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The Biased Finnish Media: Oh the Lies They Tell…….

Yesterday was an exceptionally dark day in Finnish news reporting on Israel, and that’s saying a lot when one considers just how mainstream anti-Israel sentiment is in the Finnish media. Last night, Finnish state TV, YLE, in their 20:30 news broadcast, brought it to a new level, in one of the most ludicrous “news” broadcast & interviews ever seen on Finnish television.

It was non-stop propaganda from the moment YLE news broadcaster, Tommi Fränti, opened his mouth till the moment he finally closed it. Here is a transcript of the broadcast which includes the interview in full.

Tommy Fränti: Israel’s military forces are still pressing Gaza’s Palestinians even further into a corner. Israel has positioned its ground forces on the border readying for a ground invasion, and continued on the front with the bombing of Hamas’ military positions. In the evening fighter jets bombed the area between Gaza and Egypt to seal off Hamas’ tunnels used for gun smuggling.

[Film clip]

Tommi Fränti: Different places throughout the Muslim world demonstrated against Israel’s military operation in Gaza. In the Yemen capital of San’a, ten thousand people demanded the Arab world to act in ending Israel’s attack. In Iran, the countries highest religious leader, Ali Khamenei demanded that the Muslim world punish Israel. According to Khamenei, the Muslim world’s silence only encourages Israel to violence. Also, Libya’s leader, Muammar Kaddafi criticized Muslim leaders’ ineffectualness in supporting the Palestinians.

Foreign news reporter, Tapani Hannikainen has followed the Middle-East crisis. Tapani, as we have just heard, Israel is readying for a ground invasion. Is Israel about to occupy Gaza?

Tapani Hannikainen: Israel is not intending to do that, the intention is to put a stop to the launching of rockets, the rockets that Hamas is launching over the border into Israel. And of course, the other objective of Israel, because it has the upper hand, that it intends for this to be a deterrent for the Palestinians in the future and for others in the region, because Israel is so militarily strong. [TT: No mentioning of when the rockets were launched, the viewer is lead to believe that it’s due to the military operation.]Tommi Fränti: So the objective is to stop Hamas’ rockets, but how much of this is due to domestic politics? Israeli elections are soon to be held.

Tapani Hannikainen: That’s right that’s right. Excuse me, in February the elections will be held. Most certainly the elections are a factor that Israel’s leaders have decided to launch such a massive military operation. Foreign Minister Livini and Defense Minister Barak intend to create a high profile before the elections, and if they succeed, the situation will be that they are heroes at home.

If the situation turns against them, as what happened to Israel in Lebanon, with its military excursion about a couple of years ago, the situation went against them and suffered the political ramifications. But in any case, in the upcoming elections Barak and Livni are the under dogs, the Likud is real strong, and the Israeli leadership has taken this into consideration. [TT: So here it begins, that is the aim of the interview, first set the stage to show Israel’s chief goal is not to secure the safety of Israeli citizens, but politics. According to YLE, the cold, heartless Jews could care less for human life, but for politics and power.]Tommi Fränti: The half year ceasefire has has ended, and now the bloodiest strike in decades, why did Hamas end the ceasefire, they didn’t want to continue it?

Tapani Hannikainen: Well, as the central reason why, Israel is also guilty of provocations. They don’t always make it into the news, one person dies like this or like that, a few wounded, and…Israel once in a while flies its jets over Gaza, this kind of typical deterrent does it’s work. But certainly the central reason is that Hamas ended the ceasefire is the Palestinians’ frustration. This economic blockade by Israel has totally ruined Gaza’s economy and the occupation that has lasted 40 years has inflicted a real lot of problems in the area, and all in all, right now a humanitarian catastrophe rules in Gaza.

All of these kinds of details influence the overall background. And of course, Hamas is an organization that believes in violence, it’s objective is to liberate Gaza and Palestine, from the Zionist occupation as they say, and they believe that violence is the path, also peaceful means, but also violence to acheive their objectives. [TT: What Hannikainen is saying is utter nonsense and outright lies. What he’s referring to is Israel’s defensive measures in securing its border with Gaza against possible infiltrations and striking at rocket and mortar launchers being manned by Palestinian terrorists.Hamas only paid lip service to the so called “ceasefire”, allowing other groups operating in its turf to fire off Qassam rockets, here’s a long list of them. Hamas could care less for the Palestinians frustration, their continued misery is their gain, it helps with keeping their anger for Israel alive, in order to understand the mindset, click here.The amazing lack of knowledge by these so called “experts” is staggering, during most of the occupation, Israel has brought both wealth and a higher standard of living to the live of the Palestinians in the disputed territories, up until the the time Yasser Arafat and PA took over. Here is what Efraim Karsh had to say about similar claims made by former FM, Erkki Tuomioja.”Karsh: From June 1967 until Israel passed control to the PA in the mid-1990s, life expectancy had risen from 48 to 72 years (compared to 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Mortality rates fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22).¨Per-capita GNP in the West Bank and Gaza expanded tenfold between 1968 and 1991, from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan’s $1,050, Egypt’s $600, Turkey’s $1,630, and Tunisia’s $1,440). By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria’s, more than four times Yemen’s, and 10 percent higher than Jordan’s.”Nor does Hannikainen mention what Hamas means when it says that it’s “trying to liberate Palestine”, nor is he correct in saying Hamas believe in peaceful aims, Hamas can indeed be peaceful, as long as Israel agrees to its own destruction. How moronic.]Tommi Fränti: Tapani, thank you for these observations.[TT: Yeah right, thanks you two for the bastardization of the historical record, and the trashing of Israel all in the same broadcast. You both last night really raised the bar high for the rest of your anti-Israel colleagues, who most certainly were busy taking notes.]

That’s what they do here, they pretend they’re reporting the news, but actually are just another wing of political activism promoting a view at the expense of the Finnish taxpayer. The TT knows people who have worked at YLE, and they have verified that it’s as bad as the TT has been reporting.Also worth noting, is that in the film clip, there was no mention at all that the overwhelming majority of those killed, were actually Hamas members from its armed wing. Instead, what was mentioned was just that 285 Palestinians were killed, and one Israeli, (who was murdered in a synagogue on the Sabbath but that part wasn’t mentioned at all). There was no mentioning about the continual launching of rockets from Gaza that preceded the end of the so called “ceasefire”, not during the initial news nor in the interview. For those who know better, it leaves one speechless. But YLE isn’t the only Finnish news source busy disseminating falsehoods and biased journalism, there is the Helsingin Sanomat as well.Tundraman takes note of today’s HS: The Helsingin Sanomat should publish statistics like these and not the crap on Israel’s “merciless destruction” which is the phrase used in the HS op-ed today, entitled “Israel punishes Gaza with disproportionate destruction“. The op-ed LIES saying that rocket fire from Hamas FOLLOWED the end of the cease firethe list shows the rockets PRECEDED that date.To learn more about the full meaning of “disproportionate use of force”, click here. These are the kind of “experts” Finland has to offer, in explaining complicated situations to the public, who have been inundated with news stories on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on an average of one story every 1,5 days.In spite of the Finnish news media’s over fixation with that conflict, the Finnish people remain increasingly ignorant of the most basic of facts. Thanks to ideologically motivated news organizations, that trend will continue. KGS

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