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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish,net.tv
Subject: Egyptian attack
Message-ID: <2047@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 10-Oct-85 16:13:32 EDT
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Posted: Thu Oct 10 16:13:32 1985
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Regarding the recent news item about the Egyptian officer shooting up
the resort area and killing a number of Israeli tourists:

The first TV news item covering this that I heard emphasized that the
action was that of a single armed man (originally identified as a
policeman) running amok, and shooting *randomly*, and that 5 or 6
Israelis *and* 5 or 6 Egyptians were killed. Succeeding news broadcasts
(on other channels at the same timeframe, and on later newscasts)
completely ignored the killing of Egyptian nationals and mentioned
*only* the deaths of the Israelis (which were revised up to seven, I
believe). Also later broadcasts variously identified the shooter as a
"customs official" and a "soldier".

I *think* that it was CBS (evening news) that reported the slaying of
both Israelis and Egyptians, and that the other networks mentioned only
the Israelis. However, I think that the next day, and thereafter, the
network that originally mentioned that individuals of both nationalities
were slain began to mention only the Israeli victims.

Anyone follow this story and agree with these impressions I gathered?
Anybody have any comments on this rather obvious "embedded editorializing"
technique? It looks like a calculated method of inflaming pro-Israel
individuals' anti-Egyptian feelings. After all, if it was the act of an
independently-acting madman, who was shooting *people*, not specific
nationalities, it can't be an act of political terrorism, and is a
non-political mass murder. As the latter, it would not even be mentioned
outside the country in which it happened, unless one or more of the
victims happened to be famous.

Could this have been a deliberate effort to politicize a truly
non-political action? If so, anyone care to offer speculation as to the
motivation behind such treatment and who would be behind it? (Conspiracy
theories involving the Trilateral Commission are about as good as any
others here, I suppose.)

Will Martin

UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin   or   ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA