Wednesday, September 02, 2009

The Iranian Threat..."Hyped"?

The Jerusalem Post featured an ironic headline this morning. In its “Iranian Threat” section, the first headline from the day read “El-Baradei (chief of the IAEA) calls Iranian Threat ‘hyped’.” I honestly can’t think of any reason why! Where did such a sentiment come from?

Israel’s fear of Iran is certainly founded, given Ahmadenijad’s inflammatory rhetoric against it. It is certainly the state’s job to diplomatically address potential threats.

Nevertheless, there is a popular perception throughout the world, which El-Baradei points to in his interview that automatically labels Iran as a threatening nuclear nation.

Clearly, the IAEA believes Iran is not an immediate threat, though media outlets may disagree. For instance, simply having an “Iranian Threat” section of the Jerusalem Post’s website makes endemic an automatic view of Iran as an enemy that cannot be negotiated.

Meanwhile, the actual threat of Iranian weaponry is far smaller than is perceived – is this actually giving Iran more power to intimidate the populations of other states??

Either way, such a bias destroys a media outlet’s ability to be analytical and non-partisan, forcing unhealthy public discourse. How can Israel and Iran, or any other country for that matter, enter into peaceful negotiations when the population is being convinced by the media that Iran is a violent enemy?

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