#812 – 7/24/16 Parties’ Platform Language More Balanced than Media’s

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  While I was off fishing (more about which in optional post-script) this past week, the Republicans held their convention in Cleveland and this week the Dems will in Philly.  The Israel planks in both platforms received a lot of input from all sides, and, without taking sides, there is stuff, perspectives and terms, in (and not in) both parties’ planks that contrasts markedly to the Israel reporting perspectives and terms the media uses.  

The Elephant and Donkey This Week In the Room:  Parties’ Platforms’ Language Fairer Than Media’s

I printed out the two parties’ four platform paragraphs (3 in the GOP’s, as adopted, 1 in the Dems’, as committee-approved on July 9) on Israel.  Both documents are longer than 50 pages, of which three and one paragraphs, respectively, are not very much, but you can bet that the drafting of these four paragraphs got, to borrow a term, disproportionate focus.  My purpose is not to say which party’s Israel plank is better for us, but to look at the terms both parties used and did not use, not one of which was chosen or not chosen by chance.  While you stand on one leg: neither party used the terms that the media does, and that’s good for us.

Let’s look at one refreshing term they both used, one that each one alone used, and some that neither of them used.

TerrorOne term that both the GOP and Democrats used that jumps out at you, because the media wrongfully avoids using it in Israel’s case, is “terror.”

Democrats:  “Israelis deserve … a normal life free from terror ….”

GOP:  “We support Israel’s right and obligation to defend itself against terror attacks on its people ….”

Indeed, over the years the mainstream media has gone out of its way to exclude Israel from the global war against terror. E.g.: The Baltimore Sun ran a December 1, 2002 (Inq., A2, “Israel Tries To Link Itself With U.S. War On Terror”) article that led:

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Israel has been trying to link its battles against Palestinians to the Bush administration’s global war against terrorism.  But…Israel has been unable to convince the world that it is fighting the same war as the United States.

 The Philadelphia Inquirers 4/31/04 front page headlined

Battlefields Around the World were in the Thick of the Counter-terror Fight Yesterday (emphasis added)

above a set of references under the heading “Many Fronts in the War On Terror” to articles on Uzbekistan, Britain, the Philippines, Spain and the U.S. (emphasis added)

Terror could even strike right next-door to Israel, and be reported as such by the same Philadelphia Inquirer  (Inq) reporter (Inq Jerusalem Bureau Chief Matza) who called the eleven Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics “killed” by “Palestinian guerrillas” (Inq, 3/14/04).  The October 29, 2002, Inquirer ran a front-page staff-writer article on the murder of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan, in which Jerusalem Bureau Chief Matza raised the issues “as to whether it was a result of terrorism,” “the work of a terror group,” and whether “it appeared to be an act of terrorism.”

IncitementThe “terror” expression the Democrats used went on to include “incitement”:

Democrats:  “Israelis deserve … a normal life free from terror and incitement.”

Palestinian Arab “incitement”?  On at least one occasion, the mainstream media, AP and Inq, ridiculed Israel for citing it.  An 11/4/10 Inq AP article reported that Israel’s “announcement” that it would “monitor” Palestinian Arab anti-Israel incitement, not the incitemtent itself, “further strained” the “increasingly tense” atmosphere following breakdown of peace talks.  The Inquirer headlined “Israel To Monitor Palestinian ‘Incitement’ ” with the word “Incitement” in Inquirer quotes.

“Israel Not an Occupier”The Republican Israel plank includes: “We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier….”  This is extremely significant, given, e.g., CNN’s Christianne Amanpour’s response to Israeli minister Naftali Bennett’s objection to her use of Israeli “occupation.”  She told him, “It’s an international term, Mr. Bennett.”

Just how significant can be seen from the platform fight on the other side.  The Democrats’ platform to be voted on this week, as approved by the Committee, does not mention “occupation,” thanks to an 8-5 vote, but had two votes changed it would have said something very different from the GOP’s.  Jerusalem Post, 6/26: “James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute and a Sanders appointee, proposed the platform include a call for ‘an end to occupation and illegal settlements.’ The language, which was approved by Sanders himself, was ultimately voted down by the committee 8-5.”

Other TermsBoth parties’ planks call for “direct” negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Arabs, and for an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  The Republicans’ three paragraphs have more pro-Israel terms than the Democrats’ one, including “no daylight,” moving the embassy, maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, and condemning BDS, and pointedly not mentioning “the two-state solution

Neither party’s plank used terms like “East” Jerusalem, “West Bank,” “occupation” or “settlements,” called the 1949 Israel-Jordan military ceasefire lines “Israel’s 1967 borders,” referenced Jewish connection to historic Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as dating from “their capture by Israel in 1967,” etc.

Ok, party platforms are not to be taken too seriously, but I think, given the scope and intensity of input from all sides on both parties’ Israel planks, that plank may be to a certain extent an exception.  In any case, the language used by both parties has a life of its own, independent of and longer-lasting than the campaigns.  Take it as proof that we ourselves don’t have to discuss the “Israeli-Palestinian” (correctly, “Arab-Israeli”) conflict using Jewish homeland-deniers’ and the mainstream media’s perspectives and terms.

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Utterly optional editorial: Fishers of Fish

Nine years ago, I went with my son and then 5-year-old grandson to a quiet spot in Quebec province where I’ve gone off-and-on in the summertime over the past fifty years to make the better acquaintance of bass, pike, walleye, etc.  Max and I sat Brandon in the middle of the boat, but soon he was asking “How you do that flip?   How you do that flip?”  He picked up open-face spinning reel casting and catching, it seemed to me, rather quickly for five years old.  Walleye are fairly rare on those lakes, but one day each of us caught one and, with forethought of dinner, kept them.  Thus, I can testify to the validity of where it says in the Talmud: “Whoever has not tasted walleye freshly caught by himself, his son and his grandson has truly not tasted fish.”

A fortnight ago, Brandon proposed we go back.  This past week we rented a cabin that came with a boat and a motor on the same lake.  Between us we caught pike, smallmouth and largemouth bass and walleye, along with perch, bluegills, bullheads and croppie, not a lot of any, but a few with some size to them, in surroundings that could pass for photos in a fishing magazine.  Cold Canadian beer still tastes best in small boats such as these, and it is possible, in such boats and surroundings, for a septuagenarian to hold an intelligible conversation with a teenager.