Israeli Army can’t provide evidence of flotilla’s violent plans, story unravels
On 06.29.11 – By Max Blumenthal
Israelis woke up to a front page Jerusalem Post story claiming flotilla passengers planned violence against soldiers. The story has completely unraveled.
On June 27, the Israeli army released a highly suspect claim that passengers on the flotilla planned to kill and maim Israeli soldiers. The claim looks like yet another anti-flotilla hoax emanating from Israeli government channels.
Today, I reached an official from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit after placing several calls and an email to the office requesting proof to support the army’s claim. The official was unable to supply me with one piece of evidence. Instead, she said, “Basically there’s a trust between the IDF and reporters. And like in any other army, you know, a senior IDF source says something, people are inclined to believe it because this is somebody high up, this is somebody that has a lifetime of experience and credibility and this is like any other army.”
When I asked why anyone would report such a claim without seeing any firm evidence, the army spokesperson said, “If there were something we probably would give it but because of sensitivities we can’t expand further.”
Listen to the whole interview here:
IDF Spokesperson 06-29-2011 by maxblumenthal
Despite an apparent lack of evidence, the army’s disinformation found its way into top Israeli newspapers through a select group of military correspondents including the Jerusalem Post’s Yaakov Katz. Katz reported that flotilla passengers planned to kill Israeli soldiers and that they were bringing “bags of sulfur” to attack the soldiers. “This is a chemical weapon, and if poured on a soldier it can paralyze him,” an unnamed army source told Katz. “If the sulfur is then lit on fire, the soldier will light up like a torch.” Yedioth Aharanot’s Hanan Greenberg also reported, “IDF fears flotilla activists will try to kill Israeli soldiers.” And Haaretz hyped the claim in Hebrew.
Today, the army’s story was exposed as disinformation. First, Yedioth Aharonot military correspondent Alex Fishman reported, “There is no information that there is going to be a group of radicals on board that will form a hard core of violent resistance against IDF soliders. Nor is there any clear information about live weapons that will be on board the ships.” Then, a group of Israeli government ministers accused the army of “media spin” and “public relations hysteria” for claiming the flotilla passengers planned to attack soldiers with chemical weapons.
And now, an Israeli army official (who curiously did not want to give me her name) has refused to supply me with any evidence to support the army’s wild claims. As I wrote during Israel’s disinformation spree in the wake of last year’s flotilla, nothing the Israeli army says can be trusted. Unfortunately, many reporters still accept the army’s claims on trust, while others do not even bother to investigate.
Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy: A Critical Analysis
By Stephen Sniegoski / My Catbird Seat / June 27, 2011
A number of books have come out recently dealing with the neoconservatives, which have been published by mainstream presses. It is significant that these works acknowledge some obvious truths that were denied and even largely taboo some time ago.
They admit, for example, that neoconservatives not only exist (something that was denied a few years ago, most especially by the neocons themselves), but that they have been influential in shaping American policy in the Middle East, a view that continues to be rejected even by many critics of American foreign policy—e.g., Noam Chomsky and his acolytes, who see American foreign policy shaped only by all-powerful corporate interests. What these books still conceal, however, is the fact that the neocons are motivated by their Jewish ethnicity and the interests of the state of Israel. Instead the neocons are made to appear as an ideological group loyal solely on what they believe is good for the US. Consequently, this approach, despite allowing for some elements of truth, distorts the overall picture in a serious way.
Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), by Justin Vaïsse, which I have reviewed last August, reflects this partial truth approach. The current essay will focus on another recent work of this genre, Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy: A Critical Analysis (New York: Routledge, 2011), authored by Danny Cooper, who is a lecturer at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. [A subsequent review will be of Neoconservatism and the New American Century by Maria Ryan (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010)]
THE TRANSPARENT CABAL
Of the recent books on this subject, Cooper’s is one of the more revealing in that it actually acknowledges the authors who have presented these taboo views and quotes them—allowing them to speak for themselves. And I must express my delight that Cooper even refers to The Transparent Cabal. It is this segment to which I will devote most of my attention in this essay. I do this largely because I have not been able to get hold of Cooper’s book but have had to read it on Google Books where only a small section of it is available. The book’s cost, exceeding one-hundred dollars from Amazon, is beyond my limited means, and the work is not available in the public and university libraries to which I have access. While I could only look at a small portion of the book, however, the part that I could see does seem to present the work’s fundamental thesis.
In discussing claims of the neocons’ ties to Israel, Cooper writes that “Mearsheimer and Walt were not the only scholars to discuss the influence of Israel on neoconservative thinking. Stephen Sniegoski’s The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel (2008) is the most detailed and exhaustive attempt to link neoconservatives with the policies of Israel’s Likud Party.” After this favorable introduction, he then implies that my “loyalties” to the Palestinians are “taken to dangerous and irresponsible extremes,” asserting that “[o]ne does not have to be a ‘Likudnik’ to find Sniegoski’s unqualified reference to the ‘Palestinian resistance’ to be morally offensive . . . ” (p. 32) Presumably, I should have qualified this non-committal reference with some disparaging remarks about the Palestinians, since I was not expressing anything positive about them in referring to their “resistance.” Criminals, for example, are said to resist arrest. Perhaps Cooper believes that nothing has been done to the Palestinians that calls for any resistance and that they are instead engaging in aggressive violence. No matter what his specific intent, Cooper’s comment would seem to indicate a pro-Israel bias.
Cooper does acknowledge that the neocons are “strong defenders of the Jewish state” and that some authored the “Clean Break” report (p. 32) , though he fails to elucidate the full significance of this work. The “Clean Break” report, which was presented to incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996, advocated that Israel undertake a war policy to reconfigure the Middle East for the sole purpose of enhancing its own security. Moreover, the neocon authors of the report emphasized the need to justify these belligerent moves in terms of American ideals in order, as I stated in The Transparent Cabal “[t]o prevent the debilitating American criticism of Israeli policy that took place during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.” (TC, p. 92). And the success of Israel’s belligerent activities would have the effect of freeing it from United States pressure. As pointed out in The Transparent Cabal : “It was highly noteworthy that Americans would advise the Israeli government how to induce the United States to support Israeli interests and how to avoid having to follow the policies of the United States government.” (TC, p. 93) Since the actual policy prescription of “Clean Break” was broadly similar to what the neoconservatives would later advocate for the United States during the Bush II administration, the neocons, in this latter case, were actually having the United States pursue policies that had originally been developed to advance Israeli interests. As reiterated throughout The Transparent Cabal, the neocons look at U.S. Middle East policy through the “lens of Israel interest.” (TC, pp. 4, 5, 7, 193, 211, 365, 366). To state otherwise is to ignore Occam’s razor.
When acknowledging the neocons’ obvious link to Israel, Cooper simultaneously downplays its role in shaping their views on Middle East policy. “The affection neoconservatives have for the state of Israel cannot be dismissed,” Cooper avers. “The authors who demonstrate the degree to which many neoconservatives identify with the Jewish state make a number of thoughtful arguments. Yet what they truly reveal about the neoconservative approach to American foreign policy is a little unclear. Even authors such as Sniegoski who aim to ‘expose’ the connections between segments of the hard right in Israel and neoconservatives often acknowledge the limitations of their studies.” (p. 32)
To support his contention that I acknowledge limitations in my study, Cooper then quotes me: “To state that neoconservatives viewed American foreign policy in the Middle East through the lens of Israeli interest – and that this was the basis of the neocon Middle East war agenda is not to say that their support for Israel has been the be-all and end-all of their foreign policy ideas.” (p. 32)
Cooper leaves out my ending “which encompass the entire world” (TC, p. 7), which served to underscore what I meant. I also elaborate on this issue on the same page in my book where I write: “Lest any reader misinterpret this work, it is necessary to further explain what the book is not. Since it is not an analysis of neoconservatism per se it does not claim that neoconservatism is simply a cover for the support of Israel. Undoubtedly, the overall neoconservative viewpoint does not revolve solely around the security needs of Israel, and the same is true even of the neocons’ positions on foreign policy and national-security policy.” (TC, p. 7)
As is apparent, I explain the limits, or scope, of my subject—it is about the neocon position on the Middle East (and how they influenced US Middle East policy); it is not about neoconservative foreign policy in general. That my subject does not encompass a broader subject does not mean that I acknowledge any “limitations” in my study. All historical works (works on anything for that matter, even for those physicists who claim to have a “theory of everything”) deal with particular subjects—as opposed to everything—but to admit “limitations,” the word used by Cooper, would seem to imply that there are weaknesses in dealing with the particular subject matter of the work.
Cooper, however, makes the claim that my “admission [of ‘limitations’] raises immediate questions. If neoconservative support for Israel is not the ‘be-all and end-all of their foreign policy ideas,’ then to what extent are studies such as Sniegoski’s truly capable of illuminating the neoconservative approach to foreign policy? Is it not possible that some of these other ideas that go unexamined in The Transparent Cabal may even strongly conflict with the those of the Israeli right?”
Cooper’s logic escapes me here unless his purpose is to place me in a no-win position. Obviously, if I had stated that support for Israel (or any other factor) explained the neocons’ entire foreign policy thinking, I could be faulted for that, too. The idea that one factor might explain part of a group’s or individual’s world view, but not the totality of that world view, would seem perfectly appropriate.
For Cooper to imply that my claim that the neocons’ Middle East policy position revolves around their concern for Israel is invalidated by my unwillingness to apply that same motive to their policies elsewhere—for instance, the neocons’ China policy–makes no sense. My arguments are based on inductive reasoning. I have provided extensive empirical evidence to prove the case regarding the Middle East (inductive reasoning can only lead to tentative proofs); but I have made no in-depth study of the neocons’‘ China policy so I cannot draw a comparable conclusion.
He then implies, or at least, seems to imply, that the allegation that the Israeli government backed the war on Iraq was false, citing the view of one international relations expert (Russell Walter Mead), who held that “the Israeli defense establishment was deeply skeptical of neoconservative hopes for a democratic renaissance in the Middle East following the removal of Saddam Hussein (2007).” From that he asks rhetorically: “Is it not possible, in other words, that there is something distinctly American about neoconservatism?” (p. 33)
Here Cooper describes an alleged neocon position never expressed by me, or strictly speaking, anyone one else, as far as I know. Since no one claims that the there was ever democracy in the Middle East, no one could expect a “renaissance,” which, of course, means rebirth. And it is probably true that there is no evidence that the Israeli defense establishment, or anyone else with expertise on the Middle East, actually believed that the elimination of Saddam Hussein would create democracy in Iraq. And in The Transparent Cabal, I questioned the idea that the neocons themselves actually believed that their policies would lead to democracy, as democracy is conventionally understood. But whatever their beliefs on the eventual social systems in the Middle East, the policies they prescribed dovetailed with those of the Israeli Likudniks, which were designed solely for the enhancement of the national interest of the state of Israel. And, as documented in The Transparent Cabal, the Sharon government did promote the war on Iraq. (TC, pp. 169-72)
Moreover, contrary to Cooper’s insinuation, I never denied that there was “something distinctly American about neoconservatism,” since, as I explained in the book, neoconservatism in general was not my topic. There could very well be “something distinctly American about neoconservatism” while, simultaneously, their view on Middle East policy was shaped by their identification with Israel security interests. The two beliefs are not mutually exclusive.
In an effort to counter the claim of neocon loyalty to Israel, Cooper holds that the neocons are “just as steadfast in their support for Taiwan as they are in their support for Israel.” (p. 33) This is based on an article by William Kristol and Robert Kagan stating that the US should defend Taiwan from China. Viewing this as the overall position of the neocons, Cooper attributes neocon support for Israel and Taiwan to their belief that the two countries are “endangered liberal democracies living in hostile regions.” (p. 33) Cooper next cites a general statement by Irving Kristol, that “Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from non-democratic forces, external or internal (2003).” These statements allegedly provide sufficient evidence to prove that the neocons are “driven more by feelings of ideological solidarity than ethnic identification.” (p. 33-34)
There are a number of problems with this notion of neocon support for Taiwan and other democratic nations being comparable to their support for Israel. A simple statement of support for Taiwan if threatened with attack, or in Irving Kristol’s case, a claim that the US “if possible” would “feel obliged” to defend democratic countries is obviously not equivalent to launching aggressive wars to weaken or eliminate Israel’s enemies. Furthermore, the connection of the neocons to other democratic foreign countries is not in anyway equal to the deep personal loyalty and intimate connection the neocons have with the state of Israel, which is illustrated throughout The Transparent Cabal.
Neocons present Israel as a model democracy but this is hardly the case, as liberal democracy is generally defined today. Rather, Israel is a Jewish supremacist ethno-state that favors Jews over Palestinians, going to the extent of dispossessing them of their land on the West Bank for Jewish settlements. Instead of supporting measures by Jewish leftists and liberals to allow more rights for the Palestinians in order to move Israel in the direction of a typical liberal democracy, the neocons support the Likudnik (explicitly Jewish supremacist) hard-line anti-Palestinian position, which is anything but pro-liberal democracy. Their goal is to maintain Israel as an ethnically-Jewish state instead of creating a modern liberal democracy with equal rights for all people. That the neocons see this Jewish ethno-state as a model democracy would illustrate their ethnic bias, since they find no fault with the type of ethnic discrimination that Jews have historically railed against when applied against them in gentile countries.
It would seem that the predominantly Jewish composition of the core membership of neoconservatism, the latter’s close connection to and championing of Israel, and the fact that the neocons advocated that the US take militant positions against the enemies of Israel would, taken together, provide strong prima facie evidence that Jewish ethnicity shaped the neocons Middle East policy. As pointed out in The Transparent Cabal, the Jewish orientation of neoconservatism has been acknowledged by some close students of the movement, including those who happen to be Jewish. For example, Gal Beckerman wrote in the Jewish weekly newspaper Forward in January 2006: “[I]t is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants’ grandchildren.” In fact, Beckerman went so far as to maintain that “[i]f there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.” (TC, p. 26) Murray Friedman wrote a favorable book about the neocons entitled The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy, which stresses the significance of their Jewish ethnicity. In it he shows that the neocons explicitly mentioned their group loyalty: “A central element in [neocon godfather Norman] Podhoretz’s evolving views, which would soon become his and many of the neocons’ governing principle was the question, “Is It Good for the Jews,” the title of a February 1972 Commentary piece.” [quoted in TC, p. 27; Friedman, p. 147]
In the much reviewed The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (University of Chicago Press, 1993), noted political scientist (Johns Hopkins University) Benjamin Ginsberg writes: “One major factor that drew them [future Jewish neocons] inexorably to the right was their attachment to Israel and their growing frustration during the 1960s with a Democratic party that was becoming increasingly opposed to American military preparedness and increasingly enamored of Third World causes [e.g., Palestinian rights]. In the Reaganite right’s hard-line anti-communism, commitment to American military strength, and willingness to intervene politically and militarily in the affairs of other nations to promote democratic values (and American interests), neocons found a political movement that would guarantee Israel’s security.” (T.C., p. 26; Ginsberg, Fatal Embrace, p. 231)
The aforementioned illustrations of the neocons’ Jewish ethnicity shaping their policy positions represent cases where this issue was broached in the mainstream. However, the mainstream media has left out this ethnic reference when dealing with recent U.S. Middle East policy. For to include such a reference would imply that Jews are influential and exhibit “dual loyalty”– ideas that are taboo in the United States mainstream. It was these taboos that caused the whole idea of the neocons being the leading element for the war on Iraq to be blacked-out in mainstream presentations of the subject, a situation that recent works are only willing to change by discussing the role of the neoconservatives in a sanitized fashion, with the taboos expurgated or explained away.
However, there is nothing unusual in concluding that neocons would be motivated by ethnic loyalty to Israel. Historians and other commentators on American foreign policy have readily attributed ethnic loyalty as a fundamental factor in shaping the views of other groups – German-, Greek-, Polish-, Irish-, and Cuban-Americans. There is no reason to think that this interpretation would not also apply to the predominantly Jewish neoconservatives, especially since there is so much evidence of their close ties to the Jewish state.
That recent mainstream works on the neocons do everything possible to skirt their obviously ethnically-motivated concern for Israel represents not only a misinterpretation of a historical event, but has serious, negative ramifications for the understanding of ongoing U.S. Middle East policy. For neocons constitute only a more extreme element of the overall Israel lobby, which influences U.S. Middle East policy under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Without the willingness to recognize this major force behind America’s belligerent policy in the Middle East, it will not only be impossible to extricate the United States from the current Middle East morass, but there will be a strong possibility that the US will be involved in future wars in the region.
~
Dr. Stephen Sniegoski earned his Ph.D doctorate in American history,with a focus on American foreign policy, at the University of Maryland. His focus on the neoconservative involvement in American foreign policy antedates September 11, and his first major work on the subject, “The War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel” was published February 10, 2003, more than a month before the American attack. He is the author of “The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel”.
EPA Halted Extra Testing for Radiation From Japan Weeks Ago
By Mike Ludwig | Truthout | 23 June 2011
Radiation is expected to continue spewing for months from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that suffered a meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami in March, but despite grim reports from Japan, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has quietly stopped running extra tests for radioactive material in America’s milk, rain and drinking water.
The EPA initially ramped up nationwide testing in the weeks following the disaster in Japan, and radioactive materials like cesium and iodine-131 were detected on US soil. Citing declining levels of radiation, the EPA has abandoned the extra tests, even as reports from Japan indicate that the Fukushima plant continues to emit radiation and the disaster is one of the worst in world history.
The EPA posted a statement online saying it would return to routine testing on May 3, but the agency did not send out a press release. The media widely ignored the change, even as Japanese officials admitted just weeks later that they were battling a full nuclear meltdown.
In March and April, samples of milk, rain and drinking water from across the country tested positive for radiation from the Fukushima plant. The radiation fell in rain across the US and was absorbed by plants and dairy cows.
The EPA insisted that the radiation levels were too low to cause public health concern, but Truthout identified gaps in the agency’s data and nuclear critics said the EPA has failed to acknowledge that even small amounts of radiation could be dangerous.
Now the EPA has returned to routine testing of milk and drinking water once every three months and testing rainwater once a month. The EPA continuously monitors background radiation with more than 100 air filter monitors, but nuclear critics say more testing should be done.
“The Fukushima disaster is unlike any nuclear accident we have ever had,” said Dan Hirsch of the nuclear watchdog group Committee to Bridge the Gap. “We haven’t had anything that has gone on for a year, and that is what the Japanese authorities are predicting – if they’re lucky. It might even take longer. The fuel has melted through, there are breaches at the containment structures, and there are constant radioactive releases.”
Radiation levels in the US have declined, according to the EPA, but the agency has not released data on samples taken after April 30, making the results nearly two months old, according to data sets made public by the agency.
The EPA typically releases test results two to four weeks after a sample is taken, and the EPA has not released new data on milk since May 24. On June 1, the EPA reported that the radionuclide cesium-137 was detected in one sample of drinking water, and two weeks later the same round of samples were clear of radiation.
“The easiest way to not have any concern over data is to have no data at all,” said Hirsch, who is critical of the cozy relationship between the US government and the domestic nuclear industry. “I think the system is there to say they have a system, but not to report any data that would undermine public support for nuclear power.”
The EPA says it’s prepared to accelerate its testing if necessary, but so far, its air monitoring system shows no cause for concern.
Hirsch wants the EPA to broaden its efforts and test food and agricultural products for any bioaccumulation of radioactive material in plants, animals and livestock. Hirsch also said that the EPA did little testing for strontium 90, a dangerous radionuclide with a 20-year half-life and the ability to mimic calcium and accumulate in bones.
The EPA claims that the levels of radiation it did detect in recent months were not high enough to raise public health concerns. But how high do radiation levels have to be before the government takes action?
For food products like milk, the EPA relies on Derived Intervention Levels (DIL) set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). DILs provide agencies with guidelines – not mandates – as to when the government should take action to keep food contaminated by radioactive material out of the hands of consumers.
A DIL “does not define a safe or unsafe level of exposure, but instead a level at which protective measures would be recommended to ensure that no one receives a significant dose,” according to the FDA web site. The DIL for iodine-131, one of the radioactive materials released from Japan, in food products like milk is set at 170 becquerels per kilogram. That number is 1,500 times higher than another government standard, the Maximum Containment Level for iodine-131 in drinking water, which is set by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“[DILs are] a guidance as to when an emergency action should taken to intervene, but these are in no way to be considered safe levels,” Hirsch said.
Hirsch said that DILs are “very inflated” and meant for emergency situations like the detonation of a dirty bomb or a nuclear meltdown. DILs help officials with “triage” during an emergency, but according to the EPA, the only emergency is thousands of miles away in Japan.
Ethan Bronner’s ‘benign occupation’
By Ilene Cohen | Mondoweiss | June 26, 2011
Prior to the First Intifada in December 1987 Israelis used to boast about their “benign” occupation—indeed, the “most benign occupation” in the world. Following the outbreak of the First Intifada, that mantra disappeared from the discourse. But, when things are looking bad on the PR front and you’ve got nothing else to pull out of your hat, I guess it’s time to bring it back. The “benign occupation” trope (again, without using those words) has been a key Netanyahu talking point in discussing the “economic miracle” of the West Bank. They lapped it up in Congress last month.
Presumably even Ethan Bronner doesn’t have the chutzpah to use those words, but the meaning of his front page article in today’s New York Times is clear. Here is the opening:
GAZA — Two luxury hotels are opening in Gaza this month. Thousands of new cars are plying the roads. A second shopping mall — with escalators imported from Israel — will open next month. Hundreds of homes and two dozen schools are about to go up. AHamas-run farm where Jewish settlements once stood is producing enough fruit that Israeli imports are tapering off.
As pro-Palestinian activists prepare to set sail aboard a flotilla aimed at maintaining an international spotlight on Gaza and pressure on Israel, this isolated Palestinian coastal enclave is experiencing its first real period of economic growth since the siege they are protesting began in 2007.
“Things are better than a year ago,” said Jamal El-Khoudary, chairman of the board of the Islamic University, who has led Gaza’s Popular Committee Against the Siege. “The siege on goods is now 60 to 70 percent over.”
The article’s title in the paper I received this morning was “A Construction Boom in Gaza’s Lingering Ruins.” It now appears online as “Building Boom in Gaza’s Ruins Belies Misery That Remains.” Either way, the takeaway is the same – what is freedom or liberty or self-determination when you’re lucky enough to have Israel as your occupier/overlords?
Endemic pro-Israel bias in UK TV coverage, new book finds
Asa Winstanley – The Electronic Intifada – 25 June 2011
Glasgow University Media Group’s ambitious new study of British TV’s coverage of Israel and the Palestinians, More Bad News from Israel, is the second edition of 2004’s Bad News From Israel. Led by academics Greg Philo and Mike Berry, this work is precise, fair-minded and detailed. It constitutes irrefutable evidence of endemic pro-Israel bias.
Those of us regularly subjected to BBC and ITV news won’t exactly find this conclusion surprising but the importance of detailed documentary evidence like this book provides cannot be overstated.
The team had originally analyzed approximately 200 bulletins and questioned more than 800 persons. This new edition examines coverage from the past few years (369). Samples of coverage were taken from the main news bulletins on BBC and ITV (the most popular TV news programs in the UK). The authors identify key themes, such as coverage of casualties on “either side,” justifications for violence and “peace conferences” and international diplomacy. Audiences from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds were asked to complete a series of questionnaires and take part in focus groups. The vast majority reported that TV news was their primary source of information on Israel and the Palestinians.
The samples, taken from key moments in recent history, are well chosen. The focus of the initial study was coverage of the second Palestinian intifada’s outbreak in 2000 (in the first two weeks of which, Israel, by its own soldiers’ accounts, fired a million bullets at unarmed protesters). The next samples are taken from one year later (by which time Palestinian groups had started retaliatory bombings within Israel), and from coverage of the March and April 2002 Israeli re-invasions of the occupied West Bank.
The new chapters look at coverage of Israel’s 2008-09 winter assault on Gaza and the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla a year ago (which was breaking news at the time the book was due to go to print).
Systematic preference for Israeli points of view
By fastidiously counting lines of transcript text, the authors identify a systematic preference for Israeli points of view. Israeli speakers were given twice as much space as Palestinians during the first few weeks of the intifada (215). Israeli casualties were disproportionately reported, accounting for approximately a third of the coverage, despite the actual ratio of 13 Palestinian deaths to one Israeli at that stage (223). After the Palestinian retaliatory bombing campaign began, this phenomenon worsened: “from October to December 2001 we found that there was significantly more coverage of Israeli casualties than Palestinian” even though the reality was actually still the opposite (259-60).
The study’s most telling findings concern the dominant explanatory framework and the lack of background or historical context in coverage. Even when individual journalists manage to make implicit criticisms of Israeli actions, such as on the killing of civilians, Israeli rationales were always reported — or even adopted by journalists themselves. “The journalists do not always sound happy about the Israeli rationales” but they were still included and “there is no comparable inclusion or discussion of the reasons for Palestinian action” (254).
The authors give many examples of this, including an ITV report from March 2002 that described Israeli collective punishment destroying civilian infrastructure around Bethlehem as “the ongoing fight against terror.” But there are “no commentaries such as ‘the Israeli attacks have reinforced the determination of Palestinian fighters to defend their land against Israeli terror’ [and] … we do not hear of Palestinian attacks as sending ‘a tough message to Israelis to end military rule’” (265). Such statements are unimaginable on British TV.
“All bang bang stuff”
One BBC journalist was told by his editor he wasn’t interested in “explainers” since “it’s all bang bang stuff” (180-1). But the audience studies here reveal “a strong feeling in the [focus] groups that the news should explain origins and causes” (315). This is unsurprising, considering that audiences questioned here often did not even know what nationality “settlers” were, or that there was a military occupation of the West Bank (400-1).
The two key historical events missing from the narrative of TV news are the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”), what Palestinians call the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of their homeland in 1947-48, and the military occupation that started in 1967 (333). One student in a focus group said: “I didn’t realize they [Palestinians] had actually been driven out” (292). As the authors put it: “these absences in public knowledge very closely parallel the absence of such information on the TV news” (294).
The new audience studies for this second edition looked at whether anything has changed since 2004. The answer for the most part seems to be no. Coverage of Palestinian casualties seems to have increased, but Israeli casualties are still over-represented proportionate to the level of Palestinian deaths (363). Overall, the “most striking feature” of the new samples was “the dominance of the Israeli perspective” (340).
Has the tide turned on perceptions of Palestine?
Many of us who follow Western perceptions of Palestine have gained optimism by detecting a slow but positive shift in public opinion in support of Palestinians over the last couple of years. Perhaps that is still true, but the new findings here give pause for thought. The framework of assumptions is still overwhelmingly influenced by the Israeli version of events. In other words, Palestinian actions are always assumed to lead to Israeli “responses.”
The original study revealed that the “Israeli response to Palestinian violence” formula was so all-pervasive that the infamous Israeli killing of Gaza schoolboy Muhammad al-Dura in the first days of the intifada was understood by many as as “response” to a killing of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah — even though the latter event actually took place afterwards (305). The updated audience studies here suggest that this malign phenomenon has not changed.
Palestinian rockets from Gaza were still seen by many as the main reason for Palestinian civilian deaths: “Palestinians are seen as initiating the violence … [so] it follows that Israel is ‘retaliating’” (378). On the BBC during the sample period 27 December 2008 to 17 January 2009, Israel’s November 2008 violation of the ceasefire with Hamas was mentioned in only 4.25 lines of transcript, compared with 249 lines of text that emphasized the firing of Palestinian rockets into southern Israel (419).
Israel lobby group outlines dirty tricks against campus Palestine activists
By Ali Abunimah – Electronic Intifada – 06/24/2011
What is the best way to smear Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists and get away with it?
That is the question David Bernstein, Executive Director of the pro-Israel propaganda group, The David Project, asks in a surprisingly frank article titled “How to ‘Name-And-Shame’ Without Looking Like a Jerk” posted on Israel Campus Beat, a website sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Bernstein writes:
One of the more controversial tactics in a growing effort to counter the delegitimization of Israel is to “name-and-shame” – to go after those who actively delegitimize Israel and seek to delegitimize them.
There are even those, such as British journalist Melanie Phillips, who argue that our entire strategy should be to relentlessly attack the other side and to cease “defending” Israel.
While name-and-shame tactics can be put to positive effect, they can also easily backfire and do more harm than good. We need to learn the art of being disagreeable in the most agreeable possible fashion.
Hiding vilification behind a veneer of “civility”
Bernstein offers advice on how to be as insincere as possible in order to undermine Palestine solidarity work, especially on college campuses:
- Start every critique with supportive words for peace or free discourse or both.
- Don’t accuse anti-Israel forces of anti-Semitism unless they openly vilify Jews; accuse them of being anti-peace for opposing Israel’s right to exist.
- On campuses and other places where anti-Israel groups act in a disruptive manner, write and promulgate civility petitions calling on all parties to engage in a respectful discussion. If the anti-Israel groups sign it, then they constrain their future actions; if they don’t, they can be accused of being uncivil.
- In taking on an anti-Israel professor on campus, don’t focus on the substantive arguments they make. That will make you look like you’re trying to stifle discourse. Instead, accuse them, in the words of Professor Gil Troy, of “academic malpractice” for propagandizing the classroom.
- When someone on campus justifies Hamas or Hezbollah, call them out by asking a question: Do you really support the Hamas charter’s call for killing Jews? Can that ever be justified?
- Avoid indictments against all Muslims or Islam; preface any criticism of a Muslim radical group with an acknowledgement of peaceful Muslims.
No one should be fooled by the mask of civility – Bernstein makes clear that the goal is to “delegitimize” and marginalize, not to actually engage in “civil” debate.
The David Project’s dirty tricks
The David Project has a long history of dirty tricks. Indeed, the group was a key actor in the slander and fabrication campaign against Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad, part of the unsuccessful effort to deny him tenure (Massad explains the background in a statement on his website after his list of publications).
More broadly, the effort to “name and shame” Palestine solidarity activists is part of the major “anti-delegitimization” efforts underway by American Zionist organizations at the suggestion of The Reut Institute, an Israeli think-tank which in 2010 called for a campaign of “sabotage and attack” on activists and organizations.
In October 2010, the Jewish Federations of North America – an umbrella for 157 major pro-Israel organisations – and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs launched a $6 million initiative called the “Israel Action Network” to fight “delegitimization” – a strategy that will undoubtedly include “name and shame.”
As I wrote for Aljazeera.net last December in “Defending Palestinian solidarity”:
I got a foretaste of what the Israel Action Network’s tactics will likely be when Sam Sokolove, the head of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, launched a failed effort to get academic departments at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque to withdraw their support for a lecture I gave in November. Sokolove’s campaign involved publicly vilifying me in the media, likening me to a member of the Ku Klux Klan. It is probably because of the publicity the Jewish Federation gave me that hundreds of people attended my talk.
We can thank Bernstein for his honesty in explaining to us what Israel lobby tactics amount to: personal vilification hiding behind a thin veneer of calls for “civility.” It’s a further sign of the bankruptcy of so much “pro-Israel activism.” It is not so much “pro-Israel” as anti-Palestinian. It has no positive message to offer whatsoever, certainly not one of peace.
Melanie Phillips named and shamed
One final note of irony. In his piece, Bernstein cites Melanie Phillips, a very prominent pro-Israel advocate in the UK who has routinely attacked and vilified many people who have spoken up for Palestinian rights.
Last week, Phillips left her position at The Spectator under a cloud: the publication was forced to make several high profile apologies for Phillips’ totally false attacks against several people and organizations for alleged anti-Semitism or criticism of Israel. Phillips has been particularly virulent in her Islamophobic attacks on British Muslims, as Mehdi Hasan of The New Statesman reports.
Obama follows ‘Wag the Dog’ script, even down to the rape scene
By Wayne Madsen | Intrepid Report | June 24, 2011
In the 1999 flick “Wag the Dog,” White House aides try to build up anger against Albania by showing a phony Albanian young woman, played by Kirsten Dunst, trying to escaping rape at the hands of Albanian troops. The “rape” was faked and filmed in a studio, complete with a blue screen. The intent of the phony rape was to divert the public’s attention away from a presidential sex scandal and build up support for military action against Albania.
Fast forward to today and we see such “made in Hollywood” tactics being played out in Libya. On March 26th Eman al-Obeidy, said to be a Libyan law student and an aspirant journalist originally from Tobruk in rebel-held eastern Libya, entered the Rixos Hotel, the headquarters for the international media and claimed she was gang raped and kidnapped by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s military forces at a security checkpoint in Tripoli.
Al-Obeidy was bruised and scratched and said she entered the hotel by passing herself off as a member of the hotel staff. She claimed that the Libyan security forces recognized her accent from eastern Libya and then proceeded to rape her. Al-Obeidy, like the Kirsten Dunst character in “Wag the Dog,” became an instant media celebrity. For the anti-Qaddafi journalists nested at the Rixos, including those from The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, CNN, Reuters, and the Associated Press, Al-Obeidy immediately became a cause celebre with her tale of rape and being held in subhuman conditions by her assailants, who had the help of black African “mercenaries.” The black “mercenary tale would soon be debunked and Al-Obeidy’s rape story also began to lose credibility.
Libyan government officials opened a criminal case against Al-Obeidy’s accused attackers and Saadi Qaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, met with her after she was released from detention in Tripoli. Al-Obeidy was permitted to conduct interviews with the CNN’s celebrity in-breed Anderson Cooper and National Public Radio, among others. Al-Obeidy was permitted to air her grievances against the Libyan government and parrot Libyan rebel propaganda talking points from Tripoli. Eventually, Al-Obeidy ended up in Tunisia, after she said she was spirited out of Tripoli disguised as a Berber with the help of a defecting Libyan army officer. Somehow, Al-Obeidy managed to evade detection by over 50 security checkpoints on the coastal highway from Tripoli to the Tunisian border and enter Tunisia without any difficulties. This reporter, even with a Libyan visa and a Libyan diplomatic escort, was held up for at least one hour while crossing back into Tunisia from Libya. The delays were prompted by the border bureaucracies of both Libyan and Tunisian immigration and customs officials.
On May 5th Al-Obeidy was whisked into Tunis, courtesy of French diplomats who met her at the border, and by May 11th she was in Doha, Qatar, courtesy of the Libyan rebel Transitional National Council. It was apparent that Al-Obeidy’s propaganda value for the rebels and the West still had some currency because she was in the same city where Al-Jazeera has its broadcast headquarters. However, something went wrong in Qatar, an ally of the Libyan rebel movement and the NATO military offensive against Libya. Al-Obeidy was suddenly deported by Qatar. Al-Obeidy resorted to the same histrionics she employed against Qaddafi’s government: she claimed she was beaten by Qatari authorities, although she withheld rape charges in Qatar’s case. The Qatar press denied Al-Obeidy’s charges that she was beaten in Doha. The Libyan authorities claimed that Al-Obeidy had a history of mental illness and the events in Qatar lend credence to Tripoli’s contention about Al-Obeidy’s truthfulness.
WMR learned in Tripoli that Qatari officials were not satisfied with Al-Obeidy’s story or that proffered by her rebel movement handlers. The Qataris deported Al-Obeidy back to Benghazi, however, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intervened and sent a U.S. government aircraft to Europe to fly her to political asylum in the United States. The United States arranged for Al-Obeidy to travel to Malta and on to Vienna where she was picked up by State Department officials. CNN, which through its MI-6 intelligence-linked reporter Nic Robertson, followed Al-Obeidy’s case with a priority zeal, reporting that after being deported from Qatar she ended up, via Italy, in a refugee camp in Timisoara, Romania.
Just a few weeks after the Al-Obeidy debacle, the puff piece-entranced Western media found a new heroine in the Middle East. Amina Abdullah Araf al-Omari said she was a Syrian-American lesbian woman blogging from Syria. It was later reported that Amina had been kidnapped by Syrian security forces and was being held incommunicado. It was later revealed that “Amina” was, in reality, Tom MacMaster, a 40-year old PhD student at Edinburgh University in Scotland. “Amina” had posted “her” anti-Syrian government diatribes on the lesbian website LezGetReal run by executive Paula Brooks. “Amina’s” photograph was lifted from the Facebook page of a young Croatian woman living in London. Less than 24-hours after “Amina” was exposed as MacMaster, Brooks, who billed herself as a lesbian woman with three children living in the Washington DC area, was, in fact, Bill Graber, a 58-year old man from Ohio.
Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s “information czar,” is on the record favoring the use of Wikileaks and websites to spread disinformation and propaganda. In the case of Libya and Syria, Sunstein’s policies appear to be fully underway. It is also noteworthy to point out that General Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, who is also the commander of the U.S. Cyber-Command, which is tasked with carrying out offensive information warfare operations on the Internet, was an attendee at the recent Bilderberg meeting in St. Moritz, Switzerland. High on the agenda of the secretive and elite group was how to salvage what is becoming a quagmire in Libya. It is certain that Alexander offered up some enticing high-tech tricks to the gathering of the cabal that actually runs the world.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2011 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
Clinton: “Ships Heading To Gaza Defy Israeli Siege”
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 24, 2011
United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, stated Thursday that solidarity ships heading to Gaza come in defiance of the Israeli Blockade on the coastal region, and are considered “unnecessary effort” that is likely to draw a reaction.
Clinton said that Israel approved this week the entry of construction materials to ensure the construction of houses in the coastal region.
She added that the U.S. Administration does not believe that flotillas are helpful, and claimed that such ships “entering Israeli water” are an act of provocation that draws a response from the Israelis “who will have to defend themselves”.
She failed to mention that solidarity ship heading to Gaza do not enter “Israeli territorial waters” as they sail to Gaza shores without having to enter any “Israeli waters”.
The Secretary of State avoided a direct reference to the Israeli attack against the Turkish Mavi Marmara Ship on May 31 2010, and the killing of nine Turkish activists, including a Turkish activist who carried U.S. citizenship.
The Freedom Flotilla 2 – Stay Human will be sailing to the besieged Gaza Strip in the coming few days to deliver urgently needed medical and humanitarian supplies.
In a statement by the US State Department on Wednesday, the US government mentioned last year’s attack and warned US citizens against participating in the flotilla, stating, “U.S. citizens are advised against traveling to Gaza by any means, including via sea.
Previous attempts to enter Gaza by sea have been stopped by Israeli naval vessels and resulted in the injury, death, arrest, and deportation of U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens participating in any effort to reach Gaza by sea should understand that they may face arrest, prosecution, and deportation by the Government of Israel.”
An investigation by the Turkish government of last year’s Israeli attack released its results two weeks ago, showing that the nine men killed were hit by 30 bullets fired at close range, with five of the men killed by shots to the head.
The 19-year old American citizen who was killed, Furqan Dogan, was killed by five bullets fired at a distance of 45 cm to his face, the back of his head, his leg and his back.
Arab activists question Israel-linked GayMiddleEast.com
By Benjamin Doherty – Electronic Intifada – 06/23/2011
A group of Arab activists and human rights organizations have issued a statement about the Israeli-linked group GayMiddleEast.com. This organization was founded in 2003 by Shabi Assaf Gatenio, and has recently appeared in the media after the exposure of the Amina hoax presenting itself as the credible and authentic voice of LGBT Arabs.
Titled Que(e)rying the Israel-linked GayMiddleEast.com: a statement by Arab queers, the statement opens:
As queer Arab activists working on the ground in several countries in the Middle East, our initial disagreements with GayMiddleEast.com were political in nature. But rather than respond to them or engage in dialogue with us, GayMiddleEast.com resorted to playing the victim and shrugging off those concerns.
GayMiddleEast.com’s disingenuous response to what it sees as a “smear campaign” against it not only obfuscates the legitimate reasons many queer Arab activists take issue with its work, but also presents lies so blatant that a simple Google search is enough uncover the truth. It is duplicitous to claim that pointing out GayMiddleEast.com’s extensive ties to Israel is more dangerous than those ties themselves and its lack of transparency about them.
In the statement, which has been endorsed by a growing list of organizations across the Arab world and globally including MidEast Youth, Al-Qaws, Meem, Engender, Khomsa Network and Decolonize Queer, the authors take GayMiddleEast.com to task for four issues: unwelcome and unsolicited intervention; co-optation of Arab voices; pinkwashing Israel; and violations of the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
They also present compelling evidence that GayMiddleEast.com (GME) has systematically tried to conceal its founding in and extensive ties to Israel and that GME representatives Dan Littauer and Shabi Assaf Gatenio are not being honest about themselves.
Mounting criticism
GME has been the subject of mounting criticism from Arab and Palestine solidarity activists at least since last year (see #lgbtME: We Do Not Live in Vacuums! and GayMiddleEast.com’s Zionism). Most recently, Kaw at Mideast Youth posted Whose Gay Middle East(.com)? and asked three questions:
- Why are activists not fully informed of GayMiddleEast.com’s Israel connection, so as to make informed choices about whether or not to get involved with the organisation?
- Or better yet, why is the information not made publicly available on the website?
- While GayMiddleEast.com claims to oppose pinkwashing, why have the grassroots campaigns by Palestinian queer activists to counter Israel’s pinkwashing been neither highlighted, nor endorsed?
The people behind GME have tried to evade these questions about their origins, methods and standards and about the identities of their representatives in English-language and Israeli media.
On 19 June, GME responded to what it called a “smear campaign” saying:
- GME is not an Israeli organisation. Nor is it Zionist. It is not owned or run by an Israeli.
- The site’s executive editor is Dan Littauer, a German citizen (with only a German passport) who lives in London. …
- GME’s website was registered in Germany in 2003 by Shabi Gatenio, GME’s Israel Editor on behalf of a number of Arab LGBT activists.
GayMiddleEast.com’s history
In my own research on GayMiddleEast.com, I found the history of their so-called advocacy very troubling. Using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, I reviewed the content produced by GME from 2003 through 2008. Some of the people currently or previously associated with the site–namely Dan Littauer, Avi Ozeri, and Scott Piro–have a background in the tourism industry and public relations, and until 2009, GME tried to be a tourism resource.
Before 2009, their site had a section about tourism to Arab countries with cruising tips. The site offered up coming out stories that were both implausible and prurient. They noted sodomy law and age of consent information for each country.
Sodomy laws and age of consent have been important indicators of sexual freedom and equality in many countries. In fact, the United States had sodomy laws until 2003 when the Supreme Court ruled that they were unconstitutional. In other countries, they are also a colonial legacy of laws authored by European powers which persisted after independence. With cruising tips, age of consent, sodomy law information and tourism advice, the GME project looks more like orientalist sex tourism rather than human rights advocacy. […]
Mainstream media role
In light of the activists’ latest statement, it is important to note the role of some prominent media in perpetuating these kind of shadowy organizations who ventriloquize Arabs. The Guardian for example avidly promoted the Amina hoax. After the Electronic Intifada exposed the Amina hoax, The Guardian rushed to feature the hoaxter on their front page, giving him more publicity and oxygen. It then published an article called “The real world of gay girls in Damascus” by a pseudonymous author who credited GME with helping to place it in the media. GME heavily promoted this article through Facebook and Twitter. GME used the Amina hoax to promote themselves as authentic authorities on Arab sexuality, but in fact, GME merely reproduces the main elements of the hoax: anonymous male authors speaking on behalf of unseen female native informants. Foreign Policy also published a version of the article.
While posing as liberatory, GME revels in voyeurism and titiliation about a supposedly sexually repressed orient – classic orientalist themes.
The statement from Arab organizations serves as a powerful antidote.
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Book Review
Why the War on Conspiracy Theories Is Bad Public Policy
By Kevin Barrett • Unz Review • February 1, 2019
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying “we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”
At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.
But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying. … continue
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