Star’s ‘subliminal’ headlines slated

THERE were two headlines in The Star (June 27), one reading “Israel is deporting more SA Christians” and the other on the editorial page stating “Nothing but the truth will do”. For the vast majority of this newspaper’s readers, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is of little interest but, when reading a newspaper, one glances at the headlines which are designed to tell the story without reading the entire piece.

This is not the first time this paper has used “subliminal” headlines to invert facts designed to tell a different tale. In the first instance, the report on Israel deporting SA Christians tells the reader that Israel is deporting hundreds if not thousands of Christians. However, for those reading beyond the headline we see that only 20 people have been deported over a period of 10 years. Not only is this misleading in the extreme – yes, 2 people deported per year – but more misleading insomuch as the report fails to detail just how hostile the SACC has been towards Israel – yet Israel has tolerated hundreds of members of this organisation over the years.

The second headline, “Nothing but the truth will do”, goes on to say that disinformation, misinformation and hate speech can be disastrous, yet this newspapercontinues to peddle disinformation, misinformation and hate speech against Israel almost daily.

The article mentioned above clearly states that both Richard Goldstein and Archbishop Tutu were barred from entering Israel. I stand corrected, but a quick search of Google can find no such instances. If the author of this piece were a bit more honest, perhaps some factual statistics – readily available to the editors of this news group – of the decline of the Christian population from the West Bank and Gaza compared to the increase of that same population in Israel over the past 10 years (could be included). Rosebank