Unfair
Read this piece. It backs up all of my frustrations in terms of how Israel is treated by the international media, especially contrasted with the warm reception that has met the tragic shooting of an innocent civilian by authorities in London. To wit:
Such was the nervousness in London on Friday that, at 10 a.m., a dark-complexioned man was shot dead on a train at Stockwell Tube station in south London. Witnesses on the train immediately said it was clear the man had been unarmed. In the words of one, he was "literally executed." He was already lying on the ground motionless, having tripped, when British police pumped five bullets into his head at close range. On Saturday evening the police confirmed what had been fairly apparent from the time of the shooting – that they had mistakenly targeted an innocent man. It turned out he was a Brazilian Catholic.The disparity in how they've been treated by the press is evident.
Had Israeli police shot dead an innocent foreigner on one of its buses or trains, confirming the kill with a barrage of bullets at close range in a mistaken effort to thwart a bombing, the UN would probably have been sitting in emergency session by late afternoon to unanimously denounce the Jewish state...
By evening, 12 hours had passed since the shooting, but the BBC still hadn't interviewed a grieving family, no one had called for British universities to be boycotted, Chelsea and Arsenal soccer clubs hadn't been ordered to play their matches in Cyprus, and The Guardian hadn't yet called British policy against its Pakistani population "genocide."
posted by orthomom at 11:18 PM
6 Comments:
I agree with the overall point, although the jpost piece is a bit overwrought. Recent NYPD shootings of unarmed civilians appeared to be much closer cases than this yet the outcry was much greater.
It is just terrible, the doublestandard that exists.
What do you expect? A lot of people don't like jews.
The answer is for the jews to stop being so goddamn appologetic! We could learn a few tricks from the arabs. They just believe they're right about everything and proceed unabashedly.
Don't worry Othrmom. Israel still got some of the blame as the UK papers said that the Metropolitan Police had modelled their policy of shoot to kill was based on the Israeli model.
However, on the news they interviewed some retired bigwig from the Jerusalem police. He said that even when Israeli police shoot to kill, they do not shoot at the head as it's a small target and therefore hard to hit. They also never shoot people in the back. When the need arises they shoot at the chest. He said that there was very little chance of detonating the bomb they might be wearing as the only way of doing that is to hit the detonator.
Another point.
In actual fact, the media here in the UK did broadcast interviews with the guy's family.
Fair enough. But the point about the double standard remains.
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