Category Archives: Cross Post

Dec 13 2012

Themes, metaphors and Gaza

Over at the Algemeiner, A Jay Adler (who usually blogs at ‘The Sad Red Earth‘) has a very interesting article entitled “When Is an Open-Air Prison a Terrorist Camp?” in which he examines the use of the metaphor of ‘Gaza as an open-air prison’ and other popular themes employed by activists and the media – among others – including the BBC.  

“But what is the intent of the metaphor? Is it not to deceive the judgment and manipulate the moral imagination of those addressed by it so that they will conceive Israelis truly as brutal jailors, while the Gazans, never duly convicted through any process of law, are drawn falsely as unjustly imprisoned?

What those who believe the metaphor forget, but those who concoct it ever recall, is that the goal of political metaphor is to refashion reality, which is to say lie about it but bury the lie. They bury it in metaphorical equivocation.”

Read the whole article here. 

[Editor's note: after this post was prepared and queued, Professor Adler kindly provided a link to his article in the comments section of an earlier post. However, the article merits much wider reading and hence a place on our front page.]  

Nov 22 2012

BBC’s Donnison & Davies duo bark up the wrong tree

In the eyes of many around the world, the British have long held a well-deserved reputation as animal lovers. Like some other  reputations, that one too may well have been tarnished this past week by Tweeting BBC staffers. 

If you managed to stay awake despite reading Jon Donnison’s seemingly endless Tweets complaining about noise disturbing his slumbers in a war zone (duh!), then you may have already come across the story told below by Brian of London from ‘Israellycool’.   

“So I’m not a representative of what was once the world’s most respected news organisation. I don’t carry the initials “BBC” in my bio. And it doesn’t matter how many times your write that your twitter account is personal: if you identify yourself as from the BBC in your bio, then travel to Gaza during a war on the BBC’s dime, we can assume what you say is going to rub off on the BBC.”

Read the rest here.