Thursday, September 18, 2014

"Core beliefs of an Israeli TV pundit on 'Arab affairs'?"

From Eyal in 1948 Palestine: "As you may know, Israeli TV correspondents and commentators are - with few exceptions - not Arab, do not speak Arabic and are not accompanied by translators when covering issues such as Palestinian society within Israel, Israeli-Arab-state or other regional political interactions etc.
The exception to this is an important role in Israeli TV news: The 'Commentator/Interpreter for Arab affairs'. This man (and of course it is a man), brimming with self-confidence and assurance, will explain to you the curious and puzzled viewer why these strange and remote people, the Arabs, act the way they do, and what strange ideas they have in their exotic heads.

Without going into the many questionable and sometimes ridiculous claims they make, let us consider one of them, Mr. Zvi Yehezq'eli, who works for Israeli Channel 10 news. He is known, among other things, for the "shocking" documentary about the Muslim danger to Europe:


Well, here's a copy of a video clip from a discussion Mr. Yehezq'eli was having regarding his process of becoming more religious. He has this to say (video is in Hebrew):


The key quote is: "Within my inner self, I know it... every Jew knows this in his innermost self, that there must be something by which he is 'a light unto the nations' and better than his neighbor'; he knows that he [the Jew] is on the side of being the 'king's son', while he [the non-Jew] is on the side of being the 'slave-woman's son'"

Now, I don't think this particular outlook is shared by Ehud Ya'ari (of Channel 2 news, formerly of the State's Channel 1 news), or Oded Granot (State Channel 1), but that would probably not be for want of racism - rather for want of religiosity."