From the Guardian: Why did everyone forget about Syria when Gaza started?

[iandhr]

It's a truism that news organisations and audiences alike struggle to cope with more than one major international crisis at a time: if the war in Gaza wasn't a big enough story, then the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine was almost unbearable overload. But what about Syria, where 1,700 people are reported to have died in the last 10 days alone?

The uprising against Bashar al-Assad has been the biggest and longest story of what used to be known as the "Arab spring". Recently the tide of the war has turned, due to government military successes, rebel disarray, the rise of Isis jihadis in both Syria and Iraq … and persistent and crippling international divisions.

Reporting on it is difficult: Syrian visas for journalists are sporadic and access is strictly controlled. Reporting from the rebel side via Turkey is extremely dangerous. It is much easier to get into besieged Gaza, where most international news organisations are now represented. Financial and human resources are stretched.

Syria's latest toll includes 700 killed in just two days in the Homs area, and hundreds more in fighting against Isis around the oil fields of Deir al-Zor. For anyone who wants to play a macabre numbers game, the overall figures are still a smaller proportion than 800 Palestinian deaths out of a Gaza population of 1.8m.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/25/forget-syria-gaza-media-audience-wars

[hrmjustin]

1. What is the point?

[Warpy]

3. No kidding, nobody had a dog in that fight from the get go

Assad has been an appalling leader and he's being opposed mostly by Islamist zealots the west finds utterly repugnant. Now ISIS is trying to unite the Sunni zealots to start redrawing some of the borders in the region and that's probably a good thing. The old Imperial borders didn't work for anyone outside the now defunct empires.

What surprises me is that news on Iraq has fizzled out, too. Too many Americans lost their lives there to make interest in that country simply go away.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. We've had a dog in that fight from the get go.

US policy is that Assad must go. (I won't even beg the question of why the US gets to decide who runs other countries.)

For several years, we ran a two-track operation against Syria. First, we tried to cobble together an actual opposition political coalition, which has been a bad joke all along. Second, the CIA has been quietly cooperating with our buddies in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in training and arming "good rebels."

Now, Obama wants $500 million for more overt assistance to the "good rebels."

This is a cynical and bloody-handed policy. It is designed to "pressure" Assad to negotiate his own exit by prolonging the conflict and getting more Syrians killed. The "good rebels" have already lost strategically.

And then there's Iraq.

I think these conflicts are too headache-inducing for most people to even want to think about them. Also, we seem to be interested only when there is US involvement in the headlines.

[Enrique]

2. i think people forgot about Syria before Gaza started

i kind of did anyway.

[hack89]

5. Palestinians are trendy. nt

[frylock]

6. and very telegenic as well