Terry Gross has no empathy for Palestinians
By Susie Kneedler on June 16, 2010
Terry Gross once ended an interview with Palestinian human rights lawyer Raja Shehadeh by asking whether he wanted to “mov[e] someplace else so that you wouldn’t be subjected to this… Israeli incursion.” Shehadeh retorted gently, “life…under Occupation” has “never been as difficult and as dangerous…and as frustrating as it is now. But, no, I will not leave.” NPR transcript here.
Terry Gross boasts in her new ad that “often when I’m interviewing people on Fresh Air, they give me a different way of looking at the world,” but her condescension to Shehadeh, a founder of Al-Haq (The Truth), shows how blind she is to Palestinian rights under International Law and how much she assumes Palestinians must make way for Israel’s expansion.
Gross has done no reports on the flotilla raid, and this just bears out her historical pattern. I’ve wondered for years about Gross’s cowardice in the face of Israeli injustice. She truly sides with the oppressors, imagining that they’re still victims. I listened to all three interviews that Gross had with Raja Shehadeh. And each time she administered an immediate antidote of airing an Israel booster, and not just any Israelis, but rightwingers: Yossi Klein Halevi, February 6, 2002; Michael Oren, June 11, 2002; and now Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz, October 28, 2003.
In the prologue to her interviews with Shehadeh, Gross palms off Israeli propaganda as truth: “his town Ramallah was occupied by the Israeli army…This was part of a larger Israeli military operation to root out terrorists in response to suicide bombings” (Oct. 28, 2003). Gross omits the then-35-year Occupation, depicting Israeli aggression rather than Palestinian resistance as self-defense. No, only Ramallah was “Occupied.” Context is all, with news and with history.
Having introduced Shehadeh by reciting Israel’s hype, Gross heralds David Horovitz by peddling Horovitz’s own claims as fact:: “He told me that in Israel fear of suicide bombers is profound and unrelenting.” Gross’s preconceptions bow to establishment stereotypes: Occupied Palestine is riddled with homocidal attackers; mighty Israel is besieged by terror. Gross poses different questions to her two guests, and gets similar replies about great threats. But Gross responds unequally to the comparable answers–not least in neglecting to point out the false equivalency of their suffering. For Shehadeh is Occupied, whereas Horovitz speaks for Occupier. Worse yet, Gross ignores Shehadeh’s plight, the devastating fear in every bit of life–and death–in living under Occupation. Her only reaction is to change the subject.
By contrast, Gross chortles appreciatively when Horovitz chats about the ordeal of being searched at stores, despite being so blond–with a blond family–“we all look like recent arrivals from Sweden.” Terry Gross’s rare talent–one I used to love–is her engaging laugh. Gross’s mirth graces her interviews with ingenuous delight (especially compared to many witless hosts’ awkward guffaws). She could just as easily find glimmers of fun in Shehadeh’s self-deprecating relief that, when the IDF (sic) invaded his house, at least his gate kept the soldiers from terrifyingly banging on his door. Or the IDF’s bewilderment about how unmenacing he was: “I’m not a big person and perhaps that disarmed them.” Gross cuts Shehadeh off from her sympathetic sense of the ludicrous. She withholds empathy even when Shehadeh winningly confides his dread–“Would I break down?”– or describes his efforts to brave danger calmly, without belligerence.
That’s the pattern: Terry Gross refuses to converse with Shehadeh, but, rather, issues a series of insulting non-sequiturs that allow for no actual interaction. When she switches the topic to Israel’s “barrier fence,” Shehadah corrects her by explaining why it is an “Apartheid Wall,” stealing Palestinian land as it encircles their towns. But when Gross later asks Horovitz about the Wall, she reverts to “barrier,” not deigning to press Horowitz on links between Israeli tyranny and South Africa’s Apartheid.
With Horovitz, rather than changing subjects, Gross follows up with concern: “Has [suicide bombing] affected your views of Palestinians?” Horovitz generalizes: “Well, I can only relate to the Palestinian people by the opinion polls,” which “troublingly,” say that “most Palestinians say they support the bombers.” Horovitz justifies Israel scuppering peace talks.
Raja Shehadeh by contrast, speaks sadly of how extremists on both sides try to de-humanize the other. During the soldiers’ raid, ” I found young people dressed in such gear that you could hardly see them.” However, “I tried to make some human contact with them, but it was impossible….So I…felt some pity for them.” He could imagine how “they’d been told perhaps that every Palestinian hates them, and they live with this burden.” What largeness of mind.
But Gross doesn’t inquire whether IDF actions have embittered Shehadeh’s views of Israelis. Instead, Gross prods him to deprecate the president of Malaysia’s “anti-Semitic” remark, which he emphatically does.
Gross examines Shehadeh on his opinion of current Israeli-Palestinian informal peace proposals, but she locks out Shehadeh’s point, that Palestinians would accept compensation in lieu of Actual Return to the land of their ancestors. Gross hears intransigence rather than qualified enthusiasm: “Sounds as though you couldn’t really back this plan because it has no right of return.” Gross’s deafness betrays her prejudice: she imputes to Shehadeh Israel’s obstinacy–and her own?
Gross hops on again, insinuating that Shehadeh might “know anybody who’s directly connected to” “suicide bombers.” No, of course not, but Raja Shehadeh opens his conscience to say that he wants never “to compete in the horror and the tragedy because both sides have suffered horror….But I know victims… Israelis and Palestinians.” Shehadeh “cannot understand why [bombers] are driven to this,” but reminds us, “life in the Occupied Territories is to live in such despair.”
“The fact that Israel is killing babies and children does NOT justify such acts” he declares, explaining that there was “No possibility that anyone would do something like” blowing himself up before 1994, when [illegal] settlers killed worshippers.
Raja Shehadeh offers a beautiful introspection: “What has happened to us? We are at the edge.”
Gross leapfrogs; Shehadeh offers leaps of faith: “The beauty of Palestine historically has been a place of tolerance between the three religions…because Christians, Jews, and Muslims were living side by side….My struggle is for attaining freedom and…tolerance.”
Gross jumps on, disdaining to invite Shehadeh’s exploration of how despair warps the tyrannized–a logical, though deplorable–concomitant of more deplorable Israeli aggression, or his vision of a harmonious future Palestine. She fixates instead on her abhorrence of the bombers: have you, she prods, “witnessed extremist groups manipulating the despair, to try to create the environment where people are willing to blow themselves up?” Terry Gross misses his point: Israel created the environment of despair. Shehadeh though gives Gross the benefit of the doubt, describing how extremists on both sides take advantage of their people’s suffering. Gross might condole with him for all his endearing admissions, but she moves on. Nothing to see here, folks.
David Horovitz extends no such self-examination; he simply blames others, demanding that Palestinians: “stop the bombers,” “because then we can settle down to peace talks.” Horovitz even promises that the Israeli leadership then “would be rushing back to the peace talks.”
Of course, Palestinians have now stopped such bombings. Has Horovitz urged Netanyahu to “rush back to the peace talks”? No. Horovitz now proves his bad faith. He demands new concessions from Palestinians:
“Let Abbas speak in Arabic, to his own people – with his leadership colleagues on hand to publicly support and applaud him – and let him tell them that the Jews, too, have historic rights to Palestine.”
We need to study what Israel’s incessant moving of the proverbial goalposts does to the people of Palestine. Humans perceive such trickery with standards as taunting, and taunting–I know from being a child and now a parent–creates the greatest rage.
Gross surmises that Shehadeh might want to solve his problems by just leaving his home and people and seems almost exasperated. She’s in a muddle: as if she wants to commiserate–except that she can’t–for that means acknowledging Israel’s crimes–so she niggles Shehadeh to abandon all that’s right–though what’s right is giving up whatever Israel covets. Gross’s graceless query reminds me of the false concern and real prejudice of the father, Yaakov Levinson, in Heart of Jenin, to the Palestinian man, Ismail Khatib, who saved the life of Levinson’s tiny daughter. Khatib hoped to create ties through his acts of mercy, but the best gratitude the illegal-colonist Levinson could muster was a patronizing rebuff, “Can’t he emigrate?….There’s nothing for him here.”
What would have been really new sights–and sounds–from the show that labels itself as offering fresh air, is Gross truly listening to those our culture demonizes as Other. But Gross would have to care enough about the unexpectedness of the world–if not her job–to stretch beyond her preconceptions. Emily Henochowicz gives us an exquisite image for such elasticity of vision in an entrancing work of art (below), “Me to then-Me.” Henochowicz depicts her 2010 canvas stretching out to pull her 2009 model forward to catch up with her always-growing self. She posted it on the very eve of the protest where the IDF shot out her eye. Not many of us can equal our Emily’s indomitable ardor–her glorious sense of motion, of play–, but we can try.
Perhaps Terry Gross, the host who sells new ways of looking, can learn from Emily Henochowicz’s “Visual Adventure” to discern anew. Yesterday, Gross’s show featured the one-year anniversary of Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari’s arrest by Iran, then John Powers’s review of Philip Kerr’s thriller about the Nazi era–topics that are both acceptable to the Israel lobby. Why hasn’t Gross tackled recent Israeli attacks, asking Emily Henochowicz to describe her work defending the people of Palestine she has come to love? So brilliant an artist and dedicated a peace-worker has much to teach. When will Gross invite surviving activists from Free Gaza to speak?
Maybe Gross will then reminisce about Raja Shehadeh’s generosity of spirit, his long-suffering valor, to discover new perspectives on Palestine. We all can exercise our spirits, extending ourselves to catch up with Shehadeh’s charity and mercy. We’re lucky to have such reaching souls, among many in Palestine and around the world, to inspire. We, too, can imagine, and thus create, a future that sees the alien, that perceives beyond our expectations, and onward still.
Friday night, Terry Gross, the longtime host of Fresh Air on National Public Radio, will submit to questions in an event at Town Hall in New York, hosted by Brian Lehrer, a talk-show host at WNYC.
AEI Does Syria
Demonization with Coffee and Croissaints
By FARRAH HASSEN | June 17, 2010
I knew what I was getting into when I decided to attend the Washington D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute’s Syria conference on June 10. Just look at the suggestive title: “Bashar’s Syria at Ten: Does the Eye Doctor See Straight?”
As I looked at the program I noticed that the panelists, supposedly an “international array of experts,” mainly came from the AIPAC allied Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which gave me little reason to believe that a three hour session on Syria at a conservative think tank—which housed notable cheerleaders for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, for example—would focus on the facts. AEI’s own Danielle Pletka served as a moderator on the “Terrorism” panel but mainly offered snark (and not even funny snark); female analysts were noticeably missing in action.
Despite this not-so-friendly environment for serious analysis, policy prescriptions and dare I say, dissent, I decided to attend this event because as a Syrian-American, as someone with family still living in Syria, I have a stake in U.S. Middle East policy.
I’ve met Palestinian and Iraqi refugees in Damascus, people who serve as a living testament to the consequences of war and occupation. With a Syrian filmmaker I walked around his destroyed hometown, Quneitra, in Syria’s Golan, occupied by Israel following the 1967 war. In the middle of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, I volunteered at a shelter in Damascus and served food to the thousands of Lebanese who sought temporary refuge in Syria. I’ll never forget hearing one woman say, “I hope my child doesn’t grow up to hate America,” referring to unquestioning U.S. government support for Israel.
U.S. Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) delivered the keynote address, in which he espoused “crippling sanctions” on Iran, without acknowledging that sanctions don’t work unless they have the backing of people against their governments (and most Iranians, like Cubans, Iraqis and yes, Syrians, don’t support sanctions). He berated the Syrian “regime”—note, according to AEI, Syria has a “regime,” not a “government,” and no speaker or audience member asking a question ever deviated from this rule—and admonished the Obama administration for sending the “wrong message” to Syria by seeking engagement.
According to the senator, Syria “must completely cut off the flow of terrorists slipping into Iraq. It must stop helping the numerous terrorist groups it supports outside of Iraq. It must recognize that Israel has a right to exist, and negotiate a real peace in good faith.” Other speakers would repeat these demands during panels on “The Bashar al-Assad Doctrine,” “Assessing Engagement” and “Terrorism.”
No one mentioned Syria’s cooperation with Iraq on border security, refugees and elections. No one mentioned that Syria as early as January 2002 opposed the invasion of Iraq, and warned the U.S. about the consequences, including the rise of extremism. No one questioned the illogic of the senator’s demand that Syria recognize Israel’s right to exist, given that Syrian and Israeli officials have been in the same room together on several occasions and have attempted to negotiate peace.
David Schenker, Andrew Tabler and Scott Carpenter, all from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Elliott Abrams, Tony Badran, Brian Fishman, Bill Harris and William Wunderle, from the Council on Foreign Relations, Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, New America Foundation, Otago University in New Zealand and the Pentagon, respectively, expressed their opinions freely—their right. However, on an intellectual level, their analysis and presentation of the facts left large holes.
I reminded the speakers after they finished presenting in the opening panel that none of them mentioned that Israel continues to occupy Syria’s Golan, a strange omission when discussing Syria’s foreign policy, or why Damascus views Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate resistance movements. Israeli occupation of the Golan also relates to the larger impact that Israel’s occupation of Arab land has throughout the region.
Absence of context throughout the panels signaled to me that this AEI conference was an overall exercise in intellectual dishonesty and ideology, not serious analysis, much less discussion of U.S. policy toward Syria and the region.
For example, in making his case that President Bashar al-Assad is “worse” than the late Hafez-al-Assad, Schenker tried to score audience humor points by referring to a “bromance” between Assad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In the same vein, while it is clear that Syria needs political and economic reform, Carpenter’s gloom-and-doom scenario of the human rights situation there (but not in U.S. allied Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE, for example) offered no constructive policy prescriptions.
I had hoped a panel entitled “Assessing Engagement” would actually “assess” reasons for and against engagement with Syria and cite historic precedents. Perhaps even point to examples of cooperation between Syria and the U.S., such as during the Gulf War or on intelligence sharing after 9/11, and discuss the lessons learned. Instead, Elliott Abrams, who in 1991 plead guilty to lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, concluded that present U.S. policy toward Syria is “just giveaways in exchange for nothing.” AEI could have saved time and ink by nixing such a panel and replacing it with moderator Michael Rubin informing audience-goers at the outset, “No engagement with Syria because we said so.”
What did I learn after the event concluded? When someone asked the last panelists the “where do we go from here” question, no one answered it. Nor did anyone seem to want to. Why did AEI promote such an event? Based on what I heard, it wasn’t to offer probing insights on Syria rooted in scholarly research, or promote peace and security between Syria and Israel, and throughout the region; nor to improve relations between the U.S. and Syria, or elevate reform and development in Syria. Perhaps it really was just to schedule a public demonization of another country (with free coffee, croissants and fruit).
Am I more motivated now to lobby my Members of Congress to support crippling sanctions on Syria (and Iran)? No. Will I ask them to challenge President Obama’s decision to send an Ambassador to Syria? Nope.
However, I can thank AEI for reminding me to keep pushing for improved relations between the U.S. and Syria, which includes supporting peace, security and development inside and outside Damascus.
How about a conference on that?
Farrah Hassen is a writer and videographer living in Washington DC.
The NYT and the Flotilla Inquiry
Another Compromised Reporter
By ALISON WEIR – June 16, 2010
The New York Times, whose regional bureau chief has a son in the Israeli military, reports that Israel has just appointed a panel charged with investigating its attack on an aid flotilla that killed nine aid volunteers, including a 19-year-old American.
Isabel Kershner, who is an Israeli citizen and has refused to answer questions about her possible family ties to the Israeli military, writes the report.
Kershner reports that the White House hailed the announcement of the panel as an “important step forward,” stating that “the structure and terms of reference of Israel’s proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation.”
In her story, Kershner reports that the panel will include eminent Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Lord David Trimble as an observer, but omits the fact that Trimble is a leader of the newly formed pro-Israel organization “Friends of Israel” and is close to Netanyahu associate Dore Gold.
Irish journalist Patrick Roberts writes, “This is a little like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.”
Kershner reports that the other foreign observer is Brig. Gen. Ken Watkins, former judge advocate general of Canadian Forces, but fails to mention that Watkins is known for stonewalling a 2009 House of Commons investigation into Afghan prisoner abuse.
One House of Commons member commented at the time about Watkins’ lack of cooperation with the investigation: “Obviously the cover-up continues.”
Kershner informs readers that the panel will be led by a retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice, but fails to mention reports that he does not believe in such a panel and opposed foreign participation.
Kershner reports in the bottom half of her story that Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper calls the proposed panel a “farce,” but does not mention that this is a longstanding pattern for Israeli governmental investigations (and lack thereof) into military human rights abuses. For example:
° From 2001 through 2006 the Israeli State Attorney’s office received more than 500 complaints about abuse of interrogees. There was not a single criminal investigation.
° In 2005 Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a report entitled “Israeli military grants impunity when soldiers kill Palestinian civilians,” finding that although Israeli soldiers had killed at least 1,694 Palestinian civilians, including 536 minors, only one soldier had been convicted of “causing the death of a Palestinian.”
° In 2009 eleven Israeli human rights organizations released a joint report in which they called on the Israeli government to “Stop whitewashing suspected crimes in Gaza.”
° In 2010 B’Tselem found that the Israeli military’s “cover-up of phosphorous shelling in Gaza proves army cannot investigate itself.” An Amnesty International report concurred in this conclusion, finding that Israel’s investigations into Cast Lead had not met “international standards of independence, impartiality, transparency, promptness and effectiveness.”
In her story Kershner reports Netanyahu’s allegation that the blockade “is necessary to prevent Hamas from smuggling in weapons or materials needed to make them, and to weaken Hamas control.” She goes on to acknowledge that “there is a growing consensus abroad that the blockade has taken a toll mainly on civilians,” but neglects to report the fact that Israeli closures of Gaza preceded the election of Hamas and that the “toll” is massive and calamitous.
She also fails to include any of the vast evidence for such a consensus, for example:
Nearly 99 percent of Gaza’s 4,000 fishermen are now considered either poor (making between $100 and $190 a month) or very poor (earning less than $100 a month); there are acute, sometimes lethal shortages of fuel, cash, cooking gas and other basic supplies; 98 percent of industrial operations have been shut down since 2007; and 3,500 families are still displaced from last year’s invasion due to Israel’s blockade on building materials.
Although the Israeli government has failed to investigate itself honestly and thoroughly through the years, a great many respected international human rights organizations from Christian Aid to the Red Cross have done so, documenting a pattern of widespread human rights abuses by the Israeli military.
In 2006 independent researchers Patrick O’Connor and Rachel Roberts found that since fall 2000:
“[T]hree of the leading human rights organizations focusing on Israel/Palestine – Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Israeli organization B’Tselem – published 76 reports focused primarily on Israeli abuses of Palestinian rights, and four reports primarily focused on Palestinians abuses of Israeli or Palestinian rights. This weighting suggests that Israel has committed a disproportionate share of the human rights violations.”
During this time, the New York Times published two news stories on reports documenting Israeli human rights abuses and two stories on reports documenting Palestinian human rights abuses.
In other words, in its “even-handed” style, the New York Times covered fifty percent of the reports on human rights abuses committed by Palestinians, while covering under three percent of those detailing human abuses perpetrated by Israelis.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and a board member of the Council for the National Interest. She can be reached at contact@ifamericansknew.org
Israeli Raid Coverage
American Media Failure Again
By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr. | June 15, 2010
An American art student loses an eye when struck in the face by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel breaking up a demonstration in the occupied West Bank which itself is a protest against the deadly commando raid on the Free Gaza flotilla.
No, you didn’t miss U.S. news media coverage of this IDF attack on 21-year-old Emily Henchowicz, a student at Cooper Union in New York City who was standing with a group of foreigners during that demonstration near a checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem.
You didn’t miss it because the mainstream media in the U.S. ignored it. Apparently news of Henchowicz’s maiming was not news deemed worthy enough for print in the New York Times or Washington Post or meriting broadcast network/cable news attention.
It’s no surprise that the avowedly right-wing FOX ignored this incident, but the liberal-leaning MSNBC ignored this story also.
The blackout of this partial blinding of an American citizen darkens the already black eye the mainstream American news media has given itself by its crimped coverage of the deadly Israeli raid on that flotilla attempting to bring humanitarian supplies to the Israeli-besieged Gaza and of the international fallout in the wake of that illegal raid.
The same major U.S. newspapers that found space during the two weeks after that May 31st assault in international waters for over 1,200 articles about the Tea Party or that “movement’s” darling du jour Rand Paul, carried only 58 references to the American-born teen killed during that raid, according to a review of articles in the LexisNexis database of U.S. newspapers and wires.
So, what would explain why the fatal shooting of Troy, NY-born Furkan Dogan merits only one-ninth of the 500+ article coverage devoted to prattle from Sarah Palin, all of which was published during that same two week post-raid period?
Maybe it’s the fact that the 19-year-old Dogan, who had dual US/Turkish citizenship, lived the last 17-years of his short life in Turkey. Did his “Turkishness” trump the news that autopsy results showed the young Dogan had died from multiple gun shots including four shots to the head, one of them from the back?
Or maybe this minimalist coverage of Dogan’s death, as documented by a Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) anylisis, results from the fact that much of the “U.S. press coverage takes Israeli government claims at face value…”
If FAIR’s criticism that the media exhibited a lack of “skepticism” toward Israeli government spin is on target, maybe media managers simply embraced Israeli government claims that their crack commandos only boarded the Mavi Marmara armed with paint-ball guns and small caliber pistols, and then concluded that perhaps Dogan must have died either from gunfire from his fellow peace activists, or that he had shot himself four times in the head?
FAIR cited a Washington Post editorial as an “appalling” example of the U.S. news media’s penchant for reporting on the Israeli assault exclusively through Israel’s eyes.
That Post editorial characterized participants in the flotilla as a “motley collection,” deserving no sympathy due to their ulterior motive on “provoking a confrontation.”
Acknowledging that the Israeli raid was “misguided and badly executed,” this editorial in one of the nation’s major newspapers (a paper that did not report on the blinding of Emily Henchowicz) took a pro-Israeli perspective, inferring that calls for an international investigation into the flotilla raid could potentially become part of a campaign to “de-legitimize the Jewish State.” Such language is a talking-point lifted straight from the Israeli government and its American lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Irrespective of the sympathy many Americans have for Israel, the Ethics Code of America’s Society of Professional Journalists states that journalists should: support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
Any fair-and-balanced report on the flotilla raid would have to include the perspective of flotilla participant and Israel Parliament member Hanin Zoabi, an Israeli-Arab, which ran in an AP article, and which was thus available to virtually every news editor in the country. In that AP story, which ran on June 10, she said, “The Israeli military is like a rapist that gets scratched and then blames the victim…Israel acts like a bull.”
According to a LexisNexis review condcted three days later, Zoabi’s words had still not been published in any major American newspaper.
Many American journalists – like many Americans – may feel Israel is justified in taking military actions in its professed self-defense, even as other Americans might consider those actions to be war crimes. Yet the point remains that support for the Israeli position does not justify suppression by the media of information integral to the story that conflicts with that position. At that point, the “news” becomes simply propaganda.
As George Curry, columnist for the BlackPressUSA site, noted in a recent article about the FAIR analysis, “For years, Palestinians have been unable to get their side fairly reported in the U.S. media and the latest international incident is yet another example.”
The critiques of Curry, FAIR and many others about the pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian slant in America’s news media echoes a decades-old finding about news media failing to adequately cover race-related matters in the United States. America’s news media have “not communicated to the majority of their audience – which is white – a sense of the degradation, misery, and hopelessness of living in the ghetto,” stated the March 1968 report of the Kerner Commission, which examined the causes of urban riots during the 1960s.
The Kerner Commission’s examination of news media practices criticized exclusionary coverage that consistently failed to provide context critical for a full understanding of race-related issues.
“If what the white American reads in the newspapers or sees on television conditions his expectations of what is ordinary and normal in the larger society, he will neither understand nor accept the black American,” the Kerner Report noted, concluding that slanted news coverage had “contributed to the black-white schism in this country.”
Slanted coverage on Palestinian issues similarly deprives Americans of the context needed to understand the complicated controversy that keeps the Middle East volatile and keeps America as a primary target of terrorists.
While accounts of that blinding injury to Emily Henchowicz are available in the blogosphere, the Inter Press Service is the only major U.S. news organization listed in the LexisNexis database to carry a story specifically reporting on the incident.
A June 1, 2010 IPS report from Ramallah stated that Henchowicz “…appeared to be deliberately targeted when a teargas canister was fired at her head, causing her to lose an eye.”
That same IPS article included context about Israeli personnel regularly violating regulations barring firing those powerful gas canisters directly at protesters…violations that have produced in a number of deaths and serious injuries.
That Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Code urges journalists to “Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it’s unpopular to do so.”
The failure of many American media organizations to adhere to SPJ Code provisions produces the dynamic of: text without context is pretext.
LINN WASHINGTON is a founding member of the new independent collectively-owned, journalist-run online newspaper ThisCantBeHappening.net. His work, and that of colleagues John Grant, Dave Lindorff and Charles Young, can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
Afghanistan’s Mineral “Riches”: A scheme to sell us on another decade of occupation?
The story came from the Pentagon
By Steve Hynd | June 14, 2010
Last night, the New York Times’ James Risen “broke” what the mainstream media are insisting is a blockbuster story about Afghanistan’s untapped mineral wealth – not just iron and copper but strategically significant minerals like lithium and all told valued at around $1 trillion.
Wow!
Only…not wow. When the NYT published Risen’s story to the web last night, I tweeted “What a convenient time to find $1 trillion, eh?” and “Just as McChrystal’s in big trouble, liberal thinktanks starting to shift anti-war, Pentagon publicizes $1 trillion Afghan treasure trove,” because this is a zombie story, resurrected yet again for political purposes.
Afghanistan’s mineral riches were well known to the Soviets in 1985 and a US government Country Study in 2002 went into detail about their knowledge. By 2005 the US Geological Service was being publicly exuberant in its assessment of Afghanistan’s mineral resources (PDF). It published other public reports about the “Significant Potential for Undiscovered Resources in Afghanistan” in 2007, one of which focussed on non-fuel minerals. In 2008, it was Afghan reserves of oil and gas that was making the news and in 2009, as Reuters was reporting on Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth and McLatchy was noting China’s interest, rights to the vast iron deposits were already up for tender.
Blake Hounshell is just as skeptical as I am, writing last night:
the findings on which the story was based are online and have been since 2007, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. More information is available on the Afghan mining ministry’s website, including a report by the British Geological Survey (and there’s more here). You can also take a look at the USGS’s documentation of the airborne part of the survey here, including the full set of aerial photographs.
Nowhere have I found that $1 trillion figure mentioned, which Risen suggests was generated by a Pentagon task force seeking to help the Afghan government develop its resources (looking at the chart accompanying the article, though, it appears to be a straightforward tabulation of the total reserve figures for each mineral times current the current market price). According to Risen, that task force has begun prepping the mining ministry to start soliciting bids for mineral rights in the fall.
Don’t get me wrong. This could be a great thing for Afghanistan, which certainly deserves a lucky break after the hell it’s been through over the last three decades.
But I’m (a) skeptical of that $1 trillion figure; (b) skeptical of the timing of this story, given the bad news cycle, and (c) skeptical that Afghanistan can really figure out a way to develop these resources in a useful way. It’s also worth noting, as Risen does, that it will take years to get any of this stuff out of the ground, not to mention enormous capital investment.
Exactly. These reserves are very real but they don’t help Afghanistan right now one bit and they’re unlikely to really help Afghanistan down the line since the evidence says that corrupt societies that suddenly find themselves in possession of mineral wealth only get more corrupt. So, unless you’re willing to encompass the conspiracy theory that the US invaded Afghanistan, at a cost of $1 trillion and rising fast, so that one day some corporations might make a few billions (and some will) we have to ask what was the point of resurrecting this zombie and painting it up so fine for Mardi Gras?
Well, although Risen’s lede says the news came from “senior American government officials” it’s easy to see which agency wants us reading about massive strategic reserves in Afghanistan right now. The story came from the Pentagon. Risen quotes extensively from Paul A. Brinkley, “deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits” and has General Petraeus saying that “There is stunning potential here…I think potentially it is hugely significant.” … Full article
The Military and the Media
Al-Jazeera | June 12, 2010
This week Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post brings you a special episode on the military and the media, from Hollywood shoot-em-ups to Pentagon-sponsored spin doctors. Plus a look at the video war games that are literally putting youngsters in the line of fire.
Propaganda is at its most effective when the audience does not know it is being manipulated and one of the best, glitziest examples of that is when propaganda is delivered on the big screen in the guise of a Hollywood blockbuster.
The US army, navy, air force, marine corps, coast guard, and even the department of defence itself have established a beach-head in Hollywood. For as long as there have been movies, the US government has collaborated with filmmakers to ensure that their view of the world was shared with audiences around the world.
From Frank Capra and Walt Disney to Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, Hollywood directors have for many years consulted closely with the US government and military to bring greater authenticity to their movies. In return for their advice, personnel and even equipment, the US military gets a slickly produced feature length advertisement that airs across the world.
Our Newsdivide this week examines how the US military trades access and equipment in exchange for a hand in shaping the big-screen perception of America’s armed forces, if not the country as a whole.
Quick hits from the media world in Newsbytes: War films that win accolades from critics but fall flat with audiences; puppets of the Pentagon – retired generals go on the offensive on television talk shows; and can GE, a company involved in making missiles in addition to TV comedies, be objective in their reporting of war?
Video war games
Our feature story this week takes a look at the video war games used as recruiting tools.
Modern warfare can at times resemble a video game, with technology that allows armies to launch attacks and watch the results from computer consoles hundreds or thousands of miles away. And game-makers are getting better and better at simulating the sights and sounds of the war zone experience.
The gaming shelves of video stores around the world are crammed with titles like Call of Duty are heavily influenced by contemporary conflict scenarios – often from the Middle East.
The Listening Post’s Robin Armstrong examines a trend that is putting the graphic reality of war on the computer screens of young people around the world.
Reading Roger Cohen in the New York Times
M. Shahid Alam | Pulse Media | June 13, 2010
Roger Cohen is the rare columnist at NYT who makes an occasional effort to bring some objectivity to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, how far does his objectivity go?
Consider his piece of June 10, “Modern Folly and Ancient Wisdom.”
I have selected a few excerpts for comment.
First excerpt:
“Israel’s bloody interception of the Mavi Marmara and its motley crew was crass — another example of the counterproductive use of force — but nothing about it could justify the Turkish prime minister’s outrageous statement that the world now perceives “the swastika and the Star of David together (italics mine).”
Why does he speak of the “motley crew” on the Mavi Marmara? First, is ‘crew’ the appropriate word for the humanitarian activists on a ship bringing relief to people under blockade. ‘Crew’ has unpleasant connotations. Let us consult the Oxford English dictionary. Originally, it meant “an augmentation or reinforcement of a military force.” Now, by extension, it means “Any organized or associated force, band, or body of armed men.”
In addition, why is this a ‘motley’ crew? Does he mean heterogeneous? In fact, most were Turkish. Why then are they “motley?” The word has a bad odor. The OED concurs. Consider two entries in the OED. Entry one: “Of a thing or collection of things: composed of elements of diverse or varied character, form, appearance, etc. Freq. with implication of poor design or organization (italics added).” And entry two: Of a gathering or group of people: consisting of people of diverse or varied appearance, character, etc.; miscellaneous. Freq. depreciative (italics in the original).
Now consider this: Israel’s behavior was merely “crass – another example of the counterproductive use of force.” So Cohen disapproves of Israel’s behavior because it is “crass” (stupid) and “counterproductive” to Israel. Nothing worse. On the other hand, the Turkish prime minister’s statement is “outrageous.” Criticism aimed at Israel is “outrageous” but Israeli massacre of humanitarian activists is merely “crass.”
There is a myopia too behind Cohen’s anger at the Turkish prime minister’s statement. He claims, “there is nothing about it [the illegal Israeli massacre of civilians]” that can justify Erdogan’s statement. Is Erdogan’s outrage a response only to the attack on the Flotilla – or is the world’s perception of Israel slowly catching up to its long history of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansings, illegal wars, countless massacres of civilians, and wars daily threatened against Lebanon, Syria and Iran? Such myopia is inexcusable in one who should be better schooled in the Middle East.
Second excerpt:
“Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the bristling leader who has given Kemal Ataturk’s secular Turkey an Islamic tinge and an eastward-looking inclination, should know better than to invoke the Nazis when speaking of a state that emerged from the ashes of European Jewry (italics mine).”
Israel as “a state that emerged from the ashes of European Jewry” That’s a page out of Israeli hasbara. Using the Holocaust to justify the creation of Israel and the ‘right’ of Israel to immunity from international law. The Zionist movement was launched when Adolf Hitler was barely eight years old. Inside the supportive shell of the British occupation of Palestine, the Zionists in Palestine had already created the infrastructure of a Jewish society and state by the early 1930s, again long before the Holocaust. I am sure Roger Cohen knows all this: but does it matter to the way he thinks about Israel?
Third excerpt:
“But it is still a liberal democracy, home to a level of debate and openness unknown elsewhere in the Middle East (italics added).”
Is Israel “still a liberal democracy?” Consensus on that claim is fast disappearing, even in partisan Western societies. Then follows something inexcusably lame: he compares Israel to the despotisms supported by and allied to the USA and Israel. Look Israel is still a liberal democracy: just compare it to the despotic monarchy of Saudi Arabia.
Fourth excerpt:
“Its tactical lurches, often violent, do not add up to a strategy; they have resulted in a shocking erosion of Israel’s stature.”
Given what Israel is – an apartheid society, a garrison state founded on ethnic cleansing, a state that still practices ethnic cleansing, a nuclear-armed state threatening warfare against its neighbors – why should the erosion of Israel’s “stature” be “shocking.” Shouldn’t persons of liberal and humane values welcome this erosion? Not so Roger Cohen of the New York Times.
Enough said: if this is what comes from the pen of a self-consciously liberal and humane Zionist, what can we expect from the rest of the “motley crew?”
###
M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Palgrave, 2009) and Challenging the New Orientalism (IPI, 2006). Contact him at alqalam02760@yahoo.com.
PA denies Abbas report on maintaining Gaza siege
Ma’an – 13/06/2010
Bethlehem – Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh rebuffed an Israeli media report Sunday alleging President Mahmoud Abbas called for the continuation of Gaza’s blockade during a recent meeting with his US counterpart.
“President Abbas had raised the issue of the necessity of lifting the blockade as a matter on a par with the fate of the peace process,” Abu Rudaineh told the Palestinian Authority-run WAFA news agency.
Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip is being discussed with Arab and international leaders, the spokesman said, urging the international community to “take advantage of the current atmosphere” following an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid fleet to lift the blockade “which will end suffering and create a good chance for reviving the peace process.”
‘Another attempt to deflect Israeli responsibility‘
Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Ereket, who accompanied Abbas on his US visit, further denounced the report on Sunday, saying it was “yet another disinformation attempt aimed at distorting facts and deflecting Israel’s responsibility to end the illegal and inhuman siege on Gaza,” a statement read.
“President Abbas has been demanding complete and unconditional lifting of Israel’s illegal siege over Gaza, which he reiterated during his recent meetings with World leaders.”
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Sunday that Abbas is opposed to lifting the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip because it would bolster Hamas, allegedly putting forward his stance to Obama during their meeting last Wednesday at the White House.
“The issue has been and will continue to be the main focus in all our discussions until our people in Gaza are free and the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem is ended,” Erekat said.
Describing the report as “absurd” and baseless, the PLO official said it “lacks any credible source, can be so irresponsibly published.”
“The illegal blockade has nothing to do with the Hamas since Gaza has been closed long before Hamas took control. Israel must end its unlawful blockade. Until then, Israel has certain obligations under international law to provide for the local population,” Erekat said.
Instead of honoring its obligations under international law, “Israel is blocking humanitarian aid flotillas from reaching Gaza, and collectively punishing millions of innocent civilians in blatant disregard to international law.”
“We will never countenance this or any other such illegal Israeli conduct and will continue to advocate against it and call for an international investigation,” the official added.
Erekat was among the delegation of Palestinian officials accompanying Abbas during his US visit, meeting with the Obama administration’s senior officials to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East, as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell continues to mediate indirect talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
Following the meeting, Obama described Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip as “unsustainable” as well as the current state of affairs in the region, calling on Israel to allow more goods and services into the coastal enclave.
Neocon Krauthammer Sees Israel as Victim in Flotilla Massacre
Stephen Sniegoski | June 12, 2010
While the inhabitants of Gaza are suffering under a stifling blockade and a number of peace activists have been killed (bullets in the head at close range) and wounded by Israeli commandos, whom does prominent neocon columnist Charles Krauthammer view as the victim: Israel, of course. For hyper-Zionists such as Krauthammer, Israel is always the victim (Krauthammer: “Those troublesome Jews,” Washington Post, June 4, 2010).
To Krauthammer, none of the international concern is about the suffering of the Gazans because there is no suffering. Krauthammer does not even feel it necessary to try to rebut the reports from International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the UN Environmental Program and other international organizations that describe a dire situation in Gaza resulting from the blockade.
No, according to Krauthammer the international concern about Gaza, instead of being a humanitarian act, is really a conscious effort to “de-legitimize” Israel by stopping a perfectly justified blockade. Krauthammer emphasizes that the purpose of the blockade is “to simply prevent enemy rearmament” by Hamas, though, in actuality, is hardly selective, and restricts the importation of food, medicine, building supplies, and many other commodities needed for civilian society. And a recent Israeli government document reveals that the blockade is actually designed to conduct “economic warfare” against Hamas by collectively punishing the Gazan people, which will presumably cause them to turn against Hamas rule.
On the real purpose of the blockade, also see: “Recasting the Gaza blockade as a humanitarian project,
Poor little Israel, Krauthammer laments, has to resort to a blockade because the world “de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself,” which included Israel’s “forward and active defense”—i.e., attacks on its neighbors. Of course, this “forward and active defense” is simply a violation of modern international law that is embodied in the UN Charter. It might be added that participating in such a “forward and active defense” got a number of German generals convicted at Nuremberg in 1945-1946…
Krauthammer bemoans that if Israel cannot maintain its blockade then it has nothing with which to defend itself. “The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense,” he opines. Krauthammer, however, fails to depict any lethal threat to Israel—or even that destructiveness committed against Israel compares to the lethal damage Israel has meted out to the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza. For example, during Israel’s attack on Gaza in December 2008–January 2009 (code named Operation Cast Lead), there were 3 Israeli civilians and 10 soldiers killed, while Palestinian deaths exceeded 1000, the majority of whom were civilians.
To Krauthammer, the international assault on Israel goes far beyond the issue of Gaza.
He laments that the “Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons — thus de-legitimizing Israel’s very last line of defense: deterrence.” But in an effort to bring about a nuclear free Middle East (and Obama has talked of a nuclear free world), it would seem perfectly appropriate to single out the only country in the region that actually has a nuclear arsenal. It is not apparent why nuclear “deterrence” should only be allowed to Israel. It could actually be more justifiably argued that it is Israel’s neighbors who need nuclear weapons to serve as deterrence against Israel’s sizable arsenal of 200-300 nuclear warheads.
Krauthammer ends his article by comparing the situation to the Holocaust. “The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million — that number again — hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists — Iranian in particular — openly prepare a more final solution.”
In Krauthammer’s hysterical presentation, the fact that absolutely no actual constraints have been placed on Israel is completely omitted. Israel has only been faced with purely verbal complaints. It has essentially gotten away with a piratical raid and abduction in international waters in which it killed and wounded a significant number of innocent people with no concrete punishment. The international community has taken no forceful steps to try to stop Israel’s comprehensive blockade of Gaza. Nothing has been done about Israel’s maintenance of a nuclear arsenal, which it can rely on to threaten its neighbors. At the same time, sanctions are imposed against Iran, which essentially guarantee Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly (if, in fact, Iran were really attempting to develop nuclear weapons.)
There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran is planning for a “final solution” for Jews but Israelis and Israel’s American supporters have made repeated references to a possible Israeli air attack on Iran. Krauthammer’s contention that Israel is being “ghettoized,” while Gaza is the victim of a comprehensive Israeli blockade, is mind boggling. In short, all the physical suffering has been inflicted by Israel on others. Yet, in all of this, Krauthammer sees another Holocaust of the Jews!
It is apparent that Krauthammer, as Andrew Sullivan puts it in his article “Israel Derangement Syndrome,” has entered an “alternate reality,” which is actually an inverted reality, where things are just the opposite of how they are in the real world.
Sullivan provides an apt description of the “Israel Derangement Syndrome”:
“This is a form of derangement, or of such a passionate commitment to a foreign country that any and all normal moral rules or even basic fairness are jettisoned. And you will notice one thing as well: no regret whatsoever for the loss of human life, just as the hideous murder of so many civilians in the Gaza war had to be the responsibility of the victims, not the attackers. There is no sense of the human here; just the tribe.”
Note the Sullivan points out that Krauthammer’s only concern is his “tribe”—as opposed to concern for humanity, justice, the interests of his country (the United States), and even truth itself. One would think that educated Americans and especially liberals, with their constant preaching of universal values and denunciation of racism, would be aghast at what Krauthammer has to say. But, unfortunately, that is not the case.
Krauthammer is not a lone nut, or an exponent of a small, insignificant minority viewpoint, as some would like to believe. Of the 1840 comments on Krauthammer’s article on the Washington Post website, it appears that a substantial majority express a favorable view. Washington, DC is a politically liberal area. There are a substantial number of Jews, but they are liberal Jews who consistently vote for Democratic candidates. It would seem, therefore, that this type of thinking must resonate with many liberal Jews and others, as well.
And, of course, liberal Democratic politicos (along with almost all other elected officials in the US) have completely backed the actions of Israel, maintaining that the peace activists were responsible for their own deaths. High profile liberal Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), for example, held that “violent force [was] in fact initiated by those whose boat was boarded.” Representative Rep. Eliot Engel (D-New York) maintained that the ships were actually “filled with hate-filled provocateurs bent on violence.” Of course, politicians, in general, are not motivated so much by their own views, as by the views of people with political power.
Sullivan realizes that Krauthammer’s type of outlook influences American foreign policy. He writes:
“Something has been wrong here for a very long time, and now it is inescapable. Until the discourse is rescued from the victims of Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israel and America will slowly be drawn into wars they cannot ultimately win, lose every other ally they ever had, and embolden and fortify the very Islamist forces we are seeking to defuse and defeat.”
For another analysis of Krauthammer’s piece, see Kevin MacDonald
In assuming that the United States and Israel will act in tandem under the influence of the “Israel Derangement Syndrome,” Sullivan essentially acknowledges the influence of the Israel lobby on American foreign policy. However, I would like to make a slight correction of what Sullivan has to say. It is not that the United States would be “drawn into wars” but that this “Israel Derangement Syndrome” will cause the US to initiate or provoke wars—such as an attack on Iran. It is clearly those afflicted with this syndrome who pose a threat to the world, while believing the entire world is attacking helpless, innocent Israel. Their influence on American political culture makes Israel’s enemies America’s enemies and embroils the United States in wars that these Israel – Firsters believe will help Israel.
Sullivan initially was a supporter of the war on Iraq, who even went so far as to imply that the United States might need to make use of nuclear weapons. However, Sullivan came, somewhat belatedly, to recognize publicly the role of the pro-Israel neocons. He would write in February 2009:
“The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right. That’s the conclusion I’ve been forced to these last few years. And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into. . . . But America is not Israel. And once that distinction is made, much of the neoconservative ideology collapses.”
Slow learners such as Andrew Sullivan are infinitely more successful than those who early on were able to discern the obvious neocon/Israel connection, which might indicate that intellectual weakness is not an explanation for their initial false analyses. Nonetheless, Sullivan now provides an excellent description of the mindset of Israel and its American supporters, and, for people in important positions who have something to lose, it is still a view that takes a significant degree of courage to mention publicly. But it is necessary that influential individuals publicly express the truth in order to prevent the United States from engaging in endless, destructive wars at the behest of people, such as Krauthammer, who are under the influence of the “Israel Derangement Syndrome.”
Saudi Arabia: We will not give Israel air corridor for Iran strike
Haaretz | June 12, 2010
Saudi Arabia would not allow Israeli bombers to pass through its airspace en route to a possible strike of Iran’s nuclear facilities, a member of the Saudi royal family said Saturday, denying an earlier Times of London report.
Earlier Saturday, the Times reported that Saudi Arabia has practiced standing down its anti-aircraft systems to allow Israeli warplanes passage on their way to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, adding that the Saudis have allocated a narrow corridor of airspace in the north of the country.
Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, the Saudi envoy to the U.K. speaking to the London-based Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, denied that report, saying such a move “would be against the policy adopted and followed by the Kingdom.”
According to Asharq al-Awsat report, bin Nawaf reiterated the Saudi Arabia’s rejection of any violation of its territories or airspace, adding that it would be “illogical to allow the Israeli occupying force, with whom Saudi Arabia has no relations whatsoever, to use its land and airspace.”
Earlier, the Times quoted an unnamed U.S. defense source as saying that “the Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way.
“They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [U.S.] State Department.”
Once the Israelis had passed, the kingdom’s air defenses would return to full alert, the Times said.
Despite tensions between them, Israel and Saudi Arabia share a mutual hostility to Iran.
“We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” the Times quoted a Saudi government source as saying.
According to the report, the four main targets for an Israeli raid on Iran would be uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, a gas storage development at Isfahan and a heavy-water reactor at Arak.
Secondary targets may include a Russian-built light water reactor at Bushehr, which could produce weapons-grade plutonium when complete.
Even with midair refueling, the targets would be as the far edge of Israeli bombers’ range at a distance of some 2,250km. An attack would likely involve several waves of aircraft, possibly crossing Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Aircraft attacking Bushehr, on the Gulf coast, could swing beneath Kuwait to strike from the southwest, the Times said.
Passing over Iraq would require at least tacit consent to the raid from the United States, whose troops are occupying the country. So far, the Obama Administration has refused this.
On Wednesday the United Nations passed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran in an attempt to force it to stop enriching uranium. But immediately after the UN vote, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed the nuclear program would continue.
Israel hailed the vote – but said sanctions were not enough and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to rule out a raid.
Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert, is believed to have held secret meetings with high-ranking Saudi officials over Iran.
Turkey is Media’s Latest Target for Alleged ‘Terror’ Ties
06/10/2010 by Alex Kane
The Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla that resulted in the deaths of eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American has led Israel and its supporters to argue that the Turkish government and a prominent Turkish humanitarian organization are “terrorist” sympathizers with ill intentions toward Israel and the United States. In a series of articles, the U.S. corporate press has joined in.
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that IHH, the Turkish aid group involved with the flotilla that attempted to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, has a “dual message of aid and confrontation.” Their evidence for the confrontational attitude of IHH? A banner on the side of their building that reads, “Israel, murderers, hands off our boats!” Don’t pay attention to the fact that IHH was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and that it was Israel that confronted and killed people on the ship.
The Post goes on to report claims that IHH has links to Al-Qaeda, citing a 2006 report by “U.S. terrorism investigator” Evan Kohlmann. But two paragraphs down, the Post quotes a “think tank with ties to Israel’s Defense Ministry, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center,” that states there is “no known evidence of current links between IHH and ‘global jihad elements.'”
What’s not mentioned in the Post article is that no government besides Israel considers IHH a terrorist organization. In fact, IHH delivered humanitarian aid to Haiti in the aftermath of the January earthquake at a time when the United States military took a leading role in directing relief efforts there. Would the U.S. have allowed a terrorist organization into Haiti? IHH has also helped out in New Orleans.
Marsha B. Cohen, an expert on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, has already debunked IHH’s “terror ties” here at Mondoweiss and cast doubt on the credentials of Evan Kohlmann, pointing to a Spinwatch.org article on Kohlmann that thoroughly details his lack of expertise. Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, noted that Kohlmann assisted in the prosecution of Osama bin Laden’s former driver by producing a film that was “pure propaganda,” raking in $45,000 for the film and his testimony as an “expert witness” in the much criticized trial.
But be scared! According to the Post:
In the group’s two-story headquarters, IHH members — mostly men in their 30s and 40s dressed in jeans or casual business attire — oversee operations in dozens of countries. The group provides humanitarian aid such as freshwater wells and medical care, as well as Islamic services such as training for prayer leaders. A world map on one wall depicted Palestine, but not Israel.
Let the Palestinians Eat Potato Chips
By Ahmad Amr | June 10, 2010
At first glance, I thought I was reading a parody mocking the absurd list of the products that are banned from reaching Gaza. The Associated Press just published an article titled “Israel Eases Gaza Blockade on Some Banned Foods.” That seemed like a promising headline. It now appears that the Israelis will permit the Gazans to import soda, juice, jam, spices, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy. That’s it. No steel – no cement – nothing that can be used for rebuilding the thousands of homes, hospitals, schools, sewage plants and mosques that were reduced to rubble in last year’s carpet bombing of Gaza. What the AP failed to report is the long list of food products that still remain on the black list. Another thing that didn’t make past the AP censors is the fact that the Israelis continue to enforce the ban on textiles, office equipment, paper products, school equipment and even medical equipment.
Meanwhile over at Reuters, another Israeli media colony, the editors splashed another promising headline – “Netanyahu says ready to testify in flotilla inquiry.” Was that a sign that Israel was responding to international demands for an independent inquiry? Once again, the Reuters article was little more than unabashed propaganda. As it turns out, Netanyahu was volunteering to give testimony on “who was behind the extremist group on the ship’s deck? Who sponsored its members?” The subliminal message is “they deserved to die.”
Israel’s ‘impartial’ investigation will not be an International inquiry and will not take any testimony from the soldiers involved in the slaughter. That means we’ll never know the exact nature of the orders Ehud Barak handed to the Israeli Navy’s death squads. And neither will any of the victims on the flotilla get to testify because they’ve already been deported but not before the Israelis confiscated their cameras and videos.
While the Associated Press was lauding Israel’s magnanimity and Reuters was busy burying the calls for an international inquiry, the Guardian was reporting that “Flotilla activists were shot in the head at close range.” What’s going on here?
What we’re witnessing at Reuters and AP is not just another display of the influence of Zionists in the mass media – it’s a coordinated frontal assault by Israel’s propaganda machine with its guys at Reuters, AP and other mass media outlets. And if you think I’m exaggerating the extent of the collaboration – do yourself a favor and find out more about Israel’s Hasbara operation. Just today, the IDF released a mock musical parody of the assault that included derogatory language. The IDF is now dispensing that professionally produced video online along with doctored videos that for some unknown reason fail to record the crucial first minutes of the night attack on the humanitarian convoy. How long did it take to produce the video which was released by the IDF? Ask the folks at the Jerusalem Post – it was their handiwork.
Reporters Without Borders has confirmed that at least 60 of 700 passengers on board the FG flotilla were journalists and slammed the treatment of the media. Reporters and photographers were attacked, and journalists had their video, audio, and other communications equipment confiscated. Conveniently, the Israelis arrived fully armed with their own cameras. These aren’t allegations – they are well documented facts that just never found their way past Reuters or AP censors.
Over and beyond the skewed coverage, a question arises. Why did the Israelis have such a well coordinated ‘ready to launch’ media campaign before the assault? A plausible answer is that the Israeli Navy had instructions from the political leadership to use deadly force. That also helps explain why the sneak attack was carried out under the cover of darkness and why the Israelis cut satellite communication and confiscated the evidence in the hands of the reporters on board. It’s sort of curious why no AP or Reuters reporters were on board the flotilla.
All evidence indicates that some Reuters and AP reporters and editors were recruited as willing participants in Israel’s campaign to blame the victims. Either that or they simply failed to notice that the Israelis confiscated and tampered with evidence, held sixty of their colleagues incommunicado for two days after the assault on the flotilla and wouldn’t even allow incarcerated reporters access to their consulates. While professional journalists with first-hand accounts were locked up, Reuters and AP were disseminating Netanyahu’s crazy accusations that the flotilla had associations with Al Qaeda. Because of the absurdity of that charge, the Israelis government later toned their defamation campaign, withdrew the Al Qaeda canard and accused the Turks who were murdered of having associations with terrorists.
Over at Ha’aretz, there was another little report that the AP and Reuters crowd missed. “Defense Minister Ehud Barak told a meeting of Labor ministers that there should be no hurry in establishing a panel to probe the affair. According to a person present at a closed meeting with the defense minister, Barak said he thought the committee should wait “another two-three weeks and everyone will forget and the pressure on us will dissipate.” (Barak Ravid, Ha’aretz, June 7, 2010.) I can guarantee that the first people who will forget about it are the folks who own and operate the well oiled mind warping machinery at Reuters and the AP.
Lest we forget, Barak is a serial war criminal. The AP and Reuters omitted mentioning that the Israeli Minister of Defense who gave the orders for this criminal assault on the flotilla has already been investigated for war crimes by an internationally sanctioned inquiry which found compelling evidence that he was guilty as charged.
It seems to me that we’re not just witnessing willful misreporting and deliberate distortion by one AP reporter here or another Reuters’ correspondent there. It’s one thing to have this kind of blatant propaganda spewing from the foaming mouths of the likes of Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes or other deranged card carrying members of the Israel First Press Association. But we’re talking about international news agencies that are tasked with gathering and dispensing verifiable well sourced information before handing it over to the cabal of pro-Israeli spin meisters at CNN and the Washington Post.
So far, the damage control is probably a bit more work than what the Israelis and their mass media operatives bargained for. They obviously expected a less vocal reaction. Regardless, the campaign to white wash this wanton slaughter goes on full steam. Who needs cement, steel, medical equipment and stationary. Let the Palestinians eat cake and potato chips. Now that they have junk food on the shelves – what more can they possibly ask for? Call me an agitator but I think the Palestinians would gladly give up potato chips for balanced news coverage.
– Ahmed Amr is the former editor of NileMedia.com and the author of “The Sheep and the Guardians – Diary of a SEC Sanctioned Swindle.”
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From the Archives
“Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked:” A confession from John Ioannidis
Retraction Watch – March 16, 2016
John Ioannidis is perhaps best known for a 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” One of the most highly cited researchers in the world, Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford, has built a career in the field of meta-research. Earlier this month, he published a heartfelt and provocative essay in the the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology titled “Evidence-Based Medicine Has Been Hijacked: A Report to David Sackett.” In it, he carries on a conversation begun in 2004 with Sackett, who died last May and was widely considered the father of evidence-based medicine. We asked Ioannidis to expand on his comments in the essay, including why he believes he is a “failure.” … continue
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