Wednesday, July 23, 2014

NOMEDIA Day: Norwegian media yells 'genocide!' (but only for Israel)

NOMEDIA Day - Norwegian Media is Antisemitic Day.

Today I will review the Norwegian media's biased view of Israel and it's Jewish population.

NRK reporting on the "Israeli genocide in Gaza"

The Norway, Israel and the Jews blog interviewed Dr. Rachel Suissa, head of the local Center against Antisemitism:

In a late evening news report on Wednesday 9 July from the Norwegian state owned broadcaster NRK, summarizing earlier news reports, the NRK had only one message for the Norwegian people: Israel is perpetrating genocide! The ”witness” and source of this message was the leader of the terrorist organization Al-Fatah, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas. Despite the fact that the NRK does report and inform about the Palestinian rocket fire against civilian targets in Israel, the unconditional conclusion without any remonstrance whatsoever is that Israel commits genocide whenever the country defends its civil population against a widening attack from Palestinian terrorists.
Well, you say, Norwegian media is just looking for headlines.  Surely they call every war a genocide in that breathless tabloid manner that only sees the bottom line of making money off selling headlines and not news.

Nettavisen reports: Israel committing genocide in Gaza Strip
Neglecting to mention in headline that this is opinion of
Holocaust denier and Israel hater Mahmoud Abbas
NRK are not the only ones. Many Norwegian media outlets rushed out with headlines announcing the "Israeli genocide in Gaza".  Nettavisen's article, above, quoted Palestinian doctors who said that four Israeli attacks only killed women and children.  In fact, to believe the Palestinians, Israeli soldiers are fighting phantom fighters that do not exist, and are being killed by phantom bullets that are not being shot.

The article did not mention Gaza was firing rockets at civilian population centers in Israel.


I googled Google News Norway for 'Israel genocide'. I got 215 results.

Googling 'Syria genocide', on the other hand, gave me 4 results, three of which happened to be about Israel.
That's right. I found only one case in which Norwegian media called the ethnic cleansing going on in Syria right now a 'genocide'.

The English language Google News was still biased against Israel (11,000 of Syria vs. 27,000 of Israel), but there's no comparison.

To sum up: Norwegian Media thinks Israel is committing genocide. It does not think there's any genocide going on in neighboring Syria.  

Norwegian media gives its readers and viewers a biased portrayal of the Palestine-Israeli conflict. It does not employ any criticism when interviewing the Palestinian side. Any claim, no matter how far fetched, is reported as is. 

Norwegian criticism is only reserved for the Israeli side, if it's even reported.

The Norwegian media is ignoring Hamas war crimes. It is ignoring the context of this war - a context in which Hamas, a terrorist group intent on killing all Jews, stepped up firing rockets at Israeli civilians.  A context in which Israeli children within the 40km range from Gaza, grow up in bomb shelters, knowing they have 15 seconds to get there when Gaza's terrorist group fire rockets at them.

The Norwegian public doesn't hear a word about it.

The Norwegian media has taken sides. It is not reporting the news.  It is not giving the Norwegian population the tools with which to understand what is going on in the world.  Instead, it is intent on spreading lies, hatred and incitement against Israel and its Jewish population.

This is the last post for NOMEDIA Day, but it is by far not the last of Norwegian media antisemitism. Today I have tried to give you a taste, a really tiny sliver, of what passes for journalism in Norway.

I don't usually follow up on the Norwegian media. It is hard to keep up with antisemitism hidden behind insidious words like "Israel is committing genocide".

I'd like to thank the Norway, Israel and the Jews blog for it's painstaking work in following up on this issue.  It's a depressing, thankless task, since, as you may have gathered, the Norwegian media does not take criticism well and can be quite vindictive.

I'd also like to thank MIFF, the pro-Israel organization that Norwegian journalist Fredrik Græsvik thinks should be banned.  MIFF works tirelessly to represent the Israeli side to the Norwegian public.  The media, obviously, will not bother.

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