Thursday, September 15, 2005
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
The AP has a balanced story that the Israeli Supreme Court has defied the World Court in the Hague and held that the security fence, with some revisions to alleviate Palestinian suffering, is legal and necessary. (My response is: Duh!).
But there are a lot of other stories that emphasize the revision in the fence around five Palestinian villages near the settlement of Alfei Menashe, home to about 5,000 Israelis. (What's it all about, Alfei?). Sometimes, it's all about where you put the emphasis.
The BBC leads and almost exclusively talks about the ordered revision to the fence:
Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that the government must consider re-routing part of the controversial West Bank barrier it is building.
The AFP also leads with the fence's revision and then stays with it:
Israel's supreme court has ordered a section of the controversial West Bank separation barrier to be torn down as it imprisons thousands of Palestinian villages for the sake of a Jewish enclave. The unanimous decision on Thursday urged the government to dismantle a small sector of the barrier in the northern West Bank, but ruled the fence was a "central" component of national security that justified confiscation of Palestinian land.
Reuters does the same thing.
The story is that hundreds of miles of the fence are OK and oh, yea, they need to do a short section over; the story is not that they have to do a section over and, oh, yea, the rest of the security fence is OK. Sometimes bias is not that subtle.
But there are a lot of other stories that emphasize the revision in the fence around five Palestinian villages near the settlement of Alfei Menashe, home to about 5,000 Israelis. (What's it all about, Alfei?). Sometimes, it's all about where you put the emphasis.
The BBC leads and almost exclusively talks about the ordered revision to the fence:
Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that the government must consider re-routing part of the controversial West Bank barrier it is building.
The AFP also leads with the fence's revision and then stays with it:
Israel's supreme court has ordered a section of the controversial West Bank separation barrier to be torn down as it imprisons thousands of Palestinian villages for the sake of a Jewish enclave. The unanimous decision on Thursday urged the government to dismantle a small sector of the barrier in the northern West Bank, but ruled the fence was a "central" component of national security that justified confiscation of Palestinian land.
Reuters does the same thing.
The story is that hundreds of miles of the fence are OK and oh, yea, they need to do a short section over; the story is not that they have to do a section over and, oh, yea, the rest of the security fence is OK. Sometimes bias is not that subtle.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:33 AM 
