A tale of two laws

As I write this, some on-line are still defending the accuracy of the original report of the so called 'badges for Jews' law in Iran and are denouncing as 'liberal appeasers' or even 'anti-Semitic' those who pointed out how goofy it was. At the same time the fake Iran story was exploding, an Israeli law that arguably constitutes ethnic cleansing was virtually ignored by the media.

Many embraced the Iran story fiercely, as re-enforcement for a narrative that's been strongly promoted and were unwilling to relinquish it.

The real follow up we should all be doing to this story now, is to take a long hard look at those promoting that narrative, such as Mr Taheri, the Benador Associates group and The National Post and it's own history of distortion and bias. The Post was founded by Conrad Black who also owned the equally right-wing Jerusalem Post. It is currently owned by the Asper family business Can-West.

In the same week this story of a false racist law in Iran blew up into a huge media fire-storm, a real law was approved, albeit barely, by Israel's Supreme Court that splits up marriages and destroys families and has been denounced as a racist law both inside and out of Israel.

While the fake Iranian law was front-page news all over the world, the real Israeli law garnered only a fraction of the false story's attention.

There's an old saying that 'a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still getting it's boots on.'