They who win the propaganda war win the world

The more we read or see on the Israel-Lebanon conflict the more we see people who aren't in Israel, Lebanon, or nearby, tending to side with the whoever is currently winning the propaganda war. Okay, perhaps it's not all propaganda. Perhaps there is some fact buried beneath the spin and partisan slant &ndash not to mention endless opinion. Either way, the current situation is the best confirmation I've ever seen of the old maxim that the pen is mightier than sword. Or, put another way, media-brokers are the foot-soldiers that win or lose the war.

Before I start, note that I'll use the acronym POSBT to mean "pro-or-slightly-biased-towards". Now let's see... In the short time since Israel entered Lebanon, we've seen/heard:

• Israeli kids are brainwashed to hate the Lebanese as exemplified by those photos of kids writing messages on the artillery waiting to be deployed in Lebanon. (POBST-Lebanon source / POBST-Israeli source – Lisa Goldman / POBST-Lebanon comment [WARNING: Graphic])


• Photographers with an Arab names, like Adnan Hajj, will manipulate photographs, perhaps to win more compassion for Lebanon, perhaps just to enhance his own prestige. (source)

• Israel used the Hezbollah-instigated kidnapping of Israeli soldiers as an excuse to disproportionately bomb the shit out of Beiruit and Southern Lebanon (POBST-Lebanon source – Antony Loewenstein / POBST-Israel source – Charles Krauthammer / [my] POBST-Israel comment)


• Israel is going beyond the pale specifically targetting UN personnel and civillians. (POBST-Lebanon source – Michael Moore / POBST-Israel source)


• The UN is helping to protect Hezbollah soldiers. (sources to be linked...) Struck out because after posting this I took a month off from blogging and never followed up on the sources for this. I don't think there was ever any evidence to suggest this, but there may be evidence to support the claim that the UN has recently helped Hamas soliders in this way &ndash a possible mixup. (08 September, 2006)

Certainly, I can see far far more POBST-Israel content on the web, but that's likely to simply reflect the United States' domination of the Internet in general. More access to information makes it much easier to see shades of grey. I confess I don't see much value in my earlier POBST-Israel post (here), because it's written from the point of view of someone trying to create white from a thousand shades of grey.

Mosque with smoke image credit: AP/Hussein Malla
Israel girls image credit: AP/Sebastian Scheiner
Beiruit burning images credit: Reuters/Adnan Hajj
Technorati Tags: Israel, Lebanon, conflict, propaganda, media, journalistic ethics, Hezbollah, Hizbollah
Categorised as: media, philosophy