Stop your navel-gazing

Editorial

It seems like local pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian activists have more in common than they would care to admit.

At a public meeting reported in last week's Bulletin ("Soldier speaks to tough crowd"), local Palestinians, Unitarians and Jews for a Just Peace members responded in agreement when a guest speaker suggested the mainstream media is biased in favor of Israel.

At the meeting, an audience member asked why the meeting's organizers had not included a speaker who was favorable to the Israeli perspective in the current conflict.

Kevin Neish, a Victoria man who had recently returned from Bethlehem and had presented a slide show on his findings there, responded to the question.

"If you want that side of the story, you can watch [the] news whenever you want," he said.

The crowd ate it up. They loved it.

It was almost as popular as speakers at Zionist events implying that the media is biased against Israel.

For reporters who attend meetings organized by groups of all different stripes, the whole scenario is getting predictable and tedious.

The Local Israel Action Committee e-mails out countless analyses of media reports that are "obvious" examples of anti-Israel sentiment in the media. Opponents of Israeli policy point to the media as lapdogs of the Zionist agenda.

With the plethora of television stations, talk radio outlets and Internet resources, we could spend all day, every day digging up reports that skew the news in directions with which we disagree. Even within the same newspaper, radio station or television network one could find commentary supporting both sides of the issue.

But why bother?

If the CBC seems too sympathetic to the Palestinian terrorists, watch another news channel. If the National Post seems too pro-Israel for you, read another newspaper.

Yes, it is wise to know what one's opponents are thinking, but the parsing of Canadian media has gone to extreme levels recently.

The energy that it takes to analyze, criticize and try to change Canadian coverage of international news reports could be put to so much better use. Write hopeful letters of support to victims of the violence. Raise funds for an organization that will actually make change on the ground that you agree with. Travel to the Mideast and show your solidarity in person.

But quit navel-gazing. Yes, there are reports that are obviously anti-Israel; there are reports that are obviously pro-Israel. This is proof of one thing: we have a variety of media reporting a variety of views and intelligent people will come to the right conclusions.

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