I can’t prove it, but my impression is that the MSM coverage of the most recent slaughter in Gaza has become unaccustomedly two-sided. Here’s one example out of many.
Why this deviance into balanced coverage I cannot say. Perhaps there is a feeling that the new administration may edge slightly away from our blind obedience to Likud, freeing the MSM to do the same. (I have to admit, though, that evidence of any such policy shift is so far very scanty.)
For redder meat and stronger wine we still have to go to the blogosphere, where Jeff Huber cuts loose on at-Largely. An excerpt:
…Dick Cheney says Israel didn’t seek “U.S. approval” to begin the ground attack into Gaza. Heh. They didn’t seek “U.S. approval” before they attacked Lebanon, either. They sought Dick Cheney’s approval, and he gave it to them. Dick Cheney isn’t the “U.S.” He’s just the vice president, and the president of the Senate. He’s not in the military chain of command at all, and according to him he doesn’t even work in the executive branch of government.No word yet on whether Israel got Dick’s permission to use cluster munitions on the sand colored people, this time or last time. Israel’s Haaretz says the Israeli Defense Force is aiming the cluster ammunition at “open areas.” I have trouble imagining Hamas placing suitable cluster bomb targets in the open. You might shell an open area to set off mines that could be buried there, but if you use cluster bombs to do that you’ll create another minefield on top of the one you’re trying to clear.
Cluster bombs are made for killing people. Maybe the IDF is shelling open areas with cluster bombs as a humanitarian gesture, something to remind the Palestinians to stay in the closed areas where it’s safer, but I doubt it. Journalist Jamal Dajani of Link TV, posting from the Israel-Gaza border, judges Israel’s self described “surgical strikes” to be “as surgical as shooting chickens in a coop with a shot gun.”
Mr. Bush blames the Gaza debacle on Hamas, saying it has “once again shown its true colors as a terrorist organization” with attacks on Israel. Bush didn’t mention that Israel broke the ceasefire in November when it sent ground troops into Gaza. Cheney probably didn’t let anybody tell Bush that part.
Maybe it’s a moot issue; Israel has had Gaza under a blockade since January 2008, six months before the ceasefire went into effect. Since a blockade is an act of war imposed by armed force, one has to marvel at how even the most adroit Rovewellian can say with a straight face that a ceasefire exists within a blockade…
I've noticed it too. The Washington Post allows open comments to most of their articles, and there have been a few comments that indicate that all sides of the argument in Israel are going to be allowed to be heard here instead of just those of AIPAC. Whether these comments are credible or not is an open question but the majority of the comments about Israel in the comments section at the Washington Post articles seem to me to have been uncomplimentary to Israel (and the "I approve this comment" clickers likewise).
The articles seem to have more balance there too, but perhaps not to the extent than coverage given by the Times, although as you've noticed, there has been a decided shift in recent days. These incursions may be the final gasp of the Likuds now in power who are getting in their last strikes before a move for more peaceful relations in the region and the beginnings of diplomacy for the region for the first time in years. Let's hope that's so and that the right wing in Israel is not the only voice that will be heard here in the US from now on.
Perhaps with the J Street coalition that Chuck mentioned in a previous post here moving to become a voice here in the US, there has been a move towards allowing all sides in who debate these matters in Israel to be heard here, not just the highly militaristic right wingers there. Personally I think it's been a huge mistake to allow AIPAC to dominate the conversation here. More and more Americans seem to be able to see through the propaganda. Thank the open nature of the internet if that's so.
Most of these comments are based on anecdotal observations, so take them for what they're worth. I suspect a good many others have seen the same tendency too, as you have.
Quite frankly, I believe Israel needed to do something about the incessant shelling from Gaza, but there was no reason for them to be so brutal about it to the majority of the people in Gaza who are completely innocent and helpless to defend themselves. Pressure from the international community might well have solved this problem without violence. But we all know that this was simply a last minute rush to do "something" before the criminals here in power in the US leave Washington.
The Bush administration's "no negotiation" policy certainly was a major factor in bringing about these problems.
As an example of an article from the Washington Post displaying similar sentiments as the Time, here's a recent story from the Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/06/AR2009010600541_2.html?hpid=artslot&sid=ST2009010600662&s_pos=
Posted by: Buck on January 6, 2009 8:33 PM