Gaza equal time? WaPost's Ignatius cuts off Turkey's prime minister

by: fairleft

Fri Jan 30, 2009 at 14:53

Here's an on-video representation of how 'objective' the U.S. mainstream media is on Israel/Palestine (and Israel vs. the Muslim Middle East in general) matters. The Washington Post's David Ignatius defending the pillagers of Gaza and cutting off the outrage of the Muslim world (and Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan), at the world rich people's forum, Davos. BBC has a good video and describes what Israel President Shimon Peres had said -- just prior to Erdogan's attempted rebuttal -- to general applause:

Mr Peres had told the audience Israel was forced on to the offensive against Hamas by thousands of rockets and mortars fired into Israel.
"The tragedy of Gaza is not Israel, it is Hamas," the Israeli leader said.
"Why did they fire rockets? There was no siege against Gaza. Why did they fight us, what did they want? There was never a day of starvation in Gaza."
He argued that Mr Erdogan would have reacted in the same way if rockets had hit Istanbul.

What, there wasn't a siege? Yeah, right. And this lame excuse-making evokes widespread applause? Did the fine establishment ladies rattle their jewelry too? Homemade rockets that killed nobody versus an onslaught that razed and bulldozed Gaza's entire physical plant and killed 1,330 of its citizens, including roughly 500 children? Yeah, maybe Prime Minister Erdogan would be a bit irritated, and anxious for equal time. But no, Mr. Turkish prime minister, David Ignatius, gatekeeper/reporter at an American ruling elite newspaper, had the mike:

CBC:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan grew increasingly irritated after appealing for more time from the moderator, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, to rebut Shimon Peres following the Israeli leader's passionate defence of his country's three-week offensive against Hamas militants.
Ignatius gave Erdogan one extra minute because the session time was ending.
"You kill people," Erdogan told the 85-year-old Israeli head of state. "I remember the children who died on beaches. I remember two former prime ministers who said they felt very happy when they were able to enter Palestine on tanks."
"I find it very sad that people applaud what you said," Erdogan said in Turkish. "You killed people. And I think that it is very wrong."
Ignatius interjected, saying the panel couldn't "start the debate again."
"We just don't have time," he said.
"Please let me finish," Erdogan said, to which Ignatius responded: "We really do need to get people to dinner."
The red-faced Turkish leader then said, "Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I don't think I will come back to Davos after this."

Here's everything he said at the end, according to the BBC video (emphasis added):

I don't think I will come back to Davos after this. Because you don't let me speak. The president spoke for 25 minutes I have spoken for only half of that.

BBC apparently decided the remarks in bold came 'later':

Mr Erdogan later complained that he had been allowed to speak for just 12 minutes compared with 25 for Mr Peres.

Ya think mebbe the U.S. press is biased against the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim point of view?

Here's a poorly sub-titled in English video of the confrontation between Erdogan and Ignatius/Peres:

Here's a smoothly translated video:

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