Shoshannah, you said:

There is simply no question of the media bias AGAINST Israel in favor of the 'palestinians'... the only real concern, then, is how many people actually believe them, and I'm afraid that way too many people in this superficial world run by a totally biased media do!

You also said that this topic made you hot. So if this becomes frightfully political we can probably move to private, or to another forum or board more conducive to a knock-down debate.

I wonder, however, whether you considered your statement regarding media bias in light of your own phraseology - separating a capitalised Israel from the dubeity of single inverted commas accorded to the 'palestinians'. In times of conflict language, whose ability to convey unbiased meaning is fragile at the best of times, becomes completely subservient to the (conscious or otherwise) expression of prejudice by the parties concerned. At least, IMO.

In the very next paragraph, for instance, you describe the inconveniences attendent upon your daily life as a result of the current conflict. Others, however, might wonder whether the activities you describe (shopping, visiting friends and c) are even available to Palestinians caught up in this conflict, let alone in the truncated forms that you experience them. From a simple 'analysis' of the language you use I can hardly tell one way or the other.

So in my own way, I fall upon my own biases, and they were not all moulded by journalists. In fact the sources of my biases in this matter include:

1. Hani - a Palestinian student in Kashmir, whom I met in 1981
2. Innumerable 'plucky little Israel' thrillers, and Reader's Digest articles - Raid on Entebbe and so on. (circa 1975 - 1985)
3. A dawning understanding that (for whatever reason) India (the country in which I grew up) did not accord Israel diplomatic status
4. A smattering of reading concerning the history of the state of Israel
5. Knowledge that one of my mother's mentors, and most beloved friends, Flo Hyam, was planning to retire to Israel (circa 1986)
....and finally
6. The media - primarily the British print media - 1992 onwards.

I think of myself as a pro-Semite anti-Zionist. I do not like the idea of a racially, or religiously-based 'homeland', and I don't care how many millennia old the traditions of that religion/culture/race are. I do not like the idea that the British government salved its conscience for the Holocaust by giving away land that it had no right to. I do not like the idea that the American government time and again provided arms and support to Israel when the state was younger and already demonstrating that it was quite happy to treat territory taken during war as legitimately belonging to it. I do not like the idea that muslim militants consider terrorism a legitimate political tactic. I do not like the idea that even today, in Israel, a large proportion of the population sees no reason why the country cannot continue just as is: asserting the divine right of Israelis to all the land in that area - to the exclusion of equal rights for those of different cultural/religious traditions.

These are my biases. I admit them openly - I would not like the continuation of Israel as anything but a completely secular state, and if my feeble vote in the UK can make a difference in that direction I will use it for that purpose. I am, however, ahppy to be corrected in anything that I may have got wrong factually. For instance, is it incorrect that in the current conflict over 90% of the deaths have been of Palestinians? Is it incorrect that in a number of instances when unarmed Palestinian women and children have been killed it is by Israeli soldiers whose official expanation was that they were being attacked and fired in retaliation?

Notice how I have used language to express not just my biases, but to attempt to sound open-minded, yet cynical of Israeli attempts at PR or political spin on this affair?

Do you really think there is such a thing as a person with access to 'the truth' in such an affair, or that anybody who is thoughtful about language would be willing to believe anybody who might make such a claim?

I think it's a tough one.

cheer

the sunshine warrior