{"id":192,"date":"2006-08-16T11:48:36","date_gmt":"2006-08-16T07:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=192"},"modified":"2006-08-16T11:58:01","modified_gmt":"2006-08-16T07:58:01","slug":"the-ignorance-of-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/192\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ignorance of Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Israeli assualt on Lebanon has not gone unnoticed by the denizens of the UAE Community Blog<\/a>, and there have been several threads discussing the conflict.\u00a0 I use that term loosely, and I don’t recommend my readers click through\u00a0on the links\u00a0unless they have a burning desire to read a collection of boiler-plate diatribes against Israel containing such wisdom<\/a> as:<\/p>\n

Every single war Israel launched since its unfortunate inception was a war of choice, except the 1973 war. Israeli propaganda has always trumpeted its wars as existential or wars for survival; that is simply not true. Even the 1948 war was started by Israel (a large scale military campaigns to secure Arab areas and force Palestinians into fleeing commenced in 1947; check historical record). Israel has NEVER been in danger of genocide; This is a vicious, cruel, immoral and murderous war;\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This fighter-civilian \u201cblending\u201d is mostly used as a red herring to demonize groups and people and justify unacceptable violent behavior of states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You know the stuff.\u00a0 But the reoccurring theme which I really find ironic is that a group of people in the Middle East whose governments heavily restrict internet access,\u00a0control the press with an iron fist, force\u00a0political views on\u00a0its population from early childhood,\u00a0forbid criticism of government policy, refuse to recognise the existence of Israel and ban Jews from entering believe that\u00a0it is the Americans who are completely ignorant of the real situation in the Middle East and they have been brainwashed by the American media which suppresses debate!<\/p>\n

Take this<\/a> for example, written by an American expat:<\/p>\n

We, if I may speak for myself and other overseas Americans, will clearly have a broader perspective based on the fact of having lived both within and outside of the US. Contrast this with anyone who will not have had this opportunity. It isn\u2019t to suggest that we are better or more intellegent. It is simply a matter of exposure. We have a wider variety of reference points; not only Gulf News and the sentiments of the local media and local population, but also that of the mainstream US media and population for having been in that setting too.<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

We simply are able to view things from a broader perspective\u2013as too are a minortiy of States-side Americans, who for whatever reasons are well-informed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Gulf News<\/em>?!!\u00a0 Local media?!!\u00a0 And exposure to this is supposed to give Americans a better perspective?\u00a0 This is like saying that reading\u00a0back issues of Pravda<\/em> would give\u00a0Americans a better understanding of the Vietnam war.<\/p>\n

Many commentators express outrage that the Americans support Israel over\u00a0anyone else in the Middle East.\u00a0 They are left saddened, angry, and confused\u00a0as to why Americans would take sides so blatantly.\u00a0 Now I have argued at length that if somebody feels\u00a0anger or confusion as to why people do things, then they have not researched the situation properly.\u00a0 I have read few serious historical or political analyses of a situation when\u00a0after reaching a\u00a0conclusion the author has thrown his hands up in despair and expressed anger at his failure to understand.\u00a0 If they do, they have missed something, a crucial factor somewhere.<\/p>\n

Which leaves some of them scrabbling around desperate for answers, and what better\u00a0answer can there be for America’s support for Israel than\u00a0one whereby\u00a0the Americans are as thick as pigshit and have been duped into supporting Israel against their interests by the sneaky,\u00a0scheming Jews who of course control the US government and all media outlets?\u00a0 Never has it occurred to them that the Israeli message might be one hell of a lot more palatable than the one the\u00a0anti-Israel lobby is trying unsuccessfully to flog.\u00a0 I’m just a dumb Brit, but I’m sure that most Yanks if forced to choose are not going to be rooting for a side which routinely burns their flag whilst chanting “Death to America”<\/em> on TV, and supports those who fly passenger aircraft into American office blocks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interestingly, I\u00a0sometimes get accused of being Jewish, presumably because nobody can understand why an aethist growing up in a Welsh farming town who never met a Jew or Muslim until his late teens can wind up supporting Israel over its adversaries.\u00a0 It doesn’t seem to occur to anybody that I might have come to this conclusion all on my own with pretty good access to the facts and without some nefarious Jewish lobby pushing me into it.\u00a0 No, the charge I usually face is that I am either Jewish, or I am not in full possession of the facts.<\/p>\n

So we end up in a situation whereby Americans – who occupy a country in which fierce debates on Israel and the Middle East rage\u00a0across its newspapers, TV, and unrestricted websites along with dozens of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in its streets – \u00a0are accused of being ignorant of the facts and brainwashed by a\u00a0government which nobody dares to question; and this accusation comes from a people who all agree on the same thing\u00a0– which just so happens to be the same as the official government\u00a0stance – read government-approved newspapers, have their internet access restricted, and are forbidden from taking part in any demonstration which does not support the official government line.<\/p>\n

To a Martian, this must cause him to laugh his little green belly off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Israeli assualt on Lebanon has not gone unnoticed by the denizens of the UAE Community Blog, and there have been several threads discussing the conflict.\u00a0 I use that term loosely, and I don’t recommend my readers click through\u00a0on the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[43,20,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}