British police have launched a criminal investigation into a performance by rap-punk duo Bob Vylan at the Glastonbury Festival on Saturday, when the group led chants of “death to the IDF,” or Israel Defense Forces.
They are literally all doing this. There is more confected outrage about this than the actual slaughter of civilians by the IDF. I feel like I’m going mad.
They are engaging in an absolutely ridiculous campaign of gaslighting. It’s so outlandish and over-the-top that it would actually be hilarious if it was on a lighter subject matter rather than genocide, terrorism, and a litany of war crimes.
They didn’t even do the most basic of work to attempt to put forward a front of journalistic integrity. They didn’t give Vylan a chance to respond to the article.
They should be more neutral in a non-opinion piece. They quote a lot more people saying pro-genocide things than they quote people saying anti-genocide things. They quoted pro-genocide politicians and pro-genocide BBC staff. They did not give the musicians any opportunity to respond to the article.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has inflamed tensions around the world, triggering pro-Palestinian protests in many capitals and on college campuses. Israel and some supporters have described the protests as antisemitic, while critics say Israel uses such descriptions to silence opponents
Let’s consider the two positions mentioned in this paragraph:
Israel should stop committing genocide
Israel should continue committing genocide, and position 1 is antisemitic
The first position is described as “pro-Palestinian”, as if these protesters support the Palestinian military (Hamas) and want them to win. This is incorrect. These people mostly just want the genocide to end.
The second position is a shitty opinion, but also contains an overt falsehood. It’s an objective fact that it’s false, and that fact should be reported in the story, but it isn’t.
Also I think what is really shitty is that outlets report on a genocide in this matter. But this article was about the response to Bob Vylan. I think both of us are angry about how anything related to the genocide has to be reported as the Israel Palestine conflict unless you want to receive an extremely negative response to your reporting.
Hell if we want to be all intellectual we can brand this as another symptom of the global capitalist system. AP can’t afford to call this a genocide. No news/corporation is brave enough to stand up to the genocide because it’s gonna hurt their bottom line.
I agree that they didn’t use enough anti-genocide supporters, their sources were one sided.
But your second critique would require a complete rewrite and would change the article completely.
I agree that pro vs anti genocide is the better way to approach the conflict, however, for reporting purposes, it makes more sense to call it an Israel vs Palestine conflict. Calling it pro vs anti genocide means that you have taken the position of calling the conflict a genocide (which I agree with, it is genocide). But as the article states, Israel does not see this as a genocide and neither do a lot of governments.
AP describes the conflict as a war of Israel against Hamas. Not a war of Israel against Palestine. This could be interpreted as 1) diminishing the genocide and 2) reporting on one specific facet of the conflict ie Israel against Hamas forces, which it could be argued, is a different conflict than Israel against the Palestinian people. This also means that by the articles definitions, Palestinian supporters are different than Hamas supporters.
Their second position does not say one side is correct and one side is wrong. They say
Israel and some supporters have described the protests as antisemitic
Israel and their supporters, not the AP describe protests as antisemitic.
critics say Israel uses such descriptions to silence opponents.
Critics, not the AP, say Israel is incorrect in their antisemitic descriptions.
If the article did what you wanted, it would be an opinion piece about how we need to call the conflict a genocide, and all future reporting should reflect this.
I don’t think this article is very supportive of the Palestinian people’s struggles. I also don’t think it supports the Israelis. It is tip-toeing the very fragile line of (falsely accused) antisemitism that they write about. It isn’t perfect, but it’s unfair to call it pro Israel.
What a shitty article. It’s so heavily biased in favor of genocide.
They are literally all doing this. There is more confected outrage about this than the actual slaughter of civilians by the IDF. I feel like I’m going mad.
They are engaging in an absolutely ridiculous campaign of gaslighting. It’s so outlandish and over-the-top that it would actually be hilarious if it was on a lighter subject matter rather than genocide, terrorism, and a litany of war crimes.
Happy cake day!
They didn’t even do the most basic of work to attempt to put forward a front of journalistic integrity. They didn’t give Vylan a chance to respond to the article.
There was a really interesting podcast on the AP style and its entrenched biases - but only available to subscribers:
https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/bonus-who-writes-the-rules-of-news/
An article on the same topic:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/how-the-ap-stylebook-warps-reality-to-serve-power
What did you want them to say? It’s not an opinion piece.
They should be more neutral in a non-opinion piece. They quote a lot more people saying pro-genocide things than they quote people saying anti-genocide things. They quoted pro-genocide politicians and pro-genocide BBC staff. They did not give the musicians any opportunity to respond to the article.
Let’s consider the two positions mentioned in this paragraph:
Israel should stop committing genocide
Israel should continue committing genocide, and position 1 is antisemitic
The first position is described as “pro-Palestinian”, as if these protesters support the Palestinian military (Hamas) and want them to win. This is incorrect. These people mostly just want the genocide to end.
The second position is a shitty opinion, but also contains an overt falsehood. It’s an objective fact that it’s false, and that fact should be reported in the story, but it isn’t.
Also I think what is really shitty is that outlets report on a genocide in this matter. But this article was about the response to Bob Vylan. I think both of us are angry about how anything related to the genocide has to be reported as the Israel Palestine conflict unless you want to receive an extremely negative response to your reporting.
Hell if we want to be all intellectual we can brand this as another symptom of the global capitalist system. AP can’t afford to call this a genocide. No news/corporation is brave enough to stand up to the genocide because it’s gonna hurt their bottom line.
I agree that they didn’t use enough anti-genocide supporters, their sources were one sided.
But your second critique would require a complete rewrite and would change the article completely.
I agree that pro vs anti genocide is the better way to approach the conflict, however, for reporting purposes, it makes more sense to call it an Israel vs Palestine conflict. Calling it pro vs anti genocide means that you have taken the position of calling the conflict a genocide (which I agree with, it is genocide). But as the article states, Israel does not see this as a genocide and neither do a lot of governments.
AP describes the conflict as a war of Israel against Hamas. Not a war of Israel against Palestine. This could be interpreted as 1) diminishing the genocide and 2) reporting on one specific facet of the conflict ie Israel against Hamas forces, which it could be argued, is a different conflict than Israel against the Palestinian people. This also means that by the articles definitions, Palestinian supporters are different than Hamas supporters.
Their second position does not say one side is correct and one side is wrong. They say
Israel and their supporters, not the AP describe protests as antisemitic.
Critics, not the AP, say Israel is incorrect in their antisemitic descriptions.
If the article did what you wanted, it would be an opinion piece about how we need to call the conflict a genocide, and all future reporting should reflect this.
I don’t think this article is very supportive of the Palestinian people’s struggles. I also don’t think it supports the Israelis. It is tip-toeing the very fragile line of (falsely accused) antisemitism that they write about. It isn’t perfect, but it’s unfair to call it pro Israel.