Monday, May 28, 2012

The Halacha Adapts to Media Needs

Captured on film, Arabs igniting fires near Yitzher:




The people encircled in orange are not Jews.





As suggested by Chanie Luz, the inderdict response security team of Yitzhar brought along, this time, a camera and caught the fires being set by Arabs.  It was sanctioned by Rabbi Dudi Dudkevitch and in Hebrew on him.

More info.

Chanie on Facebook.

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Here is a translated section of Chanie's article:

The media aligns with the image

Again, B'tselem is the big story: The Walla site distributed only the Arab version story all day Saturday. On Sunday, major news sites like Channel 2 News distributed the edited film of B'tselem without any statement or question. Maariv chose to print on Monday, a day and a half after the event itself, a headline announcing that "the settlers fired on Palestinians - Israeli soldiers watched from the side."
  One of them saw fit to describe the fires around, or highlight what you see clearly in photographs: the pictures...Instead of asking why the soldiers did not stop the stone throwing directed at civilians of Yitzhar - the headlines were crying out that the IDF did not stop firing on "Palestinians".  All except channel 10, where the reporter Roy Sharon talks about fires, no one else was trying to describe the full story of what happened in Yitzhar.
Placing a clip on as serious an outlet as Channel 2, without any context, and playing the other side's story - puts into question the journalistic professionalism of news editors at the site.

Long-term monitoring of the media reveals apparently a special 'affinity' reserved for Yizhar: This community is one that is perfectly legitimate to hate. The Army Radio announcer was allowed to say, baldly, it was a better a soldier had shot the residents.
...Israeli newspapers need have to check their own approach to human rights of residents of Yizhar and especially their basic right to life.  
The camera is a weapon

But the additional conclusion that perhaps more cardinal directed inward, toward the Rabbis: Jewish law ruling regarding photography on Saturday must take into account that the strength of the weapon clips surpasses all other damages: using tendentious and edited videos - makes it easy to incite against Jews, against Israel and against Israeli soldiers. The result is anti-Semitism around the world, including boycotts and economic persecution and murder stemming from this the hatred of Israel.  With the visual incitement, the IDF has become a defensive army, where soldiers must absorb spitting, cursing, stones and violence without responding. Too many soldiers were killed due to unreasonable commands that take into account the damage to the image in the media.
With media propaganda, many Jews have legal scars, and abandoned Jewish settlers are bled. What is necessary is that Rabbis need give an the opinion that professional photography be permited on the Shabbat just as defensive weapons are allowed on the Shabbaty. Not only the camera of security officers, but by specially trained photographers, for example, the Tazpit organization.

If for the business of straw and hay the Sabbath may be desecrated, I think the blood libels post - modern - the more so.

I do not pretend to rule, for their are greater scholars than I, but in matters of communication I do presume to say that I understand much.

I call on rabbis to contemplate and discuss and make a sound brave decision, and prevent the damage the media and the image cause.

Channie and I:



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3 comments:

Jed said...

"The camera is a weapon"

It only took 2 decades for Jews in Yosh to realize this.
They need cameras with better zoom capabilities.

NormanF said...

Seeing is believing. Had Shalom Eisner had the foresight to equip his own IDF unit with a camera, the Israeli media and the Israeli Left could not have successfully hounded him out of his position.

The Jews of Yesha are becoming aware their enemies are using the media battlefield to damage them and strip them of their ability to defend themselves.

Yisrael Medad has found a new quip: "The Camera Is Mightier Than The Sword."

How true.

Anonymous said...

i agree, when i was in hebron the btsellum people and UN observers and fans were milling about, and trying to provoke- i thought how nice it would be to document their behavior. this puts us at a disadvantage not being able to fight back on even ground. This is a war, and we have to fight as if it were, on all levels including the pervasive propaganda war that has been waged against israel. Delegitimization is global and thanks to the EU there are billions for the arabs to play with to spin their BIG LIE