On the heels of the puff-PR piece about Hamas “moderating,” the Christian Science Monitor has now produced a glowing profile of the Israeli economic boom. Except it’s not a glowing profile. It’s all about how the Israeli economy is booming while the palestinian economy goes bust. Does it mention the corruption, graft, and outright thievery that has ruled the PA since Arafat was “elected” its leader? No. Does it have any context whatsoever about why the palestinians are suffering? Not really. Instead, it has omitted serious pieces of information from paragraphs like this:
In the decades after Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six Day War, an economic symbiosis began to emerge as Israel exported consumer goods to the Palestinians and Arab construction and agricultural laborers flooded into Israel. The peace accords of the 1990s included a separate economic treaty – the Paris Protocol – establishing a customs union between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. But over the last decade, Israel has reduced its dependence on the Palestinian economy as technology exports surged and day laborers from Gaza and the West Bank were replaced by guest workers from primarily China, Thailand, and Romania.
What is missing from the above? Here’s a hint. It’s spelled “i-n-t-i-f-a-d-a.” Israel reduced her dependency on palestinian labor because palestinian laborers were murdering their bosses, planting bombs, and blowing up Israelis on buses, in shops, and on the streets.
Frankly, the whole article is misleading. It blames the Israeli recession almost entirely on the suicide bombings, while neglecting to mention how tech-heavy Israel’s economy is. The entire tech industry suffered economically at the same time as Israel, as any American with tech stocks his his portfolio can attest. Oh, there’s a quote by an Israeli source saying the same, but that follows a description of the bombings and Israelis refusing to go to shopping malls due to the attacks.
I do believe the CSM may become the new AP as far as the evidence of its anti-Israel bias. Good thing it’s not a wire service.
I suppose this sounds silly but I do have a theory as to why the Christian SCIENCE Monitor hates Israel so much.
It is my (admittedly mostly ignorant) understanding that Christian SCIENTISTS do not “believe” in western medicine. Israel is, most would agree, one of the most adept developers of new techniques and medications in the western medical tradition.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that the CSM concludes that Israel, because of its belief in rational and scientifically grounded medicine, is one of their “foes”.
And, so, the editors cheerfully and purposefully distort what is printed in the Christian Science propaganda broadsheet, the less than universally well respected, CSM.
By the way, if some reader of this blog actually works for the CSM or one of it’s affiliates, could they tell us what sort of medical insurance coverage they offer their employees? I’m interested if the CSM “eats its’ own dog food”, so to speak.
I kinda doubt that Ted. I think it’s not likely that the journos who get hired on there even believe in any mainline, wishy-washy Prod denomination, let alone Christian Science, which is basically nothing more than faith healing.
From what I’ve read the Arabs were just as terrified of Peres’ ideas of economic cooperation as they are of Israeli military might. They are terrified that those wily Jews will outfox the innocent Arabs and take everything over economically if once the Arabs open their economies to Israel. So much for the dovish vision of a new Middle East.