Amateurs in the Press

The Star newspaper in South Africa, generally balanced, has every right to review any books. It has every right to publish articles with a pro-Palestinian slant. But Lauren Mannering's book review in today's paper crossed the red lines. (The review is not on their website.)

The book reviewed is The Other Side of Israel. It is written by a British Jew, Susan Nathan, who has spent many years living with a Palestinian family in an Arab town in Israel.

Nathan seems to come from a predetermined mindset that views all of the land between the Jordan and the Meditteranean as Greater Palestine - referring to all the land as ONE country.

...concrete walls and razor wire fences that have been erected around the occupied Palestinian towns of the West Bank and Gaza to separate them from the rest of the country.

The reviewer of an unquestionably one sided book is also unquestionably one sided. How else can you explain this quote "In 1948 2500 Palestinians were expelled from this same site [Lubia]" without any attempt to place it in the context of the 1948 war launched against Israel by several invading Arab armies?

Much has been written about the causes of the refugee problem, but Mannering doesn't even mention that both narratives are disputed. Only in the last line of the review, after the book has already been praised as excellently researched, does Mannering allow that "Nathan's views may be biased by personal experience".

But enough of the actual book. Mannering pays great praise to this book. She is entitled to do that. The book may be deserving of praise. However, while the premise of any argument may or may not be true, it is certainly not bolstered by 'hearsay' misinformation. And this is what Mannering resorts to, turning her review into a transparent charade of anti-Israel propaganda. In an incredible display of openly antagonistic journalism Mannering concludes

Inevitably it will meet resistance from those who just wish the Palestinians would go away thus removing all uncomfortable reminders of the wrongs done to them. One such person was surely the Israeli speaker who gave a talk during one of my Honours seminars in 2003 in which he discussed media coverage of the conflict. He played on our sympathies about the persecution of the Jews throughout history and how recent coverage had the audacity to show the Palestinians as equal victims and not just suicide bombers. To him it was thus biased and bordering on anti semitism. He lambasted talk radio in this country saying it served as a medium for hate speech because anyone could simply phone in even if they were uninformed and uneducated. He was in effect advocating a controlled media.

WTF?

Comments

[zaBlogger]

err I wouldn't call the star a "generally balanced" newspaper ??? Generally hysterical is more like it?

[Steve]

Well, most of what I say here is only with reference to the Israel-Palestine conflict. And generally, the Star refrain from being antagonistic to either side. This book review is an exception.