well-known; Bing has 12 million hits for "bbc anti-israel" (without quotes), if that helps.
BTW, the BBC is a public organization, not a private corporation. It's estimated that they spent 200,000 pounds to keep the report from being disclosed. I don't know why they'd spend that kind of money to hide a report that didn't reveal bias - though I'm open to alternative explanations.
>Do you think Americans are that stupid that they won't see antisemitism? Do you think we're little children who can't think for ourselves?
Well that's the thing, perhaps those who have had the opportunity to carry Al Jazeera decided not to on the prediction that it would not be watched, and decided to avoid any financial loss by not taking the risk.
>Plus: when Al Jazeera started, the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. So while they worked for BBC, they were unbiased; but the moment they started working for AJ, they became biased and completely untrustworthy!!
No one ever said the BBC was immune from being biased. You're right, it's unlikely that the same people automatically went from being non-biased to biased, so if Al-Jazeera is biased, that just means the BBC had been biased all along.
"Do you think Americans are that stupid that they won;t see antisemitism" Do you think we're little children who can't think for ourselves."
Yes.
To imply that the media has no influence on the general mass of population is ignorant at best. There is a reason most governments censor the media, seed the media with favorable information or outright ban them: they move people to action.
True, but pick any notion and there would be some people who believe that. The question is whether the belief is correct or not. Correctness is hard to determine in the absolutes. It is a skill that adults usually acquire to a lesser or greater degree from experience and corroboration.
Since it's a difficult skill, like it or not the identity of the group espousing the belief does play a role in coloring the credibility. It is one of the multitude of variables by which human's judge potential correctness. My personal coefficient for BBC is higher than most of US cable news (and honestreporting.com as well). The coefficients are issue specific too, though there is a certain issue independent component that different issues inherit from the base.
It so happens that there are issues that I care about, for which there are no US main stream source that has significantly positive coefficient. It is for (not uncommon) situations like this that I need alternative sources like Al Jazeera. In addition to un-affiliated blogs
If you're looking for a solid US based news agency, I would suggest PBS news. They have a pretty high 'coefficient' in my book. They've been covering the various Arab riots quite extensively.
That may be; but the point is: no one is calling for banning the same BBC here (in the US). Here we accept BBC with open arms, NPR and PBS carry BBC news. I was calling out this double-standard.
just pulled rtmpdump from macports (I already have mplayer, of course) and I can confirm it works on mac too... except their rtmp provider seems to be getting killed right now.
I would recommend switching to Livestation, quality isn't as good, but at least it works (on Linux too).
The reason people in the US can't watch Al Jazeera on TV is because it doesn't fit into the US MSM model. Modern US news isn't about news, it's about opinion and entertainment.
I don't know many Americans that watch Fox, but of those that I do know, they wouldn't watch Al Jazeera partly because it's not American (and therefore not trustworthy - with the exception of the BBC) but mainly because of the long form nature of the stories and focus on the news rather than building an emotionally charged narrative.
Whenever I try, it barely works and usually crashes. Right now, barely works would be a kind description.
The stations I get via cable/sat tv etc don't have scaling problems of this sort. They might have crap coverage and you could argue that is a scaling issue of some sort but.. at least I can manage to watch.
I don't think they do live streams. I'm on Mac, and usually use VLC to watch RealPlayer files, but I couldn't get to the RealPlay live media (.ram files).
I was really surprised to see the parent downvoted. There's useful personal experience here, as well as a valid observation about an advantage broadcast and cable have only internet-only access.
PBS is a better fit to be compared to BBC. You can find low-brow entertainment based news in the UK and every other country with a free media. It's not like you can't access quality news in the US and Al Jazeera has to swoop in and save the day.
Which television news network in the US has had better coverage of the Egypt protests than Al Jazeera? I mean, MSNBC and CNN are using the Al Jazeera feed for their coverage in some cases....
>>There is a large subset of the US population that would distrust any information from an Arabic source.
There are reasons for that.
For example, the state controlled/censored media in the muslim world are infamous for antisemitic hate mongering. (State sanctioned racism... what does that remind you of?)
A second problem is that I have no idea about the spin in Al Jazeera (except for their host country). Does anyone? I can make good guesses on what to not trust in e.g. my local media and NY Times (mainly big advertisers).
Note: I'm not arguing that all (or even most) media in the US are more dependable than e.g. Bild zeitung.
Edit: I thought I should add a reference about antisemitic content in Arab media, so I checked Wikipedia and found a reference -- to Al Jazeera! (That isn't that heavily censored by any state. But fun enough that I added a separate comment with the quote.)
MEMRI is a Israeli non-profit organisation to "aid the understanding of the Middle-East". It is not by any means objective. Its goal is mostly to find inflammatory or antisemitic fragments in Middle Eastern media and provide them to a Western audience.
I looked at the fragment on the MEMRI site and it was devoid of any context. Airing a speech does not imply endorsement. (Most, if not all, American media outlets have shown Iran's Ahmadinejad tirades against Israel, for example).
tl;dr: Take Israel's PR department with a grain of salt.
Apparently the mere inclusion of Israelis (I recognize 3 Israeli names out of the 7 listed in its staff page) is enough to label it "Israel's PR department".
Al Jazeera, on the other hand, have received so far over $160m from the Emir of Qatar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera#Organization) - yet many commenters here seem to think that doesn't influence its coverage at all.
I thought MEMRI was accused of being Israel's PR department because it was founded by "ex-" Israeli intelligence officers, refused to disclose its funding, tends to distort meanings in its translations, is highly selective in translating inflammatory pieces while ignoring opposing pieces adjacent to them, etc.
Putting aside the completely unsourced FUD in your comment, clearly MEMRI does have an agenda. Personally I rarely visit that site and wouldn't get my news from it. But my question was why would you consider a network that is openly financed by Qatar objective, and an organization that is not financed by Israel "Israeli PR"?
Putting aside the completely unsourced FUD in your comment
Which of my claims are you questioning?
My question was why would you consider a network that is openly financed by Qatar objective, and an organization that is not financed by Israel "Israeli PR"?
I think Al Jazeera is relatively objective (compared to other news networks) because they often include people with opposing views on their shows. Beyond that, I don't think objectivity is the be-all and end-all of news networks. I can't watch CNN because its programming is directed towards children: lots of flashy opinion, idiotic conventional wisdom, a shockingly limited window of acceptable discourse, very little actual news content regarding issues that matter (as opposed to celebrity 'news'), etc. I'd hesitate to trust Al Jazeera's reporting on Qatar, but Qatar isn't a very important country and Al Jazeera has managed to piss off a lot of middle eastern dictatorships and monarchies.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera is openly funded by Qatar and you claim it's a good news source. So the mere possibility that MEMRI is funded by a government disqualifies it, while the known fact Al Jazeera is funded by a govt is fine. How come?
In any case, once again, I DO NOT consider MEMRI quality journalism. The argument here isn't MEMRI vs Al Jazeera, it's thinking independently vs. news consumerism. My point is that AJ fans, much like FOX fans, simply choose a source the confirms what they want to believe. I would recommend reading many sources, and automatically believing none.
Consider the millions of people in the west that can verify MEMRI, since the original tv programs are on the web. [Edit: Also consider that Wikipedia quoted MEMRI.]
So what can be said, is that the type of content exists in Arab media.
I don't really know about Al Jazeera and their spin. I seriously doubt most people claiming it is trustworthy do, either. The pro-Al J seem willing to vote up/down people for agreeing/contradicting, which is an interesting weighing of the importance...
Edit: It is fun when people recommend Al Jazeera without even knowing their agenda -- while other sources are dismissed, which are verifiable by many millions of people in EU/USA...
Right, god forbid we listen to anything other than pro-US and pro-Israel sources. And we all know that the BBC is a highly biased bunch of freedom haters, right?
Also, don't you love it when any group that is anti-Israel (ie. against the state) is labelled anti-semitic? Instant demonisation.
Interesting. I have cox cable in DC, we get Al Jazeera, and it has been most useful. When the gulf oil spill was happening and we wanted to find out what was going on, I turned to CNN only to get 20 minutes on Katy Perry's freakin wardrobe controversy. Al Jazeera to the rescue.
By pure coincidence I have it on in the background right now in Arlington. I have FiOS but I assume Comcast has a similarly wide array of news channels. I chalked it up to the area. I've certainly never had it anywhere else I've lived, up and down the East Coast.
then call your cable provider and ask that Al Jazeera be added to the lineup, if they get enough of these requests they will act on them, the only question is how much is enough
Note that CNN International is a class better than CNN that you watch in the US. They carry less opinion and showbiz and more news and business, although go in-depth only in rare shows.
I used to switch between CNN and BBC in the 90s because of the great correspondent network they both had.
I don't get CNN International or BBC News on Comcast, but I do think it's amusing that every time CNN needs real reporting (like when the Egypt story broke), they just cut to CNN International, where at least some level of real reporting is happening.
And I just saw an interview with PJ Crowley about Egypt. There is no US reporter that would ever ask such tough questions as the Aljazeera interviewer. No way.
7+ minutes is a long interview. That would be interesting to see, what is the average time guest are given in interviews on different news channel. It that piece it seemed as if Crowley had a message tailored for under 2-3 minutes but as it went longer it became way repetitive.
There is an opportunity for Al Jazeera in the USA because the signal to garbage ratio on our local networks has become intolerable.
Most thinkers in this country get their news from the web, but live TV still has it's merits and there is a cavernous gap in the market for quality international news coverage right now.
If Al Jazeera manage to capture some of that market, they could attract a more educated (and wealthier) demographic than CNN, CNBC and Fox. i.e. a more lucrative market for advertisers.
Because they're streaming online, there really is very little standing in their way. If I was a major US network, I'd sit up and take notice.
The article reminded me of this quotation from JFK: "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
That's very interesting - I assumed it was widely available. I'm in South Africa and have been watching it as much as BBC World News or CNN, more so over the last few months. What I do like about it is that there's a fair amount of actual 'world news' - stuff from countries that are hardly on my radar.
Isn't the real reason that the number of people who watch cable news is already a small minority of the cable subscribers, and they are already split three ways? Adding another cable news network isn't going to appeal to anyone new.
After watching about 45 minutes of inane coverage of Egypt on CNN and Fox, probably because they are controlled by an offshore entity and don't offer a point of view remarkably in line with whatever Washington is putting out.
La libertad de información, para decirla y recibirla, tiene que ser ilímite. Los gobiernos, coomo el deEstados Unidos, que temen a la libretad de prensa, algo esconden. +Adelante, se;ores de Al/Jazeera!
What is the point of this article? I've been able to watch Al Jazeera the past few days just fine, and I don't subscribe to any cable company. Why are these old media folks acting like television is still relevant?
In a sermon, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 9, 2009 [...] "Oh Allah, take your enemies, the enemies of Islam. Oh Allah, take the Jews, the treacherous aggressors. Oh Allah, take this profligate, cunning, arrogant band of people. [...] Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one."
Edit: I quoted (from Wikipedia) the content of the TV channel people want to show in the western world. Down voting is for lack of counter arguments?
Edit 2: I think it is really funny that I get downvoted a lot for noting that antisemitic hatred and prayers for genocide are sent on Al J -- the non-English one...
Yes, that seems the same as an Islamic sermon calling for the destruction of the Jewish race. I see the analogy, well played. You've completely countered berntb's point.
You defend Al Jazeera's (with other muslim media) airing of antisemitic content -- because Fox News is garbage?
I can't see any other way how criticism of Fox can be relevant to what I wrote. And your argument's logic was worthy of Fox.
Edit: I had a joke (HUMOR PARENTHESIS!) in a comment that "much interesting information was missing". Then I quoted a prayer for genocide of people of another religion from Al Jazeera. I DID NOT A CLAIM THAT THERE IS NO ANTI SEMITISM IN US MEDIA (hardly organized racism at least, it is taboo in the western world). I might also add -- you understood that.
Edit 2: Anyway, it was really funny that you got up voted so much for that -- and I've been down voted in two threads for showing that Al J has extreme racist content...
"Israel: The ugly truth",
"A week of racism in Israel",
"An education in inequality"
Notice something out of proportion here?
I know many people are keen to jump on the "Al Jazeera is great" bandwagon, but this level of intolerance is simply not appealing to Americans. Yes, there is anti-Islamic sentiment to a degree among a small portion of Americans, but it doesn't reach the levels on display here. This is a pattern of Al Jazeera's, which makes sense because news organizations do tend to slant their views to fit general trends among the populations of the countries they serve in.
It makes a lot more sense that Al Jazeera is so well spoken of here just because it is a significant shift from what were used to in the feeble mainstream US media, rather than Al Jazeera actually putting a much deeper level of intellectual effort into their news. In reality it's just an illusion that it's something objectively better. As far as the sometimes thorough reports Al Jazeera puts out, people must realize that PBS and NPR are also American news organizations.
> In reality it's just an illusion that it's something objectively better.
Why do you say that? They do seem to have a better and broader news coverage.
> "Israel: The ugly truth" ... Notice something out of proportion here?
No. I think it is a well written article. Are you implying that anyone criticizing Israel should be automatically discarded on the basis of intolerance?
> Are you implying that anyone criticizing Israel should be automatically discarded on the basis of intolerance?
You don't seem to have listened. It wasn't about that one article, it was about their coverage of the issue, which is skewed in one obvious direction. And by the way, the article is nothing more than a bunch of anecdotes misrepresented as an accurate representation of the issue (the article itself even acknowledges this but ignores the implications.) When you take instances of violence by individuals and try to assert it's a general pattern, that is hate mongering, plain and simple. Quote from the article:
'Bayu says: "It's obvious that [things] can go to another level. This is what happened in Germany and many other places."'
Look, it even comes with allusions to the comparison of Israel and the Nazis!
>Why do you say that? They do seem to have a better and broader news coverage.
"They do seem" as a claim on it's own has no persuasive power.
> "They do seem" as a claim on it's own has no persuasive power.
Sorry. I meant they seem to _me_ I wasn't asserting a general truth. I am just one of the HNers here. So it is more of a personal observation.
> Look, it even comes with allusions to the comparison of Israel and the Nazis!
---- excerpt from first article ------
In mid-January, dozens of young Jews attacked Muslims at a mosque in Yafo or Jaffa, the historically Arab city just south of Tel Aviv. An Israeli media outlet reports that the youth, who were armed with stones and Israeli flags, shouted "Mohammed is a pig" and "Death to Arabs" just as the Muslims were preparing to pray.
When the police arrived, they did not arrest any of the assailants.
------- end of excerpt -------
Sure I wasn't there on the ground witnessing this, but I believe that story to be true. Why? Because other stories on Al-Jazeera seem to _me_ to be true. Yes I throw the word "seems" around too much, this is all just my person observation, but I try to be as objective as possible.
They list other incidents, about 3 or 4 total.
Imagine that your local American small town a group of white youths attacked a black family. And then there would 3 or 4 similar racially motivated incidents. I believe nobody would blink an eye if _any_ media source would start writing editorials wondering about the resurgence of racism in the region. If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism. It seems denying it and covering it up, is a larger sign of a problem.
> Sure I wasn't there on the ground witnessing this, but I believe that story to be true.
It is true.
There is a recent (and very dangerous, IMO) rise in Anti-Arab attacks in Israel; Jewish hooligans attacking Israeli-Palestinians, Rabbis calling to ban businesses employing Arabs, a prominent businessman saying in an interview he won't sell housing (in East-Jerusalem, an occupied Palestinian territory) to Arabs, etc.
It is easy to draw intuitive statistical conclusions in a small town; you bet if there weren't usually race based violence in a small town, that if you saw 4-5 incidents in a short period of time, there would be very few non-racism based explanations that were plausible.
Israel is 7.5 million people with 75% Jews. That provides a large enough pool of incidents of Jews attacking Muslims to draw from just because there are a given number of violent people in any country. Now they can easily misrepresent these stories because you can cram an article with them. You can't do intuitive statistics with a country of 7.5 million, or even 500,000. You need to do statistics, period. Anything less is irresponsible, and any article from any organization that tries to interpret anecdotes into patterns when you're drawing from such large sample pools is not practicing professional journalism. And with Al Jazeera's "In Depth" page basically dedicating it's Israeli/Palestinian focus on these types of articles, there is little room to interpret there ME coverage as objective.
> If it happens in Israel all of the sudden there is a lot of defense and touchiness about the issue. Why is that? Why is it so hard to believe that a country in the Middle East would have a problem with racism.
Because there's never any evidence except these anecdote based articles. At a certain point, if you want to make such a serious accusation that deviates from the assumptions that people operate on, the burden is on you to prove it, with some sort of comprehensive proof.
you must be very unhappy with this "journalism" thing then. Have you ever seen that journalists would do statistics on anecdotes? Most of them have trouble researching and pointing to similar accidents that happened in the past.
I don't think anybody would base any serious policy on an article in the news. So there is not much reason to perform real science on it. When you're putting together anecdotes of racial attacks in Israel and you have to give it a title ...
I think there is a double standard that is being applied and it is rationalized and back-propagated from a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived criticism of Israel.
All of the sudden statistical significance and probability distribution come in to play. I doubt it if New York times wrote an article about 3 or 4 racially motivated attacks in New York and wondered if there is resurgence in racism, if everyone would accuse it for "intolerance" for not presenting a statistical derivation of its conclusion.
I don't know why discussing racism in a Middle East country is has to be such a touchy subject but it is.
>> I think there is a double standard that is being applied and it is rationalized and back-propagated from a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived criticism of Israel.
>> All of the sudden statistical significance and probability distribution come in to play.
You've got it completely backwards of course. Asking for statistical proof of racism should be the standard, and the criticism should be of those who don't have that proof, not of those who deviate and begin asking for it. It's pretty alarming and telling that those arguing that Israel is racist are blatantly complaining that too much proof is being asked of their accusations of racism. Any decent humanitarian should not want the accusation of racism to be thrown around so easily by the media, otherwise its potency as an accusation is diluted. As it has been by exactly the type articles like on Al Jazeera, and as evidenced by the number of people even in this thread who so casually accuse a country of racism by nothing more than HN posts and Wikipedia articles.
I think we are both making different default assumptions. My default assumptions seem to be that there is rampant racism in the Middle East stemming for thousands of years of complicated history. You default assumption is that there is no racism in Israel. I don't mind if articles pointing out the racism do not have rigorous statistical studies, but you do, because your default assumption are that there is no racism.
Right, you want it to be easy to just assume that an entire country has rampant racism because of some general perception of the middle east whereas I'm asking for evidence that any belief regarding racism in Israel is true. I don't have to prove there isn't racism in Israel to say "don't jump to hasty conclusions about a country being racist that can dilute accusation of racism and cause prejudice in itself."
Jacob, are you in Israel? Would you care to shed some perspective? For instance, are the races segregated? Are children taught to distrust other races? Are they taught all peoples are equal?
Just an American here, but there is no racial segregation or systematized racism of any kind in Israel. 'Racism' and 'Apartheid' are just thrown around carelessly at Israel by some critics.
No, everything claimed is easy to verify. Races aren't segregated, racism isn't taught (as in, it's not part of the curriculum.) All races are equal under Israeli law. Your education on this subject had to have been seriously skewed to think otherwise.
From what I remember from posts on HN by Israeli citizens, but of ethnically non-Jewish background its not quite the clear picture you paint. Leaving aside Palestinian civilians who do not have recourse to the same civic laws and roads as Israeli citizens, Israeli Arabs do not have the same rights even legally (let alone inconsistent application of existing laws) as Jewish citizens. These discrepancies crop up in different spheres of life, from marriage to permit for visiting cities to owning property.
You really are mistaken. The hearsay of some hackernews posts amounts to zero evidence, while you can verify the legal equality of races in Israel in any decent book. Unless of course, you want to grasp at straws like another poster here and argue that semantically a Law of Return is racist (even though many acknowledged non-racist countries have the same laws) or Arabs having the option to opt out of the draft is racist (which should speak for itself.)
Here is a general observation (not just about Israel).
In places where race is an overt issue, and people at the highest political places earn their votes based on race, and therefore dependent upon people who are conscious of race rights, no amount of laws is going to stop a government from exercising racial preferences in its administration.
You are implying that Israelis vote based strongly on race. This is entirely untrue. There are Jews of many different races in the Israeli government. I suppose every country that hasn't yet had a minority president is racist?
I'd say that not only Israelis, but generally people in Middle East are preoccupied with the notion of race/religion as an identity. It's a state of being, reinforced by decades of conflict/victimisation. I'm not blaming anyone here. Just describing the sad state of affairs.
However, if the US can turn things around in 50 years from a situation even worse than it is today in Israel, it gives us all hope doesn't it?
No, I would rather trust the first person accounts from people whom I have zero reasons to disbelieve. If you would look at my post I mentioned rights on traveling on the same street, equal rights on marriage etc etc.
To give an example: between someone who toes the government line in repeating there arent any gay Iranians and an Iraninan who says he is gay, I would trust the latter. More so if I had other conversations with him that seemed genuine.
You are just reciting the typical myths about racism/Israel. For example you mentioned road use discrimination, instead of that being any sort of discrimination based on race/religion, it is separation based on citizenship of PA or Israel. Arabs and anyone else who are Israeli can use these roads. To say that restriction from use based on different citizenship is discrimination is just laughable. As far as "marriage discrimination", there is no direct legal discrimination, and the arguments that there are indirect discrimination hinge on a law that doesn't grant citizenship to those who marry an Israeli automatically. Grasping at straws.
>No, I would rather trust the first person accounts from people whom I have zero reasons to disbelieve.
This is just a recipe for bias. You don't just trust people you know because one, there experience isn't anything better than anecdotal either, and two, it is difficult for any person to avoid distrust of someone they know and like personally. You should be more responsible than this when you are accusing a whole country of systematized racism.
Israel's High Court has narrowly upheld a law denying
Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza married to
Israeli citizens the right to live in the country with
their spouses. -- The Independent
Government was more restrictive in issuing building
permits in Arab communities than in Jewish communities,
thereby not accommodating natural growth."
-- U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
3 times more money was invested in education of Jewish
children as in Arab children.
-- U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
the Law of Return applies to ones religious status, and anyone can convert to Judaism.
--jacobmg on HN (justifying religious discrimination)
Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes
by Jewish or Israeli forces, before and during the 1948
Arab-Israeli war, but remained within the borders of what
would become Israel, that is, those currently known as
Arab citizens of Israel, are deemed present absentees by
the legislation. Present absentees are regarded as absent
by the Israeli government because they left their homes,
even if they did not intend to leave them for more than a
few days, and even if they did so involuntarily
Regardless of your efforts at justifying it with excuses, it stands up to the definition of discrimination, whatever the excuse or the path to that may be. No racist person or entity in history has ever suffered from lack of excuses.
Given these, I am less likely to believe you compared to someone who has earned my trust. I have never claimed that whole of Israel has systemized racism, you are putting words into my mouth and giving me more reasons to doubt what you say. I am more disinclined to carry the conversation further, for several reasons (i) I dont like deeply nested threads (ii) this is no longer an active topic on HN and I do not come to HN to discuss Arab/Israel issues (iii) after much consideration you seem to be intellectually dishonest, so I do not consider it a fruitful use of my time. I would have more respect for you if you said for instance yes we have these well documented problems but not everyone in Israel is like that.
>> I have never claimed that whole of Israel has systemized racism, you are putting words into my mouth. I would have more respect for you if you said for instance yes we have these well documented problems but not everyone in Israel is like that.
Legal discrimination is systematized discrimination, it does not imply that every law in the country is racist, but since you're accusing the country of legal discrimination I just referred to what you said it as "systematized racism" instead of "legal [race based] discrimination." I may have misquoted the degree of your criticism but you are still arguing that relatively small issues are in fact serious racial discrimination issues (small in the sense that they don't contribute to racial discrimination, not that the issues themselves aren't serious.) I don't even deny that there is racial discrimination from a small portion of individuals but to say that there is strong legal action taken to discriminate in the country is just flatly wrong.
>> Regardless of your efforts at justifying it with excuses, it stands up to the definition of discrimination, whatever the excuse or the path to that may be. No racist person or entity in history has ever suffered from lack of excuses.
No, the country isn't perfect or entirely fair but each of these criticisms has plausible non racist explanations. For example the building permits there are issued just like in the US: you have to pass many different rigorous legal and technical tests before you can build, and it is not entirely impossible that the legwork isn't being done by these Arab communities in the first place. The building-permit process in Israel is widely criticized as unusually slow for any country even in Jewish communities and I believe the OECD just released an evaluation that it takes 3 times as long in Israel as other OECD countries to issue building permits.
And another example: the criticism of education funding is no different than what happens in the US, where some people argue that a community's funding for education should be directly from what that community can extract from taxes. It's not automatically a racist policy.
i) constitutional declaration of rights, Israel does not
ii) I can drive on any road that an American civillian can drive on. I dont need to be a citizen or a resident or convert my religion.
iii) It is accepted that several inequities in US have their roots in racism and US has taken great strides to elliminate them, have open discussions on them. From what I read about Israel I dont see an environment (yet) were a corresponding national holiday to comemorate Martin Luther King is possible.
iv) If I were to be naturalized in US no law states that I cannot unless I convert my religion.
I detect a certain change in your tone after I called you out. But given your previous tone I do not have reasons to take what you say about building permits at its face value. I found too many documents from individuals and institutions that have earned my respect claiming otherwise.
Besides when you try to give an impression that you are quoting me, it is considered bad practice to remove words. Just basic honesty and propriety.
Segregation doesn't have to be official and in the written law for it to exist.
Segregation is a real fact in every day Israeli life, as I saw in a 2 year stint from '04 to '06. Since we're talking AlJazeera, here's a recent article on segregation and mixed Israeli-Palestinian couples: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/201112...
I think it is widely accepted that state-sponsored segregation and institutional racism are wrong, and should be removed.
However, its a lot harder to make the case that it is wrong for people to freely choose to separate themselves into ethnic ghettos in the absence of government controls.
To make a comparison to America, consider an Italian living in a "Little Italy"-style enclave, who believes it would be best for him or her to marry Italian-Americans.
Are they a troubling group? Do we perhaps need UN intervention to ease the tension between them and other near by ethnic enclaves?
>Segregation is a real fact in every day Israeli life
Are you referring to the fact that Jewish and Arab populations live mostly separate towns and cities? This isn't segregation, since this is by choice of what communities people there want to live in. Unless you want to argue semantics and say something like "well technically they are segregated even if it's by choice so therefore it's racist."
Evidence of this communal separation and anecdotes of individuals with prejudice does not amount to systematized racism in Israel.
From that I can conclude that you are either ignorant or a liar. Because races are NOT equal in Israeli law. Either in theory OR practice.
Let me give some examples. The Law of Return only applies to Jews. The military draft does not apply to certain ethnic groups, because Israel doesn't want most of them in its military forces.
And that's in theory. In practice it is much worse, as was documented for the Israeli government in the Or report.
I said all races are equal under law, the Law of Return applies to ones religious status, and anyone can convert to Judaism. Besides immigration criteria does not effect discrimination of individuals as citizens since it's merely a selection criteria for citizenship in the first place.
Anyone can volunteer for the military. To argue that not being forced into military service is some sort of prejudicial discrimination is ludicrous.
> From that I can conclude that you are either ignorant or a liar. Because races are NOT equal in Israeli law. Either in theory OR practice.
In theory they are equal
Silly conclusion to jump to. You have no examples of legal discrimination as pointed out above and undoubtedly you have even less "practical" evidence. For example the Or report you mention isn't even on the same subject.
Silly conclusion to jump to. You have no examples of legal discrimination as pointed out above and undoubtedly you have even less "practical" evidence. For example the Or report you mention isn't even on the same subject.
As you indicate, the Or report was a government inquiry into some riots that caused fatalities, and not about discrimination.
Yet as I said, it found that there was widespread discrimination against the Arab minority. It further indicated that this was one of the root causes of said riots.
> The military draft does not apply to certain ethnic groups, because Israel doesn't want most of them in its military forces.
Absolutely fascinating. Where did you hear this?
The draft doesn't apply to non-Jews because Israel doesn't want to force its Arab citizens to fight other Arabs. However, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are encouraged to join the military or civil service and they serve alongside Israeli Jews or in their own units. In fact Druze men have mandatory conscription.
The draft doesn't apply to non-Jews because Israel doesn't want to force its Arab citizens to fight other Arabs. However, Arabs, Muslims, and Christians are encouraged to join the military or civil service and they serve alongside Israeli Jews or in their own units. In fact Druze men have mandatory conscription.
Check the law again. The draft applies to all Israelis but exemptions can be granted. And in fact have been granted to Arabs. The conscription of Druze men is a consequence of their not having been granted a special exemption.
Note that not all branches of the military service are open to minorities. Notably the airforce is not. And having served as a pilot in the airforce is a requirement for being a pilot in the state airline.
Many, many countries have a Right or Law of Return. I always find it interesting that it is particularly bad when Jews do it.
I was not saying it was good or bad. I was citing it as evidence that different races are treated differently under Israeli law.
There are reasons for this discrimination. However discriminating and claiming that you don't discriminate is hypocrisy.
> Check the law again. The draft applies to all Israelis but exemptions can be granted. And in fact have been granted to Arabs. The conscription of Druze men is a consequence of their not having been granted a special exemption.
True but this doesn't mean non-Jewish Israelis are barred from serving in the military or civil service.
> I was not saying it was good or bad. I was citing it as evidence that different races are treated differently under Israeli law.
Right but if this is practiced in hundreds of countries around the world, it's a moot point.
True but this doesn't mean non-Jewish Israelis are barred from serving in the military or civil service.
True. But there are parts of the military that non-Jewish Israelis are barred from.
Right but if this is practiced in hundreds of countries around the world, it's a moot point.
The fact that many countries discriminate by race doesn't change the fact that it is, in fact, discrimination by race.
Incidentally I strongly doubt that we're talking about hundreds of countries. As of 2006 the UN had 192 member countries. And I know that many of them (eg Canada, England and France) do not have anything resembling the Jewish Right of Return.
But to that I say: so what? Do you think Americans are that stupid that they won't see antisemitism? Do you think we're little children who can't think for ourselves?
As the old adage goes, "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer". If Al Jazeera is indeed "the enemy", then all the more reason to make Al Jazeera widely available!
Plus: when Al Jazeera started, the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. So while they worked for BBC, they were unbiased; but the moment they started working for AJ, they became biased and completely untrustworthy!!
IMHO, this opposition to Al Jazeera comes from the fact that they (AJ) don't tow the 'company line'. There's a carefully crafted story around which news is reported in the US ("US = good; Middle-Easterners = uneducated religious bigots; Israelis = poor victims who can't do no wrong; etc." ) ; unfortunately for AJ, they refuse to follow this line and hence piss off powerful people here.
And before someone starts putting words in my mouth: I support Israeli people, and want them to live secure, peaceful, happy lives in Israel. In other words: I support the Israeli people, but not necessarily the actions of their government.