The Protocols of The Daily Kos…..
Collective Punishment & Media Bias

We don’t know who was responsible for the tragic deaths of the Fogel family. We all condemn such violence. Yet there are much larger issues at play here. First of all, without any solid evidence, the Israeli government is assuming that someone from the Palestinian side is guilty. We don’t know that. And yet the Israeli government is engaging in its policy of collective punishment by storming the village of Arwata.

They have rounded up 19 people and taken them into custody, blocked off the roads and prevented anyone from entering or leaving, and taken children into custody.

Later that day, they searched the houses of families who had been arrested, cutting off the power and entering their houses without warrants with soldiers and dogs. They destroyed computers and phones, stole money, and threw sound grenades. An 80-year-old diabetic woman was beaten by the soldiers and had to be taken to the hospital.

This is an example of the media bias that is common when reporting on I/P events. We always read about it when an Israel family is killed. That is trumpeted all over the Associated Press and outlets that report their news. Yet when Israel’s army engages in collective punishment on a daily basis, that reporting is ignored. Where is the media when 80 year old women are beaten and taken to the hospital or children are arrested and taken into custody?

The real story is not that a family was killed. The real story is about the media and the systematic bias that pervades their reporting on these events. These are the same sorts of practices that the Bush administration used when they engaged in collective punishment by killing off millions of Iraqi civilians and detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo without trial.

In the twisted view of certain media outlets, the fact that the Fogel family was killed outside of any humane laws makes it a major bad deal. But if you operate under the guise of law and order, that somehow creates all the justification in the world. The fact that collective punishment is illegal under international law somehow escapes them.