Every day the NYTIMES features several photos of dead Palestinians killed in the new wave of violence in Israel. There are never any photos of dead Jews killed in that same wave of violence. We all know they exist, articles that accompany the photos mention them but they don’t make it into the photos.
38 responses to “Depicting Violence”
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PR management. Rioters often will pre-announce locations on social media, allowing the media to get there in time for pics. Suicide bombers don’t.
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There are also photos of Palestinian funerals or mourning relatives but no Jewish funerals or mourning relatives.
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Here’s a link to an article at <a href = “http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/10/13/3-dead-20-injured-in-israel-attacks.html?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition>The Daily Beast. According to the article,
At least three people were killed and 20 injured Tuesday in a series of violent attacks around Israel, prompting the mayor of Jerusalem to call for the government to “immediately implement drastic measures” to protect citizens. Two people were killed on a bus in Jerusalem when two men opened fire and stabbed passengers; one attacker was reportedly killed and the other captured. In another part of Jerusalem, a man rammed into a bus station with his car then got out and started stabbing people. One person died in that attack; the attacker was shot and captured at the scene, police say. And in the town of Raanaa, another passenger was stabbed at a bus station, hours before another six were injured in another stabbing attack elsewhere in the town.
Who attacked whom? The article links to a NBC News post, but the link is to a piece about the recent North Korean celebrations and has nothing to do with Israel.
Here’s a link to an interesting article about “proportional journalism.”
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You are right, the quoted piece is really pathetic reporting.
I’m still trying to get over how poorly the US media are reporting the war in Ukraine, and here is the same shoddy, irresponsible reporting.
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Here’s a link to an article of the type one would never find in the NY Times or other western media. It tells who did what to whom and when.
This article suggests what should be done, but it amounts to little more than putting a bandaid on a gushing wound. Unfortunately, the problem is a cultural one which would be very difficult to ameliorate, even from inside and even if it were attempted.
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A major part of the problem involves Palestinians, particularly clergy, who tell their listeners that there’s a religious war and that it is their duty and privilege to kill Jews. Please see, particularly, the video embedded here.
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Here’s a link to an at least modestly objective article in the NY Times. Many, if not most, Israelis are upset that the government is not doing enough to stop Palestinian terror attacks.
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The photo speaks by itself. Seven armed and menacing people surround a half-naked and defenseless body. The message is loud and clear.
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\ The photo speaks by itself. Seven armed and menacing people surround a half-naked and defenseless body. The message is loud and clear.
I agree that the photo’s message is “loud and clear.” And emotionally manipulative. It doesn’t show what was going a few minutes before – a helpless 13-year-old being stabbed and almost murdered.
Next show me a photo of Osama Bin Laden’s defenseless body and the surrounding menancing American soldiers in frightening military gear with attack dogs. I guess, the message will be loud and clear too. And, when Osama was killed, he wasn’t in the middle of stabbing terrorist attack. I wouldn’t be surprised if Osama was less dangerous to anybody at the time of his killing than this Palestinian teenage terrorist.
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Does NYTIMES support Palestinian propaganda? For the latter, see this report:
Subdued terrorists or defenseless victims? A guide to Palestinian propaganda
#Palestinian_child_was_executed has been trending on social media, together with images portraying neutralized terrorists as ‘innocent children executed by Israel.’
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Disinformation is neither new nor a stranger to the Palestinian propaganda campaign, but it seems to have intensified by the recent events.Almost every picture of a neutralized terrorist is quickly uploaded to social media, and is portrayed as a “cold blooded execution.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4710526,00.html\ The reporting on the issue is deeply defective in the US, so it’s truly impossible to find anything out if one is interested.
One should read Israeli English news sites. It also lets one see what we Israeli Jews know about the conflict.
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There is another explanation, though. Americans and Europeans enjoy looking at dead and broken Arab bodies. They love the imagery of suffering, crying Arabs. This might be the reason behind the proliferation of these photos.
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One more thing: I’m not a media specialist but I am noticing a reluctance in the US and European media to put up photos that feature the corpses perceived by the majority as “people like us”. In the meanwhile, there seems to be no such problem with posting dead pictures of people “not like us.”
Michael Brown is an example. Or the dead Syrian boy.
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I would say it is more out of respect for ‘people like them’. Preserving the dignity of white bodies while turning the bodies of ‘others’ into a spectacle to be gawked at.
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Yes, precisely. That’s what I’m trying to say. I started reading the NYTIMES in the paper version for the first time last month, and there is a very striking difference in the way death is depicted based on who the dead people are.
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\ there is a very striking difference in the way death is depicted based on who the dead people are.
Very interesting.
Btw, in Israel some school children amuse themselves by watching ISIS videos and now also the videos of Palestinian terrorists being shot. Is it the same in America and Europe? In Israel, it is partly because of hatred for the terrorists, but I don’t think it’s the whole story. In America and Europe, I suppose, people don’t hate the terrorists like we do. So other reasons are at play.
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American television channels almost never show video scenes of individual people getting killed. You’ll see bombs going off, people shooting and fighting, people on their knees about to be beheaded, and lots of bloody victims directly after the incident — but never individuals at their precise moment of death. (It’s an unofficial censorship rule on U.S. TV.)
I assume that the video shown on Middle Eastern channels in more graphic. Am I correct?
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\ I assume that the video shown on Middle Eastern channels in more graphic. Am I correct?
I don’t know for sure since I don’t watch TV.
The teens watch videos from (I suppose) YouTube and other sites on Internet. Not necessary from any official channels.
\ This statement is just silly.
We’re talking about subconscious motivations. Enjoying looking at suffering Arabs because of XYZ could be one of reasons people are interested in watching such news segments.
Quite a few people hate ( both Jews and) Arabs, yet they watch “suffering Arabs” news with interest. Why? Because they care about Arabs? Surely not. Then why?
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“Americans and Europeans enjoy looking at dead and broken Arab bodies.”
This statement is just silly.
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Nothing will ever beat this:
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A missile, just wandering about looking for people to watch the world cup with, finally finds a few at a beachside cafe! Yay!
By the way, if what you described is indeed true, it has to be a recent phenomenon.. The american media is famously deferential to power. Look how they swallowed the Iraq WMD stories planted by the bush administration.
Jodi Rudoren, the NYTimes Jerusalem Bureau chief is some piece of work, writing about how Palestinians don’t love their children, something in their culture etc. etc.. Fox news would be ashamed of putting this dreck on their site.
CNN and the NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack
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\ Nothing will ever beat this:
How about
“At least 16 dead at Afghan hospital after US air strike
Military admits it “may have” bombed facility run by Doctors Without Borders, potentially renewing concerns about US air power in Afghanistan.”?
As if only Jews kill not combatants in a war.
Unlike Jews, Paestinian terrorists target civilians on purpose. I especially “liked” the yesterday case of two Palestinian teenagers, 13 and 15 years old, who “attacked a 13-year-old Israeli boy and a man, 25, gravely injuring them, in the third attack to hit the capital in a single day.” Btw, “older terrorist killed by police” – may be, his photo is in the American papers too.
Clarissa, I liked your idea of Europeans and Americans loving “the imagery of suffering, crying Arabs,” but am also interested in your explanation of the reasons for it. I can think of two: 1. the images present Arabs as helpless victims of Jews and … each other (the latest bit, I bet, isn’t discussed in those papers, which prefer to blame Jews, colonialism and foreign intervention). This way, Europeans and Americans feel even more powerful, and the idealistic image of the refugees-immigrants is reinforced 2. The images are what the viewers subconsciously fantasize about doing to Arabs in their midst. Aggression is one of the easier needs to satisfy via redirection / substitution, according to Konrad Lorenz.
On another matter, just saw in the news:
Russia blames Poland for sparking WWII
Relations worsen as Ambassador Sergey Andreev suggests Soviet invasion of Poland was in self-defense; Poland: Ambassador ‘undermining historical truth.’AND
Putin ‘worried’ by Israeli strikes in Syria
Russian leader expresses concern over artillery strikes on Assad’s forces despite security agreement reached with Netanyahu.LikeLike
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Yes. Here is how this neat mental trick that is very American in nature works: “I don’t want to be a victim because that’s too anxiety-ridden. I want to see myself as strong, powerful, almighty even. People like me cannot be victims because that suggests the intolerable possibility that I might be a victim.”
I have observed the complete mental collapse of Americans who are dined an opportunity to recite a litany of “American atrocities” at you, and it looks scary. People literally begin to shake and yell, “But we, we. . . we killed, we raped, we tortured!!!” It’s like a magic incantation used to ward off the scary aspects of life.
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NY Times and other mass media just hate Israel. It’s that pure and simple.
Clarissa, our country committed very few, if any atrocities.
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Sorry, who’s “our country” in this context? US or Israel?
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General strike, protests in Arab towns
Thousands of Israeli Arabs took part in a mass protest in Sakhnin in solidarity with the fight against what they termed “Israel’s al-Aqsa policy.” Protesters waved Palestinian flags and called out “we’ll sacrifice our lives for Palestine and al-Aqsa.”
The protest was organized by the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel as part of a general strike in the Arab sector on Tuesday that included schools, public institutions and businesses in Arab municipalities.
Young Arabs from nothern Israel who spoke to Ynet threatened to continue protesting, blocking roads and burning tires “until al-Aqsa mosque is liberated.”
A masked youth taking part in clashes told Ynet: “The cops are shooting innocent people, like [here this article links to another articles – one for each of those innocent terrorists]. We’re being treated like ISIS. Israel is the terror state.”
As for business owners in mixed cities, Acre’s merchants’ council representative, Hani Asadi, told Ynet: “We respect the Follow-Up Committee’s decision (to strike) but business owners are not forced to close their stores. Each business owner makes his or her own decision.”
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There’s an initiative on Facebook for Jews planning to boycott Arab businesses.
[…] journalist Shahin Nassar from Haifa, who claims that many Arab business owners in the city are worried about the threat of boycott.http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4710688,00.html
Note that while Israeli Arabs publicly swear to kill me “for Palestine and al-Aqsa,” if I were to offer their transfer to a future Palestinian state, I would be the evil radical. I owe them everything, they to my country – nothing. And I fully expect to be called a racist now after I admit being happy that I live not in a mixed (Jewish-Arab) city like Jerusalem.
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Our country is US.
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The position of “our country can do no wrong” is as weak and unconvincing as the position of “our country can do nothing but wrong.” Both positions arise from inflamed, overly emotional patriotism.
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Clarissa, being Ukranian Canadian, can you provide some examples of atrocities committed by Ukraine and Canada and also describe how healthy patriotism looks to you?
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Of course, absolutely, but only in what concerns Ukraine. To my shame, I’m not that familiar with the history of Canada where I only lived for 5 years. I’m sure there is a ton of nasty stuff Canada did but I’m not knowledgeable.
Ukraine will forever carry the shame of the horrifying Jewish pogroms of 1919-21. That was a genocidal eruption that can never be forgotten or forgiven. And mind you, Ukraine only existed as a country for those 3 years and then for the 24 years since 1991.
As for patriotism, I know way too much about how this fake emotion was manufactured and the purposes it was supposed to serve. I don’t let myself to be manipulated into patriotism.
Thank you for these great questions.
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Just for the change, something nice from Jerusalem:
Famed moonwalker Buzz Aldrin visits Jerusalem
Former astronaut speaks at 66th International Astronautical Congress, which brought over 2,000 people from 58 nations to Israel.
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The choice of Jerusalem is generally regarded as a testament to the growing role that Israel has come to play in space initiatives.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4710685,00.htmlLikeLike
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This reply is to @el’s quoted comment below. (I have no idea where WordPress will actually place this on the comments page.)
“Quite a few people hate ( both Jews and) Arabs, yet they watch ‘suffering Arabs’ news with interest. Why? Because they care about Arabs? Surely not. Then why?”
Simply because deadly violence fascinates. Americans eagerly watch televised images of exploding oil-fueled train wrecks burning down an American city, and scenes of horrific airline crashes. It isn’t because they hate their fellow Americans.
Watching car chases on U.S. television would be less boring if they’d actually show the car crashing and exploding.
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Where are the photos of the victims of the Oregon shooting then? Or the shooter himself? We don’t even get to read his note, let alone have his corpse splashed on every newspaper front page.
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American television didn’t show pictures of bin Laden’s body, either, or of Saddam’s body swinging on the noose. The answer MAY be (purely speculation here) that showing dead bodies with a specific name associated with them is a bit too sensitive for American television.
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“Simply because deadly violence fascinates. ‘Why?’”
Well, why do people like sex and (in general) find snakes and spiders creepy? Certain near-universal traits are simply a part of human nature.
You can dig deeper and try to find psychological / physiological explanations to explain such traits, but that’s already been done a thousand times by a thousand “experts.”
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I wish the NYTIMES published photos of this suffering 13-year-old Palestinian, but don’t think it’ll ever happen:
IN PICTURES: ‘Dead’ 13-year-old terrorist alive and well
Photos emerge of Ahmed Mansra [in the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Karem], who stabbed and seriously wounded two Israelis, one of them a boy his age, after Palestinian President Abbas made claims he was ‘executed’ by Israel; English translation of the speech done by PLO, however, tempers language to ‘shot in cold blood.’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4711817,00.htmlLikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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