...last May during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit and address to Congress. I watched local television newscasts and listened to many radio talk shows during the day. At night, I completed the picture by looking at the Israeli media. The gap in coverage between the two countries was beyond distressing; it was actually entertaining.
Netanyahu’s visit this week didn't lead the media to surpass its previous record, but it was hard to miss the negative tone and attempts to minimize his visit. One veteran journalist used the word “performance” several times in reference to Netanyahu’s speech at the AIPAC conference.
What caught my attention amongst all the reports was one by a young female journalist who was acting as a commentator on Netanyahu’s trip: “Netanyahu went to Washington because he wanted to create more serious and concrete headlines regarding American readiness to attack Iran … Instead, we see an opposite phenomenon. Not only has [President Barack] Obama failed to make stronger declarations, not only did he fail to mention a tangible threat of attack, but he did not talk about his own preparations for a campaign … we saw him get such a tremendous, powerful slap in the face from Obama …This is not the objective that he wanted to achieve. It is just the opposite.”
What profound insight did we receive from this commentary? ... Obama stressed at least two important points in his address: He does not intend to contain Iran; and he does not intend to permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and then create a balance of deterrence as in the Cold War with the former Soviet Union...Dr. Emily Landau, a respected researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, also touched upon some of these “insights,” when she spoke on the heels of that same journalist. She said in a clear voice, “I just heard the previous reporter’s account … I think that it is really not true.”
The reporter’s inexperience may actually illustrate how the “right thing to say” is created among Israeli journalists. What does she really know? What can she really tell us? Was she a fly on the wall in the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu?
...Landau and Professor Efraim Inbar (of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University) later said that horrifying “day-after” scenarios circulated by senior American officials, who desperately want to deter Israel from an attack on Iran, and generously sponsored by the Israeli media, were designed to influence Israeli public opinion.
...A densely packed sector of media and politics is responsible for frightening claims that we are about to “eat it” unless we “wise up”; that a “political tsunami” will ensue, and other political grist for the mill disguised as commentary.
Professional media behavior.
Ugh.
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