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Is Today's News Propaganda?
What the Bible says about latter-day journalism.
August 27, 2011 - Audio, 12.00 MIN
(Links at bottom of page to download free viewers.)
On August 24 the Associated Press ran the headline, "Israeli Air Strike Kills Gaza Militant", followed by the report that: "Israeli air strikes killed a local commander of the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and wounded two militants who launched rockets at Israel, despite a two-day-old truce, Israeli and Palestinian officials said."
From reading this report it would seem quite logical, that Israel had broken a two day old truce by launching air-strikes at militants and killed one of them.
Meanwhile on August 22 the Jerusalem Post had reported: "More rockets fired at South despite reports of ceasefire" Also on August 22 the Israeli news website IsraelNationalNews.com reported how: "Hamas Breaks its Ceasefire 14 Times in 24 Hours". The Israeli security cabinet Monday morning stated that the ceasefire is one-sided and that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces), will continue to attack to stop missile launches. It added that Israel will respond to any more rocket and mortar shell attacks with "pinpoint" retaliation.
It seems only a few missiles were fired at Israel on the 23rd, which was the quietest day. On the 24th, the rocket attacks on Israeli civilian centres resumed at lunch time and continued for the rest of the day.
Why does the media report this way? Surely the Associated Press was completely aware of the continuing rocket attacks the terrorists were launching! These were sirens and "code red" alerts and news annoucments in Israel! Yet they chose to portray Israel as the one who broke the truce - a truce which from the beginning Israel was neither consulted upon or agreed to. A truce which Hamas had evidently made simply to be able to blame Israel for breaking. A truce which they themselves are reported to have broken 14 times in 24 hours.
Another Associated Press headline, this time on the evening of August 25 was: "Gaza militants call another truce with Israel". What would you think from reading this headline? Would you not imagine that the "Gaza militants" were the peacemakers, trying to calm things down. If you had any doubts that this was the intention, you would only have to read the first paragraph of the article: "Gaza militants early Friday called their second truce in less than five days in an attempt to keep more than a week of hostilities with Israel from escalating." The reality is reported on the Ynet news site in Israel on August 26, "Despite Ceasefire: Rockets hit western Negev".
The Associated Press article also gives credence to the idea that the "smaller militant groups" or "factions" can't be controlled by the larger one - in this case Hamas. This has been a favourite tactic for years. The large terror organization projects a slightly more moderate face, while the smaller ones carry out the terror atrocities. Gaza is controlled by Hamas. Even if Hamas cannot control all the "groups", it does control the strip and allows these groups - if they exist as separate entities - to operate. Hamas purchases the arms and smuggles them into the strip. Hamas develops the local missile plants. The missiles being used now are much deadlier with a greater range than those used in the past. Main Israeli population centres are now being hit. All the Israeli population within a 40 kilometre radius of the Gaza strip are under rocket threat; many having to run to bomb shelters, or a safe area at any point during the day or night. This includes large cities such as Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beer Sheva and others - about a million Israelis are under constant rocket threat. In the few days leading up to August 24, about 130 rockets had been fired into Israel from Gaza. Upon hearing a siren or colour red alert civilians have seconds to reach a safe area.
The media continues to white wash these terrorists; even the ones who carried out the first attack on the Israeli civilian bus are labeled "militants" by the media, instead of the proper word, "terrorists". With some careful research and observation, it is abundantly clear that these articles and headlines are consistently being carefully crafted by news editors and writers, to project a uniform slant. The news is blatant propaganda.
What is Propaganda? Wikipedia defines it as the following: "Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda is often biased, with facts selectively presented (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political, or other type of agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare."
Today's reporting fits the definition of propaganda exactly, resulting in the main media outlets engaging in political warfare against the Jewish state and resulting in world wide antisemitism. In Nazi Germany Joseph Goebbels, working on the base antisemitism that already existed for centuries, fostered a virulent antisemitism that made the Holocaust possible. Daniel Goldhagen in the book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners" writes: "Jewish survivors report with virtual unanimity German cruelties and killings until the very end. They leave no doubt that the Germans were seething with hatred for their victims; the Germans were not emotionally neutral executors of superior orders, or cognitively and emotionally neutral bureaucrats indifferent to the nature of their deeds. The Germans chose to act as they did with no effectual supervision, guided only by their own comprehension of the world, by their own notions of justice, and in contradistinction to their own interests in avoiding capture with blood on their hands. Their trueness to meting out suffering and death was not an imposed behaviour; it came from within, an expression of their innermost selves."
The Germans had been conditioned against the Jewish people by Goebbel's propaganda for a decade. They believed the Jews were the root cause of their problems. Today, the world is being conditioned to believe that the Jewish state is the root cause of terrorism, Muslim unrest and the disrupter of peace. Remove the Jewish state from the Middle-East and there would be peace they say. Let the Palestinian Arabs have the right to a state, the right to self determination. Liberty, Justice, Equality!
What is amazing is that this is exactly how the Bible said it would be. In Joel 3:1-2 we read: "For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land."
The media is the mouth piece of the nations, the voice of their philosophies and reasonings. Today the media is shaping public opinion against the Jewish State and conditioning the people, to find the idea of removal of the Jewish "apartheid" State exceptable. This is partly based on the idea of justice and equality for the Arab Palestinians. This cannot be the complete picture however, as the Arab Israelis have equality and voting rights, the Palestinian Arabs have a large degree of self-rule and those in the Gaza strip have self-rule. Just as at the time of Nazi Germany, there is also a base antisemitisim at work.
In Revelation 16:13,14 Jesus tells us that the nations will be gathered to Armageddon by means of corrupting teachings: "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Spirits are teachings (1 John 4:1) and biblically frogs have a corrupting influence upon the earth: "He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed (or corrupted) them." - Psalm 78:45. These are the teachings of liberty, equality and fraternity that originated in the French revolution and have now been adopted by the world at large and at the centre of Roman Catholic social teaching. While providing a pseudo liberty they have brought corruption to society.
The dragon and beast represent political entities tracing their origins to the Roman Empire, and in the Bible, the prophecy of the beast empires in Daniel 7. In modern terms this would be Europe and Russia. The false prophet performs miracles, deceiving the population of the beast's domain. Revelation 19:20 - "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." So the false prophet represents the religious authority of the beast's domain. This is the Roman Catholic Church. It is the teachings of these political and religious powers that are to prepare the nations to move against the Jewish state. The mouth of these organizations is the modern media.
The Nazi party rode to power on the wave of the great depression. Today Europe is also facing serious economic trouble. Today Europe is being threatened by a Muslim population. Today the European media is conditioning the population against the Jewish state, giving credence to the idea that, if it was not for Israel there would be peace in the Middle East and by extension in Europe. Today conditions in Europe are ripe for a strong leader to ride to power on a wave of public resentment and call for the removal of the Jewish State - which will be a publicly excepted idea.
Today some of these thoughts may seem far-fetched to many. Could our civilized society attempt to spawn another Holocaust? This may seem like an impossibility. But not many years from now it will be a reality.
This has been David Billington with you for this week's Bible in the News. Come back next week to bibleinthenews.com.
Bible in the News provides a weekly analysis of world politics and events
in the light of Bible prophecy — the Bible in the News!
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