Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Study: On U.S. Op-Ed Pages, Israel's Voice Is Stifled


A study is out that has really looked into just what is being written about Israel here in the U.S. and the findings don't surprise me but certainly go against everything we hear about the pro-Israel domination of American news. The fact of the matter is this - the pro-Arab and pro-palestinian reporting in American media is FAR more than that of pieces painting a positive image of Israel.
I really encourage you to read the full article here from CAMERA as it really details out how the conclusions were arrived at but look at this one finding put forth:


Even more telling is the striking fact that during the 19-month period, none of the newspapers ran even a single Op-Ed by an Israeli official. In contrast, each of the three papers ran four Op-Eds by Arab officials, including multiple pieces by Hamas leaders.

The three newspapers used for the study included:

1. The New York Times
2. The Washington Post
3. The Los Angeles Times

One of the interesting parts of the study is that when a newspaper actually DID report something positive about Israel, in that same article, it was often the case where something negative was said about Israel in the same article.
This is just further proof that when the pro-palestinian forces in America (yeah, I'm referring to you Jimmy Carter) whine and carry on about the pro-Israeli slant to American media, they are talking out of their asses. We all knew this was going on, but kudos to CAMERA for finally making it official and indisputable.
So, what's your bet gonna be that this is on the CBS Evening News sometime this week?


Study: On Nation's Op-Ed Pages, Israel's Voice is Stifled

According to many of Israel’s detractors, such as Jimmy Carter, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, pro-Israel voices dominate the American media and drown out pro-Palestinian views. Yet, if the Op-Ed pages of three leading national newspapers – the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times – are any indication, the exact opposite is the case.
A 19-month CAMERA study, from January 2006 through July 2007, of guest Op-Eds about the Arab-Israeli conflict found that in these three papers pro-Arab Op-Eds and/or those critical of Israel overwhelmingly outnumbered pro-Israel Op-Eds and/or those critical of Arabs.

It should be noted that many of the Op-Eds generally supportive of Israel also contained criticism of the Jewish state. In contrast, virtually none of the Op-Eds expressing a pro-Arab point of view contained criticism of the Arab side. As a result, in both the primary and tangential categories, our criteria for “pro-Israel/critical of Arabs” were much more lenient than those for “pro-Arabs/critical of Israel.” Thus we included articles that were subtly negative or critical of Israel under pro-Israel if the writer purported to represent a dominant Israeli perspective and we included articles with criticism or condemnation of Israel under neutral if it included criticism of the Arab side as well, even when it leaned more toward criticism of Israel or softening of policy toward Arabs.

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