Netanyahu declares holy war against Gaza, citing the Bible

GiddyGap@lemm.ee to World News@beehaw.org – 125 points –
middleeastmonitor.com

Even though Netanyahu is Jewish, he knows using (and in this case abusing) the Christian bible is a good way to keep support going among US evangelicals and the new Speaker of the House.

33

You are viewing a single comment

Be aware that Middle East Monitor is rated "Factual reporting: Mixed" and strongly biased as it sometime use poor sources and use loaded words.

La Croix published an alaysis of this Isaiah Prophecy quote (french). They found it's a poor and/or convoluted reference, and that article do not mention "Holy War" so this expression is most likely editorializing from the Middle East Monitor.

It's really just a video of Netanyahu saying the words himself. It's not interpreted or analysed by the website. Don't see how that can be very biased.

I watched it a second time to be sure. While the voiceover doesn't say "Holy War" he does cite religion and sounds like religious radicals dog-whistle.

There's good reasons to be critical of Netanyahu government, but I'd still suggest seeking better sources.

1 more...
1 more...

It may indeed be, I'm not familiar with Middle East Monitor, but Media Bias/Fact Check are themselves rather infamously biased towards the American right wing. For example, they list the New York Times as nearly as left-biased as their scale goes, despite that the Times has largely taken the Republican party line on a number of issues, such as queer rights (their deceptive coverage of trans rights has been a large part of the current moral panic, and has led to multiple open lettersof protest). The Times was even instrumental in elevating Trump to the presidency with their incredibly dubious decision to give Comey's procedural memo front page placement and a misleading headline mere days before the election --- a choice that Nate Silver has said was possibly deciding on the election. The Guardian is also listed as left-center despite even more extreme transphobic editorial decisions than even the Times.

Similarly, they list MSNBC as far-left, despite them having Republican-led shows and frequent Republican guests. I'll definitely agree there's some degree to which they're on the left, but it's pretty minor all told. The idea that they're far left is just ridiculous, and one that only makes sense from the perspective of America's right-wing culture.

At the same time, they list Wall Street Journal as mostly credible, something that just isn't a serious take on media credibility.

(Edited to add: a lot of this comes down to the very strong bias in American media towards the "both sides" idea that if two sources disagree, the truth must be in the middle. That bias is especially clear in discussions of climate change, but it's also prevalent in discussions of other political issues more generally.)

As usual, our Overton window is all that matters to people in the states. There's some active debate about how much longer centralized media control in all legacy formats will mean the level of control the phrase implies, but until that shifts, Overton is staying put.

Nah, news organizations aren't internet echo chamber.

I mean, if they write dozens of opinions a day, news organizations labeled center-left or even left-leaning have to go to the other side sometimes. If not, they're just propaganda machines.

1 more...