40th anniversary of the six day war

[jollygreen]

Is anyone else surprised at the lack of media coverage?

This was, in my humble opinion, a genuine attempt by Israel to secure their country and their security, they knocked the **** out of their enemies, scored an incredible military victory but, unfortunately, set the scene for 40 years of violence in the region.

I'm just surprised it barely received any coverage.

PC brigade too afraid of upsetting the arabs again?

[Theland]

I am not at all surprised given the anti Israeli bias of our media, especially the BBC

[vehelpfulguy]

The BBC web site did give it a fair amount of coverage.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/67054 91.stm

The map in the top right of the web page above was on the "main" BBC news page a couple of days ago.

Mind you, sadly almost every day is an anniversary of some war or other, the inability of us humans to get on with each other.

[NJOK]

Theland, surely you're not being serious.

The UK is second only to the US in what has historically been an understandably but markedly one-eyed favouring of Israel. Perfectly understandable, given the large Jewish population in both our countries and their concentration in the media.

As soon as we start to see (some!) impartiality and proper journalism, there are cries of anti-semitism and political correctness. Which shows how far the media has leant the other way.

And whatever your persuasion on this issue, singling out the BBC is just bizarre. Pick on the Guardian if that's your beef, but the BBC's coverage of the Lebanese/Israeli crisis was better, more factual and more balanced than any newspaper in this country.

[Gromit]

We tend to give more prominence to anniveraries of wars that we were in. No one else bothered about the anniverary of Suez except us and Egypt. Falklands also, no one else gave a stuff.

I think you will find that Israel and the countries of the Middle East will be marking the anniversay, probably by lobbing a few missiles at each other.

[Theland]

NJOK - The factual reporting I have no problem with. The BBC branded the Israeli response to being attacked by Katyushas from Lebanon as "Disproportionate" and rammed this "fact" down our throats every night.
Now the Lebanese army are shelling a refugee camp to route out a band of muslim terrorists, with civilians caught in the crossfire. Where is that word, "Disproportionate" now?
Israel, the only true democracy in the area, is pressured into giving up more land in exchange for the promise of peace. They did this by withdrawing from Gaza and have been rocketed by Kassams from there ever since. Why hasn't the BBC made a song and dance over this bit of news? But no, they'll concentrate on the security fence, that saves lives, and tell us how it upsets the local muslims, who are sworn to annhialate Israel.

[Gromit]

aljazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A8B9A7F 9-E273-427E-93AD-AD19DEEE5376.htm

Jerusalem Post

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=118 0960612056&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

[jollygreen]

Well said Theland

[Raleigh]

NJOK - The 'large Jewish population' in the UK you refer to is approximately 350,000. The Muslim population is about 2 million.
Perhaps you had these population figures confused.

[jake-the-peg]

Why do you not class Lebanon as a "true" democracy Theland?

They have free elections, the last set were monitored by the UN who reported them to be "free and fair"

[Gromit]

According to the 2001 Census:
267,000 Jewish.
1, 588,890 Muslim

to be precise.

[jollygreen]

I'm completely neutral from a religious point of view, being a confident atheist.

It seems to me that Israel, although sometimes rather bloody-minded, is a country genuinely fighting for it's very existence against an enormous world-wide anti-semitic presence. And the media is a large part of that, especially in the UK.

[jake-the-peg]

I tend to think as a number of people semm to that that strays a touch to far and that any criticism is immediately branded "anti-semitic" or "biased"

Neither side is particularly covered in roses and the amnesty report makes for grim reading.

http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Regions/Middl e-East-and-North-Africa/Israel-and-the-Occupie d-Territories

Before you condem that too as biased - note that they acknowledge the start of the war as an intrusion into israel and the killing of Israeli soldiers.

They also point out that this Israeli response killed 1,200 Lebanese including hundreds of children.

This is the sort of detail that gets the BBC accused of bias it seems

[maxximus]

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin. html#1967

[Lonnie]

I originally put this in Politics, as I wasn't sure which Topic to put it in.

The link in it is well worth a read.

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Politics/Q uestion415362.html