New EU-Sponsored Guidelines for Journalists: Report the News Only the Way We See It

A newly formed organization sponsored by the EU and composed of media outlets from eight European countries is dedicated to preventing alleged Islamophobia from creeping into reporting on ethnic minorities and immigration. To this end, it has recently released a 39-page document with guidelines. Bruce Bawer describes it:

[T]he document exhorts us not to write too much about “sensationalist incidents involving migrants,” since “violent individuals are found within every large group of people.” If, however, we do feel compelled to cover such incidents, we must never cease to recall that the “root causes” of these incidents “often have nothing to do with a person’s ethnicity or religious affiliation.” What, then, are those root causes? The report advises us that they include “colonialism, racism, [and] general social inequality.” Do not forget, as well, that there is “no structural connection between migration and terrorism.” . . .

The report cautions that even to touch on the question of “whether asylum seekers’ claims are genuine” or “whether migrants have a right to be in the country” is thoroughly inappropriate: it places the focus on “law and order” rather than on such things as “the fundamental right of asylum.” Yes, you read that correctly: “the fundamental right of asylum.” Never mind that under international law not everyone is entitled to asylum—and that a huge proportion of self-styled asylum seekers in Europe today have no legitimate grounds for such a claim but are, like many of us, seeking better economic opportunities. . . .

The only surprising thing about this document is that it actually includes a brief section on anti-Semitism, in which it suggests—believe it or not—that equating Israel and Nazi Germany may not be a good idea. For the most part, however, the report is one long taxpayer-funded catalog of politically correct protocols which—if adhered to by everyone in Europe who is professionally involved in reporting on events concerning Islam and immigration—would guarantee a full-scale whitewash of the alarming developments currently under way on this unfortunate continent.

Read more at Gatestone

More about: European Islam, European Union, Immigration, Media, Political correctness, Politics & Current Affairs

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF