An Interview with Raymond Deane

Continuing our interview with Raymond Deane – former Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

(RD – Raymond Deane, MC – Miriam Cotton, MediaBite)

MC: What do you think about the Irish media coverage of the Palestinian issue – what or who are offering either the best or the worst of it and would you see Indymedia as a good source – it’s undeniably a great phenomenon – vital for putting facts and information in the public domain which otherwise might not see the light of day?

RD: In this country it’s easy to single out the worst: Independent Newspapers. Some people say that we in the IPSC are forever targeting the Irish Times and RTE, and ignoring the real mass media, and there’s some truth in this. My rationale, perhaps self-seeking because I simply don’t want to read the Irish Independent or the Sunday Independent, is that everybody knows that these are just populist right-wing rags, everybody knows that people like Eoghan Harris and Kevin Myers and Ruth Dudley Edwards are contrarian crackpots.  These papers don’t claim to be newspapers of record whereas the Irish Times does make that claim, and it is the one that is generally cited if people outside Ireland are ever bothered to cite the Irish media.  From that point of view, it is important therefore to deal in a separate way and in a concentrated way with the Irish Times.

Continue reading Will Palestine always be the issue? – Part 2 →

An Interview with Raymond Deane

Last week, in interview with a More 4 journalist, Mark Regev, one of Ehud Olmert’s spokespeople, admitted that Israel knew and had officially recorded the fact that Hamas had not broken the ceasefire between the two regions and, further, that the Israelis were also aware that Hamas had made attempts to prevent other, small groups from firing rockets.  Given that the accusation that Hamas had resumed hostilities was the basis for this war, why then do we continue to read and hear in the media that Israel launched its attack in self defence?

We recently interviewed Raymond Deane – former Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign –  about media coverage of the Palestinian situation.  Since the interview was originally conducted in early November – the day after Israel broke the ceasefire – Israel has launched its latest assault on the Palestinians, this time in Gaza, with devastating consequences for the besieged Palestinian community there and who have no means of escape from the continuing carnage.

Continue reading Will Palestine always be the issue? – Part 1 →