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Viagra, Gay Bloggers and Phony News

By Margaret Kimberley | BAR | June 23, 2011

The corporate media continue to follow the dictates of people in power, ignoring their obligation to report factual information in as unbiased a way as possible. Instead they behave like scribes in a royal court, dutifully repeating the words of the king in hopes of currying favor and gaining access. Their shameless behavior is on view yet again as another president with imperial aspirations tells obvious lies in order to gain support for wars of aggression.

At the urging of the United States government and NATO, the International Criminal Court has piled on its anti-Muammar Qaddafi rhetoric. One prosecutor even claims that Qaddafi is giving his troops Viagra and using rape as a weapon of war. He has done so without presenting any evidence and even worse, the American media are repeating the assertions without investigation of any kind.

When George W. Bush made the case for invading Iraq, he too used rape as a rhetorical weapon of war, claiming that Saddam Hussein had “rape rooms” in his palaces that were used to assault dissidents. In 2003 as in 2011, the claim was reported without evidence.

The service to their masters takes on many forms. If a president lies about his reasons for killing people, the lie is never exposed. Sometimes the media are so eager for the story which won’t upset the powerful, that they will extend the parameters of their falsehoods.

Such was the case with “Amina,” a Syrian blogger and lesbian who wrote critically about the regime of President Assad. The blog “A Gay Girl in Damascus” was followed by incredulous people all over the world, but it turned out that Amina never existed. The blog and Amina were the creations of a heterosexual American man living in Scotland who wanted to hasten the end of Assad’s days in power. When the non-existent Amina was reported missing, an alleged kidnap victim of the Syrian police, even the state department grew alarmed and made inquiries as to her safety.

“The blog and Amina were the creations of a heterosexual American man living in Scotland who wanted to hasten the end of Assad’s days in power.”

The hypocrisy manifested on the part of the United States government is quite stunning. While denying or minimizing the loss of lives caused by its actions in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti and on the part of any of its allies, the government was willing to use its power to ensure the safety of one person in Syria.

The government does not have a monopoly on these hypocritical expressions of outrage. Private citizens too, are moved to speak and act by a strange set of values. The phony blogger who created Amina knew what he was doing when he created a gay, female persona. Americans and Europeans are convinced of their own moral superiority vis a vis the Muslim world. They rarely say a word about when their governments kill Muslim women with their acts of war. They gasp in horror over the treatment of gay people in some societies, but they know or care little about how their governments’ actions create suffering for all people all over the globe.

We have a media that follows the dictates of government and sensational news items, that is to say sensationalism which proves racist notions of superiority and which don’t create any difficulties for the powerful. The bombing of a university in Tripoli, Libya ought to create a sensation, but that information never makes it onto the front pages.

The media scribes not only pick and choose what they do and don’t think worthy of their attention, but they are also unable to keep very simple facts straight. They are now repeating the Obama administration claim of a significant troop draw down in Afghanistan. The president will reportedly announce a withdrawal of somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000. However, even if he were to withdraw the higher number he would still leave 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, twice the number stationed there when he first took office. Simple arithmetic is yet another criteria that is too much to ask the members of the fourth estate.

Citizens who want to know what is happening in this country and around the world are at a great disadvantage. The old saw that it is unwise to believe everything we read should be modified. When it comes to the corporate media, perhaps we should believe nothing we read. We certainly would be no less knowledgeable of the truth.

~

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.

June 23, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

How To Report On Syria – WaPo Edition

Moon of Alabama | June 18, 2011

Do not visit the country. Report from Washington or Beirut.

Start with a thesis you have no way to verify. Use it as headline. For example:

Pressure on Syria’s Assad intensifies as protests persist

1a. Report of big demonstrations everywhere and of the government shooting demonstrators sourced solely to a shadowy anonymous group which claims to have organized them.

1b. Claim that the Syrian government “is not abandoning its strategy of relying on force to quell the dissent”.

2a. Report of a big and peaceful demonstration in Hama where no one was shot.

2b. Ignore your claim in 1b and claim that this is a sign that the government has “given up trying to assert control”.

3a. Report of various unsourced and likely false rumors.

3b. Claim that the various unsourced and likely false rumors “give the government jitters”.

3c. Quote someone from the Israel Lobby(!) in Washington(!) saying that the various unsourced and likely false rumors have the Syrian government “definitely panicking”.

4a. Report of a government concession which was obviously not a government concession.

4b. Have an opposition activist in Beirut(!) dismiss the government concession which was obviously not a government concession as being obviously not a government concession.

5a. Report that the Syrian leader is to make a televised address to the nation.

5b. Claim that this is a sign of his “absence”.

6. Quote the meaningless blustering of two anonymous U.S. officials in Washington(!).

7a. Report on reports about Turkish government intervention intentions which the Turkish government has thoroughly dismissed as utter nonsense.

7b. Claim that the opposition would like the reported Turkish government intervention which the Turkish government has thoroughly dismissed as utter nonsense.

7c. Quote an opposition activist in London(!) saying that the reported Turkish government intervention intentions which the Turkish government has thoroughly dismissed as nonsense is a “nightmare for the Syrian regime”.

7d. Claim that the “nightmare” is the explanation for an unrelated Syrian government operation against a small armed local rebellion.

8a. Repeat your reporting using various unsourced and likely false rumors.

8b. Quote an opposition activist in Ohio(!) with some theory about the meaning of the various unsourced and likely false rumors.

(Do NOT report of armed government opposition. Do NOT report that the demonstrations this Friday were smaller than last Friday. Do NOT report that the shadowy anonymous group’s website is registered and run in Germany by a German with a phone number in Berlin as contact information. Do NOT report that the group seems inactive as the last daily update on that site was eight days ago. )

Rinse and repeat next Friday.

June 18, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Libya ‘rape’ propaganda plunges to new depths of desperation

By Martin Iqbal – empirestrikesblack – 17 June 2011

The Libya war propaganda drive has plunged to new depths of cynicism, depravity, and a downright embarrassing lack of credibility.

Over a week after the ICC’s completely baseless claims of ‘rape being used as a weapon’ by Gaddafi’s forces, today CNN is running a propaganda set-piece that is so blatantly invented it makes one cringe with embarrassment for this rabble of liars and propagandists.

CNN claims that rebel forces have found mobile phone footage on ‘Gaddafi loyalists’, which allegedly shows them ‘raping women and torturing people’. Lo and behold, the story completely falls apart upon the most cursory inspection.

CNN plainly admits that they “cannot confirm when or where the video was shot“. To make matters worse for the propagandists behind this nonsense, there is no date to the video, and the men in the video are not even wearing Libyan Army clothing – they are dressed in civilian attire. But it gets better.

Their story revolves completely around this unverifiable mobile phone footage, and the testimony of NATO’s proxy ‘rebels’. On top of this CNN doesn’t reveal who their source is, and instead they parrot baseless claims from rebel spokespeople:

“We were able to confirm that rape was used as a weapon of war because it was systematic.”
~ Rebel spokesman Abdullah al-Kabeir

Without performing even the most basic journalistic duty of providing evidence, CNN simply forwards this completely unfounded claim from a rebel spokesperson.

According to CNN, Al-Kabeir also tells us:

The rebels have many videos showing other types of torture, and a few depict rape, he said. He did not know exactly how many videos there were showing abuse.

But his next admission really exposes this utter fabrication for what it is (emphasis added):

“There was a commander here at the eastern front in Misrata named Mohamed al-Halboos; he ordered all the (rebel) fighters to give him all the rape videos they find on Gadhafi soldiers’ cell phones. I heard that he used to destroy every rape video he got“

We are supposed to believe that Gaddafi’s forces are ‘systematically’ raping women in Libya, but all of the evidence has been destroyed.

It’s not just CNN that’s partaking in this onslaught of propaganda. Today, Time is running some similar ‘just trust us’ journalism. See the following report regarding doctors working in Benghazi (emphasis added):

They talk for hours about the rape of women. But it’s only stories. They have never met a victim.The medics don’t deny that others in the hospital may have treated rape victims. But they say the stigma of sexual assault runs so deep in Libyan culture that the raped are virtually forced into social exile, unable to wed, a humiliation to their entire family, choosing to remain silent rather than to give voice to the crime they have suffered.

That the likes of CNN and Time even expect anybody to believe this farcical nonsense demonstrates the contempt in which they hold their audience. The sheer laziness of this propaganda reflects how desperate NATO now is, spectacularly failing to achieve its objective of regime change using the ‘humanitarian intervention’ myth.

June 17, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Gay Ops of American Intel?

By Anthony Wile | The Daily Bell | June 15, 2011

A strange thing happened the other day. The blogosphere was swept by the confession of one Tom MacMasters that he was behind a well-known blog supposedly written by a lesbian and called Gay Girl in Damascus. It was convincing for the most part, and he even stole a picture online to identify his blog – which was apparently how he was discovered. His confession was wrenching and the blogosphere (which trends liberal these days) has been virtually convulsed ever since.

On the heels of the MacMasters’ incident, another blogger “Paula Brooks,” was revealed to be a man, Bill Graber. He had posted some of MacMasters’ lesbian musings on HIS lesbian news site. According to the Washington Post, Graber was a 58-year-old retired US air force officer. Graber identified himself as such when called by the Associated Press.

“LezGetReal was not meant to be deceitful or con anyone,” he is reported to have said. Apparently he didn’t comment on the coincidence of two men secretly operating two separate lesbian blogs, making coincidental contact with each other via email and then, quite by chance, supporting each others’ compositional efforts. Graber admittedly helped MacMasters develop his Internet presence.

Here is a possible truth: The Gay Girl in Damascus blog and LezGetReal are part of a sub dominant theme being purveyed by American intelligence agencies that are trying to undermine regimes in both Syria and Libya. The MO would also seem plausible as such Intel teams work in tandem (MacMasters and Graber), with one presenting the meme and the other one endorsing it. This can be seen on many libertarian (freedom-oriented) websites as well, where one will attack and the other endorse.

Already the usual suspects (Reuters, Washington Post and Slate) are producing articles comparing the MacMasters hoax with other hoaxers who “thought faking reports about a perceived truth was a valid form of advocacy.” The Reuters article carefully points out that the fraud had gone on for five years though the blog site was only five months old.

How Reuters can establish the five-year mark is a mystery – and is more in line with corroborating MacMasters’ potential cover story than debunking him. It is also surprising that such savvy news enterprises don’t even mention the possibility that these two men had links to American Intel.

The five month timeline for MacMasters’ blog is probably a good deal more accurate than five years and conforms to how intelligence promotions unfold, with a thin back-story measured in months not years. It also conforms almost exactly to the current agitation for regime change in Syria. Graber’s website seems to be down now, but a look at the cached version reveals that it has been in existence for three years. He says he was motivated by anger at “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Of course, it is always possible that all of the above is entirely coincidental. Two straight, white men, one with links to the US military, decide separately to set up their own lesbian blogs. They then met each other via email, though neither knows the other is a man and one, Graber, decides to promote the blog-stories of the other (MacMasters). Stranger things have happened, yes? As Slate informs us. “Sexual disguise is as old as humanity, and posing as a lesbian is merely a natural variant on the practice. It energizes writers as often as it does readers.”

MacMasters is admitting nothing as regards US Intel involvement (though many have begun to question how he makes a living and affords extended trips to the Middle East). He published a wrenching apology on the blog site explaining how he always wanted to be a fiction writer and that Amina Arraf, who didn’t exist, was a character that he could not discard. He had developed her, he writes, in the following way:

“I noticed that when I, a person with a distinctly Anglo name, made comments on the Middle East, the facts I might present were ignored and I found myself accused of hating America, Jews, etc. I wondered idly whether the same ideas presented by someone with a distinctly Arab and female identity would have the same reaction.” (Why he decided that his alter ego would be a LESBIAN is never explained.)

In Libya, reports that Muammar Gaddafi gave his soldiers Viagra to encourage them to perform mass rapes have swept the Internet despite the insanity of the concept. This seems to be deliberate disinformation. Now, we have the spectacle of a young man (40-ish) writing a blog about a young woman who is maltreated in Damascus because of her sexuality. In fact, before he was exposed, MacMasters had her abducted. Here is a post by a purported (fictional) cousin of Arraf called Rania:

I have been on the telephone with both her parents and all that we can say right now is that she is missing. Her father is desperately trying to find out where she is and who has taken her. Unfortunately, there are at least 18 different police formations in Syria as well as multiple different party militias and gangs. We do not know who took her so we do not know who to ask to get her back. It is possible that they are forcibly deporting her.

People’s sexuality is a private affair. But in the West, a 50-year battle (sponsored by the elites in our view) has been waged to inject private sexual practices into the public discussion. A decades-long campaign has been waged to reconfigure the state itself to recognize and provide benefits to “others.” The meme purveyed is that one is not fully human until one’s “rights” are legally enshrined in the pantheon of Western regulatory democracies.

The result has likely been destructive to the family itself, as the very public emphasis on other kinds of lifestyles (let alone legislation and public education) has surely had a corrosive effect on the historical family unit. Additionally, the Anglosphere elites have been able to cultivate an intelligentsia that is entirely constructed around minority – and sexual – issues.

Thus, sexual issues have become an issue of importance not only to the mainstream Western intelligentsia (such as it is) but also to many verbal and committed young men and women overseas. These young men and women look at the West and see that sexual issues are seemingly the most important to the modern Anglo-American intelligentsia, and thus these issues loom large overseas as well. This is also true of “women’s issues” in general, which are being used by the Pentagon and American Intel to justify America’s serial warring, bombing of women and children, etc.

Enter the CIA, FBI, military intelligence, etc. (We shall refer to the 16 separate American spy agencies as “American intel.”) Much American Intel in the lower ranks is made up of young men and women, but mostly young men who go to the same schools and have the same fairly insular views. In fact, they are chosen for these traits.

These young men, mostly, are not only adept at the use of sexual memes for propaganda purposes; they are perhaps, to some degree, fixated on them. Many opponents of the West’s (and America’s) current activities are targeted by sexual allegations, warranted or not. It is not surprising then, that these young men would design lesbian promotions.

Such promotions were designed to play on the sympathies of the modern, sexualized intelligentsia but also cater to the fixations of the young (or older) man involved in these intelligence agencies. To put it bluntly, to build propaganda around lesbians was at least partially a big joke.

One has to understand what is going on to fully appreciate it. These young men, unfortunately, are involved every day in undermining Western freedoms and in facilitating what can only be described as oppression at home and genocide abroad. They did not join the government in most cases to participate in such things, but this is what they have ended up doing.

Western Intel inevitably enforces the agenda of Western elites that are trying to build a New World Order – the public be damned. “Operation Damascus Lesbian” would seem to be only one tiny example of the gung-ho authoritarianism that now pervades these entities. In this case, the intention was seemingly to illustrate the intolerant and brutal methodologies of the Syrian secret services in the hopes of further undermining the regime. Western leaders apparently intend to make Syria a political appendage, and MacMasters’s Arraf spends a good deal of time writing about how horrible the Syrian government is.

Things went wrong. MacMaster’s apology, in his own voice, sounds sincere in places, but it mostly sounds shocked. He had no idea his story involving Arraf’s abduction would “go viral.” In fact, this is what undid him. The State Dept among others started an investigation and lesbian and gay bloggers started to look into the tale and became suspicious.

If he was American Intel, MacMasters was undone by his own success. But what Western Intel is discovering generally is that all the billions (trillions?) they have invested in spying infrastructure is increasingly at risk. There are reports now of hacker incidents focused on the US Senate and the IMF. Even if these are false-flag events, there are plenty of others like them. Likely, it will be increasingly difficult for spy agencies to operate with 20th century impunity, spying on citizens and manipulating them without having the favor returned.

Another interesting point is that the MacMasters incident may have given us a further glimpse into the vast promotional network that the Anglosphere elite has at its disposal. Any important story the elite and its enablers wish to devise and propagate is probably going to be picked up and reported by the wires. Whether it is the endless saga of lies surrounding global warming or Lesbians in Damascus, (or the brilliance of seeming elite puppets Lady Gaga or Julian Assange) anything that furthers the cause of the New World Order is to be reported uncritically to millions and even billions. It is king-making on a massive scale.

Will MacMasters and Graber get into any trouble for this seeming elaborate Intel hoax, over which normal people might go to jail, given the hyper-punitive nature of American justice? What kind of investigation will ensue, if any? Let us watch and wait. I won’t hold my breath.

June 17, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Factchecking Takeyh and Maloney

Moon of Alabama | June 16, 2011

There is another boring anti-Iran OpEd in the New York Times by Ray Takeyh and Suzanne Maloney. As usual it mangles the facts, gives a false diagnosis of the situation and comes up with the wrong policy prescription. “Iran wants nukes, the government there is divided, there is no one to talk to, thus more sanctions (and btw let’s bomb Iran).”

I will not bother to discuss it in detail but want to mark two issues if only to set the record straight.

The authors write:

[Ahmedinejad’s] fall from grace has been fierce and fast. […] The most devastating blow came in May from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who publicly repudiated his hand-picked protégé in a clash over presidential powers.

While there was one of the regular tussles in the Iranian power structures during April and early May since the end of that month the situation has decidedly changed and it is not what the op-ed authors say:

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a public endorsement of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday as he looked to resolve a months-long rift among the country’s conservative power elites.”While there are weaknesses and problems … the composition of the executive branch is good and appropriate, and the government is working. The government and parliament must help each other,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in an address to parliament members, later shown on state television.

But a united Iran does not fit the narrative the op-ed authors want to tell, they therefore just ignore the real situation.

Then there is this outright lie:

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s interest in dialogue was not motivated by any appreciation of American civilization or an impulse to reconcile. Rather, the provocative president saw talks as a means of boosting his stature at home and abroad while touting his vision of a strong nuclear-armed Iran.

Sure – like he touted in an interview in October 2005:

“Our religion prohibits us from having nuclear arms and our religious leader has prohibited it from the point of view of religious law. It’s a closed road,” the Khaleej Times quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

or when he touted at the UN summit on April 29 2009:

Allow me, as the elected President of the Iranian people, to outline the other main elements of my country’s initiative regarding the nuclear issue:1. The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates its previously and repeatedly declared position that in accordance with our religious principles, pursuit of nuclear weapons is prohibited. …

or in May 4 2010 at a UN NPT conference:

… the great Iranian nation, does not need the atomic bomb for its advancement and does not regard it as a means for its grandeur and pride.

or in that Larry King interview on September 22 2010

“We are not seeking the bomb. We have no interest in it. And we do not think that it is useful.”

Yes, Ahmedinejad is certainly touting a lot and consistently – AGAINST an Iran with nuclear weapons.

And while we are at it – congrats to Iran for launching its second satellite.

June 16, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Angeline Jolie goes where no humanitarian group can go.

Penny For Your Thoughts | June 16, 2011

“Mother Teresa” is going to be allowed to visit the alleged displaced Syrians in Turkey!!!
Oh, sorry that is Mother Angelina. ………
Angelina Jolie. The big breasted actress. The “earth mother” to all.

Lights, makeup, camera-ACTION.
Angelina stars in the globalist feature film “Lara Croft: Slave Provider for the Elites”
The UN’s “Goodwill Ambassador”. Sheesh!
Goodwill Ambassador is a nice fancy title, but what it really means is Angelina Jolie is the PR person.
She is public relations for the UN.
You see, Goodwill merely means friendly, helpful or cooperative feelings and/or attitude.
Angelina Jolie is therefore the smiling happy face of the globalist agenda.

Don’t believe me?
Don’t want to believe that Angelina Jolie is the smiling happy face of the globalists?
That she is a tool and nothing more, of the powers that be?

Besides her UN “goodwill ambassador” position, which is a public relations job.
Ms. Jolie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From the horse’s mouth

“She was honored for her philanthropic work by joining the Council on Foreign Relations. The prestigious think tank officially approved Jolie’s membership nomination.” In 2007.

Isn’t it curious that Turkey won’t let any aid/humanitarian groups into the camps.
But they will allow Angelina Jolie to visit.
What is wrong with that picture boys and girls???
EVERYTHING!

This is a Public Relations stunt!

How is it that this marginal actress will get access to refugee camps that Turkey has blocked all media and humanitarian groups from visiting??
Cameras will be in tow, as Angelina lovingly visits displaced persons.
From who knows where?

This stunt will be spoon fed to the Western audience via every TV/print media outlet
All the entertainment “news” outfits will cover this.
Guaranteeing the message of “bad Syria” will trickle all the way down to the dumbest of the dumb, the people who’s lives revolve around celebrity news.

This news, of Angelina’s visit, confirms my previous post and suspicions that the reporting surrounding the camps in Turkey is suspect. If there was a legitimate humanitarian concern then aid groups would be given access to the camps, not a tool of the globalist elite class, pushing a specific political agenda.

The overthrow of Syria’s government.

June 16, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

UN report debunks Israel’s Naksa propaganda

By Alex Kane | June 15, 2011

Immediately after the Israeli military reportedly killed dozens of unarmed demonstrators in the occupied-Golan Heights on June 15, Israel’s propaganda machine went into high gear.  Newly-released details from a United Nations report authored by the Secretary General clearly show that the Israeli spin on the Naksa protests was just that:  spin.

The principle claim was that the Israel Defense Forces only shot at the bottom half of protesters’ bodies, and therefore did not kill them.  Instead, as a New York Times report put it, the Israeli military said that “10 protesters were killed after they threw makeshift firebombs and started a fire that set off land mines near the border town of Quneitra, on the Syrian side of the lines.”

It turns out that there was indeed a fire that killed demonstrators, according to the UN.  But according to published accounts of Ban Ki-Moon’s report on the demonstrations, it was Israeli weaponry that caused the fire which ultimately killed protesters.

From Ha’aretz:

A UN report on the Naksa day events said the IDF used tear gas, smoke grenades and live fire to prevent the demonstrators from crossing the ceasefire line.

It stated: “Several anti-tank mines exploded due to a brush fire apparently started by tear gas or smoke grenade canisters near UNDOF facilities at Charlie Gate, resulting in casualties among protesters.”

The brush fire was put out by Syrian and Israeli fire squads, and UNDOF, the report read.

Meanwhile, the Zionist blogosphere is all over this story by Michael Weiss of the Telegraph that purports to show Syrian state documents proving that “Assad orchestrated Nakba Day raids” on the Golan Heights.  Weiss, who works for a pro-Israel advocacy group, claimed that the document was authentic and originated from the “‘Office of the Mayor’ in Al-Qunaitera province.”  But blogger Richard Silverstein throws cold water on Weiss’ report, writing that it was Israeli intelligence–which has a history of pushing false stories in the media–who leaked the memo to him.

June 15, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

The West’s Obscene Demonization of Gaddafi

By Glen Ford | BAR | June 15, 2011

The slander campaign against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi has reached way beyond the realm of the ridiculous, and can only be described as obscene. We are now supposed to believe that Colonel Gaddafi, himself, ordered his soldiers to rape hundreds of women. There is not one bit of hard evidence that such mass rapes have occurred, but that does not seem to matter to a corporate media that are bent on glorifying the Benghazi-based rebels and demonizing Gaddafi and his soldiers. Amnesty International, an organization that is decidedly hostile to Gaddafi’s government, admits that it cannot find evidence of mass rapes by the Libyan armed forces. And the man in charge of the United Nations’ human rights investigation in Libya told journalists that “massive hysteria” was behind the rape charge. Nevertheless, the western media repeat the baseless allegations ad nauseam, like young boys telling dirty stories.

The International Criminal Court, which specializes in prosecuting Africans who get on the wrong side of the United States, speaks vaguely of being in possession of evidence, but it turns out that the allegations come from one Libyan woman, who claims that she sent out inquiries about sexual assaults to 70,000 women, that 60,000 of them responded, and 259 reported they had been abused. But when investigators asked this solitary source to show them the questionnaires, as investigative reporter Russ Baker tells us, she could not produce the evidence. And it is a mystery how she could have mailed out and gotten back tens of thousands of questionnaires, when Libya’s postal system had been shut down by the war.

This war was launched on the basis of an imaginary massacre of Libyan civilians by Gaddafi’s forces – which, of course, never happened – and is now fueled by a campaign of demonization and a depraved indifference to the truth.

Certainly since 2001, the world has been subjected to a massive U.S. psychological assault, a vast disinformation operation in which the corporate media act as megaphones for government liars.

The invasion of Iraq was launched by lies about weapons of mass destruction. When the lies fell apart, American politicians justified the war by saying it was worth it to get rid of the monster, Saddam Hussein. Saddam was so thoroughly demonized that any amount of maiming and death would be acceptable to erase him from the scene. If Saddam Hussein was the Devil, himself, then there could be no limits on military efforts to eliminate him. Now, the same kind of dehumanizing psychological offensive is directed at Moammar Gaddafi, who is depicted in comic-book style as a puppet master of mass rape, so that whatever death and destruction is rained down on Libya by NATO, it will have been “worth it.” This is a profoundly dangerous way for a superpower to behave. It fills the population with a bloodlust that cannot be easily controlled. The U.S. government, with plenty of help from the media, is telling Americans that those who oppose U.S. policies in the world are savages. That’s what the white settlers said about the Indians, and we know how that ended.

~

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

June 15, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Rape in Libya: America’s recent major wars have all been accompanied by memorable falsehoods

Peter Dale Scott | The Aasia-Pacific Journal | June 13, 2011

It is a troubled Time for NATO’s campaign against Libya. President Obama has seen a near-revolt in Congress against the costly war, while Defense Secretary Gates in Brussels has warned his European allies that their tepid response “is putting the Libya mission and the alliance’s very future at risk.”1 Back home, according to the London Daily Mail, “Mr Gates has requested extra funds for Libya operations, but has been rebuffed by the White House.”2

The past history of American wars tells us that, when the war-going begins to get tough, the professional p.r. campaigns get going, often with wholly invented stories. For example, when in 1990 Defense Secretary Colin Powell was expressing doubts that the United States should attack Kuwait, stories appeared that, as revealed by classified satellite photos, Saddam had amassed 265,000 troops and 1500 tanks at the edge of the Saudi Arabian border. Powell then changed his mind, and the attack proceeded. But after the invasion a reporter from the St. Petersburg Times viewed satellite photos from a commercial satellite, and “she saw no sign of a quarter of a million troops or their tanks.”3

Hawks in Congress, notably Tom Lantos and Stephen Solarz, secured support for the attack on Iraq with a story from a 15-year-old girl, that she had seen Kuwaiti infants snatched from their incubators by Iraqi soldiers. The story was discredited when it was learned that the girl, the daughter of the Saudi ambassador in Washington, might not have visited the hospital at all. She had been prepped on her story by the p.r. firm Hill & Knowlton, which had a contract for $11.5 million from the Kuwaiti government.4

The history of American foreign interventions is littered with such false stories, from the “Remember the Maine” campaign of the Hearst press in 1898, to the false stories of a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. destroyers in the so-called Second Tonkin Gulf incident of August 4, 1964. We know furthermore that in their Operation Northwoods documents, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 proposed a series of ways, some of them lethal, to deceive the American people in order to engineer a war against Cuba.5

Since the fiasco of the false Iraqi stories in 1990-91, these stories have tended to be floated by foreign sources, usually European. This was conspicuously the case with the forged yellowcake documents from Italy underlying Bush’s misleading reference to Iraq in his 2003 State of the Union address.6 But it was true also of the false stories linking Saddam Hussein to the celebrated anthrax letters of 2001. (Their anthrax was later determined to have come from a U.S. biowarfare laboratory.)7

This recurring history of falsified stories to justify interventions should be on our minds as we now face the allegations, as yet neither proven nor disproven, that Gaddafi has been using rape as a method to fight insurrection, and may have been guilty of raping victims himself. These charges were made on June 8 by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who claimed (according to Time Magazine)

there were indications that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had ordered the rape of hundreds of women during his violent crackdown on the rebels and that he had even provided his soldiers with Viagra to stimulate the potential for attacks.*

According to Time, the rape stories are being circulated by doctors who claim to have met and treated patients but do not have patients’ permission to reveal their identities. Earlier, according to a Libyan doctor interviewed in an Al Jazeera video, “many doctors have found Viagra and condoms in the pockets of dead pro-Gaddafi fighters, as well as treated female rape survivors. The doctor insists this clearly indicates the Gaddafi regime is using rape as a weapon of war.”9

But what of Moreno’s charge that “Now we are getting some information that Gaddafi himself decided to rape, and this is new.”10 This is a sensational charge: until we learn there is a reliable source for it, one can suspect it was made to grab headlines.

One problem in investigating these charges is that Libyan culture is so unkind to rape victims that they are reluctant to come forward. Researchers for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were unable to find one woman who said she had been raped. A U.N. human rights investigator, Cherif Bassiouni, told Agence France-Presse that the rape and Viagra stories were being circulated by the Benghazi authorities as “part of a ‘massive hysteria.’” In fact he had discovered only three cases.11

Military conflict of course is normally accompanied by rape. What might constitute a war crime would be whether (to quote Time) Gaddafi “had provided his soldiers with Viagra.” Moreno actually said, according to the Associated Press, that “some witnesses confirmed that the [Libyan] government was buying containers of Viagra-type drugs ‘to enhance the possibility to rape.’”

Others have objected that the purchase of Viagra-type drugs falls far short of indicating a war crime. Former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, in Tripoli on an investigative mission, has pointed out in her emails that to date the one army known to have distributed Viagra as part of its war operations is the U.S. Army – as a bribe to entice information from aging tribal leaders in Afghanistan.12

Time’s subtle enhancement of Moreno’s claim – from purchasing Viagra to providing it to soldiers, reminds us of the sorry record of the U.S. mainstream media in circulating past false stories to justify war. It is painful to say this, but virtually every major U.S. military intervention since Korea has been accompanied by false stories. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo should be pressed to come forward quickly with the supporting evidence for his charges, which should be based on more than the testimony of doctors working for the Benghazi regime.

Notes

1 “Gates rebukes NATO allies, warns of ‘dismal’ future,” Agence France-Presse, June 10, 2011.

2 “The billion dollar war? Libyan campaign breaks Pentagon estimates costing U.S. taxpayers $2 million a day,” London Daily Mail, June 9, 2011.

3 “No Casus Belli? Invent One,” Guardian (London), February 5, 2003.

4 Ted Rowse, “Kuwaitgate – killing of Kuwaiti babies by Iraqi soldiers exaggerated,” Washington Monthly, September 1992.

5 Scott, American War Machine, 195-201.

6 Terry H. Anderson, Bush’s Wars, 97.

7 Consider the following story in the London Daily Mail by Simon Reeve: Iraq has been identified as the most likely source of the anthrax used to terrorise America during recent weeks. New plans are now being considered for retalia tory military strikes against Saddam Hussein, according to American government officials. Although studies of the anthrax spores sent through the mail are continuing, American scientists have discovered “hallmarks” that point to Iraqi involvement. American investigators are increasingly convinced that the anthrax was smuggled into the US and mailed to a number of targets by unidentified “sleeper” supporters of Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization. (Simon Reeve, “Scientists Link Iraq to Anthrax Terror Attacks,” Sunday Mail.

8 [London], October 28, 2001; discussed in Peter Dale Scott, American War Machine, 194-95). [The example is also interesting in its fusing of Saddam and Al Qaeda, in fact bitter rivals]

9 Karen Leigh, “Rape in Libya: The Crime That Dare Not Speak Its Name,” Time, June 9, 2011.

10 Washington Post Blogpost, March 29, 2011.

11 Agence France-Presse, June 9, 2011.

12 “UN investigator casts doubt over Libya mass rape claims,” Agence France Presse, June 9, 2011.

13 Toby Hamden, “CIA give Afghan warlords Viagra in exchange for information on Taliban,” Telegraph [London], December 26, 2008.

June 14, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Uncivilized Relations: Israel Confronts its Neighbours

By Brenda Heard / Dissident Voice / June 9th, 2011

Photo credit – Amelia Opalinska

The turmoil that has beleaguered the Middle East for decades has been described many ways.  On the 5th of June, however, the terminology turned vulgar.  This enduring conflict was publicly characterized as a ‘war between the civilized man and the savage’.  Boldly announced with a plea to ‘support Israel/defeat Jihad’, the full page advertisement ran in the New York Post’s special section covering the city’s ‘Celebrate Israel’ parade.

Declaring the Muslim people ‘savage’ is, of course, just a school-yard taunt from Islamaphobe Pamela Geller, who gleefully takes credit for the advertisement.  Had her rant been limited to her own blog, we might easily dismiss it.  The problem lies in its acceptance into mainstream discourse.  The Post may be tabloid journalism, but its paper edition remains the seventh most popular paper in America.  And this sort of crude advertisement for a political cause panders to a public comfortable with the mind-set of ‘don’t bore me with the details’.

But the details are critical if we are to consider a conflict that has taken thousands of lives.  How can we, for instance, reconcile the concept of ‘civilized’ with the reality of shooting unarmed protesters?  The advertisement asks us to accept Israel as ‘civilized’; yet as these very words were first read, Israeli soldiers were shooting into a crowd of Syrian-Palestinians, killing 24 and injuring another 350.

Even if we were to set aside troublesome issues of borderlines and occupation zones, lethal violence hardly qualifies as a civilized response to what was unmistakeably only a symbolic demonstration.  It had been loudly announced in advance.  Had the protesters indeed posed a physical threat, then they might have been easily overpowered and arrested by the Israeli military on hand.  But that would have been a sensible—a civilized—means of containing the situation.

The deadly violence chosen by the Israeli forces on the 5th of June mirrors the same used just three weeks prior, during the Nakba demonstrations.  And these echo hundreds and hundreds of instances when Israeli forces have brazenly attempted to destroy anything and anyone deemed inconvenient.  Perhaps the most egregious example, though, happened 29 years ago during the first week of June 1982.

In a defiant escalation of the Zionist occupation of Southern Lebanon in place since March 1978, the Israeli government and military flagrantly snubbed the ruling of the United Nations.  Using brute force, the Israeli forces intensified efforts to gain territory and to obliterate any resistance to their project.  Despite the presence of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) as international peacekeepers, the Israelis insisted on their own form of deadly control.

On 4 June 1982 Israel conducted air raids in and around Beirut.*  Together with its mercenary militia, Israeli ground forces also engaged in intense artillery fire in Southern Lebanon.  Both the Secretary General  of UNIFIL and the President of the UN Security Council issued urgent appeals to ‘adhere strictly to the cease-fire that had been in effect since July 1981 and to refrain immediately from any hostile act likely to provoke an aggravation of the situation’.

By way of answer, the next day Israeli forces amplified their intent.  They multiplied air strikes.  They increased artillery fire on the ground with added naval artillery power.  Again, UNIFIL reiterated its call for a simultaneous cessation of hostilities.  The UN Security Council passed Resolution 508, calling for all parties ‘to cease immediately and simultaneously all military activities within Lebanon and across the Lebanese-Israeli border’.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) agreed.  The Israeli Representative, however, stated the Resolution would have to be brought before the Israeli Cabinet.

Despite UNIFIL’s continued efforts throughout the night of 5 June, Israeli air strikes resumed shortly after 0600, the morning of 6 June—precisely the deadline given in Resolution 508 to cease fire.

The Chairman of the PLO informed UNIFIL that ‘in spite of heavy Israeli air-strikes after the scheduled time of the cease-fire, he had given orders to all PLO units to withhold fire for a further, unspecified period’.   When UNIFIL then met later that morning with the chief of the Israeli military forces, the agenda was the implementation of Resolution 508.

Instead, UNIFIL was informed that Israel was launching a military operation into Lebanon within half an hour.  UNIFIL was warned to stay out of the way.  UNIFIL protested, to no avail:

Israeli ground forces, including a very large number of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, moved into Lebanese territory in strength. . . . UNIFIL troops attempted to prevent the entry and advance of the Israeli forces.  On the coastal road, for example, Dutch soldiers planted obstacles before advancing Israeli tank column; one tank was damaged; the obstacles, however, were pushed aside, as was the Dutch guardhouse.  Tank barrels were pointed at UNIFIL soldiers during the entire encounter, likewise, in the other battalion areas, obstacles were forcibly removed and bulldozed.  At Khardala Bridge, a small Nepalese position stood its ground for two days, despite harassments and threats.  On the morning of 8 June, their position was partially destroyed/and some 100 Israeli tanks began to cross the bridge.  Despite the efforts of UNIFIL, from the start of the invasion, the overwhelming strength and weight of the Israeli forces precluded the possibility of stopping them, and UNIFIL positions in the line of the invasion were thus overrun or by-passed.

Later that day, the UN Security Council met again and unanimously adopted Resolution 509, demanding the withdrawal of Israeli military forces and cessation of all military activities.

Contrary to the Resolution, on 7 June, Israeli forces—comprising more than two mechanized divisions, with full air and naval support—expanded their positions northward and waged intense fighting.

On 8 June, the Security Council met again, but no resolution was adopted, because of the negative vote from the US.  At the same time, Israeli forces resumed their pattern of blocking movement of UNIFIL forces and took prisoner 62 Lebanese Army soldiers who were serving under the operational command of UNIFIL.  When UNIFIL demanded their return, the Israeli military released them to its mercenary militia instead.  This common ruse was vigorously protested.  Again to no avail.

And so this pattern of lawlessness continued, bringing years of violent rampage through Lebanon.  There was nothing civilized about it.  Just as there was nothing civilized in the recent shooting of protesters in Lebanon and Syria.  When advertisement-maker Pamela Geller suggests otherwise, the facts fail to substantiate her claim.

In her review of the Celebrate Israel parade, she refers several times to the event in religious terms.  God was smiling on the paraders, she tells us, providing them with sunshine for their pro-Jewish rally.  Syrians and Palestinians, on the other hand, she classifies as interchangeable Muslims, Jew-haters, Nazis upon whose Nakba bund rallies God frowned upon with torrential rains.  The celebration, it seems, had little to do with a political entity, and much to do with being a so-called chosen people.  A so-called civilized people.

But in civilized society, we might counter, we co-exist not by the rule of force, but by the rule of law.  In civilized society, God—whether we accept ‘God’ as a concept or as a reality—represents justice and righteousness.  It is a gross distortion of civilized thought to imagine God laying down bets on his favourite football club and then fixing the game for a good laugh.  No, in a civilized society, we take responsibility for our actions.

*The details of the events of June 1982 are documented in the ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon’, S/15194/Add.1, 11 June 1982, http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/7264B57A6DD3E85B8525701B0072A4F5

~

Brenda Heard is the founder and director of Friends of Lebanon, London. She can be contacted at: mail@friendsoflebanon.org.

June 9, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Interview: Antony Loewenstein on Palestine’s struggle in Australia

Sarah Irving | The Electronic Intifada | 8 June 2011

Antony Loewenstein (antonyloewenstein.com) is a writer and journalist based in Sydney, Australia and a founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices. His first book, My Israel Question, was an Australian best-seller and was short-listed for the 2007 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award; an updated third edition was published in 2009. His second book, The Blogging Revolution, about the Internet in repressive regimes, was released in 2008 and an updated second edition will be out later this year.

Loewenstein has written widely about the recent furor over the vote by Marrickville Council in Sydney to observe a full boycott, divestment & sanctions (BDS) strategy on Israeli products. After vitriolic attacks in the Australian press, especially Murdoch-owned newspapers such as The Australian, and hostile statements by federal and state-level politicians, a second council vote rescinded the BDS motion, while affirming the council’s support for the aims of the BDS movement. The Green Party mayor of Marrickville, Fiona Byrne, who had backed BDS, lost the ensuing state election to Australian Labor Party candidate Carmel Tebbutt, although she did achieve a large swing to the Greens.

In articles for Australian publications such as New Matilda and Crikey, Loewenstein has accused the mainstream press of “misrepresentations and outright falsehoods” in its reporting of the Marrickville affair, noting that “there have been dozens of articles in the Australian recently calling the Greens ‘extremists,’ implying the party is anti-Semitic, claiming BDS is akin to genocide, extensively quoting the Labor and Liberal parties (who unsurprisingly both condemn BDS) and the Zionist lobby (who again oppose it) (“Where are the Arab voices in Aussie BDS debate?,” 15 April 2011).

Sarah Irving interviewed Antony Loewenstein for The Electronic Intifada.

Sarah Irving: One of the odd things about the Marrickville episode is that there was very little media coverage of the actual decision by the council to observe the BDS call. The press storm suddenly erupted about six weeks later, when the campaign for the New South Wales state elections really kicked off. Although the focus was on the boycott of Israel, was this really an Australian political issue?

Antony Loewenstein: I think that analysis is probably pretty true. When the BDS motion was announced in December it almost went unnoticed. I think what changed was three things. First, a state election was coming in March. Second, the Green Party in Australia in the last nine months or so has gone from being an important third player to very important third player.

They partly assist in the federal balance of power — there are independents as well — and there was, predictably, from the Australian Labor Party, the [right-wing] Liberal Party and from the Murdoch press, a sense that the Greens need to be “cut down to size.” A federal Labor minister, Anthony Albanese, got involved, saying that the Greens were being extreme and so on. His wife, Carmel Tebbutt, was running against Fiona Byrne, the Green mayor of Marrickville, for the state legislature. Albanese didn’t mention this rather important detail when the press covered the issue, that his wife was running, which almost smacks of dishonesty, and the fact that the Murdoch press didn’t mention it either shows how dishonest they are.

So it was almost like there was a federal intervention in the debate and it was seen as a perfect way to try and divide and conquer the Greens. You had senior federal ministers, Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister and now foreign minister, and Barry O’Farrell, then the state opposition leader and now Liberal state premier, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke — this litany of hacks who had spent most of their professional lives demonizing Arabs and who were now asked to speak on the Arab-Palestinian question. Arabs and Palestinians were largely ignored.

I suppose it was seen as a potentially effective way to divide and conquer the Greens and to show anybody who seriously thought about speaking up for Palestinians that this is what happens to you. You will be punished and attacked and defamed and often given no right of reply. That’s the message, and a lot of people I’ve spoken to in the last few months who might once have spoken out now won’t, or didn’t, because they’ve been scared off. That includes trade unions who supported BDS. Many of the unions in the country last year came out in support of BDS — it was partial BDS, more often the settlement boycott, but it’s a start. There were attempts to get them to say something, to speak out in support of Marrickville Council. But there was deadly silence. Not least, in my guess, because of their connections to the Labor Party.

Sarah Irving: Was the rabid reaction to the Marrickville boycott vote by much of the mainstream press, whether Rupert Murdoch-owned or not, in keeping with their usual stance on Israel and the Palestinians?

Antony Loewenstein: The Murdoch press is obviously known in Britain and America — it’s not confined to Australia — for being pretty antagonistic towards Arabs and Muslims. It’s very much signed up to the whole “War on Terror” rhetoric and all which that means. The “War on Terror” has been wonderful for the Murdoch empire’s business, as we’ve seen most recently with Bin Laden’s death.

We also have a situation in Australia which is not unique to us, where the vast majority of politicians and an awful lot of journalists and editors are sent on trips by the Zionist lobby to Israel. They go there semi-regularly, they spend five or six days there, they will spend maybe five minutes in Ramallah [in the occupied West Bank] if they’re lucky. But most of their time will be in Israel hearing about the great threat from the Arabs, the Iranian threat, peace is a long way off — blah blah blah.

They’ll then come back and talk about a two-state solution and the glories of peace. It reflects badly on the hundreds of journalists and editors who’ve been flown to Israel by the lobby and who have not said, “can I do my own thing?”

The idea of simply having your hand held like that is incomprehensible to me. You are a sycophant. They are often people who have critical faculties on other issues, but they go to Israel and they are almost guaranteed to be publishing propaganda when they return. The last trip went late last year, about ten people went, including some good journalists from the Sydney Morning Herald, and before they went I said on my website that we can guarantee one thing: when they get back, they’ll be talking about Iran, [that] Iran’s a threat. And that’s what they wrote. They admit that “sure, there’s an issue with Palestine, but Iran is the problem.” It’s almost like there is an unspoken obligation to your host for having wined and dined you for a week.

So most of the media has “form” in one way or another. I wouldn’t say that the reaction to Marrickville was more extreme than usual but I would say that there was little or no context about why BDS is not an idea put forward by neo-Nazis, which is the impression you’d have got by reading the press, and that it has growing support. But the latter is in some ways the Achilles’ heel — that the boycott is getting international support, which is exactly why there was this attempt to crush it here. The people who follow this issue know what’s happening in parts of Europe and Britain and even some parts of the US. This was a perfect opportunity, so they thought, to crush it here before it really took off. A local Sydney council was a perfect way to do it, and the fact that there was a Green mayor, even better.

SI: The extreme press response is being widely seen amongst Australian activists as having been a tactic to scare other public bodies, such as universities or councils, away from considering BDS policies. Has it worked for the moment?

AL: Put it this way: those unions which signed up last year have not rescinded their BDS motions. But they haven’t said much about it publicly either. I did notice, though, that the Maritime Union of Australia put out a statement supporting partial BDS, which is the first one I’ve seen for a while. Essentially it was saying that “Palestine’s got a problem, we support BDS, bring it on.” It didn’t mention Marrickville specifically. And while the Maritime Union is not one of the top unions in the country it does have a sizable membership. The other unions have been conspicuous by their silence, and I think that’s probably because they want to remain a bit quiet because of the Australian Labor Party, which goes to show how morally bankrupt the ALP has become.

SI: Was the mainstream press and political reaction to the Marrickville vote part of a wider systemic attitude towards BDS in Australia?

AL: Yes. I don’t necessarily see it as part of a coordinated campaign against BDS. By that I mean I don’t think there was a meeting in a room between the Israel lobby, the Murdoch press and and Labor Party. They don’t even need to do that. It doesn’t need to happen that way.

There’s a sense that the Palestine debate in Australia is one that’s largely about excluding the voice of Palestinians. There are recent exceptions, not least because of a handful of pro-Palestinian groups who’ve been pro-active in lobbying the mainstream media to get some representation. But there is an ingrained racism in the corporate press in Australia. Very few non-Anglo figures appear in the papers or on TV regularly. You hear very few Arab voices in general; it’s not just about Palestinians. I think there is a deliberate exclusion. As in many countries, the media is largely run by old white men.

In some ways what happened in the Arab revolutions should have given them, you would think, unique opportunities to have people speaking in their own voice from Tunisia and Libya. There have been Tunisians and dissident Libyans and Egyptians in our media, but largely it is still white journalists going to country X to write about it. When was the last time the Australian media had a major Egyptian, Libyan or Tunisian activist or nongovernmental organization writing in our papers, in their words? It’s happened, but very rarely.

The Palestinian issue is very similar. The idea of even suggesting that journalists should include Arab voices within the Marrickville story barely occurred. Sure it was about local politics as well, but the idea that you’d write about Palestine and not even think, “Gee, what does an Arab think?” It’s almost like the worst example of what happens in the New York Post or on FOX — and it wasn’t all in the Murdoch media, I might add.

The Palestinian question here is also about US foreign policy and Australian policy, which is that we are essentially a client state of the US and proud of being so. The Australian government talks about being independent but is quite the opposite. Australia has framed its world-view around receiving protection from America. There’s an unspoken idea that if we get invaded by Indonesia or China or some other other “Asian” country, who’s gonna protect us? America, allegedly.

So in order to stay in line with US policy, the Palestinian question here seems to be based around deliberately ignoring what Israel is doing in Palestine. So when you have pro-BDS types, whether Palestinians or Jews, saying BDS is necessary because of how Israel behaves, because there is a lack of legality, because there is impunity for occupation crimes, a lot of people in the media often say “that’s just ridiculous.” They’ll come out with the usual lines about Israel being a democracy. There is a line of ignoring what occupation means; it’s barely used as a word. It’s a “territorial dispute” and we’re engaged in a “peace process” and Abbas is “talking to the Americans” and so on.

SI: Even in the left-of-center, “alternative” media — online publications such as New Matilda and Crikey — there was only some coverage of Marrickville, BDS and the press response, and much of it was coming from you, Antony. Would they have covered the story if you hadn’t pitched it to them?

AL: There’s really a couple of issues here. Within many activist groups it seems like there’s an element of either naivete or of defeatism — they think “well they wouldn’t publish this anyway, so why bother?”

I’m not saying everyone thinks like that, but I’m not the only person who could be writing about this. I’m not Arab or Palestinian. Obviously I’m Jewish and I’m engaged because of that issue, feeling that “my people” are committing crimes in “my name,” which is a pretty awful feeling. But I do know a number of cases where Palestinians tried to get in those publications and didn’t succeed. I don’t know about the facts behind that. I can’t speak for those publications. I also think that even in some “alternative” publications here there is a degree of wariness about the issue. It’s seen as two rabid sides and that we need some “moderation.”

I would also like some other Jewish voices, younger Jewish voices, to be speaking out. There are some, but so few. You don’t hear in Australia, as you do in the UK and America, those Jewish dissident voices. I think it reflects badly on how unimportant real human rights are for the majority of Jewish people in Australia. Some of them might campaign about refugees or indigenous issues, which are important, but for me the real test of someone’s conscience is how they deal with issues that are close to home. I’m not saying that other issues don’t matter, but it’s how you deal with an issue which affects you, which is close to your family. That’s the real test of someone’s personality and sadly the majority of Jews here are failing by ignoring the issue, or campaigning against it, or staying silent. It’s disappointing and frustrating.

Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. Her first book, Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was published in January 2010. Her new edition of the Bradt Guide to Palestine is out in November 2011, and her biography of Leila Khaled in spring 2012.

Antony Loewenstein’s website can be found at antonyloewenstein.com.

June 8, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

‘Fayyadism’ revealed: UN report throws cold water on the economic mirage in the West Bank

By Adam Horowitz | Mondoweiss | June 8, 2011

In recent years it has become popular among liberal commentators in the US to celebrate Salam Fayyad and his plan for Palestine. Despite evidence of widespread human rights abuses under his watch, or more accurately at his and US Lieutenant General Keith Dayton’s command, Fayyad’s state building plan has been lauded, mainly because it prioritizes building the Palestinian economy over securing Palestinian rights. In the words of the New York Times‘ Roger Cohen “he’s getting things done, improving people’s lives, and Palestinians are tired of going nowhere.”

This perspective has been best summarized by none other than Thomas Friedman, who has dubbed the phenomena “Fayyadism.” Here Friedman describes Fayyadism as only he can:

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the wider Middle East what off-Broadway is to Broadway. It is where all good and bad ideas get tested out first. Well, the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, a former I.M.F. economist, is testing out the most exciting new idea in Arab governance ever. I call it “Fayyadism.”

Fayyadism is based on the simple but all-too-rare notion that an Arab leader’s legitimacy should be based not on slogans or rejectionism or personality cults or security services, but on delivering transparent, accountable administration and services.

Fayyad, a former finance minister who became prime minister after Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007, is unlike any Arab leader today. He is an ardent Palestinian nationalist, but his whole strategy is to say: the more we build our state with quality institutions — finance, police, social services — the sooner we will secure our right to independence. I see this as a challenge to “Arafatism,” which focused on Palestinian rights first, state institutions later, if ever, and produced neither.

Things are truly getting better in the West Bank, thanks to a combination of Fayyadism, improved Palestinian security and a lifting of checkpoints by Israel. In all of 2008, about 1,200 new companies registered for licenses here. In the first six months of this year, almost 900 have registered. According to the I.M.F., the West Bank economy should grow by 7 percent this year.

The last point is the most common one raised by Fayyad’s supporters. This economic growth is supposed to prove Palestinians worthiness for a state in international eyes, and was even been seized upon by Benjamin Netanyahu in his recent address to Congress as a sign that the occupation is not a hinderance to Palestinian aspirations. After giving Fayyad props for leading the charge, Netanyahu also took credit for the Palestinian’s economic growth

We’ve helped, on our side, we’ve helped the Palestinian economic growth by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable. The Palestinian economy is booming. It’s growing by more than 10 percent a year. And Palestinian cities — they look very different today than what they looked just few — a few years ago. They have shopping malls, movie theaters, restaurants, banks. They even have e-businesses, but you can’t see that when you visit them.

It all sounds wonderful, but it isn’t true.

I’m not saying that there aren’t restaurants or banks, and it is even possible that the Palestinian economy grew 7% by some measure in the West Bank during the last year, but a new UN report released today reveals the truth behind the sloganeering. The report issued by UNRWA shows that unemployment in the West Bank stands near 24%, and is even higher for refugees, while the “West Bank miracle” is based almost entirely on international aid. From Reuters:

The report by the agency UNRWA shows that unemployment in the second half of 2010 grew much faster than employment, and average purchasing power continued to decline.

Of six major private sector activities, only two recorded employment gains during the second half of last year. Overall, one in four Palestinians in the workforce was unemployed.

“While there was modest employment growth, such growth was on the wane in 2010 while the number of unemployed accelerated in the second half of the year,” said author Salem Ajluni.

The report’s findings challenge assertions that the Palestinian economy is growing, helped by the removal of Israeli roadblocks and other movement restrictions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech to the U.S. Congress last month that the Palestinian economy was booming.

Palestinian policymakers have projected growth of 7 percent in 2011 for both the West Bank and Gaza, though they point out that high growth rates in recent years have largely been dependent on international aid for the Palestinians.

The UNRWA report said: “The average broad refugee unemployment rate rose by more than a percentage point to 27.9 percent relative to first-half 2009 as compared to 24.1 per cent rate for non-refugees.”

A UNRWA spokesman goes on to say, “The occupation and its related infrastructure such as settlements and settler-only roads that encroach on and divide Palestinian land, settler violence and the West Bank barrier have diminished prospects for Palestinians in general and especially for refugees.”

This really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Last year around this time Save the Children UK released a report saying that poverty was worse in parts of the West Bank than in Gaza. Still, I imagine it might come as a shock to some on the Times editorial page. Although international aid has made some enclaves in the occupied territories, especially parts of Ramallah, feel as though they’re booming, this money has flowed mostly through the Palestinian Authority patronage system and enriched a few. This story would have been more obvious if reporters had traveled a bit off the beaten path, but I guess that’s a bit too far off Broadway.

June 8, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

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