In her own words: In favor of Israel

This is the piece (and there is an interview as well) that contains the words "pro-Palestinian hysteria" (which Carol quotes as 'hysterical pro-Palestinianism').

Rahola in her own words is way too much one-sided for my taste and the reliance on one single explanation, deeply rooted European Judeophobia, smells too much of explanations like 'collective unconscious' which I dislike.

In an interview she states that a minority among left intellectuals may be different, but she seems to think (and imply) that anti-semitism is the root of the opinions for a majority. I can't follow her here.

John, your questions are interesting and of course on-topic in a discussion starting with an article about Rahola and her opinions. Rahola is known for having asked similar (or even the same) questions so I fail to see how re-asking these questions can be considered off-topic.

My explanation for that is an extension of the well known phenomenon that some dead persons are closer to us than others (trivially so for friends and relations). If a small plane with two people in it crashes in my home town this accident will make page 1 and a plane crash killing 150 in the Andes will make last page as "other news from abroad". By extension, Europa and North America feels nearer to us and therefore the same amount of dead people in an accident, a crime in New York gets more coverage than in Kinshasa. Unfair perhaps, but that's how we are.

Not as well known, but I think also reliably observable, is the tendency to report deaths/injuries and injustices more often if the perpetrator is 'one of us' (in the broadest sense). An Indian killed in a car accident in Kalkutta may be noticed over here if run over by a German tourist, otherwise not. The bias is not only to report a death with greater probability if the dead person is 'one of us' but also if the one responsible for the death is 'one of us'.

So, 50 Vietnamese killed by Americans had/have more chances to make page 1 in Germany than 50 Vietnamese killed by Vietnamese. Not fair, but a consequence of the tendency of humans to be more interested in members of the 'ingroup' whether as victims or as perpetrators. Looking at it this way and counting Israel to the 'ingroup', it is no wonder that the pattern of reporting victims is as you describe (imply): Arabs killing Arabs are not as interesting/reportable as Americans or Israeli killing Arabs.

Wolfgang