Slaughter in the News Room

Question: Where does today's media draw the line at telling stories about the plight of the Palestinians?

Answer: When you can't blame the Jews.

This story from Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh is about the massacre of Palestinians in Syria - Now They Are Slaughtering Palestinians.

Last week, the bodies were discovered of 16 Palestinians who had been kidnapped while on their way by bus to their refugee camp. Their throats had been slit.

To no-one's surprise, this grisly massacre has received scant attention in the international media or even in the Arab world. According to Toameh,

Most of the Arab countries, as well, which treat Palestinians as second-class citizens and subject them to apartheid systems, do not seem to care about the ongoing massacres against Palestinians in particular and Syrians in general.

Palestinian refugees have been placed in ghettos and Toameh says that "Palestinians living in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon now fear another 'Black September' - a reference to the massacres carried out by the Jordanians in the early 1970s."

Where is the so-called progressive media like Al Age and the Guardian while all this is going on?

Possibly sitting with their eyes shut and their ears blocked because there's no story here that can be used to condemn or blame the Jewish State such as those about an Israel that makes life hard for hunger striking convicted terrorists about which they seem to have become obsessed of late.

It's of little wonder these once respected newspapers are floundering, as this article from Harry's Place about the ailments of the Guardian describes - The Canary In The Guardian’s Coal Mine.

But far worse than fiscal bankruptcy is the moral bankruptcy highlighted by this (non) story and the failure to report the massacre of Palestinians in Syria.

If anyone believes that Fairfax would have ignored it if Israel could be blamed, I have a bridge in Sydney Harbour for sale cheap.