"Israel in the Media" Seminar
On Monday, Jan 21, 2006, the student union hosted a seminar by Neil Lazarus, titled "Isreal in the Media". Lazarus, according to his website, is a leader in Israel advocacy and a specialist in training Israelis on how to deal with the media. Therefore, the audience were prodominantly Jewish. Regardless of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the seminar pointed out crucial media issues. And, according to the speaker, the exact opposite seminar could be given by a Palestinian.
MSA members who attended that seminar agreed with the speaker that the media is a very powerful tool that is often wrongfully used by those who control it, but were strongly against the pro-Israeli propaganda spread by the speaker.
The speaker started his presentation by displaying a series of clips of children being shot, houses being demolished and children helplessly trying to stop a bulldozer that is mercilessly demolishing their homes. Typically such clips are believed to be of Palestinian children and their homes. What the speaker showed next uncovered his intention behind displaying such emotional pro-Palestinian scenes. The speaker displayed a fake video of President Bush giving a speach that never happened. He made his point clear by saying: "Israel has a problem with the media because while we have a bottom line not to lie, others don't." The Israel advocate cleverly tried to wash Israel's hands from the crimes committed against the Palestinians on a daily basis by denying even videotaped incidents. For him, they are simply all fake!
The speaker stated that such emotional reports usually influence public opinion much more than accurate reports. To illustrate the difference, the speaker contrasted an Israeli citing historical facts with a Palestinian describing a tragedy.
The speaker went on presenting sample photos and video recordings that, according to the speaker, appeared in Western media with false pro-Palestinian quotes. The speaker criticized those quotes and tried to present pro-Israeli alternative explanations by just questioning some assumption. Ironically, when the audience questioned his explanations, the speaker had to admit that his own pro-Israeli explanations are not any better and should also be subject to questioning and criticizm.
Perhaps the most surprising claim that Lazarus made in his seminar was to say that the Western media is biased towards Palestinians. He claimed that Western media question pro-Israeli reports more than they criticize pro-Palestinian reports. The reason for pointing this out, according to the speaker, is not to stop questioning pro-Israeli news, but to question Palestinian news equivalently. Clearly, the speaker ignores the official stance of the US supporting the state of Israel since its establishment in 1947 on prodominantly Palestinian land.
Lazardus concluded that one should be careful and critical to media reports, and should read more than one source including "Palestinian Times". A question was raised by one of the audience whether human rights organizations reports should be considered as a reliable source of facts. The speakers confirmed the reliability of human rights organizations reports, but tried to undermine their relevance. He picked an oversimplistic example of security checkpoint to exemplify how human rights violations can be explained by security concerns.