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The Same Media That Opposed Democracy in South Africa Now Warn Against It in Israel/Palestine
Shupak, Gregory
http://fair.org/home/the-same-media-that-opposed-democracy-in-south-africa-now-warns-against-it-in-israel-palestine/Date Written: 2019-02-01 Publisher: FAIR Year Published: 2019 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX23518 Coverage of South African apartheid in US news in the 1980s compared with coverage of Israel/Palestine today reveals similar racist bias. Abstract: -- Excerpt: When apartheid reigned in South Africa, Western media commentary frequently suggested that if a one person, one vote system were adopted, black South Africans would massacre whites, oppress them or force them to flee. The same line of thinking can today be found in media discussions of Israel/Palestine, with warnings that Israelis and Palestinians sharing a single, democratic country would lead to Palestinians slaughtering Jewish people or driving them out. Such analyses reveal the racist assumption that black people and Arabs are too prone to irrational violence to be trusted with democracy.... Predictions of mass violence against whites by blacks in South Africa proved false. Nor, despite some emigration, has there been a mass exodus of white South Africans; their population has declined by some 13 percent since the first free election in 1994. But this has not stopped media pundits from making equivalent claims about Israel/Palestine. Subject Headings |