The MasterBlog: Why Time Doesn't Care About Israel
Subscribe to The MasterBlog in a Reader Subscribe to The MasterBlog by Email

MasterBlogs Headlines

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Why Time Doesn't Care About Israel


Why Time Doesn't Care About Israel

Time cover story claims decadent Israelis no longer care about peace.


As Israel launches a new round of peace talks with the Palestinians, media outlets are bending over backwards to find a new angle on the peace process. One of the most shocking comes from Time magazine, whose cover story "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace" suggests that Israelis no longer see peace as a priority because the economy is strong and the country has largely been free of terror inside the green line.
(An excerpt from the story can be read on th online here. The whole story appears in the print edition and on the magazine's iPad application.)

Polls repeatedly show that Israelis strongly support a two-state solution to the conflict. But it may, indeed, be true that Israelis have grown skeptical of any breakthroughs with the Palestinian leadership now divided between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in control of Gaza. Israelis have seen that new peace talks are usually accompanied by new terror attacks.
The Time article, written by Karl Vick, however, glosses over any legitimate reasons why Israelis may have lost interest in the details of the peace process, instead presenting Israelis as callous, insensitive, and decadently more concerned with beaches, water sports, and Tel Aviv's cafe culture than with matters of real substance.
Vick writes:
In the week that three Presidents, a King and their own Prime Minister gather at the White House to begin a fresh round of talks on peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They're otherwise engaged; they're making money; they're enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still define their country by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on.
The reference to the "blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land" is particularly telling. Vick appears to subtly reject Israel's historic claims to the land and to imply that Israelis are at fault in the conflict, since the land really belongs to the Arabs.
The print edition's accompanying photos reinforce Vick's contention that Israelis are preoccupied with leisure. The images feature Israelis lying on the beach, chatting at a cafe, or sitting on park benches. The implication is obvious: Israelis don't care about peace because they are doing fine without it.
Thus, Time distorts Israeli resilience in the face of a decade of rocket attacks and terrorism into an image of decadence.
Perhaps the real reason Israelis have become apathetic to the peace process (not peace itself, as the cover suggests), is because of the way the world quickly forgets Israel's numerous peace moves - Ehud Barak's offer of a state at Camp David, Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza, Binyamin Netanyahu's settlement freeze. Yet the media blames Israel for years of stalemate.
While there have been no parallel moves from the Palestinians to advance the peace process, only ever-increasing demands on Israel, Vick gives the impression that the Palestinians have been doing everything they can to make peace possible.
In the West Bank, the territory administered by Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, technocratic Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is taking a serious stab at governance, starting by professionalizing security forces. Even before the shooting deaths of four Jewish settlers by Hamas operatives on Aug. 31, the worst such incident since March 2008, Fayyad's security forces had arrested more than 300 Hamas supporters in dread of an attack like that.
"Jewish settlers" - not Talya and Yitzchak Imes, Kochava Even-Haim, and Avishai Shendler, not civilians, not even "Israelis" -- were killed by people Time labels as "Hamas operatives" while Fayyad sat "in dread" of such activity.
If Fayyad's dread is what demonstrates Palestinian concern for peace after one year of rejecting Israeli offers for peace talks, what does Time have to say about Palestinian leaders beyond Fayyad?
A few days before leaving for Washington, chief Palestinian negotiator looked into a camera. "Shalom to you in Israel," he said. "I know we have disappointed you." In a bold, not to say desperate, bid to rouse ordinary Israelis, seven senior Palestinian officials addressed themselves to Israel directly in online videos. Each clip concludes with the words "I am your partner. Are you mine?"
While some may see Erekat's comments and the Palestinian videos as political propaganda that gives no insight into the minds of the Palestinian people, for Vick it serves as a counterpoint to Israel's apparent apathy. Of course, he has to bend over backwards to make the point.
As a result, we have another cover story on newsstands worldwide accusing Israel of not caring about peace. What we really learn, however, is that Time magazine doesn't care about Israel.
Please send your considered comments to letters@time.com
HonestReporting. com


Why Time Doesn't Care About Israel

Share this|
________________________
The MasterBlog

No comments:

Post a Comment

Commented on The MasterBlog

Tags, Categories

news United States Venezuela Finance Money Latin America Oil Current Affairs Middle East Commodities Capitalism Chavez International Relations Israel Gold Economics NT Democracy China Politics Credit Hedge Funds Banks Europe Metals Asia Palestinians Miscellaneous Stocks Dollar Mining Corruption ForEx obama Iran UK Terrorism Africa Demographics UN Government Living Russia Bailout Military Debt Tech Islam Switzerland Philosophy Judaica Science Housing PDVSA Revolution USA War petroleo Scams articles Fed Education France Canada Security Travel central_banks OPEC Castro Colombia Nuclear freedom EU Energy Mining Stocks Diplomacy bonds India drugs Anti-Semitism Arabs populism Brazil Saudi Arabia Environment Irak Syria elections Art Cuba Food Goldman Sachs Afghanistan Anti-Israel Hamas Lebanon Silver Trade copper Egypt Hizbollah Madoff Ponzi Warren Buffett press Aviation BP Euro FARC Gaza Honduras Japan Music SEC Smuggling Turkey humor socialism trading Che Guevara Freddie Mac Geneve IMF Spain currencies violence wikileaks Agriculture Bolívar ETF Restaurants Satire communism computers derivatives Al-Qaida Bubble FT Greece Libya Mexico NY PIIGS Peru Republicans Sarkozy Space Sports stratfor BRIC CITGO DRC Flotilla Germany Globovision Google Health Inflation Law Muslim Brotherhood Nazis Pensions Uranium cnbc crime cyberattack fannieMae pakistan Apollo 11 Autos BBC Bernanke CIA Chile Climate change Congo Democrats EIA Haiti Holocaust IFTTT ISIS Jordan Labor M+A New York OAS Philanthropy Shell South Africa Tufts UN Watch Ukraine bitly carbon earthquake facebook racism twitter Atom BHP Beijing Business CERN CVG CapitalMarkets Congress Curaçao ECB EPA ETA Ecuador Entebbe Florida Gulf oil spill Harvard Hezbollah Human Rights ICC Kenya L'Oréal Large Hadron Collider MasterBlog MasterFeeds Morocco Mugabe Nobel Panama Paulson Putin RIO SWF Shiites Stats Sunnis Sweden TARP Tunisia UNHRC Uganda VC Water Yen apple berksire hathaway blogs bush elderly hft iPad journalism mavi marmara nationalization psycology sex spy taxes yuan ALCASA ANC Airbus Amazon Argentina Ariel Sharon Australia Batista Bettencourt Big Bang Big Mac Bill Gates Bin Laden Blackstone Blogger Boeing COMEX Capriles Charlie Hebdo Clinton Cocoa DSK Desalination Durban EADS Ecopetrol Elkann Entrepreneur FIAT FTSE Fannie Freddie Funds GE Hayek Helicopters Higgs Boson Hitler Huntsman Ice Cream Intel Izarra KKR Keynes Khodorskovsky Krugman LBO LSE Lex Mac Malawi Maps MasterCharts MasterLiving MasterMetals MasterTech Microsoft Miliband Monarchy Moon Mossad NYSE Namibia Nestle OWS OccupyWallStreet Oligarchs Oman PPP Pemex Perry Philippines Post Office Private Equity Property QE Rio de Janeiro Rwanda Sephardim Shimon Peres Stuxnet TMX Tennis UAV UNESCO VALE Volcker WTC WWII Wimbledon World Bank World Cup ZIRP Zapatero airlines babies citibank culture ethics foreclosures happiness history iPhone infrastructure internet jobs kissinger lahde laptops lawyers leadership lithium markets miami microfinance pharmaceuticals real estate religion startup stock exchanges strippers subprime taliban temasek ubs universities weddimg zerohedge

Subscribe via email

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

AddThis

MasterStats