Mainstream Media, Warmongering

THE EXILING OF MY FILM , “EXILE A MYTH UNEARTHED”, IN THE BBC

By Ilan Ziv | April 28, 2013

As some of you know, my film EXILE, A MYTH UNEARTHED, which examines the myth of the Jewish EXILE and its political impact on both Israeli Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East, was going to be shown on the BBC Thursday April 25th. It was pulled out of the schedule only a few days earlier.

Since then I was flooded by dozens of emails of angry and concerned viewers asking what happened. To be honest I debated whether to tell the story of what I think had happened. I have worked with the BBC in the past on some programs that were deemed controversial and I never had any political censorship. On the contrary I was impressed by the integrity and fairness of the people I dealt with.

So based on my past experience, I was going to wait patiently until the BBC programming executives would solve the internal drama that apparently has begun to brew inside the BBC. “The film is gorgeous, courageous and fresh, “ I was told several times by the programming executives. I was promised that the cancellation was temporary: “Given the short timescale and your workload, we have decided to delay transmission until we’ve had the chance you’ve had the chance to go through it in detail”.

I naively believed and decided to wait quietly. But things have their own momentum and as I learned more, I realized that the story of “EXILE” in the BBC is far more complex.

Among the dozens of emails I received one caught my attention. It included the official email response from the BBC to the inquiry/complaint sent to irate viewers who contacted the BBC asking why the program was pulled out of the schedule. This email contradicted a private email sent to me by the programming executives. I was intrigued.

I discovered after quick research that while I was contacted by the BBC barely a week before the broadcast asking for my comments about the cut, the BBC have had the film for almost 6 months. So why was this sudden rush which supposedly was the excuse given to me as to why the film was pulled out? Why was I contacted so late in the game? And why was there a discrepancy between what was told to me and the “official” version . I started to dig a bit deeper and to put my findings in a blog, rather than answer the dozens of people who wrote to me privately.

This is not a personal issue. This is ultimately a sad saga of what I believe is a mixture of incompetence, political naiveté, conscious or subconscious political pressure and ultimately, I believe, a lack of courage of broadcasters when they are faced with the complexity of the Middle East issue and the intense emotions, fears and aggression it generates. Once you indeed depersonalize this incident, you gain a fascinating insight into how subtle and complex is the process by which our understanding of the Israeli Palestinian conflict is being shaped and what happens when one dares to raise questions about issues deemed by some as taboos. It is this insight that I think is worth sharing and detailing.

The story begins for me with the name. I discovered only 3 days before the broadcast that the BBC has been using a different name for the film: Jerusalem – An Archeological Mystery Story. It struck me as an odd choice that seems to camouflage the film’s real subject and repackages it as a neutral archeological mystery of sort- like the hundreds of hours one can see on cable and Satellite channels throughout the world.

“ Exile” of course is not about a mystery, neither it is limited to archeology or to Jerusalem. The name and the illusion that one can pretend that this film is just about archeology and its mysteries are at the core I believe of Thursday’s fiasco.

Digging deeper I also learned that this title was established back in November 2012 in the agreement between the National Film Board of Canada (one of the film’s co producers and its int’l distributor) and the BBC. I was approached by the distributor to see if I would agree for the BBC to cut down the program. I agreed to it on the condition that I would be consulted so the integrity of the longer version (104 min) would be preserved. I also said that if I was not to be consulted my name should be removed from the program and the cut down will be listed as an “adaptation from a film by Ilan Ziv”. From my access to some internal documents, it is obvious now that the BBC was not genuinely interested in my getting involved. As the documents suggest, they already announced that the cut down version would be an adaptation.

So back in November 2012, everything seemed to be on track to produce a cut down of the film without having to deal with the director, broadcast the film under a neutral title and hopefully avoid any serious political debate. A perfect solution! So what went wrong?

Fast forward to Saturday April 20^th 2013 when I received an email from a friend in the UK who saw that “my” film Jerusalem; An Archeological Mystery Story was going to be broadcast on BBC 4. He even read a preview of it in the Guardian. The preview promised that the film “ will ruffle some feathers”. Two days earlier I did receive from the editor who cut the film a copy of the cut for me to comment on, but there was no mention of an impeding broadcast date!

On Monday, 3 days before the broadcast, I fired an email to the BBC programming executives complaining that it is unfair to expect me to spend time reviewing the cut and coming up with suggestions of a re cut, when I was given only a few days before a broadcast date that no one bothered to inform me about. I pleaded for more time. It was only when one of the programming executives called me, I realized that there were much bigger issues for her than my complaint about being pushed into an impossible schedule.

The program executive seemed genuinely shocked that a freelance employee hired by the BBC to take part in the re-versioning process called the film “propaganda”. When I asked if this unnamed person had specific examples to support such a sweeping charge, I was told that she claimed that , “Everything was propaganda”. And there was more.

An “unnamed” BBC insider who I was told “liked the film,” claimed that the film props up the myth of Exile “ which we all know did not happen, in order to support his political analysis”. I learned that the cut I was given was now irrelevant, since some internal review deemed one scène with the Palestinians to be “too emotive” and they were asked to cut it down. Realizing that a mini political storm was brewing around the film and attacks lodged against its integrity, I asked and was promised that I would be given at least a summary of the essential charges so I could answer them in length. I am obviously very familiar with some of them and could easily and in detail refute them. I told the programming executive that my reply would help them to defend the film in the Channel. After all, they professed to love the film and seemed genuinely interested to show it. I told them it was very easy for me to prepare a detailed rebuttal with citation of sources for every word of the narration, the overall analysis and for every scene. I told them that some of the academic participants in the program who saw the cut and are reputable scholars in their field did not find any factual errors or misrepresentations of facts or of the historical narrative. In other words, I argued that such a detailed and substantial defense would convince any objective reader and observer of the editorial integrity of the film. I repeated the request several times yet I never got a reply. Instead, I received an email telling me that they decided to pull it out of the schedule, citing the “ short timetable and my work load “( !) A few days later I saw the “official” version that went to the public:

“We originally acquired ‘Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story’ to supplement BBC Four’s season exploring the history of archaeology. However, we have decided that it doesn’t fit editorially and are no longer planning to show it as part of the season. Plans to broadcast the program are currently under review” So Exile, A myth unearthed has begun its own exile within the BBC.

I do believe it is ultimately a sad saga. A saga of well meaning programming executives who acquired the “courageous “ film they claim to love, believing that they can sneak it by with a “neutral title”. When they were “caught”, rather than face the criticism and be helped by the mountains of documents and data I was ready to send them, they panicked like deer in the headlights not knowing what to do and eventually raised their hands in resignation.

The truth of the matter is that the reaction outside and inside the BBC surprised me too. The film by now has been shown in a Jewish Festival in Toronto, playing in a screening room there for a week. It was shown on Canadian TV with a second broadcast planned for June. Another version of the film is scheduled to be shown in France and the original version in Switzerland ,with hopefully screenings in the US later in the year. The response in all the public screenings, some of which I attended, was overall extremely positive. Nowhere did the film generate such a reaction as that of the few individuals inside and outside the BBC.

The temporary success to “exile” the film might prove I believe to be a Pyrrhic victory.

EXILE does not deal with contemporary politics in the Middle East, rather, it proposes to examine their ideological and historical underpinnings. EXILE has not contributed to the political stalemate in the region nor to the continued bloodshed, occupation and violence. It is a film born out of the continued violence. Rather than propose a simplistic solution or an aspirational political program , it tries to suggest a possible way out by re examining the historical narratives we all grew up on, suggesting that in this tormented land there are historical models of co existence and tolerance that could replace the dominant conventional nationalist ones. Silencing this film is silencing a possibility of discussion, debate and re examination not of the current political stalemate but of the intellectual stalemate that contributes to it.

I hope that somewhere in the BBC someone will rise above the hysteria and the attempts at self censorship to take a cooler look at the film and realize how it has been profoundly mis-characterized , -viewing it through partisan glasses instead of looking at it for what it is: a film that can and has already in its public screenings generated dialogue and positive, thinking rather than perpetuating divisions and polarization.

So for me this is not the end of EXILE in the UK but only the beginning. I will show the film publicly throughout the UK and will challenge the BBC to either broadcast the film or relinquish its rights. I have offered to buy these rights so I could place the film elsewhere in the UK.

The saga of EXILE will continue. Stay tuned!

Exile – A Myth Unearthed (Trailer)

Update:

EXILE ON BBC4 , SUNDAY NIGHT NOVEMBER 3rd at 9PM TO BE FOLLOWED BY A DEBATE AT 10PM

EXILE , A MYTH UNEARTHED has finally found a home on the BBC . The hour version of the film ( I supervised and authored the cut down) is going to be broadcast under a new title SEARCHING FOR EXILE – TRUTH OR MYTH? on BBC 4 November 3rd, at 9pm . to be followed by a debate with my participation at 10pm

There will be a press screening on Thursday October 31st at 18.30 hrs. I will attend the Q&A after the screening. From what I understand attendance is restricted to a list of invitees. Please get in touch with me if you want to attend and I see what I can do.

As you all know it has been a long journey which many of you followed. I am eternally grateful for your support!

I am happy that the film finally found a home in the United Kingdom.!

As you remember I promised to hold screenings of the long version of the film throughout Britain( schedule permitted). I will be in Manchester on Monday Nov.5 th. Please write me for details. Since this time I can not stay in the UK any longer I will try to come again if there is interest in showing and discussing the film in other cities.

Below is the billing for the press.

SEARCHING FOR EXILE – TRUTH OR MYTH?

This authored documentary by Ilan Ziv sets out to explore the historical and archaeological evidence for the Exile of the Jews after their defeat in Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman Empire, and its relevance to today.

Tracing the story of Exile from the contemporary commentator Josephus, to 1960s Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin, to the modern city of Rome and finally to the ruins of a Palestinian village, Ziv asks where the roots of this story lie and what evidence there is for it.

At the centre of the film is the ancient town of Sepphoris (on whose ruins stood the Palestinian village of Saffuriya until 1948) and the lessons its multi-layered history may have to offer.

A film by Ilan Ziv

Produced by Amit Breuer, Serge Gordey, Colette Louméde, Ilan Ziv

May 2, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Archaeology, BBC, Ilan Ziv, Jerusalem, Middle East, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Syrian guerillas watch Al Jazeera, believe most insane stories – captive journalist to RT

RT | May 01, 2013

The Syrian opposition is made up of young men with little education, brainwashed into fighting President Assad, journalist Anhar Kocheva told RT. Kocheva spoke about her time as a hostage, describing a ragtag group of men devoid of tangible ideals.

Anhar Kochneva, a Ukrainian citizen and Palestinian national, spent 153 days as a hostage in the custody of Syrian opposition guerilla fighters. She paints an altogether different picture of the rebel fighters to the one in Western media – young men in their twenties conned into fighting for the opposition by the farfetched stories of sheiks.

RT: Can you describe these rebel fighters? What kind of people are they?

Anhar Kochneva: The ones that held me captive were Syrians, Sunnis. There are no foreigners in that particular group. Most of them are former neighbors or relatives from a southern Homs district – Baba Amr. Their apartments and houses were destroyed a year ago, because they were fighting against the army there and, as they put it, they made a tactical decision to withdraw. The withdrawal basically meant crossing the Homs-Tartus highway, moving from its northern to its southern side. They moved into the empty houses in the village and paid some rent to the owners – $50-100. Rent is getting higher, because the demand for housing is growing, since there are more and more refugees. And it is impossible to live in summer houses. In some houses, there are over 30 refugees. Electricity is scarce; there is a schedule for when it comes on. Those who have a generator are considered very lucky. My kidnappers didn’t have a generator.

RT: What kind of guerilla activities are they involved in? Are they constantly attacked by the Army?

AK: The army didn’t really do anything to them. There were occasional shootings. These are just small groups in rural areas. So the army doesn’t really target their residences. They attacked the government forces and their checkpoints every once in a while, kidnapped people.

RT: What is the relationship between the guerilla fighters and the locals?

AK: They try to co-exist peacefully with the people who surround them and give them shelter.

They are mad at the Christian community of El Quseir though. Some time ago there were reports about kidnappings of Christians [in September 2012, almost 300 Catholics, half of them women and children, were kidnapped, when they were picking apples in Rehle, on the border with Lebanon – RT]. But it was not mentioned anywhere that by doing that the rebels tried to bring back four of their friends, who were captured by the Christian community – so it was the Christians who upset the peaceful co-existence.

According to many accounts, this is what happened. Four rebels were kidnapped by the Christians. I was told that these four people were kidnapped when they were not doing anything against this Christian community. They were just going about their business.

In order to set their people free, opposition fighters took almost 100 Christians hostage. The guerilla fighters returned all the hostages alive, whereas their people came back in body bags, cut into pieces.

They were offended by that, saying that these people didn’t harm the Christians in any way.

All this happened during my first days in captivity – and they kept talking about this. I overheard some things. They are mad, because their people were brutally killed, but nobody in the West is saying anything about it. They were ordered not to kill Christians, otherwise the West would stop helping them. These cases have to be brought to light and investigated. Maybe because these four people were killed, a chance to achieve a truce was missed… Now the residents of this Christian suburb don’t go anywhere, they don’t go to Sunni villages to buy groceries.

‘They believe most insane stories’

RT: Who are these people, these Syrian guerilla fighters?

AK: Most of them are in their early twenties. Some have served in the army. Twenty-seven-year-olds are considered very mature. Most of them are single. Some didn’t even graduate from high school. Their parents told them, “You know the alphabet, so go work now.”

They don’t have any clear ideology. They don’t really think about things, don’t discuss anything. At least, they didn’t have any such talks with me, they said right away – it’s impossible to argue with them.

Their logic really suffers – and you can see that in everyday life. They believe the most insane stories, if they hear them from some religious teachers.

My guard’s name was Ahmad, 27 years old, finished four grades in school. He told me that he had heard in a sermon that in 1990, Soviet scientists drilled a tunnel to the center of the Earth, saw fire there and recorded the screams of sinners in hell. He believes in that story, because it supports his worldview.

I tried to argue that in 1990 this was the last thing on Russia’s mind, that there is no recording device that can work in such temperature, that spirits don’t have voices – I couldn’t convince him. Most of them have never been outside the country, and didn’t travel around Syria much either. But they remember the blessed times of low prices, somebody even managed to go to the seashore, which is not far from there. But they cannot draw connections between the current situation and their actions.

They talk about how they used to go to restaurants, to cabaret.

RT: Does religion play any role in their life? Do they pray?

AK: They try, but not always succeed. They might fall asleep or fail to wake up. Some other excuses: “I am cold, I am hungry.” I did not see them pray together, they prayed individually. They don’t quote the Koran, don’t say Bismillah or Insha’Allah all the time. These are simple people, who were thrown into some new circumstances, but it didn’t change who they are.

RT: We read all the time that mercenaries are paid “huge money”. What can you say about that?

AK: They don’t consider themselves mercenaries. They are guerilla fighters, volunteers. They made a conscious decision to be part of the unit, to follow this commander, whom they respect. They are not paid salaries, they only get an allowance.

My captors got $100 per month – they spent 40-50 per cent of that on cigarettes.

Fighters in other units get twice as much, or even more. But those who held me didn’t mind staying on the allowance, as long as Ammar was their leader.

RT: Who is this commander? What sets him apart?

AK: He turned 40 recently. Before the war, he used to be a house painter in Homs. He’s single. His father was a well-known Sufi sheik who could talk to snakes. My guards knew and respected him.

‘Simple provincial folk’

RT: And how do these things go together – their respect for a Sufi sheik and brainwashing the public that this unrest is the Salafist doing?

AK: They are neither radical Muslims nor Salafists, they are simple provincial folk that have been told by sheiks about freedom and democracy.Ammar has been in the guerilla force for over a year.

RT: What made him join?

AK: He saw what he thought to be a major injustice taking place. Both the opposition and the army kept firing, and innocent people kept dying in the crossfire. In his circle, the perception was that it was army’s and the regime’s fault.

I asked him once, “What would you do if this civil war never happened and instead Israel attacked Syria?” He replied, “I would join the army and fight for Syria.”

But there’s no going back for him now.

RT: Any war ends in a truce.

AK: He’s gone way too far. He is the enemy of the state. He is a leader and head of the military council of the Farouq Brigades in Homs area. He supervises attacks on checkpoints, they have partly killed and expelled all the Shia, and all the Alawites. He led the resistance to the army taking over Homs from Bab-Amr. I believe this is the man it would be worth running negotiations with – that’s of course if he chose to resort to a dialogue. He is not beyond compassion and understanding. He can let people free. During my time there, he let two Sunni fighters, professors with Homs University free.

He is a very simple man, he doesn’t require much, and strives to deliver justice. He gave over his room and bed to me and slept on the floor. People often send him gifts of nice clothes and he gives them away to his fighters. He has no material ambition to get rich.

RT: Did he mention what goals the guerilla forces pursue?

AK: No. They thought it wouldn’t take long and hoped to get support from abroad. He believes they have been decoyed and used, as they didn’t receive the help they had been promised and now it’s obvious they are not going to receive it at all.

He is not a bigot or radical – he is a civilized person with that Syrian conception that everybody has the right to have its own idea of how to follow their religion. I was forced to put on a headscarf only for the time of filming [a video about the terms of release – RT].

People respect him as he is reasonable and has no material ambition to get rich.

The man who kidnapped me behaves differently and people notice such things. For instance, when they [people from the 1st detachment – RT] attacked the village of al Haidaria, not only did they steal people’s belongings from the abandoned houses, but they knocked down the walls, pulled out electrical boxes, removed windows and doors, plug sockets and switchers in order to sell them all.

Those who kept me hostage disapproved of that.

Many told me that if I had gotten in hands to some other field commander, I would have had a far harder time.

RT: The rebels’ hatred is focused on Bashar Assad – can you say why?

AK: They hold him responsible for everything. They even say the carrot crop failure is his fault. It’s a trend to hate him. And they get brainwashed to believe that the majority of people think the same. They don’t want to know that the majority actually does not support them.

The brainwashing techniques are quite primitive. For example, their fatigues have been manufactured in Turkey, with each set numbered, and the numbers they used exceed 11 million. But that’s nonsense. Syria doesn’t have that many men. Its entire population is 23 million people, and children account for more than a half of this number. This is the way they’re trying to support the myth that the FSA has the majority on its side. And you know what happens in those small areas they control? Many are forced to keep their real attitude secret.

RT: What about Hafez Assad? Did their parents hate him, too?

AK: They don’t talk about him. I never heard anything. They don’t even need that kind of logical argument.

RT: Do they hate Russia?

AK: They plan to celebrate their victory by blasts in Chechnya and Moscow – these are their exact words. My guards happily assured me this will happen. It’s possible they just said it to dispirit me, and use other words with other people.

RT: You said that the commander of the detachment would have joined the army if Israel had attacked Syria. What do rank-and-file guerrillas think about Israel?

AK: According to some rumors, the Qataris and Saudis became regular visitors to Israel, and their visits were quite friendly. That’s why the command of the opposition ordered to be kind to Israel. As for the Palestinian people, there is another directive – they should treat them with disdain. They say that the Palestinians were selling their own land, and the Jews, on the contrary, are good people. I heard several people saying such things, and it sounds like an echo of some programs, conversations and opinions someone had instilled in them. I repeat that there is no mindset there.

Speaking of the Palestinians, Kurds, coastal population and the population of the regions – they believe that they are all traitors, because they haven’t taken the side of the revolution.

Turkey is not respected either – they don’t get anything essential from them, although some useful small items come from Turkey from time to time. For example, there were book series dedicated to the “Blessed Syrian Revolution” published in Turkey, and they read them. These books include quotes from the Koran and say that God welcomes the events in Syria.

RT: Is hatred towards Alawites religious in character?

AK: No, there’s nothing about religion, although some statements about incorrect believing did take place. But this is not the key point. They have some way stronger emotions. For example, I heard them complaining that the houses of Alawite scum were the only ones that were heated. The thing is they were offered big multi-dwelling units with heating, but they refused saying they wanted to live in their private homes.

RT: And what do they think of the Christians?

AK: They are regarded as wayward, but they don’t dare mess with the Christians fearing Europe would turn away from them. Moreover, we shouldn’t forget there are a lot of Christians in Syria, as well as plenty of different communities and sects. They all live side-by-side with the Muslims and regard them as neighbors, without paying extra attention to what they believe in.

RT: How do they regard the Americans?

AK: They criticize them, claiming the Americans have decoyed them. The guerrillas are told that the Americans might be spies. There was an American man who had pretended to be a journalist and he had been caught before me. According to the guerrillas, he was leaking some information about locations, so he was caught and accused of espionage. I heard he was bartered – there was a grand operation.
‘They are hostile towards opposition groups abroad’

RT: Do they realize how the opposition can represent them abroad? Does anybody monitor and evaluate their activities?

AK: They don’t like the opposition members settled in Europe, Istanbul and Moscow, and have promised to slaughter them if they come back to Syria. Regular fighters say they have been shedding blood and those people just want to get everything for free. So they are quite hostile towards the opposition that settled down abroad.

RT: What arms do guerillas use?

AK: Russian hand grenades, Kalashnikov guns – both Russian and Chinese. As they said themselves, they have got lots of Belgian weapons.

RT: Did you see if they had money?

AK: Two bundles of $8,000. And they were speaking of such sums like pocket change. They were counting money before my own eyes. What’s more, after I had already been released, I ran into a video in which Ammar was counting a huge bundle of money. It is clear they don’t keep this money to themselves – they buy weapons with it.

RT: Did you see anybody get wounded?

AK: Lots of wounded people. I saw about nine people bandaged and loads of murdered. There is a field hospital, but I’d rather call it a regular clinic. The chief doctor is a pharmacist, who – according to my experience – doesn’t know what is what even in terms of pharmacy. There was some wounded man delivered from Homs – he begged to be handed over to the army, as he knew he wouldn’t get proper medical treatment and would die.

RT: What do the rebels think of volunteers from abroad?

AK: They are at odds with Jabhat al-Nusra. There is some killing list with the names of al-Faruk Brigades’ leaders on it, and about five people have already been killed – they try to eliminate the lead figures. Moreover, there are ongoing serious wrangles among the rebels themselves. There were no foreigners in the areas I have been to. To say the least, they are not welcomed and regarded as competitors.
‘People are exhausted’

RT: How do people feel over there?

AK: People are exhausted. Most of them have lost everything. Those who had wanted to take part in the revolution already joined – so human resources inside the country ran out. Still the Syrian people are not used to living in such conditions. They don’t leave their homes after 7pm: any noise and you may be shot.

They eat pigeons and sparrows that they shoot, pluck and roast, which is clearly caused by hunger and distress, but there are some unmotivated actions taking place, too. They can shoot a dog or a little puppy kids have been playing with. I have never seen the soldiers of the regular army turning their guns on living beings.

RT: Which mass media is popular?

AK: They watch Al Jazeera, Orient TV – all in all about eight opposition channels. They use the internet as well. There is an information center where correspondents of Al Jazeera Mohammad Arabi and Hale dabu Saleh worked.

Captive Ukrainian journalist escapes Syrian rebels (alethonews.wordpress.com)

May 2, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | RT, Syria | Leave a comment

New Israeli Math and the Return of the Holocaust Analogy: Steinitz: Iran “Equal to 30 Nuclear North Koreas.”

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | April 29, 2013

At the second annual Jerusalem Post Conference, held in New York City on Sunday April 28, a number of former and current Israeli officials offered new estimates about Iran’s nuclear progress, issued threats of war and pretended Israel is more powerful and militarily capable than it really is.

In other words, it was just another day of shameless and shameful Israeli propaganda; pathetic, jingoistic bluster meant to appeal to hawkish American donors, puff up Israel’s inflated sense of self, and attempt to boost its already non-existent credibility.

Former IDF intel chief Amos Yadlin said, “Even though Iran is on the way to crossing the line of Netanyahu, that doesn’t mean that they have the bomb,” which might be the most tediously self-evident comment made in recent memory, despite also relying on fact-free speculation. He also said that Israel could weather the consequences of a potential unilateral military assault on the Islamic Republic, but that, before that happens, “we must give more time for the other strategies that nobody takes credit for,” an apparent reference to Israeli-led covert murder operations and cyberwar.

Meanwhile, former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi also told the mouth-breathing attendees that Israel can effectively attack Iran and sustain the inevitable blowback. “We cannot allow this regime to have the bomb,” he said, before insisting that a recent multi-billion dollar U.S. arms sale to Israel “sends a signal” to Iran about Israel’s military capabilities and intentions.

The best comments of the day, however, were made by Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz. Calling an Iran with an atomic arsenal “equal to 30 nuclear North Koreas,” Steinitz’s stand-up routine didn’t disappoint. Not only was a “nuclear Iran” an “existential threat” to Israel, he said, it would also pose a “terrible threat” to all of the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica would apparently be spared the devastating scourge, however.

“Iran is problem number one of our generation,” Steinitz declared. He then launched into an embarrassingly repetitive rant about how Iran is the new Nazi Germany, an analogy so stupid and played out that even its most ardent champion Netanyahu hasn’t used it in a while. After praising Winston Churchill for his actions in the 1930s (which garnered a healthy round of applause from the crowd), Steinitz implicitly condemned other powers and political leaders for their past follies and failures, evoking the tired bromide equating diplomacy with appeasement.

“We shouldn’t repeat the same mistakes again,” he said, continuing:

This was Nazi Germany, a secular regime with a fanatical ideology. And here we are speaking about the Shiite Ayatollahs of Iran. Totally [religious] fanatical regime. There it was Europe, here it’s Iran. The Nazis spoke about the final solution for the Jewish people in Europe. They [Iranian leaders] are speaking about destroying the Jewish State in the Middle East. There are some differences. We have to learn from history. And so it never repeats itself exactly. And if there’s a lesson to learn from history, it’s not to repeat the same mistake again. And not to allow, come what may, the nuclearization of Iran.

He wasn’t finished.

Once at full capacity, the Iranian nuclear program, he claimed, will be able to produce 20 to 30 nuclear bombs each year and somehow decided that, “if Iran gets the first few bombs, in a decade or so they will have 100 nuclear bombs.”

This was “not an intelligence estimate,” he was quick to note, but rather was based on statements by the Islamic Republic itself, which makes literally no sense since Iran has never once stated any intention to build or acquire a single nuclear weapon.

For good measure, Steinitz also tossed around phrases like “global ambitions” and “a new era of Islamic hegemony,” because things like that – regardless of their sheer stupidity – play well with ignorant, racist audiences like the one assembled Sunday at the Times Square Marriott.

Dismissing sanctions as insufficient “to achieve our goal,” Steinitz demanded that “a very clear military threat” be made to Iran (ignoring, of course, that this is an undeniable violation of the UN Charter), “a credible threat that will make it crystal clear that they are paying something for nothing.”

“If there is a chance to resolve this problem without military action,” he said, it will only be because opponents of Tehran’s nuclear program “choose a big enough stick and wave it in their faces,” appealing to the Orientalist conception that Middle Eastern leaders only understand the language of force and will only kowtow to Western and Israeli demands when sufficiently fearful of potential violence.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who also spoke at the conference, tried to temper such alarmist rhetoric and dispel the notion that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, one worthy of constant hysteria and attention.

“I think that we have exaggerated, for a long time, the potential threat of Iran possessing nuclear power,” he told the crowd.

Predictably, Olmert’s comments did not receive a positive reception; instead, he was heckled and booed.

May 1, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Amos Yadlin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Yuval Steinitz, Zionism | Leave a comment

The Sick Madness of Tom Friedman’s Culture

By Peter Hart | FAIR | April 29, 2013

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman doesn’t understand how on earth the Boston bombers could rationalize their act of violence–and believes that some aspects of Muslim culture must answer for it.

According to reports of the interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers were motivated in part by the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this has the Times columnist scratching his head about the problem with Muslims:

This is a popular meme among radical Muslim groups, and, to be sure, some Muslim youths were deeply angered by the U.S. interventions in the Middle East. The brothers Tsarnaev may have been among them.

But what in God’s name does that have to do with planting a bomb at the Boston Marathon and blowing up innocent people? It is amazing to me how we’ve come to accept this non sequitur and how easily we’ve allowed radical Muslim groups and their apologists to get away with it.

A simple question: If you were upset with U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, why didn’t you go out and build a school in Afghanistan to strengthen that community or get an advanced degree to strengthen yourself or become a math teacher in the Muslim world to help its people be less vulnerable to foreign powers? Dzhokhar claims the Tsarnaev brothers were so upset by something America did in a third country that they just had to go to Boylston Street and blow up people who had nothing to do with it (some of whom could have been Muslims), and too often we just nod our heads rather than asking: What kind of sick madness is this?

Friedman goes on to claim that we “must ask a question only Muslims can answer,” which is: “What is going on in your community that a critical number of your youth believes that every American military action in the Middle East is intolerable and justifies a violent response?”

It is worth asking questions about how different communities or societies react to violence. After the 9/11 attacks, the United States bombed and occupied Afghanistan, based on the argument that the government of that country had tolerated the presence of Al-Qaeda and thus must bear the retribution. As a result, many thousands of people who had nothing to do with terrorism were killed.

Or on to the invasion of Iraq, which was sold as part of a “Global War on Terror” following the 9/11 attacks as well, even though there was never a connection between Iraq and the terrorist attacks. So why did the United States invade Iraq? Tom Friedman explained it to Charlie Rose on May 30, 2003.

To Friedman, there was a “terrorist bubble” in that part of the world, and “we needed to go over there and take out a very big stick…and there was only one way to do it.” He added:

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying: “Which part of this sentence don’t you understand? You don’t think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we’re just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This.” That, Charlie, is what this war is about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia; it was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.

What kind of sick madness is this?

April 29, 2013 Posted by aletho | Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Afghanistan, Boston Marathon, Iraq, Iraq War, Middle East, New York Times, Saudi Arabia, United States | Leave a comment

‘UK, France barring UN Syria inspection’

Press TV – April 29, 2013

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari says Britain and France are trying to undermine Damascus’s official request from the United Nation to investigate chemical weapons use in Aleppo.

Al-Jaafari said in an interview with the Lebanese NBN TV channel that the western governments seek to repeat the Iraqi scenario in Syria through questioning its sovereignty by opening its borders to undisciplined inspections by the UN under the pretext of chemical weapons use.

Al-Jaffari said the western sides do not want an investigation to take place suggesting they know full well that the anti-government militants used chemical agents in the town of Khan al-Asal, near Aleppo, and elsewhere.

The Syrian official said the comparison with Iraq is pretty clear as the UN also sent an inspection team to the country to examine weapons of mass destruction claims, but Iraq was occupied despite the fact that the inspection team did not find any WMDs.

He also rejected claims by Britain and France that chemical weapons were used in Homs four months before the Khan al-Asal incident saying they would have reported it earlier if any such attack ever existed.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has written to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon calling on the body to explain the details of a likely inspection in Khan al-Asal.

However, Britain and France have demanded the team to be also sent to other areas of the country to investigate the use of chemical weapons.

The request has been rejected by the Syrian government that says inspectors cannot have unlimited access to all regions of the country without coordination with Damascus.

The Syrian government has also called for an independent inspection of Khan al-Asal saying Damascus and the UN could discuss the details on other alleged chemical weapons uses separately, though the UN has so far refused to do so.

Russia accuses UN of politicizing approach to chemical weapons in Syria (voicerussia.com)
Bashar Al-Jaafari: “West Raising Chemical Weapons Issue Part of Pressure Campaign” (syrianfreepress.wordpress.com)

April 29, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Britain, Chemical weapon, France, Iraq, Syria | Leave a comment

Pro-Israeli US lawmakers urge bombing Syria air bases, arming militants, invasion

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R) South Carolina (file photo)

Press TV – April 29, 2013

Top US Republican lawmakers have again called for further American actions against Syria, including the bombing of its air bases, leading a multi-nation invasion of the country and sending lethal weapons to anti-Damascus militant gangs.

Fervently pro-Israeli Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina further cited widely challenged claims by the Israeli regime of chemical weapons use in Syria to urge swift Washington action to “secure” chemical arms arsenals in the Arab country in efforts to prevent al-Qaeda-linked militants from gaining access to such weapons, US press reports said on Sunday and Monday.

The two lawmakers, however, did not explain how American forces would secure the alleged cache of Syrian chemical weaponry.

Graham went as far as warning that if the US does not intervene in Syria the next terrorist bombing in American soil will include chemical agents.

“The chemical weapons (in Syria)… are going to be compromised and fall into wrong hands and the next bomb that goes off in America may not have nails and glasses in it,” said Graham during a televised interview with major US network CBS on Sunday.

The senior member of US Senate’s Armed Services Committee also expressed serious concerns about the potential fall of Jordan’s dictator King Abdullah II if Washington did not intervene quickly enough to stop the growing flow of Syrian refugees into his country.

Describing the Jordanian ruler as “a moderating influence and a good [US] ally,” Graham predicted that his regime will fall if the “flood” of Syrian refugees into Jordan continued.

He also predicted a US war with Iran if the Obama administration does not intervene in Syria on the grounds that Tehran would doubt Washington’s resolve in taking action against their nuclear energy program.

The American senator went on to urge the US military to “bomb Syrian air bases with cruise missiles in a bid to “neutralize” the government’s air advantage over the foreign-backed militant gangs and turn the “tide of battle pretty quickly” in favor of the anti-Damascus insurgents.

Moreover, Senator McCain said the US should move into Syria as part of an “international force” to secure the country’s chemical weapons, but did not elaborate on how such international military force would be established and which countries would be involved.

Syria has been faced with a foreign-sponsored armed insurgency since 2011. Thousands of people in the country, including a large number of security forces, have been killed in the unrest with many foreign nationals infiltrating the key Arab state in a bid to destabilize the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli lawmaker urges intervention in Syria (foxnews.com)

April 29, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Syria, United States | Leave a comment

Chemical Weapons Charade in Syria

By Sharmine Narwani | Al-Akhbar | 2013-04-27

Let us be clear. The United States can verify absolutely nothing about the use of chemical weapons (CWs) in Syria. Any suggestion to the contrary is entirely false.

Don’t take it from me – here is what US officials have to say about the subject:

A mere 24 hours after Washington heavyweights from the White House, Pentagon, and State Department brushed aside Israeli allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and the White House changed their minds. They now believe “with varying degrees of confidence” that CWs have been used “on a small scale” inside Syria.

For the uninitiated, “varying degrees of confidence” can mean anything from “no confidence whatsoever” to “the Israelis told us” – which, translated, also means “no confidence whatsoever.”

Too cavalier? I don’t think so. The White House introduced another important caveat in its detailed briefing on Thursday:

“This assessment is based in part on physiological samples. Our standard of evidence must build on these intelligence assessments as we seek to establish credible and corroborated facts. For example the chain of custody is not clear so we cannot confirm how the exposure occurred and under what conditions.”

“The chain of custody is not clear.” That is the single most important phrase in this whole exercise. It is the only phrase that journalists need consider – everything else is conjecture of WMDs-in-Iraq proportions.

I asked a State Department spokesperson the following: “Does it mean you don’t know who has had access to the sample before it reached you? Or that the sample has not been contaminated along the way?”

He responded: “It could mean both.”

Chuck Hagel expands on that jaw-dropping admission: “We cannot confirm the origin of these weapons.” Although he goes on to conclude anyway: “but we do believe that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would very likely have originated with the Assad regime.”

Four-year-olds shouldn’t have confidence in the US intelligence community at this point. Yet we are supposed to believe that the Syrian government must be behind a chemical weapons attack because Hagel says so.

Let’s consider the facts. The Syrian government has clearly stated it would not use chemical weapons during the crisis “regardless of the developments” unless “Syria faces external aggression.”

The US and other western states have warned for more than a year now that as the government of Bashar al-Assad begins to “topple,” the likelihood of using CWs as a desperate last measure will increase.

The White House reiterated this point yesterday: “Given our concern that as the situation deteriorated and the regime became more desperate, they may use some of their significant stockpiles of chemical weapons.”

Assad’s government is clearly not on its last leg. If anything, the Syrian army has made tremendous gains in the past few weeks by thwarting rebel plans to storm Damascus, pushing them out of key surrounding suburbs, and cutting off their supply lines in different parts of the country.

This recent reversal of fortunes tends to validate the observations of those who have met with Assad and say the president remains confident that he can repel rebel forces whenever and wherever he chooses to do so.

Which frankly removes a major “motive” from any calculation by the Syrian government to use chemical weapons against civilians.

The constant reference to CWs in this conflict is suspect – there is no conceivable military advantage to be gained from the use of these munitions. Writing for Foreign Policy in December, Charles Blair says using CWs against rebels makes no tactical or strategic sense:

“The regime would risk losing Russian and Chinese support, legitimizing foreign military intervention, and, ultimately, hastening its own end. As one Syrian official said, ‘We would not commit suicide.’”

In fact, there is plenty of evidence that the government has calibrated its military responses throughout this conflict to avoid scenarios that would create a pretext for foreign military intervention on “humanitarian grounds.”

Just as there is evidence aplenty that rebel forces will go to great lengths to create a pretext for foreign intervention that would help them oust Assad.

On March 19, a suspected chemical weapons attack near Aleppo prompted the Syrian government to ask the United Nations to launch an investigation. Witnesses reported the “smell of chlorine in the air,” which led to speculation that this could have been a rebel-led attack given that opposition militias had seized Syria’s only chlorine gas bottling plant, east of Aleppo, that August.

The use of chlorine gas-based explosives by insurgents was seen not so long ago in Iraq, where attacks against both authorities and civilians are traceable to 2006. US military spokespeople, at the time, claimed that insurgent tactics had become deadlier, seeking to draw maximum attention and impose widespread suffering.

The Iraq connection and insurgent tactics there are important to the Syrian conflict because of the influx of jihadist rebels flooding over the Iraqi border, bringing with them experience and know-how from fighting the US occupation. That border also allegedly hosts training camps for groups in both countries allied with al-Qaeda – a development that has come to light since a recent announcement linking al-Nusra Front to al-Qaeda’s central group.

The White House’s allegations on Thursday specified a sarin gas connection to at least one other suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria. Even if this were true, a clear-cut connection linking the use of a CW explosive to the Syrian government is not at all inevitable. In 2004, an IED roadside bomb – a common insurgent tactic – containing the nerve agent was detonated in Iraq. There are no guarantees whatsoever that chemical munitions have not found their way into the hands of rogue elements – or in fact that they are not producing them in small quantities themselves.

At this point, almost everything being discussed in relation to chemical weapons inside Syria is conjecture – and to be honest – highly suspect.

The Times of London (which is behind a paywall so I cannot link to it) just published a detailed and timely “investigation” of an alleged CW attack in Aleppo, claiming: “the Syrian regime prefers to gas its opponents in this small-scale way, testing the elasticity of President Obama’s ‘red line.’”

The article then goes on to describe the harrowing account of what appears to be a sarin gas attack from a victim, witnesses, and medical staff. But experts are now questioning these accounts, saying that the evidence is “far from conclusive.”

In reference to the video of the alleged CW attack referenced by The Times, Jean Pascal Zanders, a senior researcher at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, tells McClatchy News that there are red flags in the footage.

“Why only one person?” he said, referring to the video showing one patient it said was a victim. “Why do I find the hospital setting, again, unlike what I would expect in a case of chemical exposure? Why is the guy ‘foaming’ in the hospital, considering the rapid action of sarin.” Zanders explained that without an antidote, death is possible within one minute after exposure to sarin.”

The Times article then gets even stranger. To quote:

“In the chaos of Syria’s civil war, no hospital in the rebel-held areas has the facilities to test which gas was used. Yet medical sources in northern Syria have told The Times that in the immediate aftermath of the attack a team from “an American medical agency” arrived at the hospital in Afrin. They took hair samples from the casualties for testing at ‘an American laboratory.’

It is likely that these samples formed part of the evidence cited by the US Defence Secretary yesterday.”

Really? A CW attack takes place in the middle of the night in Aleppo, and in its “immediate aftermath” an “American medical agency” arrives to collect samples for testing?

There’s more…

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Free Syrian Army Chief of Staff General Salim Idriss says that Israel is knowledgeable about the Syrian government’s use of CWs, because the Mossad has agents in the country: “Israel has this information because there are many, many members of security services who are now very active in Syria.”

Idriss is, of course, referencing the statements by Israel this week that kicked off all the recent speculation on Syrian CWs:

Israeli army intelligence analyst Brig. Gen. Itai Brun has been quoted far and wide on this issue, mainly referencing the April Aleppo incident highlighted by The Times and debunked by experts.

It is likely that all the speculation in the past few days revolves around an incident that is looking more and more like the “false flag” operations anti-rebel Syrians have been warning about this past year. Given where the “evidence” is coming from, and the alleged presence of a western or American “medical agency” present on the ground, it is quite remarkable that Washington went full-press on this.

It is almost as bad as the account in 2011 of a middle-aged, Iranian-American, ex-car dealer who, by virtue of some familial relationship with a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, decided to collude with a Mexican drug cartel to plot the assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington at a popular DC eatery.

Having just passed the ten year anniversary of an Iraqi invasion and occupation based entirely on false and falsified data on Weapons of Mass Destruction, western media needs not to be asking about “red lines” as much as for iron-clad evidence.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

‘Israeli camp in US seeks war on Syria’

April 27, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Chuck Hagel, Israel, Syria, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israel spy agency has presence in Syria, says senior rebel general

By Joseph Fitsanakis | intelNews | April 25, 2013

Israel is one of several countries that maintain a significant intelligence presence inside Syria, according to the top commander of the Syrian rebel forces.

General Salim Idriss, Chief of Staff for the Free Syrian Army, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Jewish state has “many, many” intelligence officers in various parts of Syria. The Arab country has been rocked since 2011 by a violent civil war, which has cost the lives of at least 60,000 people.

Idriss was responding to comments made earlier this week by Brigadier General Itai Brun, senior intelligence analyst for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Brun, who heads the Division for Research and Analysis of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, was speaking at a conference hosted in Tel Aviv, Israel, by the Institute for National Security Studies. He told an audience of intelligence experts that the IDF was “quite certain” that the Syrian government headed by President Bashar al-Assad had resorted to the use of chemical weapons against rebel forces on at least one instance.

According to Brun, footage obtained by the IDF of rebel casualties from a March 19 attack by Syrian government forces, pointed to the use of sarin nerve gas. He referred to evidence such as the victims’ dilated pupils and “the foam coming out of their mouths” as strong proof of the use of weaponized sarin nerve gas in the battlefield.

Responding to Brun’s allegations, General Idriss suggested that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons repeatedly in a variety of locations, including Aleppo, Homs, and the outskirts of capital Damascus. He added that rebel forces had collected “some samples of soil and blood” and surrendered it to outside “observers” of the civil war —though he refused to identify these observers. After some pressure from Amanpour, Idriss said it made sense for the IDF to know that sarin nerve gas had been used by the Syrian government, since Israel was one of several countries that had “many, many” intelligence officers inside Syria. Asked by Amanpour whether he was referring to Israeli covert-action agency Mossad, Idriss responded “yes”.

In response to Brun’s comments, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Tuesday that Washington was “looking for conclusive evidence, if it exists, if there was use of chemical weapons”.

April 27, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Free Syrian Army, Institute for National Security Studies, Israel, Syria | Leave a comment

The New Yorker Should Ignore Jon Lee Anderson and Issue a Correction on Venezuela

By Keane Bhatt | NACLA | April 24, 2013

As a result of many dozens—possibly hundreds—of messages from readers over the past few weeks that criticized The New Yorker’s inaccurate coverage of Venezuela, reporter Jon Lee Anderson issued a response in an online post on April 23. This marks the first time the magazine has publicly addressed its controversial and erroneous labeling of Venezuela as one of the world’s most “socially unequal” countries (I highlighted the error in mid-March). Although Anderson deprives his readers of the opportunity to evaluate his critics’ arguments (he offered no hyperlinks to either of my two articles on the subject, nor to posts by Corey Robin, Jim Naureckas, and others), he is clearly writing in response to those assertions.

To his credit, Anderson unequivocally admits two of his three errors: regarding Venezuela’s homicides, he acknowledges that he falsely wrote “that Venezuela had the highest homicide rate in Latin America. Actually, Honduras has the top rate.” Anderson proceeds to explain why Venezuela’s high homicide rate is nevertheless a grave problem—a position none of his critics, myself included, dispute.

The importance of this error rests instead in its revelation of a media culture under the influence of the consistent demonization of a country deemed an official U.S. enemy. This culture certainly played a role in allowing Anderson’s obvious falsehood to remain uncorrected for five months—five months after I first wrote about it, one month after I directly and publicly confronted Anderson about the error, and even then, days after I wrote another article urging readers to demand a correction.

While The New Yorker has dedicated literally no articles to U.S. ally Honduras since its current leader Porfirio Lobo came to power in repressive, sham elections held under a military dictatorship, Anderson was allowed to assert that Venezuela—a country with half the per capita homicides of Honduras—was Latin America’s leader in murders. One might reasonably suspect that a claim on The New Yorker’s website asserting that the United States had a higher homicide rate than Bolivia (Bolivia’s rate is actually over two times as high), would be retracted more expeditiously.

Anderson’s explanation for his second error—claiming that Chávez came to office through a coup d’etat rather than a free and fair election—further lays bare the corrupting effects of the generalized vilification of Chávez on basic journalistic standards of accuracy.

Anderson writes that despite his gaffe, he obviously knew Chávez “gained the Presidency by winning an election in 1998,” as he had “interviewed Chávez a number of times, travelled with him, and came to know him fairly well.” For Anderson to write such an egregious misstatement, then, and have it pass through what is likely the most rigorous fact-checking process in the industry, exposes a pervasive ideology under which he and his many editors and fact-checkers operate. As Jim Naureckas of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting wrote, “It’s like writing a long profile on Gerald Ford that refers to that time when he was elected president.”

Finally, Anderson offers a desperate attempt to justify his third factual error, stating:

A number of letters I’ve received dispute, out of context, my reference to “the same Venezuela as ever: one of the world’s most oil-rich but socially unequal countries”; several cite an economic statistic known as the Gini coefficient—a measure of income inequality.

Notice that Anderson never tells his readers what Venezuela’s Gini coefficient actually is. According to the United Nations, Venezuela’s Gini, at 0.397, makes it the least unequal country in Latin America and squarely in the middle range of the rest of the world. Only by sidestepping this brutal empirical obstacle can Anderson attempt to lay out his case. He carries on by reposting three paragraphs of his original essay, which in no way mitigate the falsity of his original claim, for “context.” Anderson finally concludes by offering a novel justification for his error:

In terms of some of the components of social inequality, notably income and education, Chávez had some real achievements. (Income is what’s captured by the Gini coefficient, although that statistic has its own limitations, some particular to Venezuela.) But in housing and violence, his record was woefully insufficient. Those social factors are intimately related, to each other and to the question of equality.

A quick recap is in order before unpacking Anderson’s argument. Readers may remember that he first responded to evidence on income inequality by proclaiming, on Twitter, his agnosticism toward empirical data. Next, a senior editor at the magazine justified Anderson’s contention by arguing that Venezuela was one of the most unequal amongst other oil-rich countries—a point I debunked. Now, Anderson has settled on a definition of social inequality that minimizes Venezuela’s high educational and income equality in favor of high homicide rates and unequal housing.

But simply saying that Chávez’s record “was woefully insufficient” on housing and violence does not naturally equate to Venezuela’s standing as a world leader in social inequality. Anderson must rely on comparative international statistics to justify his position, but fails to do so.

While Venezuela’s homicide rate is high by international standards and a significant social ill, this alone does not necessarily make the country more socially unequal than another country with a lower homicide rate. Are Venezuelan homicides more skewed toward low-income residents than those in Costa Rica? Or Haiti? Are Venezuelan murders more targeted at women or ethnic minorities than those in Mexico or Guatemala? And given that the high homicide rate directly affects far fewer than one in a thousand Venezuelans annually, how could this statistic possibly outweigh the effect of massive income-inequality and poverty reductions? If he is solely basing his argument on murder rates, Anderson has no credible explanation as to why Venezuela is one of the world’s most socially unequal countries.

Anderson also doesn’t offer statistics showing that housing is more unequal in Venezuela than anywhere else. That’s because it’s not.

Out of the 91 countries for which the United Nations has available data, Venezuela is 61st in terms of the percentage of its urban population living in slums. That is to say, two-thirds of the world’s countries with available data have larger percentages of their urban citizens living as slum dwellers. In the Western Hemisphere, this includes Guayana, Honduras, Peru, Anguilla, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize, Bolivia, Jamaica, and Haiti.

click to enlarge

It is also worth mentioning that this data was taken from 2005, when the percentage of Venezuela’s urban population living in poverty and extreme poverty was at 37%. By 2010, according to the United Nations, it had been cut by a quarter, to 28% (p. 43). Furthermore, 2005 predates a massive governmental push in 2011 to build affordable housing. Earlier this year, Venezuela’s Housing Commission chair asserted that “in the years 2011 and 2012, the Bolivarian government together with the people reached the goal of building 350,000 homes.”

It appears, then, that Anderson has discovered a new definition of “social inequality” that has eluded economists and sociologists worldwide—one that systematically downplays Venezuela’s educational and income equality while emphasizing a high frequency of murders and a rate of slum-dwelling that is low by international standards.

While one can applaud Jon Lee Anderson for finally acknowledging the value of social indicators and statistical data, he and his magazine cannot be allowed to define “social inequality” any way they see fit. No social scientist analyzing the available data could argue, like Anderson, that Venezuela is one of the world’s most socially unequal countries. While semantics games may be expedient in avoiding a necessary correction, readers should let The New Yorker’s editor David Remnick (david_remnick@newyorker.com) know that a retraction of Anderson’s claim is long overdue.

Update (4/24): FAIR’s Jim Naureckas also offers sharp criticism of Jon Lee Anderson and his fact-checkers for a transparently inadequate attempt to justify his error regarding Venezuela’s social inequality. Read more, at “Jon Lee Anderson Explains: Because I Said So.”

UN: “State of Latin American and Caribbean Cities”

Keane Bhatt is an activist in Washington, D.C. He has worked in the United States and Latin America on a variety of campaigns related to community development and social justice. His analyses and opinions have appeared in a range of outlets, including NPR, The Nation, The St. Petersburg Times, and CNN En Español. He is the author of the NACLA blog “Manufacturing Contempt,” which critically analyzes the U.S. press and its portrayal of the hemisphere. Connect with his blog on Twitter: @KeaneBhatt

The New Yorker Corrects Two Errors on Venezuela, Refuses a Third (alethonews.wordpress.com)
On Venezuela, The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson Fails at Arithmetic (alethonews.wordpress.com)
50 Truths about Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution (alethonews.wordpress.com)
‘Little Twerp … Get a Life’: The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson Thinks He’s Somebody on Twitter (gawker.com)

April 26, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Honduras, Hugo Chávez, Jon Lee Anderson, Latin America, New Yorker, Venezuela | Leave a comment

Venezuelan Government Accuses Capriles of Making “Impossible” Demands

By Chris Carlson | Venezuelanalysis | April 25, 2013

Maracaibo – Opposition leader Henrique Capriles claimed yesterday that the presidential elections were “stolen”, and demanded further audit measures that the Venezuelan government has said are “impossible”.

Capriles made the statements during a press conference on Wednesday in which he gave the government an ultimatum regarding the audit.

“The truth is that you stole the elections, that’s the truth. You stole the elections and now you have to explain that to the country and the world,” he said.

Capriles demanded that the National Electoral Council (CNE) begin the auditing process immediately, and said his campaign will refuse to wait any longer.

“That is what we are demanding. We will give you until tomorrow,” he said, though he did not say what would happen if the CNE did not respond.

However, the CNE had already said last week that it would announce the beginning of the audit this week, and was expected to make an announcement today.

The Capriles campaign went on to demand a series of additional audit measures that are not included in the audit that has been approved by the CNE. His campaign representative Roberto Picón said that in addition to a complete audit of the electoral machines and the paper ballots, they are also demanding access to the electoral registry, the fingerprint system and a verification of each individual voter.

“We are asking for complete access to the electoral registry, not only to count how many people voted but also to audit all of the details, to audit the people that voted to see if there are dead people who voted, or foreigners, or duplicates, and to see if there are fake fingerprints,” said Picón.

He further said that they are demanding the CNE validate every individual fingerprint in the system, comparing each fingerprint to every other to assure none are duplicated, validate every person’s signature on the day of the elections and that they provide proof that none of the electoral data has been altered since the elections last week.

“If it doesn’t include the electoral registry, then it is not an audit. We won’t accept a shoddy audit,” said Capriles.

Various government officials have responded to these demands, saying they would be impossible to meet, and that the Capriles campaign knows it.

“They are making requests to the CNE that are absolutely impossible to grant. They are asking that every fingerprint and every signature of the almost 15 million people who participated in the electoral process be verified,” said Calixo Ortega.

“This would take like 5 years to verify, because it takes hours to verify a single fingerprint or signature, and there are 15 million that would have to be verified,” he said.

“It appears that they are purposely making requests that cannot be granted so that they can later say that the CNE has denied their request,” he explained.

Maduro’s campaign manager Jorge Rodgriguez also responded to Capriles, accusing him of attempting to create more violence in the country.

“Now Capriles says the elections were stolen. Where is the proof? Where is a single piece of evidence of that? If you can’t show any evidence, then it didn’t happen,” said Rodriguez.

Rodriguez also accused Capriles of attempting to generate more violence in the country.

“What are you doing giving the government an ultimatum like that? You have already left a cemetery in your wake with 9 fellow Venezuelans dead from the violence you created,” he said.

Capriles has yet to present any evidence of fraud in the April 14th elections. In the days following the elections, he mentioned various examples that were all promptly shown to be false.

Venezuela’s electoral council is expected to announce the timeframe of the auditing process today or tomorrow. It is unlikely that the additional measures being demanded by the Capriles campaign will be included in the audit.

Venezuela’s Electoral Council Approves Audit of 100 Percent of Votes (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Capriles Falsifies Evidence in Order to Claim Fraud in Venezuela’s Elections (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Capriles Attacks Venezuelan Electoral Council, Refuses to Sign Document (alethonews.wordpress.com)

April 26, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Capriles, CNE, Henrique Capriles Radonski, National Electoral Council, Venezuela | Leave a comment

Every Day Terror

By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | April 24, 2013

Every year, 4,600 Americans are killed in work place related accidents. Every 28 hours a black person is killed by police, corrections officers, security guards or vigilantes. Every year more than 30,000 people are killed by gun violence in this country. The odds of being killed by a terrorist are only 1 in 20 million.

These statistics are rarely mentioned and never had a chance to be addressed after two bombs were exploded during the Boston marathon. Death under horrific but commonplace circumstances attracts scant media attention or political action. Acts labeled as terrorism, which are unlikely to kill anyone, bring an inordinate amount of hysteria among the populace and cynical attention from press and politicians.

Just two days after the Boston marathon a fertilizer plant in West, Texas exploded, killing 14 people, most of them the much worshiped “first responders.” The risk of dying in an industrial accident is far greater than the odds of being killed by a terrorist, but no matter. The people were whipped into a frenzy and told to cast their eyes in the place where they should pay less attention rather than more.

It is frightening that the risks which Americans are subjected to on a daily basis are ignored as if they are unwanted background noise. Some of the passivity is understandable. Black people in particular are able to function in large part because the ever present risk of stop and frisk, false arrest, and police brutality are difficult to bear. There is a thin line between being conscious and losing one’s mind.

All Americans’ behavior is understandable if one acknowledges that we are constantly subjected to propaganda of various kinds. We have been propagandized to believe that some lives, white Americans’, are more valuable than others, namely anyone not white nor from the United States. There is no other way to explain why the government’s killing of thousands of people abroad is met with a shrug, if it is acknowledged at all. Americans are like spoiled children, whining over their suffering, while showing no empathy for anyone else’s. They feel that only their victimization is worthy of note, and in fact many of them support their government’s acts of violence carried out around the world.

That feeling of entitlement is a direct result of centuries of white supremacy which has never been examined or challenged. It has been fed as corporate power has grown and corrupted the media who now aren’t even very good at the basics of their profession. CNN, NPR, the Associated Press and other supposedly reputable news organizations reported wrongly on basic facts of the case such as the number of suspects, whether arrests had been made or not, or who was or wasn’t a person of interest. A “dark skinned man” was said to be under arrest but actually wasn’t. An Indian student missing since March was named as a suspect on social media and his family were threatened as a result.

After the wave of manufactured hysteria an easily frightened people were then convinced to accept tanks in their streets and heed government calls to “shelter in place.” The nonsensical overreaction was superseded only by the use of Orwellian jargon used to create an even more compliant public.

The predictably maudlin moments of silence weren’t restricted to Boston. More than $20 million in monetary contributions were raised without the donors knowing who needed it or for what purpose. Tributes flowed along with money and no one ran a race anywhere on earth without mentioning the bravery of Bostonians. The president showed up and as always on such occasions uttered words seemingly written by his worst speechwriters. The full force of the government would catch the cowards and the people would not be frightened because they are the best and freest in the world and the prayers of the nation went out to them because of democracy and the whole world stood beside them. Amen.

There is another kind of terror that goes on continually. Most reported terror plots of recent years were created entirely by government agents. The FBI had some contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev who was killed by police in the bombing after math. It is possible that the FBI moved from creating phony terror plots to actually carrying one out. The likelihood that there will ever be impartial fact finding on this and other questions are slim to none.

Dzokhar Tsarnaev now lies in a hospital wounded by police gunfire and questioned without being read his rights. That treatment is a result of an Obama executive order which states that in cases of a “public safety exception” we have no such rights. Now that is everyday terror.

Margaret Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Manufacturing Terrorists – How FBI sting operations make jihadists out of hapless malcontents (therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com)

April 24, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States | Leave a comment

US officials now buckle on hyped up claims of toxic mail targeting Obama

Press TV – April 23, 2013

Following last week’s hyped up media reports on the arrest of a Mississippi man for mailing poisonous letters to US President Barack Obama, a senator and a judge, the FBI has announced that it has not found any poison-making materials at his home.

“There was no apparent ricin, castor beans or any material there that could be used for the manufacturing, like a blender or something,” FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) Agent Brandon Grant testified Friday at a preliminary hearing at a federal court in Oxford, Mississippi, according to local press reports on Monday and Tuesday.

Paul Kevin Curtis was arrested and charged last Wednesday on suspicion of mailing three letters tainted with ricin, a fatal biological poison, to Obama, Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker and a state judge just a day after the deadly Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, prompting growing fears across the US that the country may be under another major attack, reminiscent of the September 11, 2001 incidents in New York and Virginia that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Meanwhile, Curtis’ attorney, Christi McCoy, has insisted that “There is absolutely not a shred of evidence to link this poor guy” to an attempted poisoning.

“That’s the truth!” McCoy said. “He is the perfect scapegoat, the perfect patsy, and it’s really sad because at first everybody’s like, you know, he’s kind of crazy, maybe he did it. But as the searches continued, there’s just nothing on this guy. Nothing on his computers, in his car, in his house.”

US authorities first insisted that the letters tested positive for containing the deadly bio agent but then announced that more accurate examination of the mailings must be conducted at specialized FBI laboratories to confirm earlier tests.

This is while the FBI announced on Wednesday that is was still waiting for a “final word on whether the letters to Obama and Wicker definitely contained ricin.”

“The initial tests can be inaccurate,” a Washington Post report emphasized on Thursday, adding that in 2004 a letter sent to a top US senator was initially believed to contain ricin but additional tests proved it was harmless.

The letters sent to Obama and Wicker were reportedly similar in content and the origin of their postmark, Memphis, Tennessee. They read, “To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance.” Both of them were signed, “I am KC and I approve this message.”

According to local reports last Thursday, at least five other senators were reportedly forced into an emergency mode for receiving “suspicious” packages at their offices in Washington or their home states, “prompting evacuations of their staff and lock downs of many more.”

Furthermore, US police ordered thousand of congressional staffers and aides not to leave their offices after a bag was reportedly sighted at the entrance way of a Senate office building, as a bomb squad raced towards the Capitol Hill. Two hours later, however, the package, as well as two letters delivered to the officers of two senators was cleared as not harmful.

Curtis, according to US press reports, held a “morbid” theory that the American government was involved in an organ-selling conspiracy after observing body parts in the freezer of the hospital where he used to work in 1999.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the US confronted a series of alleged ‘anthrax attacks’ that were never formally solved. A former Army scientist, Steven Hatfill, was falsely and publicly implicated and later exonerated by way of several lawsuit settlements. Officials later focused on Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins, who killed himself in 2008, though the case against him was also met with doubts.

April 23, 2013 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kevin Curtis, Paul Kevin Curtis, United States | Leave a comment

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Zionism’s Violent Legacy

By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996

On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.

This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue

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