There were a couple of fresh incidents over the weekend, in which two highly respected Finnish news organizations, the Helsingin Sanomat and the Suomen Kuvalehti, engaged in the all to familiar practice of moral equivocation and demonization of Israel.
Tundraman alerted KGS to both stories, with the first one coming from the pages of the editorial section of the Helsingin Sanomat, where in a ‘guest pen’ editorial, Sonja Lende, (a woman who is making a doctoral thesis in “security policy” at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) makes no distinction between the sides of the Palestinians and Israelis.
Both sides are seen as being the moral equal of the other that need to reign in their ‘extremists’ for the sake of the peace process, which is bound to begin with the incoming administration of US president-elect Barack Obama.
Tundraman: Sonja Lende writes a Guest Pen story about Obama possibly “stepping up peace negotiations in the Middle East”. Her point is that the main obstacles to peace lie in “the extremist movements“ on both sides. What is noteworthy is that she makes NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL between the two sides – nor between “Israel” and “Palestine” – in her conclusions:
“The leadership of Israel and Palestine should first and foremost calm down their own extremist movements. They are the most forceful opponents to the peace process and, under the pretext of religious law, elevate themselves above secular law, thereby growing away from political facts and the goals of the peace process”.
The text continues until the end to speak of these “extremist movements” in plural form, making no distinction what so ever between the Israeli and the Palestinians sides.”
Also, Sonja Lende (intentionally or unintentionally) distorts the reality that exists within both camps, because for the Palestinians, extremism (killing Jews) is not considered “extremist” by either their leadership nor by the public at large. The couple hundred extremists inside Israel however, do not curry favor with either the Israeli government nor with the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public. That is a major difference between the two, but Sonja Lende is unable to make any distinction between both societies, though there is a world of differences.
And then there is a familiar name that is involved with the next example of failure in journalism, over at the Suomen Kuvalehti, Jari Lindholm, owner of the Stupidest Man on Earth blog.
Tundraman: “In the latest SK (number 49, 5.12.2008) there is a four-page article on Mumbai written by Jari Lindholm, “Terror from the North”. Basically, it says that “The bitterness of the Muslims lies behind the Mumbai bloodbath, but terror in India is imported goods” (p. 21). Mainly, Pakistan is accused for this, but the article admits that “some younger generation Muslims have got more inspiration from al-Quida than from Pakistan” (p.23).
However, two things are noteworthy here: (a) there is not a single word in the article about the Jewish or Israeli victims, and (b) the article ends with an interview with the “Finnish expert in international law, Martti Koskenniemi”. After having commented upon Mumbai, the author of the article had evidently deliberately asked him about Israel, because this is how the article ends: “Was, for example, Israel’s attack on Libanon in 2006 an illegal war, because the government of Libanon was innocent to the activities of the Hizbollah-organization?
“Of course it was illegal, there was not the slightest doubt about that”. “
But whether or not they are wrong in their analysis (they are), Lindholm was well within his rights to pursue that line of questioning. What I take exception to, is his lack of mentioning at all, the fact that Jews as well as Israelis were targeted in the attack in Mumbai. Both Tundraman and Al Avai take note that:
a) the terrorists used 20 % of their manpower on Jews
(b) the Jewish target was chosen one year in advance
(c) it had no outer signs according to which it could be identified as Jewish, and
(d) it targeted the only Jewish Rabbi in a town of 20 million inhabitants.
(e) it had no relevance to local issues or to Middle Eastern ones.(f) it wasn’t like they were just among other foreigners in a hotel lobby or random people in a train station.
(g) He willfully ignores this!
So Jari Lindholm takes note (wrongly) that Israel was not justified in responding to Lebanese attacks in 2006, while in the same article, failing to mention that Jews were also among the number targeted in the Mumbai attacks. Jews were targeted in Mumbai due to Islam’s holy books embodying language that easily incites the Muslim faithful to kill Jews, because they are traditionally seen as being enemies of the madman from the Arabian desert. Jews were by no means the main focal point for the attacks, and to depict them as such would not be factual or correct. But the other side of that coin, is the fact that they were deemed as being important enough targets to factor into the early stages of the Islamic terrorists’ devilish plans. Jari Lindholm failed to mention that in his four page article on the Mumbai attacks. So the logical question is to ask…why? KGS
