The Global Peace And Justice network has just issued a message to the media carping on about the quality of local coverage given to The Tragedy. Which tragedy? Not the tragedy of brutal China and helpless Tibet. Not any of the various tragedies involving various despotic regimes in North Africa. Not the tragedy Russia has brought to Chechnya. 

Nope, just the one tragedy — the only tragedy that ever matters to this country’s radical left — which is the tragedy of democratic Israel defending itself against  sustained attacks by a dedicated terrorist organisation. 

The press release takes issue with the various media descriptions of the combatants in the apparently concluded Israel-Gaza conflict (Palestinians as “militants, Islamists, insurgents, extremists or even terrorists” but Israeli troops simply as soldiers), the preponderance of (as the writers see it) Israeli spokespeople over their Palestinian counterparts, and, finally, a general public left in the dark with the blanks “filled in with bigotry and prejudice” courtesy of talkback radio.

To be sure, there’s probably a lot that still needs to be critically said about the recent conflict — a Palestinian-penned piece here in the New York Times probably isn’t a bad place to start — and we certainly agree that it might have helped to see footage of a uniformed Hamas soldier or two during the conflict.

Still, the producers of this hastily cobbled-together media release don’t make the cut. Their release can’t even be refuted point by point because it offers no actual case studies or real arguments.

Since they raise the issue, though, now could be as good a time as ever to review the uncritical media coverage enjoyed over recent weeks by the so-called Global Peace And Justice network.

First, the organisation, whose true membership almost certainly numbers no more than a dozen, received prominent billing, including an above-the-fold report in the country’s largest paper, for its plans to assemble a vast picket line of shoe-waving demonstrators against the presence of Israeli player Shahar Peer at an Auckland tennis tournament. In the event, just 12 or 13 protesters showed.

Next, the organisation claimed that “a dedicated unit within the Israeli military” had somehow managed to sabotage the group’s website on account of its opposition to the Gaza operation.

Exactly why, or how, the Israelis should opt to hit an obscure antipodean site while leaving tends of thousands of other critical outfits unmolested was never explained. Nevertheless, the make-believe “story” received generous play throughout most of the New Zealand media. (Here and here, for starters.)

Also in media evidence has been a steady stream of “calls” by the group to the New Zealand government, the Israelis, even “world leaders,” to fall into line with the group’s agenda.

Notably absent throughout any of this has been any serious analysis of what that underlying agenda really is. And how much of a serious constituency, really, does “Global Peace And Justice” command? What about the passing similarities between aspects of its anti-Jewish critique of Middle Eastern affairs and some of the views put forward by one of the world's better-known arch-racists?

Might another of the “tragedies” here be the media’s lack of curiosity in any or all of the above?