| SPEAKER SERIES
March 2009
Aryeh Green
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Aryeh Green spoke of media bias against Israel, his pride in his native country of the United States, as well as his adopted country of Israel. |
Aryeh Green, in charge of Media Relations in Israel, started his presentation by talking about his pride in his native country of the United States and his adopted country of Israel. He indicated that he had such pride in America for the freedom it has given to Jews. In a Middle Eastern twist on an old joke, he said, "a liberal is a conservative who hasn't yet lived in the Middle East."
Transferring to the challenges dealing with the media, he gave blatant and dishonest examples of how the media skews the news to the Arabs and Palestinians in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
One example was where the Israeli Knesset was considering whether to destroy a building in Jerusalem. Associated Press covered the story with the following headline: "Building in Jerusalem under consideration of demolition by Israelis." Sky News reported the same story with the headline: "Ethnic cleansing feared in Jerusalem."
A second example was when a Palestinian terrorist jumped in a bulldozer, and started running over Israeli citizens. The BBC offered the following headline to cover this story: "Israelis kill bulldozer driver."
Aryeh Green talked about the 3 D's of the new anti-Semitism:
1. Delegitimization - this is supporting all efforts made by Palestinians, Arabs and many Europeans to delegitmize the state of Israel.
2. Demonization - Comparing Israeli soldiers to the Nazis and the SS in Germany.
3. Double Standard - No sympathetic attitude towards 10,000 missiles aimed at Israel from Gaza compared to exaggerated Palestinian casualty figures when Israel retaliates.
He mentioned that journalists assigned to Israel are woefully ignorant about Israel and the history of the Middle East. Aryeh's job at Media Central is to simply provide the honest facts about what has transpired, and then help the journalists to do their job. Media Central offers many services to the journalists like transportation and translators. They provide a reference library. They attempt to gain credibility by being forthright with them.
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