Syria gives green light to UN chemical weapons team
Press TV – August 25, 2013
The Syrian government has given the green light to the UN team of chemical weapons inspectors to investigate the site of the recent alleged chemical attack in the country.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry made the announcement on Sunday, after an agreement was reached between the UN team and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
“An agreement was concluded today in Damascus between the Syrian government and the United Nations during the visit of the UN High Representative for Disarmament Angela Kane,” the ministry said in a statement.
The accord would “allow the UN team led by Professor Aake Sellstroem to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Damascus Province,” the statement stated, adding that it “is effective immediately.”
The Syrian government and the UN also agreed that the UN team should start its investigation of the sites from Monday.
Damascus also promised to observe ceasefire during the UN team’s visit to the site of the attack.
“Syria is ready to cooperate with the inspection team to prove that the allegations by terrorist groups of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian troops in the Eastern Ghouta region are lies,” Muallem was quoted as telling Kane.
On August 21, the head of the so-called opposition Syrian National Coalition, George Sabra, claimed that 1,300 people were killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar.
The Syrian government, however, has vehemently rejected the allegation, saying the foreign-backed militants had carried out the attack.
On Saturday, the Syrian forces found chemical agents in tunnels dug by the militants in Jobar. A number of soldiers suffocated as they entered the area.
The UN investigators are staying at a hotel just a few kilometers away from the site of the attack. They arrived in Syria on August 18.
The US has reportedly said Syria’s permit for the UN inspection is too late to be credible. A senior American official has said the access should have been granted immediately after the attack.
Related article
- Syria Opposition Preventing Chemical Attack Probe: Russia (syrianfreepress.wordpress.com)
Mobs raid homes of Muslims in Myanmar
Press TV – August 25, 2013
Some 1,000 Buddhists have reportedly attacked properties belonging to the Muslim community in northwestern Myanmar.
The rampage broke out shortly before Saturday midnight in the town of Kanbalu. Seven Muslim-owned shops and 15 houses were destroyed by the Buddhist mob.
The mob demanded that Myanmar’s police hand over a man suspected of attempting to rape a Buddhist woman.
Witnesses say police tried to disperse the angry crowd but failed to prevent the destruction.
Muslims are regularly targeted by riots in Myanmar. In 2012, similar violence in the western state of Rakhine left nearly 200 people – mostly Rohingya Muslims – dead.
The Saturday attack comes four days after the UN human rights envoy to Myanmar came under an attack by a group of Buddhists in central Myanmar.
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Tomas Ojea Quintana said on August 21 that 200 angry Buddhists mobbed his car after he landed in the central town of Meikhtila to investigate attacks on Rohingya Muslims in the region.
In March, a wave of anti-Muslim riots killed over 40 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced thousands in Meikhtila.
Over the past months, hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and thousands displaced in attacks by extremist Buddhists.
The extremists frequently attack Rohingyas, and Myanmar’s government has been accused of failing to protect the Muslim minority.
Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the eighth century.
Colombians Increasingly Joining Strike
Prensa Latina | August 24, 2013
Bogota – More and more sectors continue joining the nationwide strike in Colombia, expressing their unhappiness with government economic policies, amid strong tension in the wake of police repression, detentions and blockage in 33 roads in several departments.
The situation is worsening, with no solution in sight. The Executive has reiterated it is ready to talk, but not before the strike is ended and blocking of roads lifted.
President Juan Manuel Santos said yesterday that 30 persons have been brought to justice for blocking roads, “some of them charged with committing terrorism, facing over 20 year prison sentence.”
The day before the protests started, Santos had ordered police to act firmly against those blocking the roads.
Leaders of the protests have urged police to stop using force excessively and abusing power.
The first six days of protest left over 175 detainees and heavy damage worth some $25 million USD.
But protesters are determined to remain in the roads until their demands are heard by the government, whose policies against the workers and people in general limit their rights, privatize institutions and hand over the country’s resources to transnationals.
Boyaca remains the worst-hit department, with over 16 roads totally blocked.
Footage of police repression has been posted on the Internet.
The strike has also been strong in Bogota, and today more than 1,000 storekeepers of main wholesale chain Corabastos are expected to march toward Bolivar Square to support the protests, with people demanding to stop immediately the Free Trade Agreements that are hitting the people, mainly in rural areas.
“No More FTA, No More Riot Squadron (ESMAD), No More Privatized Seeds, No More Mega-Mining, No More Corruption,” ex Senator Piedad Cordoba wrote in a message on Twitter, where Colombians are massively backing the protests.
BBC and Democracy Now! Syrian Chemical Weapons Coverage: An exercise in Imperial deception
By William Bowles — August 23, 2013
Over the past three days, since the story first broke, the BBC’s news Website (I use the word news advisedly) has carried twelve stories on the alleged chemical weapons attack that took place in a suburb of Damascus. Today’s offerings include, Hague believes Assad behind attack (23/8/13), without offering a shred of proof that the Assad government is behind the alleged attack or even that it took place, takes foreign secretary Hague’s ‘belief’ as a given. The lead paragraph tells it all:
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague says he believes President Assad was behind a chemical attack in Syria.
What Hague’s belief is based upon is not revealed, instead we get more of the same:
“I know that some people in the world would like to say that this is some kind of conspiracy brought about by the opposition in Syria,” said Mr Hague.
Now why does Hague feel compelled to bring in the issue of a conspiracy? Perhaps because it is a conspiracy? A conspiracy dreamed up to justify the overthrow of the sovereign government of Syria. Hague then makes the most astonishing statement:
“I think the chances of that are vanishingly small [that it was a conspiracy] and so we do believe that this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime.”
‘So we do believe’ intones Hague but the BBC article offers not a shred of actual proof that one, gas was actually used and two, if gas was used who it was used by?
Now you have to ask why the BBC feels it necessary to propagandise on behalf of the UKUS governments? What’s in it for the BBC? Well if it was an independent organisation, there could be no justification for promoting an allegation as fact even when its main UK advocate, Hague himself, can only offer his “belief”. But given as the BBC is the de facto mouthpiece for the UK state, it clearly has to peddle the ‘party line’. The piece continues:
“Pressing for UN weapons inspectors to be given access to the site, the UK foreign secretary said: “It seems the Assad regime has something to hide.
“Why else have they not allowed the UN team to go there?”
But who says the Syrian government have denied access to Ghouta? Given as firstly, the area in question is under the control of the rebels (isn’t that the reason why all we have to go on are the rebels presentations, which judging by the videos I’ve seen, look suspiciously staged?), at the point of writing, there’s nothing the Syrian government can do about it. Second, just a few miles away there’s the newly arrived UN inspection team, who given the chance, I’m sure will want to check out the situation for themselves. In fact, they have, see here.
Even Barack Obama says “the alleged used of chemical weapons” and doesn’t actually name the Assad government. Once burned, twice shy perhaps, considering that the last alleged Syrian government use of chemical weapons turned out to have been used by the rebels. Do I detect a pattern here?
But by the last section of the article we read:
He [Hague] added: “This is what we are focused on and we are working with countries all over the world to try to bring this about and to try to establish the truth to the satisfaction of the world about what is clearly a terrible atrocity.
Well at least now the man is admitting that he doesn’t actually know what really happened, and it makes a nonsense of the BBC’s title. But just how compelling the propaganda assault has been (it reminds me somewhat of the media’s coverage of the Boston Bombing), is that ‘progressive’ media outlet, Democracy Now! has just published a piece that’s pretty much in step with the BBC’s coverage, though it does at least entertain the idea that if the Syrian government had done it it had shot itself in the foot and opened the door to direct (as opposed to indirect) foreign intervention, which is what Hague is proposing we do. Thus proof is is crucial.
“The only possible explanation of what we have been able to see is that it was a chemical attack and clearly many, many hundreds of people have been killed, some of the estimates are well over 1,000.
“There is no other plausible explanation for casualties so intense in such a small area on this scale.” – Hague
There is nothing clear about anything at this point in time, not even that chemical weapons were actually used. We have only the conveniently supplied rebel footage, which when viewed objectively, tells us nothing much at all, except that some appeared to be dead but not how they died and in some of the footage it’s not even clear the people are actually dead. Another part of Democracy Now!’s footage shows people, young an old, walking around rather aimlessly and clearly very aware of the camera’s presence, too aware I think.
The entire event registers as false, as contrived and just too damn convenient and to have happened on the same day as the UN inspection team arrived? That’s a coincidence? At the end of the day, it’s the latest and the most elaborate provocation staged to try and justify direct, foreign intervention by the Imperialist powers, given that the ‘rebels’ appear to be on the run.
Yesterday, the 22nd of August, the BBC put out another propaganda piece titled, Obama’s thick red line on Syria by the BBC’s North American Editor, Mark Mardell. The title tells it all doesn’t it? Obama is indecisive, unsure of what to do (the issue of the chemical weapons is not even mentioned directly, it’s just assumed that it was the Assad government that used them):
President Obama clearly has a problem, and will be accused of inaction and dithering.
Mardell gives the game away when he writes:
The president’s main military adviser has cancelled a planned news conference. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey was due to answer questions at the foreign press centre.
Perhaps he’s had to call it off because he is busy planning what happens next in Syria. [my emph.]
‘Busy planning what happens next in Syria’ says it all really. Syria is just another place to blow up and decide if it has a future. The BBC speaks with an Imperialist tongue, that’s why the BBC is so gung ho about invading Syria to the point that it’s entire coverage of the events in Ghouta are based on nothing more than supposition and allegation? This outrageous piece of out and out warmongering ends thus:
In either case, Mr Obama is likely to insist on going the full UN route to gather the maximum possible support for any action – and that means waiting for the inspector’s report on earlier incidents at the very least.
I could be very wrong. The bombers could be in the air by this afternoon.
But at the moment all Mr Obama plans for today is a talk about the cost of college education and “a better deal for the middle classes”.
I suspect his red line is very thick indeed.
Obviously too thick for the BBC aka the state.
In another, later Mardell piece, quoting from Obama’s speech on the subject we read (just in case we didn’t get it with the earlier piece):
[Obama] calls the attack “troublesome” and says it touches on core national interests of the US, but quickly adds: “Sometimes what we’ve seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region.”
Damn these dithering imperialists, Mardell seems to be telling us! Get on with it and bomb the crap out of Assad! Mardell continues:
You might think a private punishment is not much of a deterrent and anything that happens now will have to be a lot more public.
/../
It does not sound like a man gung ho for military action. It sounds like the pleading of man being dragged, pushed and pulled by allies and world opinion to do something but who wants to be certain it doesn’t end up in a new war.
Mardell is pissed off because Obama doesn’t want to start bombing another country (yet)! What is going on here when a journalist, paid for out of the public purse and purportedly working for a media outfit that is bound by law to be objective and impartial, can act as point man for the Empire and its fucking wars?!
Israel’s propagandists shoot themselves in the foot as they shoot off their mouths
By Greg Felton | September 30, 2009
If you have ever visited a blog or on-line discussion group on the Middle East you have doubtless had the misfortune to run into them.
They are known by the language they use: depraved sexual insults, bile, bigotry, threats, disinformation and character assassination. That’s right: I’m talking about “hasbarats,” Zionist trolls who infect the Internet with hasbara, pro-Israel propaganda. Of course, mainstream media hasbarats have been around for decades, as have “hasbaratchiks,” fifth-columns in foreign governments who subvert national policies to serve Israel. The Internet, though, is the latest, some might say the greatest, propaganda playground, and Israel cannot cope with factual, passionate, well-documented stories that expose its war crimes and unrepentant criminality.
If you’ve come across a hasbarat, on-line or otherwise, you have learned that no amount of reasoned argument or intellectual maturity has any effect. That’s because hasbarats don’t care if they come across as ignorant, obnoxious, nasty or inane. All that matters for them is sabotaging criticism of Israel and support for Muslims. They’re like anti-intellectual stink bombs: designed to cause maximum discomfort but have little if any real power.
This deliberate proliferation of on-line hasbarats raises two points. The first concerns why anyone would spend hours a day to prostitute themselves for Israel. Money, of course. Ilan Shturman, deputy director of the Israeli foreign ministry’s hasbara department (!), told an Israeli business newspaper in July that US$150,000 had been allocated for the first stage of a campaign to seed the Internet with hasbarats:
“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”
The second point is why Israel felt it had to resort to intellectual fraud on an international scale. The Internet has shown that Israel is a failed oppressor state that commits crimes against humanity as a matter of policy. The last straw for many was “Operation Cast Lead,” an act of such unspeakable unapologetic sadism that allusions to Nazi Germany are entirely appropriate.
Every day, it seems, the mythic foundations of Israel’s legitimacy—the holocaust, Jewish victimhood, Jewish “people,” Israeli “democracy,” “evil” Muslims—are exposed for all to see.
In January, Amir Gissin, Israel’s consul-general in Toronto, sent out a hasbara recruitment letter, which read in part: “If you are frustrated or concerned with the portrayal of Israel in Canadian News and with biased [!] depictions, your voice can be heard. Now, think that you’re not alone 10,000 voices like yours can respond every day: praise, protest, inform, correct on leading Canadian news websites, in real time, effectively.”
The weakness with this tactic, as you probably figured out, is that hasbarats will inevitably shout and whine themselves into irrelevance. Eventually, intelligent people will tune out the Zionist boilerplate, the anti-Muslim smears, and the interminable drone about the holocaust. Already, the once-dreaded epithet “anti-Semite” has lost all significance, as if it ever had any, and the person who hurled it is more likely to be mocked than feared.
Two recent events demonstrate the growing desperation and ineptitude of Israel’s propaganda industry. Today, we look at an example of “positive hasbara.”
Toronto International Film Festival
A major tactic of hasbarats is to project the illusion that Israel is a normal Western democracy, thereby taking focus away from Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians. Also, countries that buy into the deceit will be unwilling to criticize Israel for fear of calling into question their role in covering up zionist war crimes.
This tactic was tried at the recent Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as Tel Aviv was spotlighted in a City-to-City program with Toronto. The ostensible purpose was to use an apolitical, cultural event to obscure the tyranny that Tel Aviv represents, but more than 1,000 filmmakers and performers, weren’t fooled. They put their names to The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation, an open letter to the TIFF that protested the co-optation of the festival by the Israeli propaganda machine.
The protest accomplished precisely what the hasbarats tried to prevent. “Rather than talking about Israel’s rich cinematic culture, the buzz this week in Toronto has centered on the one thing Israeli officials had sought to avoid: the conflict with the Palestinians,” reported the Jewish Telegraph Agency.
The hasbara campaign to ‘re-brand’ Israel during the Toronto International Film Festival failed miserably. So much attention was paid to the protest that it overshadowed the political objectives of Israel’s propaganda machine.
Another major defeat for Israel came courtesy of Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert. After offering a knee-jerk condemnation of the City-to-City protests, he reversed himself the next day:
“I wasn’t prepared with enough facts about the events leading up to the Festival’s decision to showcase Tel Aviv in the City-to-City section. I [initially] thought of it as an innocent goodwill gesture, but now realize it was part of a deliberate plan to ‘re-brand’ Israel in Toronto, as a pilot for a larger such program. The Festival should never have agreed to be used like this. It was naïve for the plan’s supporters to believe it would have the effect they hoped for.”
Speaking of naïve, how about Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv! Whether out of overconfidence or stupidity, he publicly admitted the underlying hasbara in an interview with the JTA:
“While the City to City program was initiated by the festival, the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs was involved as part of its Brand Israel media and advertising campaign, which was launched last year.”
Quite obviously, Israel would have been better off if the hasbarats had not tried to manipulate the festival. Even the predictable pro-Israel counter-protest merely added to the protest’s notoriety and detracted from the cultural propaganda. Moreover the standard claim that the protest was an attack on Israel and artistic freedom was demonstrably false. If anything, the protest highlighted Israel’s active suppression of Palestinian culture. According to the authors of the Toronto Declaration:
“Many Palestinian artists and filmmakers, denied freedom of movement by Israel’s Occupation and pass system, are de facto boycotted, unable to communicate with their communities or travel freely. The double standard is mind-boggling and, slowly, these are the issues we are helping to put under a spotlight.”
Finally, it is important to note that the Declaration’s authors succeeded without any media help. They had no money to place ads, and no newspaper would publish their open letter. On the other hand, hasbarats had the full support (read: “obedience”) of Canada’s national media, and lost.
If a modest, unfunded, popular protest can effectively defeat an orchestrated propaganda campaign, what does that say about Israel’s ability to pose as a legitimate, democratic state? Even though hasbarats get their disinformation out with relative ease, it is not clear that it’s generally accepted.
Related article
Will Gaza have a date with ‘lean’ years in the future?
By Sufian al-Shorbeiji | Alestqlal News* | August 22, 2013
A state of anxiety and confusion has taken over the residents of Gaza as the tunnels leading to the Egyptian border have been almost entirely closed off. Humanitarian crises are beginning to emerge as it becomes increasingly difficult to move consumer goods both into and within the Gaza Strip. Many fear that Gaza will once again be under siege as a result of the tensions occurring in the Egyptian arena. The current situation differs greatly from the sense of relief and mobility that Gazans experienced last year when the blockade was gradually lifted.
Hamas has recently called on regional and international forces to make every possible effort to break the siege on Gaza that occurred after the majority of tunnels were destroyed and the Rafah border was closed off entirely.
Political and economic analyst Mohsen Abu Ramadan believes that the situation in the Gaza Strip is regressing back to the initial stages of the 2007 siege. Ramadan anticipates that this time, the consequences will be more severe in terms of the ability to move both goods and people, which are restricted by Israel’s continued siege of the Strip. Conditions will be worsened by the decreasing amounts of supplies brought in through the tunnels as the chaos in the Egyptian arena continues. He pointed out that the commercial crossing linking Israel to the Gaza strip provides a mere thirty per cent of the needs of the people; whereas, the remaining seventy per cent of goods come through the Egyptian tunnels.
In a conversation with Alesteqlal, Abu Ramadan explained that Egyptian procedures and restrictions related to the tunnels and the closure of the Rafah border have pushed Hamas to call on convoys to break the siege. The group has also asked for the creation of a waterway that would link the Gaza Strip to the world. Abu Ramadan pointed out that while the proposal is legitimate and while Gazans do deserve to have a channel that links it to the international community, it is more important to remedy the lack of connections between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The divisions must first be solved by forming a national government as soon as possible, so that any passage that is built would be considered part of the Palestinian Territories and not just particular to Gaza.
Large implications
Abu Ramadan stressed that the return of a severe siege on Gaza would have seriously detrimental repercussions for the residents of the Strip. The humanitarian conditions will also be negatively impacted due to the various crises resulting from the Israeli blockade and the closure of the crossings. He noted that if the situation in Egypt continues in this vein, it would have a negative impact on the social and humanitarian quality of life for Gaza’s population.
Abu Ramadan pointed out that the best way to break the siege on Gaza is to achieve solidarity among the masses, in addition to working towards achieving national reconciliation and the formation of a unified national government. The new unified government would then work towards breaking the siege that has been imposed upon Gaza for years.
All tunnels found under the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt previously provided residents with supplies, food, fuel and other daily necessities. However operations within the tunnels have been fully stopped in the wake of security threats following the coup against President Morsi.
‘Explosion’ in the South
Political analyst Hamza Abu Shanab confirmed that Gaza is currently living under extremely difficult conditions as a result of the lack of stability in the Sinai and the direct effect this is having on the Palestinian scene. In 2008, the Egyptian leadership broke the barrier that separated Egypt from the Gaza Strip. This resulted in mass migrations of Palestinians towards the city of Al-Arish in order to buy their necessities. Abu Shanab noted that the Egyptian leadership learned from this experience and realised from a humanitarian standpoint that any siege on Gaza leads to an ‘explosion’ of people moving towards the south. For that reason, although restrictions will be likely implemented, they will not reach the severity of a siege.
In regards to the situation’s effect on communication between Gaza and Egypt, Abu Shanab said: “Regardless of how much communication increases or decreases, there will always be common interests between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Egypt’s national security remains tied to Gaza regardless of what government is in power and for that reason communication will ultimately not change.”
“The political situation differs from the economic situation. This blockade might be directed towards the political leadership affiliated with Hamas and based on the lack of mobility in Egypt. However, in the end, Egypt will cooperate with whoever is running the Gaza Strip because it benefits the country’s strategic interests,” Abu Shanab added. He explained that the government in the Gaza Strip will attempt to revive the issue of breaking the siege in order to relieve some of the pressure on the Rafah border and on working conditions. However, it is currently too early to speak of solidarity efforts due in large part to the conditions in the surrounding areas.
Abu Shanab believes that the Israeli occupation will not tighten the siege on Gaza in the near future due to a truce between Hamas and Israel. He added that the Israeli occupation does not want the situation in Gaza to escalate and that Israel is avoiding the Gaza Strip altogether until the end of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
Abu Shanab also noted that Hamas’ attempts to break the siege are currently limited; however, the group can take advantage of one factor, which is to use pressure from the masses to break the siege. It helps that Hamas’ allies in the region, mainly Turkey and Qatar, currently do not have a stable relationship with Egypt. Furthermore, the security situation coupled with Hamas’ ability to control movement within its territory will force Egypt to deal with the government in Gaza.
Insistent force
According to Jamal Khudairi, the chairman of the People’s Committee against the siege, the Israeli occupation is the first force that is responsible for the severe siege imposed on the Gaza Strip over the last few years. They are also responsible for the difficulties that resulted from closing all border crossings with the exception of one, which is used at all times and under all conditions. Israel forces all travellers to travel through the Beit Hanoun crossing and prevents all goods and necessities from entering the Strip, in addition to prohibiting exports. Khudairi also pointed out that speaking about third parties diminishes Israel’s culpability in the matter.
In his conversation with Alesteqlal, Khudairi said that the door for solidarity campaigns with Gaza is open and that efforts that result from them must be put into effect in the coming months. All solidarity projects bring about legitimate results whether they come in the form of ships breaking the siege, or journalists, human rights groups, or parliamentary groups. Khudairi emphasized that all of the efforts are effective in creating a catalyst for breaking the siege. He also stressed the need to form a Palestinian, Arab, and international force that would raise more pressure for breaking the siege that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip for many years.
Khudairi expects a wide international response to the calls for solidarity based on what happened during the last siege; however, he also stressed that each group must be given the ability to determine how much they can help and what means they ought to use based on their own particular capabilities. The most important thing is that these groups call for permanently and completely removing the blockade. He stressed that the occupying forces must be collectively punished and held accountable for the siege, which is in violation of international law.
* Translated by Middle East Monitor
Related articles
- Israeli major general: “If we kill 500 in the Gaza Strip, they will calm down” (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Hamas calls for biggest ever sea convoy to bust Gaza blockade (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
Independent Media as Vehicle for Character Assassination
By Kim Petersen | Dissident Voice | August 23, 2013
Common decency demands that when someone slanders you in a public forum that you should have the right to respond in that same forum.
TRNN is an independent news network that provides thought-provoking news, analysis, and commentary. TRNN is much more than news headlines. For the greatest part, news events are reported in context and with relevant background information. This distinguishes TRNN very much from state and corporate media news. In addition, TRNN senior editor Paul Jay is very adept at playing devil’s advocate, laying out the corporate media/government line whereby guest analysts can probe and expose propaganda and disinformation.
Since criticizing the corporate media is very much like flogging a dead horse and because getting the real news out there is so important, I tend to focus my media criticism on TRNN. For instance, I criticized TRNN for parroting a corporate-state media message about North Korea (without providing relevant background information).1 Its US electoral coverage in 2008 and 2012 was fundamentally anti-democratic because of its inordinate focus on the evilist parties rather than allotting equal coverage to all parties (albeit third party coverage did increase from 2008 to 2012).
Recently TRNN has been presenting a series called “Reality Asserts Itself.” Some fine insight has been provided by Chris Hedges, Vijay Prashad, and Max Blumenthal. However, in a recent installment of the show, Blumenthal engaged in, what can best be described as, character assassination. Blumenthal’s target was the jazz musician/author Gilad Atzmon.2
At the beginning of the segment, Jay stated “some criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic.” Jay provided no examples of this. I am failing to see how criticism of a state can be construed as anti-the people. If someone criticizes the Canadian state, should he also be construed as anti-Canadian? I have heard of people who criticized the United States subsequently being denounced as anti-American, but outside of the examples of criticizing Israel or the US, I have seldom, if ever, encountered charges of being anti-the people because of criticizing the people’s state. Maybe what Jay claims could be true, but as its stands, what he has said is just an assertion.3
Blumenthal responded “some who criticize Israel are anti-Semites.” This is likeliest true. And Jay agreed.
Blumenthal continued, charging that some of Israel’s critics are neo-fascists, racists, Islomophobic, and fearful of the Other.
Then Blumenthal launched into his character assassination of Gilad Atzmon “who,” claims Blumenthal, “pretends to be an anti-Zionist but is actually just pure anti-Semitic.” Without specific examples, Blumenthal’s charge amounts to pure ad hominem. Ad hominem, as Israel critic Noam Chomsky argued, is a despicable tactic:
If someone calls you an anti-Semite, what can you say? I’m not an anti-Semite? If someone says you’re a racist, you’re a Nazi or something, you always lose. The person who throws the mud always wins because there is no way of responding to such charges.4
There’s something unsettling and peculiar in denouncing racism (holding derogatory opinions or beliefs about the entirety of a particular group – ethnic, religious, gender, national, etc.) and then engaging in, what can be labeled as, personism (holding derogatory opinions about a person based on who one believes – as opposed to knows — that person is).
Jay appeared caught-off-guard by Blumenthal’s calumny; he left the character assassination unchallenged, and he quickly moved on to the next topic.
Atzmon says Blumenthal has not read his book,5 The Wandering Who.6 Since Blumenthal did not provide evidence for his ad hominem other than hearsay, his acerbic position is mired in epistemological quicksand.
Jay also allowed his guest to denigrate historical revisionists — Holocaust deniers Blumenthal calls them. That might also be more ad hominem. The right to challenge the historical record and narrative must be inalienable, otherwise history risks becoming mere propaganda.7 Nonetheless, Blumenthal did proffer an explanation for his attack noting that historical revisionists told him they dislike Jews because they are liberals.
I have read Atzmon’s book. Unless it is racist to explore the relations among Jews and how they integrate or separate from others, view the Other, accept or oppose occupation, then the book is not anti-Semitic. There is a certain tribalism among Jews. This is true among many groups except the tribalism takes the form of allegiance to a nation state (referred to as patriotism) rather than to a pseudo ethnic/religious affiliation.
I do not need to defend Atzmon; he can do that quite well himself. What I will call for is Atzmon’s right to defend himself in the same forum.
Does TRNN want a free thinking viewership who consider the facts, analysis, and conclusions presented and arrive at their own reason-based conclusions after examining, discussing with others, cogitating over the facts, and testing the cogency of the logic? Or does TRNN want viewers who uncritically accept what is said on their reports as gospel? It must not be the latter as this would thoroughly undermine the raison d’être of The Real News Network.
Consequently, since TRNN has allowed its program to be used as a vehicle for character assassination, it is incumbent on an ethical, professional, self-respecting, viewer-respecting news organization to allow the maligned Gilad Atzmon a chance at an on-air rebuttal.
- See Kim Petersen, “Independent Media as Mouthpiece for Centers of Power,” Dissident Voice, 28 May 2010.
- See “Israel, Anti-Semitism, and Negotiations Without End,” TRNN, 22 August 2013.
- During this episode of “Reality Asserts Itself,” Jay and Blumental both disdained, and rightfully so, anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism, Islamophobia, Zionism, and racism in general.
- From Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick’s documentary Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media NFB, 1992. Cited in Kim Petersen, “Anti,” Dissident Voice, 6 April 2004.
- Gilad Atzmon, “Max Blumenthal on Anti Semitism, Neo Fascists and Gilad Atzmon (Amusing As Well As Tragic),” 22 August 2013.
- See review.
- See Kim Petersen, “Progressivism, Skepticism, and Historical Revisionism: The Inalienable Right to Question History,” Dissident Voice, 19 December 2005.
Kim Petersen can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org.
Israeli officers torture detained Palestinian children
Palestine Information Center – 23/08/2013
NAZARETH — B’Tselem organization published on Thursday a report that includes testimonies from children detained in Israeli jails, on charges of throwing stones at soldiers, saying they were subjected to torture during their interrogation.
B’Tselem said that since November 2009, it has received testimonies from dozens of Palestinian residents of the Bethlehem and al-Khalil, most of them minors, saying that they were subjected to threats and violence, sometimes amounting to torture, during their interrogation at the police station at Gush Etzion.
The testimonies describe interrogations in which the minors were forced to confess to alleged offenses, mostly stone-throwing.
The report included the testimony of a minor, aged 14 from Husan in Bethlehem. He said “The interrogator made me go into a room. He grabbed my head and started banging it against the wall. Then he punched me, slapped me and kicked my legs. The pain was immense, and I felt like I couldn’t stand any longer.”
“Then he started swearing at me. He said filthy things about me and about my mother. He threatened to rape me, or perform sexual acts on me, if I didn’t confess to throwing stones,” the child added.
He said: “His threats really scared me, because he was very cruel and it was just the two of us in the room. I remembered what I’d seen on the news, when British and American soldiers raped and took photos of naked Iraqis.”
B’Tselem reported that until July 2013 its field researchers collected 64 testimonies from residents of eight communities in the southern West Bank who reported such incidents. “Fifty-six of them were minors at the time of their interrogation.”
Related article
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Snowden Accuses UK Gov’t Of Leaking Documents He Never Leaked To Make Him Look Bad
By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | August 23, 2013
The UK’s Independent newspaper today had an “exclusive” article, in which they claim that documents from Ed Snowden’s leaks revealed a secret internet surveillance base in the Middle East run by the UK government. There’s just one problem. While the article implies (though does not state) that it got those documents from Snowden, Snowden says he’s never talked to nor given anything to The Independent. Instead, he argues, that he’s worked carefully with key journalists (namely, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman) to make sure that the things they publish don’t reveal anything that might put anyone in danger. Snowden suggests, instead, that this is the UK government itself releasing this information in an attempt to “defend” the detention of David Miranda.
I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the Independent. The journalists I have worked with have, at my request, been judicious and careful in ensuring that the only things disclosed are what the public should know but that does not place any person in danger. People at all levels of society up to and including the President of the United States have recognized the contribution of these careful disclosures to a necessary public debate, and we are proud of this record.
It appears that the UK government is now seeking to create an appearance that the Guardian and Washington Post’s disclosures are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others. The UK government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose information that, were it released by a private citizen, they would argue is a criminal act.
If you read the Independent’s coverage carefully, they never actually claim they got the documents from Snowden, even if they leave that impression. Instead, they claim that “information on [the base’s] activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden.” In other words, they got that information from someone else — almost certainly the UK government. And, yes, that’s convenient timing for the UK government to claim that some of the documents that Snowden downloaded might contain useful information to terrorists, so that they can then turn around and argue that they detained Miranda and took all of his electronics (and destroyed a Guardian hard drive) to avoid having this information “fall into the hands of terrorists.”
The Independent article also implies that the UK government is afraid that Greenwald is going to start revealing this type of info in response to the Miranda detention, even though there’s no basis to believe that all. Greenwald has been quite careful so far not to reveal any information that puts anyone at risk, so it’s odd to believe that he’d start doing so now. Of course, it’s fairly bizarre since the Independent story itself contains tons of details — the kinds of details that Greenwald has avoided.
If Snowden’s assertion is correct — and it does seem like the most plausible argument at this point — then it highlights the ridiculous lengths to which the UK government is going: releasing potentially damaging information that Snowden himself has avoided revealing just to suggest that Snowden was leaking damaging information. Incredible.
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US income has declined by 7.2% since 2000: Report
Press TV – August 22, 2013
US median income has declined by 7.2 percent since 2000 presenting fresh evidence of the deep economic stagnation the nation has suffered for more than a decade, according to a new report.
US median household income, adjusted for inflation, has also fallen 4.4 percent to $52,098 since the recession officially ended in 2009, according to the report released Wednesday from Sentier Research.
Current US median household income is 6.1 percent below the $55,480 that the median household took in when the recession began in December 2007.
The report, underscoring the lasting damage wrought by the economic downturn, is based on an analysis of Census Bureau data.
Economists view median income as a key marker for the well-being of the nation’s middle class.
Analysts said the report reflects the shrinking middle class and the increasing economic gap between the rich and poor, indicated in previous studies as well.
“Median income is affected by trends in inequality, and you are seeing that to the extent there has been income growth in the past decade, it has disproportionately gone to those at the top and very top,” said Gregory Acs, director of the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a research organization.
Income is down even though the number of people who report having a college degree is up sharply since the end of the recession, the report said.
Part of the decline in Americans’ income is because of the surge in part-time hiring by US businesses.
Three out of four of the nearly 1 million people hired by US businesses this year are working part-time or receive low wages, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Thousands of frustrated fast-food and retail workers in the US are planning another job strike across the country on Aug, 29 to protest low wages and part-time work.
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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