# Posted 10:56 AM by Anonymous  

AS ANAND NOTED BELOW, he and I attended a discussion on the biases of the British media against Israel. After a very weird encounter where an orthodox jew went very far out of his way to shake Anand's hand (he maneuvered down a very narrow staircase and around a large chair he was holding) and then refused to shake mine (I had forgotten why I hate religion), we were privy to a very strange--but at the least, educational--discussion.

Most of discussion, though by no means all of it, related to the question of why the British media takes such a pro-Palestinian stance on the middle east conflict. Peter Hitchens, to his credit, posited the unusual claim that it was not, contrary to popular belief, based on anti-Semitic views. I appreciated his attempt to separate British journalists who are perhaps less than objective with real, full-out anti-Semites, but his alternative explanation seemed less than adequate to me. He argued that the journalists have a particular world view that can't be shaken up. This view, based on the desire to root for the underdog, would be believed and propagated until proven otherwise by some sort of Israeli PR organization that he was advocating.

What I found most interesting about the discussion was the insistence and sort of assumption that reporters shape public opinion and that public opinion could have no conceivable impact on reporting. Indeed, Hitchens argued that there were interesting film clips to show and that the reason that the BBC and the Guardian weren't showing them was that they were too wrapped up in their own views to recognize the validity and superiority of others. However, there is a very good market-economy argument to be made against his claims. Perhaps British media doesn't print or broadcast segments that will be unpopular. It just seems a little simplistic to remove all market-economy concerns and insist that no, really the Guardian is only concerned with it's own world view, because this is simply not how the economy functions. I mean sure, to some extent both explanations are irresponsible reporting, but I don't think many of us expect much more from the British media. Indeed, there is an argument to be made that public opinion affects the media to the same extent that the media affects public opinion.

The zionism, which I'll try not to harp on for too long, was based on the premise that Anand wrote about--that it's better to be an Arab living under Israeli rule than vise versa. He argued that the declining birth rate and growing arab population in Israel called either for a mass jewish migration to Israel or more Israeli babies. Um, yeah.

After leaving Chabad, one question still plagued me. Somehow, without my knowledge or consent, my name has been added to Chabad's mailing list where I get announcements that even signed-up members don't seem to get. I sure didn't sign up to be on the jewish registry. That, perhaps, was the most perplexing piece of information all night.
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