If there’s anything I hate, it’s when somebody says “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and then says more words about that picture.
Unfortunately, I won’t be practicing what I preach and will ultimately annoy myself today.
I agree with the assessment of my colleague, Omar Rahman, on the lack of coverage of what is going on in the Palestinian side during the cycles of violence.
What bothers me even more is how the Israeli media makes the body count a central issue. What’s the score? How many did we kill, how many of our guys died? Cold and calculated statistics. Kind of like a baseball game.
Well, here’s the score from this weekend’s game, as Israel’s Channel 10 sees it (I’d like to point out that their “score” includes children, as well).
Channel 10's military correspondent Alon Ben David showing the score: "Death toll: Israel: 0, Gaza: 25" (photo: nana10.co.il)
Body count’s in the house.
h/t Danit Gottfried
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Philos
Body counts are the last resort of military powers who are not winning their military operations. It started with the US in Vietnam “We killed 347 Viet Cong today so we must be winning” to Operation Iraqi Freedom “We killed so many Iraqis we lost count so we must be winning” to Operation Enduring Freedom “We’ve killed countless Afghanis so its clear that we’re winning.”
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Body counting is what you do when you don’t have a strategy, don’t know what to do and, usually, don’t have a moral leg to stand on.
aristeides
And it doesn’t help you play the pitiful victim, either.
Jazzy
Replace the Jewish TV host with an Arab one, and the leftists wouldn’t object to this picture, as long as it was used to show how disproportionate Israel’s airstrikes are. I thought you guys WANTED Israelis to see what monsters they were? Damned if you care, damned if you don’t, says Ami
Lauren
Loved the Ice T video….. one of the true thugs of the American Rap genre. The song was enough to drive the point home. Thugs and criminals taking out their enemies for simple bragging rights and feelings of inflated self-esteem. American thugs and gangsters also terrorize the rest of us with intimidation and out of control gun play ending in body counts. The violence makes no sense… like Israel’s action in Gaza.
sh
Yep, when there’s another attack on our favorite punching bags, that’s the fodder we sheep* pay the TV license fee for; it passes for military and political analysis. And people question how it is that Israelis can be so ignorant about what is going on around them.
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*apart from the black ones
Ami Kaufman
@jazzy – I didn’t say that. And don’t put words in my mouth.
Piotr Berman
I was told that there is a “curse” in Russian “there will be a celebration on our street”, (budet prazdnik na nashey ulitse), with the meaning that the time will come that our street gang will celebrate — you know what.
Can a much worse outcome happen in the future? Can anyone react to this happiness in Israel with (a) sentiment “there will be a celebration on our street” (b) ability to do something about it?
I understand that Egyptian parliament is inclined to cancel reception of military aid from USA and to upgrade relationship with Iran. That opens a possibility of training and equipping militants in Gaza to Hezbollah standard. Right now the military in Egypt is still in charge, and they are on American payroll in some sense.
Asaf
The only reason there were no casualties in Israel this week is Iron Dome. Out of the 25, almost none were civilians. They deserved it for firing rockets on civilians, which by the way they still do. Palestinians broke ceasefire tonight and again fired rockets on civilians.
Jazzy
Ami: In my opinion, that is what you’re saying. I’d be interested to hear why you disagree with my characterization of your position. It seems that if Israelis DIDN’T keep track of the death toll, you’d criticize them for insufficient interest in their government’s crimes. And when they DO keep track, it must be for a malicious reason. Is this not correct? Or would you prefer that the Israeli news not report the Palestinian body count? I might concede the point if the newscaster said something to suggest the malicious ballgame mentality you’re ascribing to him – did he? Or is that explanation just your creative interpretation?
Ami Kaufman
@jazzy – once again, and actually, for the last time – that’s not what I’m saying.
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Also, I don’t work for you and feel no need to supply hasbarists with any explanations whatsoever.
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So, unfortunately, you can say what you want on my channel – as long as it’s not putting words in my mouth. I hope you finally understand this (I don’t think it’s that hard), because I’m losing my patience with you, as you can see.
Philos
Ami, don’t get so angry. Their arguments simple reinforce the point that the only thing they’ve got is body count. There is no strategy, no answer, no clue. Hopefully the average Israeli the same thing before its too late and vote out the cowards that run the show now
Shimon
And it all adds up to…
…a genocide
AIG
Ami,
Look how wikipedia describes most modern wars. Take for example the 6 day war:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
Look at the right, they display casualties in a prominent box in a very similar manner.
I think it is important to know that context in which the numbers were displayed. Was the announcer gloating? Was he reporting in a matter of fact way? It is not fair in my opinion to jump to conclusions just based on the picture.
Dhalgren
@AIG
I’m not sure comparing an online encyclopedia and a news broadcast makes sense, as I think the criticism here is less of the visual format of the score keeping and more of the informational oversimplification and selectivity. Readers of Wikipedia articles can explore the complexities of those numbers at their leisure, after all. To be sure, this phenomenon is hardly unique to Israel. I think this is fundamentally a critique of lazy news media habits in general. They tend to want to portray complex issues as much like a simple sporting match as possible. Wherever you are, when this is applied to conflict and war, it contributes to a dangerous mentality.