April 1, 2002

1:07 AM

Porn upsets PalestiniansPorn movies and programs in Hebrew are being broadcast by Israeli troops who have taken over three Palestinian television stations of Ramallah, irate residents of the besieged West Bank town have told AFP. Psychological warfare?
posted by helloboys (12 comments total)

That's pretty offensive, if it's true. Wouldn't it be better to take advantage of the jacked airwaves and broadcast some propaganda to counter the militant brainwashing many Palestinians have undergone? This sort of thing just reinforces all the terrible stereotypes (from the Palestinian perspective) about Israelis and will probably only further radicalize the occupied population.

Once again: If. It's. True. Very sad.
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:19 AM on April 1, 2002

Given the geography, it's going to piss off the local Orthodox too. Anything you can get in Ramallah, you can probably get on your TV in West Jerusalem...

OTOH, DS, it wouldn't surprise me. Army = young secular men. I'm sure many soldiers (in many Western nations, not just Israel) would think it's hilarious. But yes, it's another opportunity turned to shit.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:38 AM on April 1, 2002

Well, I suppose that's one way to keep young Palestinian guys at home watching TV instead of out on the streets battling the occupation forces... no wonder the girls are taking over duties as suicide bombers.
posted by SenshiNeko at 1:38 AM on April 1, 2002

Unlikely to be true.
posted by ParisParamus at 3:53 AM on April 1, 2002

Slightly more tasteful than when the US blasted Bon Jovi at Noreaga in Panama.
posted by adampsyche at 5:28 AM on April 1, 2002

If the Israelis wanted to stage such a campaign, they could simply broadcast from Israel, proper; in any case, there's plenty of free press broadcast going into the territories (we're talking about a total area half the size of Los Angeles County).
posted by ParisParamus at 5:51 AM on April 1, 2002

one side of the story
posted by Jevon at 7:55 AM on April 1, 2002

"You're grossed out by pornography, we're grossed out by suicide bombers." A rather drastic method of making the point that it's time to change the channel and make a 180 degree turn. Agreed, Paris-- the US military is free to offend; can't imagine most Israeli officials would ever want to stoop that low.

Has Israel ever considered a 2-3 year transition in which all Palestinan government officials must be women? A 180 degree turn toward a different way of life-- a different way of making it happen?
posted by sheauga at 10:18 AM on April 1, 2002

april fools joke, right. i mean "porn" is just two (or more) humans wearing what Yaweh gave them, getting down having fun. hard to believe that that would bother them, but kids throwing rocks at tanks and machine guns and the like are ok.

no one ever died from looking at Jenna Jameson.
posted by tsarfan at 1:32 PM on April 1, 2002

Army = young secular men

In Israel, army = everyone in the country between 18 and 22, male or female, and one month a year until you're about 50, male or female, not to mention all the career army people.
posted by bingo at 10:57 PM on April 1, 2002

Bingo: you have to remember that many of the most religious are exempted from service, reservists are only now being called up in any numbers, women's compulsory service is half the length of men's, and women are not usually assigned to combat units, recent changes to policy notwithstanding. The backbone of the serving IDF, like every army, is male regulars in their 20s. Perhaps it's wrong of me to guess that they are not that pious, but I bet the secular portion of Israeli society is overrepresented in the IDF.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:22 AM on April 2, 2002

Women are not usually in the trenches in a literal sense, but I think they are still mobilized into recently occupied territories. I'll have to ask my Israeli friends about this. I guess what I was trying to get at is this: the lowbrow army humor you're apparently alluding to certainly exists in the American army, at least among the enlisted men, but the Israeli army is a whole different culture. The climate is different in terms of what being in the army actually means. The battles fought are close to where these people grew up, and they do in most cases have a personal interest in what happens, beyond their professional responsiblity to follow orders (as opposed to the more American "we'll go wherever the president sends us, and kick ass" mentality). The fact that all over Jerusalem, you see attractive young women in uniform with their uzis, who you know could probably snap you in two even without it, has got to affect the way the young men in Israel see sex and women and strength and the military and the relationship of all those elements to each other.

Yes, porn is no doubt offensive to the ultra-orthodox, but outside of that narrow sphere, Judaism, culturally and religiously, views sexuality in general in a much more positive light than Islam and Christianity do anyway.
posted by bingo at 3:38 PM on April 2, 2002