Palestinian monastery loses court battle over apartheid wall
Al-Akhbar | April 26, 2013
A Catholic monastery and convent in a secluded valley outside Bethlehem lost a seven-year legal battle against the building of Israel’s apartheid wall on its land on Friday, according to its lawyers.
The Society of Saint Yves, a Catholic human rights group which argued the case on the monastery’s behalf, said an Israeli appeals court had endorsed a plan to expand the barrier it had built in the area.
The apartheid wall would surround the convent on three sides and cut it off from most of its land, Saint Yves said in a statement.
Salesian monks and nuns tend lush vineyards and olive trees on terraced hillsides under the gaze of Israeli settlements there. A convent school teaches 400 local children.
Israel started building the barrier, a mix of metal fencing, barbed wire and concrete walls, in 2002. It claims the apartheid barrier keeps its citizens safe from militants.
Saint Yves said “that the plan would violate international law and conventions protecting religious minorities and the right to education and freedom of religion”, said Anica Heinlein, its advocacy officer.
Around 50,000 Palestinian Christians, including 17,000 Catholics, live among 4 million Muslims in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza.
They say Israel’s checkpoints and apartheid barrier cut them off from their neighbors and holy places in Jerusalem.
Some 90 percent of Palestinian Christians live in a 20-km stretch from Ramallah and East Jerusalem to Bethlehem – an area locked in a labyrinth of Jewish settlements, Israeli-only roads and a drab concrete walls.
Built mostly within occupied land and not on the “Green Line”, which was the de facto border before the 1967 War, the apartheid barrier inside the West Bank is deemed illegal by the UN’s International Court of Justice.
The Palestinian Authority says the Christian population in the West Bank has shrunk over the last three decades due to emigration, but it lacks accurate figures.
“The occupation hurts Christians and Muslims both, but affects the Christian community more because it’s a smaller percentage of the population,” said Xavier Abu Eid, a diplomat in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
“This is a matter of their survival, as this is one of the last pieces of land the community owns,” he said.
Israeli President Shimon Peres will meet the newly elected pope next week during a visit to Italy.
The two men are due to discuss ties between Israel and the Vatican and improving relations between Christians and Jews. It was not immediately clear if the new pontiff would raise the issue of the monastery.
(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
Israel detains Hamas leader’s sons in raid
Ma’an – April 22, 2013
JENIN – Israeli security forces detained the sons of a local Hamas leader overnight in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, locals said.
Locals told Ma’an that Israeli troops raided Gamal al-Haija’s home and detained sons Abed al-Salam, Asem and Hamzeh. Their whereabouts are unknown, residents added.
Teacher Khaled Mohammad al-Haj was also detained after Israeli forces raided his home to the east of the city, a source told Ma’an. Summons were also handed down to three Palestinians in the district, requiring them to meet with Israeli security agents.
Residents also told Ma’an that Israeli forces raided the nearby Jalqamus and al-Yamoun villages, setting up checkpoints at the villages’ entrance and stationing near Yaba’s eastern border.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed three of the four detentions. At least five Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces across the West Bank on Monday.
Three Palestinians were detained in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. A local source identified them as Murad Karaja, 20, Ahmad Hajajra 21, and Ahmad Amer, 21. A resident said Hajajra’s mother was taken to hospital after collapsing during the raid.
Israeli forces also raided a home in the area and handed down summoning notices to brothers Muhammad, Khaled and Aboud al-Azza, the local added.
Troops also raided the refugee camp’s youth center, the resident said.
A source said Israeli forces raided the Azza refugee camp, also in Bethlehem, detaining Jihad Abu Shira and injuring his brother. The brother was taken to the al-Arabiya Hospital in Beit Jala for treatment, the source added.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Ali Musa and Amid Ahmad al-Azza, both 20, were detained by Israeli forces from the village of al-Khader in Bethlehem.
Israel’s army confirmed the detentions in Aida refugee camp but did not return requests for comment on the summons and raids.
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Israeli Journalist Accuses Army Of Executing Two Palestinians
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | April 15, 2013
A report written by Israeli Journalist, Gideon Levi, and published by Haaretz Hebrew Language daily, accuses the Israeli military of deliberately executing two Palestinians, who were recently shot by the army at the Ennab roadblock, east of Anabta near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem.
The two Palestinians, identified as Naji Al-Balbisi, 18, and Amer Ibrahim Nassar, 17, were shot by several rounds of live ammunition from a close range. At least four Palestinians have been injured.
Levy said that “on the eve on Wednesday April 3rd, and under the military monitoring tower, near the entrance of Tulkarem, an execution took place…. There can be no other words to describe what happened there, when four Palestinians walked towards the roadblock and the soldiers kept monitoring them, until they were nearly 2 kilometers away”.
“The soldiers monitored the Palestinians approaching, and repeatedly trying to light their Molotov cocktails, but they [the soldiers] did not do anything to stop them, the Palestinians then hurled their cocktails at the concrete wall of the military tower,” they were participating in clashes that took place after detainee Maisara Abu Hamdiyya died on April 2nd an advanced stage of cancer resulting from the lack of medical attention in Israeli prisons. Abu Hamdiyya is from the West Bank city of Hebron.
Levy added that two soldiers then fired rounds of live ammunition killing Amer Nassar, while Dia’ Nassar was kidnapped. Another Palestinian, identified as Fadi Abu Asal, was injured and was kidnapped a few days later.
“The soldiers then started chasing Naji Al-Balbeesy, who ran to the yard of a nearby leather factory. Soldiers approached him, opened fire at him from a very close range, and executed him”, Levy said, “This happened despite the fact that the soldiers, fortifying themselves in the monitoring tower, were never in any real danger”.
The Israeli journalist said that the slain Palestinians did not deserve to die, especially since they ran away, “but a soldier, or two, decided to teach Al-Balbeesy a lesson, by executing him”. The Milad News Agency reported.
Following the death of Abu Hamdiyya, dozens of Palestinians, including children, have been shot and wounded by Israeli military fire during clashes that took place with the army, while several Palestinians have been killed and dozens, including several children, have been kidnapped.
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AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): New report documents the loss of childhood
CPTnet | April 11, 2013
A newly released report compiled by internationals working in the West Bank city of Hebron documents an alarming rate of abuse of the rights of children. Human rights workers in H2, the portion of the city under Israeli military control, have witnessed 47 detentions or arrests of children age fifteen and under by soldiers since the start of February. Other violations documented in the report include conducting war training when children are present, delaying children and teachers as they pass checkpoints to access schools, detaining children in adult facilities, questioning children without the presence of an adult, and blindfolding children in detention.
Occupied Childhoods: Impact of the actions of Israeli soldiers on Palestinian children in H2 (Occupied Hebron) during February, March and April 2013 documents the alarming regularity of soldiers violating the rights of children to access education, to play, to have a parent, guardian or lawyer present when detained, and to move freely on their streets.
Documentation in the report was collected by three human rights organizations working in Hebron. Christian Peacemaker Teams, International Solidarity Movement, and Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Israel and Palestine all maintain teams in Hebron in order to provide protective presence and documentation in civilian neighborhoods.
The arrest on March 20, 2013, of 27 children outside a Hebron Elementary school has drawn attention to the extreme vulnerability of children living in occupied Hebron. Human rights workers in the city point out, however, that the mass arrest is far from an isolated event. All of the children in the neighborhoods in and around Hebron’s Old City must pass through military checkpoints to reach school, clinics and markets.
The report calls upon duty bearers to assure the human rights of children are respected. As Occupying Power the State of Israel is responsible for abiding by international law and for protecting the specific rights of children. Rights workers in Hebron call upon relevant UN agencies and non-governmental organizations to carry out their mandate by providing protection for children, and to pressure the State of Israel to change its policy vis-à-vis children in the Old City and H2.
In releasing the report, human rights workers in Hebron call upon consulates, churches and human rights organizations to formally protest the human rights crisis faced by children in Hebron and demand that the rights of children be protected.
Full report: http://cptpalestine.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/occupied-childhoods-impact-of-the-actions-of-israeli-soldiers-on-palestinian-children-in-h2-during-february-march-and-april-20131.pdf
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94802096@N05/sets/72157633209785476/show/
Video links:
- https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=490965807623666&set=vb.271582992877955&type=2&theater
- www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ng_xqfs3YZM
Twitter: https://twitter.com/btselem/status/314395213185572864
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Israeli soldier shoots disabled man in Hebron
Ma’an – 11/04/2013
HEBRON – Israeli forces on Thursday shot and injured a disabled Palestinian man in the southern West Bank city of Hebron in an act the Israeli army described as defensive.
Motaz Faraj Ibedo, who was already confined to a wheelchair after a shooting two years earlier, was critically injured and transferred to an Israeli hospital for treatment, the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement.
An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that a Palestinian man was hospitalized after being shot during an arrest operation. She said a soldier fired at the man when he tried to steal a weapon.
She said he threw objects including a gas can at soldiers. Two were injured, she said.
Amjad al-Najjar, the director of the PPS office in Hebron, denounced the arrest raid targeting a man who is already unable to walk without assistance.
Al-Najjar said that the Israeli authorities were responsible for Ibedo’s life. He called on the Israeli side to allow the man’s family and lawyer to visit him in custody.
An army spokeswoman denied Ibedo was under arrest and said he was still undergoing treatment in hospital.
Ibedo has been unable to walk on his own since he was shot in 2011 with a so-called dum dum bullet to the abdomen, which ruptured several internal organs and left him permanently disabled.
Since that incident, which Ibedo said happened while he was already in custody, he has not been able to walk due to a paralyzed left leg.
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Palestinian Cameraman Shot In The Face In Bethlehem
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | April 08, 2013
Bethlehem, Monday April 8, 2013, Palestinian medical sources reported that a Palestinian cameraman was shot in the face, on Monday evening, by a rubber-coated metal bullet, in the Aida refugee camp in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
The Palestine News Network (PNN) has reported that Mohammad Waleed Al-Azza was shot during clashes that took place between Israeli soldiers invading the camp and local youths who hurled stones at them.
PNN added that Al-Azza, who works at the Refugee Media Center in addition to freelancing for PNN and other agencies, was deliberately shot in the face by the soldiers who tried to stop him from documenting the invasion.
The soldiers tried to push him away, and when he refused to leave, one of the soldiers pointed his gun at him and shot him from a relatively close range.
Al-Azza’s medical condition was described as moderate; he was moved to the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation, in Bethlehem, where he will undergo surgery.
The camp has been witnessing an extended wave of escalation since several months now, due to repeated Israeli invasions and attacks against the residents, PNN said.
Several reporters have been injured in recent clashes between the soldiers and the Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank, and occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli military court sentences cartoonist to five months in jail
Palestine Information Center – 06/04/2013
JENIN — The Israeli military court in Salem, north of Jenin, has sentenced Palestinian cartoonist Mohammed Sabana to five months imprisonment on the charge of contacting “hostile parties”.
Family members told the PIC reporter on Saturday that the court passed the sentence on Friday and charged Sabana with making such contacts during his visit to Jordan.
They said that the charges were unfounded, adding that the sentence was illegal and proved the summary trials conducted against Palestinian citizens.
The relatives affirmed that Sabana was not involved with any political party or organization and was just an activist who employs his cartoons in exposing the Israeli occupation’s crimes.
Sabana was arrested on his return from Jordan last February and held for interrogation. His brother, Thamer, was also detained for his pro-prisoners’ activities.
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Palestinian Amer Nassar, Aged Seventeen: A Last Poem
Amer Nassar, 17. (Photo: Via Facebook)
By Felicity Arbuthnot | Palestine Chronicle | April 4, 2013
Last night and overnight, two unarmed teenagers, cousins Amer Nassar (17) and Naji Abdul-Karim Balbeisi (18) were shot dead by Israeli Defence Force troops.
The two were from the village of Anabta, near the town of Tulkarm, in Palestine’s West Bank. Tulkarm was founded in the 13th century, its name derived from the Aramaic “Toor Karma” meaning “mount of vineyards.”
Amer died from a bullet in his chest at 22.30 on Wednesday night, according to eye witnesses. Hearing shots, three boys from the village went out and found Amer lying on the ground, with soldiers standing over him. When they tried to reach him, the soldiers opened fire, injuring one, Fadi Abu-A’sr, in the arm, and subsequently hospitalized.
The three say that ambulance crews were prevented from reaching Amer for thirty vital minutes, with threats to shoot anyone attempting to intervene. Deiyaa’ Nasser, who did attempt to reach Amer:“was arrested by the Israeli Army and taken to an unknown location.”
Naji Abdul-Karim Balbisi, was found as dawn broke this morning, lying in a field. He was reported to have been shot from behind.
Tensions have been high in Gaza and the West Bank since the death of Maysara Abu Hamidya in Israel’s Soroko prison on 2nd April. Sixty five year old Abu Hamidya was a former high ranking officer in the Palestinian Authority (PA) prior to his arrest, which took place when the IDA invaded the West Bank, destroying PA Headquarter buildings, in May 2002.
Palestinian authorities have claimed that the prison was withholding treatment for his cancer. On Monday released prisoner Ayman Sharawna alleged that Hamdiya was in a life threatening condition in the prison infirmary – with his hands and feet shackled.
The Director of the Palestinian Prisoner Society has held the Israeli regime fully responsible for his death.
So, as Palestinians mark another onslaught, the massacre in the Jenin refugee camp (April 1st-11th 2002) the mourning, heartbreak, lost lives and lost youth grind on. But so does the spirit, in young and old.
Seventeen year old Amer Nassar left a poem. When others of his age write on Facebook of their dreams, aspirations, exams, plans, dates, travels, on 15th March, his last entry, he wrote (translated):
“Point your bullet where ever you like in my body
I will die today, but my homeland will live tomorrow
Be careful, Palestine is a red line.”
He did not die on March 15th, but just two weeks and three days later, at the hands of “the most moral army” and the “only democracy in the Middle East.”
(The writer is indebted to the resident of Palestine who drew attention to and translated Amer’s poem and to the International Solidarity Movement, for their careful details of another tragedy.)
– Felicity Arbuthnot is a freelance journalist specializing in social and environmental issues with a special knowledge of Iraq.
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‘Racial discrimination’ against Pro-Palestinian costs Air France
Press TV – April 5, 2013
A court in France has fined French flag carrier Air France 10,000 euros ($12,800) for removing a pro-Palestine activist from a Tel Aviv-bound flight because the passenger was a ‘non-Jew.’
On Thursday, the court found Air France guilty of a ‘clear-cut case of racial discrimination’ against Horia Ankour, who had intended to travel to Israel in April 2012 to attend the Welcome to Palestine protest.
On the plane, an airline employee asked the 30-year-old nursing student whether she had an Israeli passport or was Jewish. After answering no to the questions she was escorted off the aircraft.
The court has also ruled that Air France pay Ankour some 3,000 euros in damages and to cover her legal fees.
Meanwhile, the French airline has stated that the activist’s name was on a list of ‘undesirables’ provided by the Israeli regime. Air France said it would appeal.
During the fly-in protest, which was called by the media the ‘flytilla’ campaign, hundreds of pro-Palestine activists from across the globe tried to fly to Israel in an effort to travel to the occupied West Bank.
However, several activists were prohibited from boarding Israel-bound flights because their names were on the blacklist that the Israeli regime had given to a number of European airlines.
The campaign was not the first ‘flytilla’ that planned a trip to the occupied Palestinian territories.
In July 2011, Israeli authorities made intense efforts to interrupt the first ‘flytilla’ and arrested a number of activists. About 120 people were also denied entry and deported. In addition, several European countries prevented activists from boarding their flights as the Tel Aviv regime had already blacklisted them.
Palestinian prisoner was cancer-stricken for ‘years’: autopsy report
Al-Akhbar | April 4, 2013
Deceased Palestinian prisoner Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh had been stricken with cancer for ‘years’ and was treated with improper medication, official doctors from the Palestinian Authority and Jordan have found.
Israeli doctors did not stop Abu Hamdiyeh’s cancer from spreading, although he had been complaining of bodily pains since 2003, Palestinian Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqe said Thursday as he announced the results of an autopsy.
The 64 year old former Fatah member succumbed to oesophageal cancer on Tuesday. More than 6,000 Palestinians, reported to include all factions, poured into the streets of Hebron for his funeral.
Prison authorities disclosed his diagnosis in February, and said they tried to secure his release shortly after.
A statement from the Israeli Prison Service after his death said: “The prisoner was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in February and was under the medical supervision of experts at the hospital. About a week ago, after being diagnosed as terminal, the IPS appealed to the release committee to secure his early release, a process which had been started but not yet concluded.”
Lawyers and relatives report that prison doctors ran biopsy tests on him in 2012 but refused to inform him of his disease.
“Instead of providing him with the correct treatment, the doctors gave him flu shots that caused severe pain in his chest, which he could hardly sleep after,” said Abu Hamdiyeh’s lawyer al-Alami.
His sister Itidal told an online magazine that she visited him in January, one month before his official diagnosis, and found that his voice was completely gone.
Angered by Abu Hamdiyeh’s death, the entire Palestinian prisoner population refused their morning meal Wednesday, according to a statement by the IPS, and the Palestinian Authority announced a three-day general strike across the West Bank.
Abu Hamdiyeh is the second Palestinian to die in Israeli custody this year. Arafat Jaradat, 30, died after an interrogation session in February. Palestinian officials said he had been tortured, an allegation Israel denied.
Two Palestinian youths shot dead
Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian youths in Tulkarem, officials said Thursday, heightening tension ahead of Abu Hamdiyeh’s funeral.
Palestinian security officials said Amer Nassar, 17, was killed by shots to the head. According to AFP, the body of his 18-year-old cousin, Naji Balbisi, was discovered at the site at dawn on Thursday with wounds to the chest.
However, Palestine’s Ma’an News Agency reports that Israeli forces detained Balbisi’s for several hours, and then at 4 a.m., handed the body to a Red Crescent ambulance.
Both teenagers were to be buried after midday prayers.
The Israeli army said troops opened fire at rioters who hurled petrol bombs at a military post at Tulkarem late on Wednesday, as violent protests erupted in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority called for a general strike Tuesday after the death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh in an Israeli jail.
Following mass protests in the West Bank over the death of Abu Hamdiyeh, Israeli planes had gone into action on Tuesday, targeting what the military described as “two extensive terror sites in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Hours after it launched its first air strikes in the Palestinian enclave in four months, the Israeli military said two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck the southern town of Sderot on Wednesday morning, causing no casualties.
Fighters in the Gaza Strip early Thursday fired a mortar shell across the border, the army confirmed, adding that there were no casualties or damage.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had issued a stern warning, saying: “If calm is disrupted, we will respond forcefully.”
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Israeli forces attack annual “Land Day” protests
Olive trees are planted to commemorate Land Day (Photo credit – ISM)
Al-Akhbar | March 30, 2013
Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber coated bullets at Palestinians marking the annual Land Day in towns across the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday, local media reported.
Eyewitnesses told Ma’an News Agency that hundreds of Palestinians gathered in agricultural lands near the West Bank village of Jayyus to plant trees in commemoration of Land Day before Israeli troops stormed the area.
The soldiers fired tear gas canisters at the Palestinians, injuring dozens who inhaled the thick fumes.
In Ramallah in the central West Bank, Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets near the Qalandiya checkpoint which separates Ramallah and Jerusalem, a Ma’an reporter said.
In southern Gaza, east of Rafah, Israeli troops fired tear gas at Palestinian demonstrators, injuring several of them.
Palestinians also marked Land Day near Erez crossing and in the town of Beit Hanoun, both in northern Gaza.
Israeli forces had deployed heavily across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and on the northern border with Lebanon, since Friday in preparation for the yearly demonstrations.
Palestinians worldwide have marked every March 30 Land Day since Israeli police killed six Palestinians from inside the Green Line in 1976 who were protesting the theft of thousands of dunums of Arab land.
In Bethlehem, activists marked Land Day near Rachel’s Tomb where they raised Palestinian flags. Lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, joined the commemoration.
“Each day for our people is a land day during our battle with the occupation who steals our land and our future,” Barghouti said. “The only way to respond to the plots against our land is by escalating popular resistance across homeland.”
(Ma’an, WAFA)
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Israel admits: Just 0.7% of West Bank allocated to Palestinians
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | March 28, 2013
In documents released on Thursday to the High Court of Justice, the Israeli government has admitted what Palestinians have been saying for decades: that the Israeli government has taken over 99.3% of the West Bank, allocating most of the land to illegal Israeli ‘Jewish only’ settlements.
The Israeli designation of 1.3 million acres of Palestinian land in the West Bank as ‘Israeli state land’ flies in the face of past Israeli claims that they are willing to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians on the status of land in the West Bank.
The documents were released as part of a lawsuit filed by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din that challenged the construction of the illegal settlement of Hayovel on stolen Palestinian land. The Israeli government argues that the settlement and the road leading to it are on ‘uncultivated land’, and have declared that such lands are subject to takeover by the Israeli government.
After 1979, the Israeli government began wide scale takeovers of Palestinian land using a law that passed in the Israeli Knesset authorizing the Israeli government to take over any Palestinian land that had not been cultivated in ten years.
A study by Israeli researcher Dror Etkes found that the Israeli government has used land surveys that are meant to determine which land is cultivated and which is not as a political tool to take over nearly all of the land in the West Bank.
His report stated that his findings “prove the claims that Palestinian landowners have been consistently presenting over the past few decades: Under the aegis of the broad declaration of lands as state lands, which includes almost a million dunams, Israel has taken over extensive cultivated areas, which were stolen from their owners through administrative decisions over which public and legal oversight is minimal, because they were supposedly not cultivated.”
In the recent case of the outpost of Derech Ha’avot, the largest Israeli outpost colony in the West Bank, the Israeli High Court ruled that the takeover of private Palestinian land by the Israeli settlers was acceptable, leading the lawyers for Yesh Din (the Israeli human rights group representing the Palestinian landowners) to declare;
“Not only is the state reconciling itself to the breaking of the law, but it is also ultimately granting the usurped land to the lawbreakers. It is particularly outrageous that all the state authorities joined forces to accept the breaking of the law and are now attempting to provide an umbrella of state support, rather than combating organized ideological crime that violates human rights on a daily and hourly basis.”
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On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
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