Soccer Dad

The Essence of Media Bias

Remember back in November when COS Gen. Moshe Yaalon said that Israel must make conditions more bearable for the Palestinians. This is how the Washington Post reported it:

But in recent days, some of the most vocal dissent has come from one of the country's most powerful figures, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, chief of staff of Israel's armed forces. Frustrated that Sharon had ignored his recommendations to loosen some of the curfews and roadblocks that have paralyzed Palestinian life in the West Bank, Yaalon three weeks ago took his concerns to the Israeli news media. He suggested that government policies were creating more terrorism than they were preventing and accused Sharon's government of having done nothing substantive to support the first Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned in September.

At the time I expressed some reservations with Gen. Yaalon despite the fact that he's always seemed to be professional.
This week Gen. Yaalon disagreed with PM Sharon again. This is how the Washington Post covered it.

The New York Times gave just as much space to Gen. Yaalon's criticism of the PM's retreat from Gaza plan. Arutz-7, of course, wasn't shy about covering Gen. Yaalon's remarks:

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon continues to object to Prime Minister Sharon's unilateral withdrawal plan. "Retreat under fire is no solution," he said last night. He made similar remarks the night before at the Erez Crossing, several hours after the thwarted multi-attack, noting that he cannot rule out the possibility that the current increase in terrorism is "connected with the disengagement plan."

One could read a similar acount in Maariv:

Chief-of-Staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe (Bugi) Yaalon said this morning that it is possible that the recent intensification in terror attacks against Israelis could be related to talk about an impending withdrawal from Gaza.

Even left wing Haaretz noted Gen. Yaalon's dissent:

During a visit to the Erez crossing over the weekend, to examine the scene of a foiled Palestinian attack, Ya'alon indicated that he believes Sharon's announced disengagement plan will encourage more Palestinian terror attacks. He also told a Be'er Sheva weekly that "it will take more than a division to repair the trouble created by withdrawing from one settlement under fire."

If the Chief of Staff publicly criticizing the Prime Minister is news, it's news whether his dissent is something that a reporter agrees with or not. This is as clear a case of bias as anything we've seen. This doesn't have to do with choice of words or use of adjectives. It has to do with an objective standard that was used once and then ignored.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at March 11, 2004 02:22 PM | TrackBack