I remember watching a news report once and being struck by the glaring contradiction of images displayed by media of Israelis and Palestinians. When Israeli citizens or even troops were shown, they were depicted as either victims of a terrible suicide attack or soldiers at alert facing an unknown enemy. When Palestinians were shown, it was of stone-throwing youths, threatening men in Gaza with wrapped faces shouting angry words or of West Bank police firing machine guns into the air to disperse unruly crowds. While the role of Israeli peace-groups is rarely covered, Palestinian peace groups are thought of as near-mythical. Think resistance and Palestinians, and suicide bombers and terrorists easily come to mind--part of what the media readily covers and displays. Yet there has been a long movement of non-violent resistance on the part of Palestinians. Boston-based journalist Ellen Cantarow looks at a particular act of passive resistance, by Palestinians protesting the debilitating wall being built by the Israeli government.
Read the article here. Excerpts below.
Excerpt:
Before the wall’s advent, Qalqilya’s merchants and Israelis did regular business on either side of the border, while Jayyous’ farmers worked their land all the way up to the Green Line. Now, the monstrous, concrete version of the wall surrounds Qalqilya entirely, bringing to mind high-security prisons or ghettoes from other eras. Jayyous is segregated from most of its former land by the wall in what one could call its "barrier" form – a system of steel fences, razor wire, and patrol roads manned by Israeli soldiers.
Four thousand of the village’s olive and citrus trees were uprooted to make way for the wall. All the village’s wells and over 75 percent of the land are now sequestered behind the wall, isolated on its west – that is, "Israeli" – side. A small Israeli settler colony called Zufim sits amid Jayyous’ former wealth. Israeli plans are on the books to build up to 1,500 new housing units on the bounty confiscated from the village. The new units will destroy the only road over which Jayyous’ farmers can now travel to and from their land: there used to be six of these roads. Israel has already blocked five of them.
Sixty-five-year-old Sharif Omar Khalid, known more familiarly as Abu Azzam, has spent half his life struggling to preserve Jayyous’ land. In 1980, with other farmers representing villages throughout the West Bank, he founded the Land Defense Committee, one of 18 organizations that now make up the Stop the Wall campaign. Gifted with stubborn optimism, he counts as victory an Israeli Supreme Court decision in April 2006, which pushed the path of the wall back from the south side of the village. The decision returned 11 percent of Jayyous’ former land – 750 dunams of the 8,600 blocked by the barrier. (A dunam is a little over a quarter of an acre.)
The wall remains, as does one of its most essential parts: the "agricultural gate." There are two of these on Jayyous’ land – one to the north; another to the south. Almost all of the village’s farmers are forced to use the north gate. Opened by Israeli soldiers for two 45-minute intervals at dawn and dusk, the gate blocks a patrol road manned by the Israelis.
Full article here.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Non-Violent in Palestine
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Obama's Awkward Israel Problem
When veteran White House Press Corps reporter Helen Thomas asked President Obama point blank at his first press conference if he could name any country in the Middle East that currently possesses nuclear weapons back in early February, what followed was an awkward pivot and deflection. In the end, the question went unanswered. Because, as pointed out by one commentator, any answer would have been considered a "gaffe." It is almost amazing that the U.S., who threatens war on other nations for any *alleged* construction of nuclear weapons, cannot even be honest about its own allies WMDs. Dated protocols and strategic alliances turn usually soapbox standing politicians of all stripes dumb and mute whenever the question is raised. Stephen Zunes at Foreign Policy In Focus points out this goes deeper however, as acknowledgement of Israel's nuclear arsenal would put the U.S. in the odd bind of enforcing its own laws--namely the 1976 Symington Amendment, which restricts U.S. military support for governments which develop nuclear weapons.
But as the U.S. will continue to funnel some $3 billion each year for the next 10 years to the Israeli military machine, that law could cause more long awkward pauses. Below, Stephen Zunes writes about the current administration's close ties with the Israeli state, and its consequences.
Obama and Israel's Military: Still Arm-in-Arm
Stephen Zunes March 4, 2009
FPIF
In the wake of Israel's massive assault on heavily populated civilian areas of the Gaza Strip earlier this year, Amnesty International called for the United States to suspend military aid to Israel on human rights grounds. Amnesty has also called for the United Nations to impose a mandatory arms embargo on both Hamas and the Israeli government. Unfortunately, it appears that President Barack Obama won't be heeding Amnesty's call.
During the fighting in January, Amnesty documented Israeli forces engaging in "direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza, and attacks which were disproportionate or indiscriminate." The leader of Amnesty International's fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip and southern Israel noted how "Israeli forces used white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the USA to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes." Amnesty also reported finding fragments of U.S.-made munitions "littering school playgrounds, in hospitals and in people's homes."
Malcolm Smart, who serves as Amnesty International's director for the Middle East, observed in a press release that "to a large extent, Israel's military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with U.S. taxpayers' money." The release also noted how before the conflict, which raged for three weeks from late December into January, the United States had "been aware of the pattern of repeated misuse of [its] weapons."
Amnesty has similarly condemned Hamas rocket attacks into civilian-populated areas of southern Israel as war crimes. And while acknowledging that aid to Hamas was substantially smaller, far less sophisticated, and far less lethal — and appeared to have been procured through clandestine sources — Amnesty called on Iran and other countries to take concrete steps to insure that weapons and weapon components not get into the hands of Palestinian militias.
During the fighting in early January, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization initially called for a suspension of U.S. military aid until there was no longer a substantial risk of additional human rights violations. The Bush administration summarily rejected this proposal. Amnesty subsequently appealed to the Obama administration. "As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights," said Malcolm Smart. "The Obama administration should immediately suspend U.S. military aid to Israel."
Obama's refusal to accept Amnesty's call for the suspension of military assistance was a blow to human rights activists. The most Obama might do to express his displeasure toward controversial Israeli policies like the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories would be to reject a planned increase in military aid for the next fiscal year and slightly reduce economic aid and/or loan guarantees. However, in a notable departure from previous administrations, Obama made no mention of any military aid to Israel in his outline of the FY 2010 budget, announced last week. This notable absence may indicate that pressure from human rights activists and others concerned about massive U.S. military aid to Israel is now strong enough that the White House feels a need to downplay the assistance rather than emphasize it.
Read rest of article here.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Compassionate Ethnic Cleansing
In the wake of the Gaza massacre and with a dangerous tilt to the right, some in Israel are now openly expressing the unthinkable--the mass expulsion of "Arabs" from its borders. Conn Hallinan at Jewish Peace News reports:
One of the more disturbing developments in the Middle East is a growing consensus among Israelis that it would acceptable to expel -- in the words of advocates "transfer" -- its Arab citizens to either a yet as unformed Palestinian state or the neighboring countries of Jordan and Egypt.
More after the fold...
At one time relegated to extremists, the idea is gaining popular support among segements of Israel. And with the rise of ultra-nationalist Avigdor Liebermann, who has long called for the expulsion of "disloyal Arabs," in Israeli politics, what was once a fringe ideology is moving steadily into mainstream opinion--under the euphemism of "transfer." And even those who are accepting of an "independent" Palestinian state, are using such a plan to push an agenda of Arab expulsion. As Hallinan notes:
..."transfer" is no longer the exclusive policy of extremists, as it has increasingly become a part of mainstream political dialogue. "My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two nation-states with certain concessions and with clear red lines," Kadima leader and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told a group of Tel Aviv high school students last December, "and among other things, I will be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli Arabs, and tell them, ' your national solution lies elsewhere.'"
This trend is accompanied by a strong anti-Arab/anti-Palestinian bias that is growing among Israelis. And, according to data Hallinan pulls from the Israeli Association for Civil Rights, anti-Arab incidents (what we would call "hate crimes") have risen sharply:
* Some 55 percent of Jewish Israelis say that the state should encourage Arab emigration;
* 78 percent of Jewish Israelis oppose including Arab parties in the government;
* 56 percent agree with the statement that "Arabs cannot attain the Jewish level of cultural development";
* 75 percent agree that Arabs are inclined to be violent. Among Arab-Israelis, 54 percent feel the same way about Jews.
* 75 percent of Israeli Jews say they would not live in the same building as Arabs.
And to think, Israel--along with the support of the US & Canada--is boycotting the Durban racism conference.
These numbers tend to support what many, like former President Jimmy Carter, have pointed out--that Israel is a de facto apartheid state. And though President Carter insisted this apartheid system only existed in the territories, it would seem it is now moving into the metropole of Israel as well. But comparing Israel's policies to minority-white rule South Africa garners a storm of criticism, as both President Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu have learned. And Israel remains the only state that puts forth an ethnic manifesto that is accepted by the world polity, and fiercely supported by benefactors like the United States. So much so, that even President Carter is certain not to dispute the sanctity of Israel to remain a Jewish majority state--forever. Given the recent past, and the horrors endured by people of Jewish descent in Europe during WWII, the nature of this claim is understandable. That it remains however, outside the boundaries of even rational debate, seems to have allowed it to grow into something altogether disturbing.
Electronic Intifada cofounder Ali Abunimah has long pointed to this unwillingness to dialogue openly and fully about Israel as one of the key blocks to any form of lasting peace. And he has warned in the past the dangers inherent in a singular focus on a "two-state solution," if only because ethnic nationalism can so easily degenerate into something much more sinister. His book One Country: A Bold Proposal to the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse seeks another soution:
ONE COUNTRY revives an old and neglected idea of sharing the country. Although living together might seem impossible, Abunimah shows how Israelis and Palestinians are by now so intertwined -- geographically and economically -- that no kind of separation can lead to the security Israelis need or the rights Palestinians must have. He reveals the bankruptcy of the two-state approach, takes on the objections and taboos that stand in the way of a binational solution, demonstrates that sharing the territory will bring benefits for all, and asserts that the country can remain a homeland for both Jews and Palestinians.
Abunimah's ideas have been lampooned as implausible. And not even many Mid-East peace activists dare not touch or mention it. However the time may soon come when the world will have to at least finally *ask* the question of whether any state can remain an ethnically homogenous and still be a democracy, in a modern world that seeks to come together rather than drift apart.
Read full article by Conn Hallinan here.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Israel's Right-Wing Makeover
Right wing ideologue Benjamin Netanyahu has swept to power in the elections. Coming with him are pro-settler politicians who are firmly against any Palestinian state, and militarists who are itching to preemptively wage war on Iran--along with anyone else in the neighborhood. To top it off, an anti-Arab ultra-nationalist, Avigdor Lieberman (who thinks apartheid for the Palestinians is a good idea, and at whose rallies Israeli teens chant "Death to Arabs") now has the position of "kingmaker" in the new emergent government. There's no misreading this--Israel as a state has tilted radically to the right, with leaders who are best compared to the neocons of the Bush era. And the left, defeated and humiliated, has been reduced to a minority voice.
It boggles the mind to think that the architects of the recent massacre in Gaza, are actually to the *left* of the people now in power. It seems the "extremists" are no longer restricted and blockaded in Gaza--they now have compatriots in Tel Aviv. Troubling for an Obama administration eager to wrangle out some form of Mid East peace, hope and change did not come to Israel.
More below the fold.
The Palestinian reaction:Fatah leaders on the ground see the Israeli election as confirming what they already knew: that there's nothing to be gained by continuing the charade of U.S.-sponsored talks-about-talks with the Israelis. They could not get what they needed from Olmert, and they know his successors will be even more hardline. From the Palestinian perspective, the past eight years of waiting for negotiations with Israel has left Abbas empty-handed, while the latest Gaza conflict has put Hamas in a stronger position than ever in Palestinian public opinion.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Tragic Failure of American Journalism in Gaza
Look at the news in the world, and in the past weeks you would have watched as the Israeli military machine destroyed Gaza, UN buildings and even an American school, using controversial weapons that have left thousands of civilians dead and injured. Catch the news in the US however, from broadcast television to newspapers, and you would think you live in some other world--where Israeli military and government propaganda serves as the script for a necessary and "defensive" war.
That US politicians are unable (through cowardice or tunnel-vision) to critique Israel, is nothing new. Neither is it news that our media find objectivity a lacking trait when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, with the sheer scale of what happened in the past few weeks, it is still shocking to see this willful blindess and group-think in action.
Below is an article by journalist Chris Hedges, examining this sad state of affairs:
With Gaza, Journalists Fail Again
By Chris Hedges
Jan. 26, 2009
The assault on Gaza exposed not only Israel’s callous disregard for international law but the gutlessness of the American press. There were no major newspapers, television networks or radio stations that challenged Israel’s fabricated version of events that led to the Gaza attack or the daily lies Israel used to justify the unjustifiable. Nearly all reporters were, as during the buildup to the Iraq war, pliant stenographers and echo chambers. If we as journalists have a product to sell, it is credibility. Take that credibility away and we become little more than propagandists and advertisers. By refusing to expose lies we destroy, in the end, ourselves.
Full article here or after the fold.
All governments lie in wartime. Israel is no exception. Israel waged an effective war of black propaganda. It lied craftily with its glib, well-rehearsed government spokespeople, its ban on all foreign press in Gaza and its confiscation of cell phones and cameras from its own soldiers lest the reality of the attack inadvertently seep out. It was the Arabic network al-Jazeera, along with a handful of local reporters in Gaza, which upheld the honor of our trade, that of giving a voice to those who without our presence would have no voice, that of countering the amplified lies of the powerful with the faint cries and pain of the oppressed. But these examples of journalistic integrity were too few and barely heard by us.
We retreated, as usual, into the moral void of American journalism, the void of balance and objectivity. The ridiculous notion of being unbiased, outside of the flow of human existence, impervious to grief or pain or anger or injustice, allows reporters to coolly give truth and lies equal space and airtime. Balance and objectivity are the antidote to facing unpleasant truths, a way of avoidance, a way to placate the powerful. We record the fury of a Palestinian who has lost his child in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza but make sure to mention Israel’s “security needs,” include statements by Israeli officials who insist there was firing from the home or the mosque or the school and of course note Israel’s right to defend itself. We do this throughout the Middle East. We record the human toll in Iraq, caused by our occupation, but remind everyone that “Saddam killed his own people.” We write about the deaths of families in Afghanistan during an airstrike but never forget to mention that the Taliban “oppresses women.” Their crimes cancel out our crimes. It becomes a moral void. And above all we never forget to mention the “war on terror.” We ask how and who but never, never do we ask why. As long as we speak in the cold, dead language of those in power, the language that says a lie is as valid as a fact, the language where one version of history is as good as another, we are part of the problem, not the solution.
“Bombs and rockets are flying between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, and once again, The Times is caught in a familiar crossfire, accused from all sides of unfair and inaccurate coverage,” New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt breezily began in writing his assessment of the paper’s coverage, going on to conclude “though the most vociferous supporters of Israel and the Palestinians do not agree, I think The Times, largely barred from the battlefield and reporting amid the chaos of war, has tried its best to do a fair, balanced and complete job—and has largely succeeded.”
The cliché that Israel had a right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks—that bombs and rockets were “flying between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza”—was accepted in the press as an undisputed truth. It became the starting point for every hollow discussion of the Israeli attack. It left pundits and columnists chattering about “proportionality,” not legality. Israel was in open violation of international law, specifically Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which calls on an occupying power to respect the safety of occupied civilians. But you would not know this from the press reports. The use of attack aircraft and naval ships, part of the world’s fourth-largest military power, to level densely packed slums of people who were hungry, without power and often water, people surrounded on all sides by the Israeli army, was fatuously described as a war. The news coverage held up the absurd notion that a few Hamas fighters with light weapons and no organization were a counterforce to F-16 fighter jets, tank battalions, thousands of Israeli soldiers, armored personnel carriers, naval ships and Apache attack helicopters. It fit the Israeli narrative. It may have been balanced and objective. But it was not true.
The Hamas rockets are crude, often made from old pipes, and largely ineffectual. The first homemade Qassam rocket was fired across the Israeli border in October 2001. It was not until June 2004 that Israel suffered its first fatality. There are 24 Israelis who have been killed by Hamas rocket fire, compared with 5,000 Palestinian dead, more than half of them in Gaza, at least a third of them children. This does not absolve Hamas from firing rockets at civilian areas, which is a war crime, but it does raise questions about the story line swallowed without reflection by the press. I covered the Kosovo Albanians’ desperate attempts to resist the Serbs, which resulted in a handful of Serb casualties, but no one ever described the lopsided Serbian butchery in Kosovo as a war. It was called genocide, and it led to NATO intervention to halt it.
It was Israel, not Hamas, which violated the truce established last June. This was never made clear in any of the press reports. Hamas agreed to halt rocket fire into Gaza in exchange for an Israeli promise to ease the draconian siege that made the shipment of vital material and food into Gaza nearly impossible. And once the agreement was reached, the Hamas rocket fire ended. Israel, however, never upheld its end of the agreement. It increased the severity of the siege. U.N. agencies complained. International relief organizations condemned the Israeli blockade. And there were even rumblings inside Israel. Shmuel Zakai, an Israeli brigadier general who resigned as commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division and was forcibly discharged from the military amid allegations that he leaked information to the media, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Dec. 22 that the Israeli government had made a “central error” during the tahdiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce, by failing “to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip. … [W]hen you create a tahdiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues,” Zakai said, “it is obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahdiyeh, and that their way to achieve this is resumed Qassam fire. … You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing.”
Israel, we know from papers such as Haaretz, started planning this assault last March. The Israeli army deliberately broke the truce when it carried out an attack on Nov. 4 that killed six Hamas fighters. It timed the attack, the heavy air and naval bombardment and the invasion of Gaza to coincide with the waning weeks of the Bush administration. Israel knew it would be given carte blanche by the White House. Hamas responded to the Nov. 4 provocation in the way Israel anticipated. It fired Qassam rockets and Grad missiles into Israel to retaliate. But even then Hamas offered to extend the truce if Israel would lift the blockade. Israel refused. Operation Cast Lead was unleashed.
Henry Siegman, the director of the U.S./Middle East Project at the Council of Foreign Relations, noted correctly that Israel “could have met its obligation to protect its citizens by agreeing to ease the blockade, but it didn’t even try. It cannot be said that Israel launched its assault to protect its citizens from rockets. It did so to protect its right to continue the strangulation of Gaza’s population.”
There were a few flashes of integrity in the American press. The Wall Street Journal ran a thoughtful piece, “How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas,” on Jan. 24 that was unusual in view of the acceptance in U.S. press coverage that Hamas is nothing more than an Islamo-fascist organization that understands only violence. And some journalists from news organizations such as the BBC did a good job once they were finally permitted to enter Gaza. Jimmy Carter wrote an Op-Ed article in The Washington Post detailing his and the Carter Center’s efforts to prevent the conflict. This article was an important refutation of the Israeli argument, although it was ignored by the rest of the media. But these were isolated cases. The publishers, news executives and editors largely accepted without any real protest Israel’s ban on coverage and allowed Israeli officials to fill their news pages and airtime with fabrications and distortions. And this made the war crimes carried out by the Israeli army easier to commit and prolong.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is acutely aware of Israel’s violations of international law, has already begun to reassure his commanders that they will be protected from war crimes prosecution.
“The commanders and soldiers that were sent on the task in Gaza should know that they are safe from any tribunal and that the State of Israel will assist them in this issue and protect them as they protected us with their bodies during the military operation in Gaza,” he said.
Israel’s brutal military tactics, despite the lack of coverage in the American press, have come under intense international scrutiny. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, blame the high civilian death toll on indiscriminate firing and shelling, as well as the use of white phosphorus shells in civilian areas. Israel has admitted using white phosphorus in Gaza but insists the chemical, used for smoke screens and to mark spots to be shelled or bombed, was not used directly against civilians.
Hamas is an unsavory organization. It has made life miserable for many in Gaza and carried out a series of death-squad-style executions of alleged opponents. But Hamas, elected to power in 2006, also brought effective civil control to Gaza. Gaza, ruled by warring factions, warlords, clans, kidnapping rings and criminal gangs, had descended into chaos under Mahmoud Abbas’ corrupt Fatah-led government. Hamas, once it assumed power, halted suicide bombing attacks on Israel. It ended rocket fire into Israel for almost a year. It upheld its agreement with Israel. Hamas’ willingness to negotiate with Israel, albeit through Egyptian intermediaries, led al-Qaida, which has been working to make inroads among the Palestinians, to condemn the Hamas leadership as collaborators.
Israel and the United States carried out an abortive and desperate attempt to overthrow Hamas by arming and backing a Fatah putsch in June 2007. They wanted to install the pliant Abbas in power. Hamas resisted, often with violent brutality, and expelled Abbas and the Fatah leadership from Gaza to the West Bank. Israel has now decided to do the dirty job itself. It will not work. Israel broke and discredited Yasser Arafat and Fatah in much the same manner. Abbas and Fatah have no authority or credibility left. Abbas is seen by most Palestinians as a pliant Israeli stooge. Israel is now destroying Hamas. Radical Islamic groups, such as al-Qaida, far more violent and irrational, stand poised to replace Hamas. And Israel will one day look wistfully at Hamas just as it does now at Fatah. But by then, with Israel surrounded by radical Islamic regimes in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and even Jordan, as well as fighting a homegrown al-Qaida movement among the Palestinians, it may be too late.
The Israeli government bears the responsibility for its crimes. But by giving credibility to the lies and false narratives Israel uses to justify wholesale slaughter we empower not only Israel’s willful self-destruction but our own. The press, as happened during the buildup to the Iraq war, was again feckless and gutless. It bent to the will of the powerful. It abandoned its sacred contract with its readers, listeners and viewers to always tell the truth. It chattered about nothing. It obscured the facts. It did this while hundreds of women and children were torn to shreds by iron fragmentation bombs in a flagrant violation of international law. And as it failed it lauded itself for doing “a fair, balanced and complete job.”
Saturday, January 10, 2009
US Rejected Israeli Request to Attack Iran--Thrice
So it would seem in the question of which set of neocons are more sane--those in Tel Aviv or the ones on Pennsylvania Ave--the latter has won out. The NY Times is reporting that in at least three known incidents, the Bush administration denied Israeli pleas to launch a military attack on Iran. More below.
According to a NY Times article, "President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex." As US officials tell it, the Israelis--lacking the US weapons needed to attack Iran's underground complexes--"backed off their plans, at least temporarily." What was it then that stopped the US from agreeing to the Israeli plans? It seems, in a rare bit of good sense and judgment, the Bush administration actually decided that Israel's plan would be--*reckless.*
As cited by the Times, The interviews also indicate that Mr. Bush was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran’s nuclear effort further out of view. Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America’s 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved.
More interesting, it turns out that one of the key reasons the Bush administration began backing away from any outright attack on Iran had to do with that pesky NIE report released in Dec. 2007. According to the National Intelligence Estimate, Iran had in fact stopped its attempts at building a nuclear bomb as far back as 2003.
Officials stated that "the Israelis responded angrily and rebutted the American report," providing their own evidence of Iran working on a nuclear weapon. The Bush administration reacted to their own NIE report with similar scoffing. Secretary Robert Gates, the very one kept on by the Obama administration, was "highly critical" of the NIE report. Gates stated the NIE had "presented the evidence poorly, underemphasizing the importance of Iran’s enrichment activity and overemphasizing the suspension of a weapons-design effort that could easily be turned back on." In other words, Gates was laying the ground for the ideology of pre-emption--in which intelligence should be used to predict worst case scenarios rather than current reality. Nevertheless, the much ballyhooed NIE still seemed to be enough to put a speed bump in any Iran attack plans.
The undaunted Israelis however, intent on remaining the only undeclared nuclear power in the neighborhood, was insistent however on attacking Iran. On two occassions in early 2008, they made requests for weapons and other aid from the US in order to strike Iran. And, in what was called "alarming" to US officials, they wanted to do it via Iraq.
In an unmitigated bit of chutzpah, the Israelis asked the US to allow its bombing run on Iran to take place by overflights through Iraq. "Mr. Bush deflected the first two requests, pushing the issue off," the NY Times said, citing a US official, "but 'we said 'hell no’ to the overflights." Concerned that the uproar in Iraq over such a military operation could turn the country into a cauldron of discontent, the Bush administration rebuffed the Israelis. Disagreement over Iran even led some to worry that tensions could arise between the two allies.
As a White House official told the Times, Israeli intentions on striking Iran via Iraq "really spooked a lot of people." White House officials openly fretted that the Israelis might fly over Iraq without American permission. Some pondered whether American military would be ordered to shoot them down or be accused of being complicit in an attack on Iran.
In order to pacify the Israelis, the Times states the US settled on starting up a covert operation meant to deter Iranian attempts at nuclear enrichment. As stated by the Times, this operation, mostly involving sabotage, is "aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program."
Thus far the Israelis have determined that without US help they cannot carry out an attack on Iran. However, as the Israelis press a popular "war" in Gaza and flex their muscle, whether the next administration can keep the most powerful military in the Middle East from sparking a regional conflict remains to be seen.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The Möbius Strip Issue
Möbius Strip: a surface with only one side and only one boundary component.
In our one-sided political and media culture, it's hard to get an objective side to any dealings between Israel and the Palestinians--much less the Palestinian side. Whether Republican or Democrat, liberal-leaning or conservative, politicians and pundits have come out in force for Israel's attack on Gaza, co-signing onto a policy that has left hundreds dead while hiding behind a pretense of self-defense. It is a shameful hypocrisy that is so blatantly obvious, one has to believe we are watching theatre instead of reality--because no one can possibly be that obtuse. As often of late in these times, the sane voice has come not from journalists or those we elect to office, but from a biting, humorous, half-hour satire known as The Daily Show.
In what some have called "brilliant" or "brave" and downright "ballsy," host Jon Stewart manages to raise valid questions not only on current Israeli policy, but calls to task a media and political class that reduces a complex topic into "the Möbius Strip of Issues."
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Israel Violates Geneva Conventions in Gaza (Graphic)
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
The statement above was issued in response to Israel's attack in Gaza by Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Below the fold are the rest of his words, as well as some images currently coming out of Gaza. Warning- they are graphic.
Israel Violates Geneva Conventions in Gaza
27 December 2008
The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.
Those violations include:
Collective punishment – the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.
Targeting civilians – the airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.
Disproportionate military response – the airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.
Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza's besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims.
Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give rise to any Israeli right, neither as the Occupying Power nor as a sovereign state, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in its response. I note that Israel's escalating military assaults have not made Israeli civilians safer; to the contrary, the one Israeli killed today after the upsurge of Israeli violence is the first in over a year.
Israel has also ignored recent Hamas' diplomatic initiatives to reestablish the truce or ceasefire since its expiration on 26 December.
The Israeli airstrikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel's violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries who have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza that itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
I remind all member states of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law – regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations. I call on all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
The Israeli Assault on Gaza
Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.--Professor Juan Cole, Middle East Analyst
With over 200 280 dead and over a thousand wounded, the Israeli airstrikes in Hamas controlled Gaza have been horrific and unprecedented in recent Mid East history. Reacting to a continued barrage of rocket attacks, Israel has claimed that "now is a time to fight." Hamas has gone underground, and has vowed more rocket attacks and a wave of suicide bombings. The Israeli army is massing troops for a possible ground offensive as the entire region threatens to enter a new cycle of violence.
Or at least that's the narrative you'll hear spun out of the mainstream US media.
What you won't hear is that Israel has had an enforced blockade on Gaza, cutting off food, water, medicines and more that has left the region poverty-stricken and at times near starvation. All of this occurred since Hamas, a group once funded by Israel to thwart the more nationalist PLO, fairly won democratic elections, and became pariahs in the West for their refusal to abandon armed struggle. There have been stories of Gazans eating everything from grass to animal feed. The humanitarian disaster there has been long in the making, and too often ignored. What you won't hear is that those barrage of rocket attacks on Israel don't always come from Hamas, certainly not the police stations struck, or the civilians caught in the middle, but from numerous other factions over which Hamas has limited control. Furthermore, the rocket attacks are often in retaliation for Israeli incursions (assassinations, raids, missile strikes) that repeatedly break the fragile cease-fire but go unreported and ignored in popular media. Even more sobering, is that while the Palestinian rocket attacks certainly create a sense of psychological terror, they are often so inaccurate and imprecise, they rarely kill any Israelis. The ratio of death isn't close to equal: somewhere slightly over 20 Israelis have been killed by rocket attacks since 2000; this latest offensive in Israel alone has killed 200 280 Palestinians. While we can certainly go into a long list of "who did what first" in this ongoing cyclical conflict, the idea that Israel has previously been showing "restraint" is a Likudnik propaganda myth parroted by popular U.S. media.
So far, world reaction has been typical from the usual list of players. The Bush administration, while cautioning against civilan casualties, has made Hamas the boogey-man and co-signed on Israel's assault--going as far as to call the hundreds of dead Palestinian policemen "thugs." The incoming Obama administration has mostly been quiet. The international community has at least shown some variance--from calls for immediate restraint to condemnation. The UN, as usual, is scrambling to come up with a coherent position, with the U.S. certain to veto any statement that holds Israel responsible or demands a cessation of hostilities. Meanwhile, as images of dead Palestinians are broadcast throughout the world, there is shock and outrage in the Muslim world, and a the entire region threatens to enter a new era of violence, vengeance and reprisals.
Below, as updates arrive, are news accounts of this recent crisis outside of the popular U.S. media, and from the side of the Palestinians, to give a more nuanced perspective.
The Electronic Intifada
The Electronic Intifada (EI), found at electronicIntifada.net, publishes news, commentary, analysis, and reference materials about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a Palestinian perspective. EI is the leading Palestinian portal for information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its depiction in the media.
The recent Gaza-Israeli truce and ceasefire breaches. A brief timeline.
While there is an effort to place the onus on Hamas or Israel on the breakdown of the recent Egypt brokered ceasefire, history seems to portray a more complicated picture that ties in the West Bank, Disengagement, and other groups besides Hamas. Of course, any effort to place the onus here on one side or another really ignores the decades old historical context of this conflict into a facile moral comparison. However, it seems that there is a lack of proper retrospective into this ceasefire in the contemporary media.
Informed Comment- Juan Cole
Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Christian Zionists?- Scarier Than You Think!
And you were scared about Jeremiah Wright? Here's something to really keep you up at night- Pastor John Hagee and CUFI (Christians United for Israel). Unlike Wright, who was preaching a social gospel of defending the poor and defenseless, Hagee and CUFI call for pre-emptive strikes on Iran and global war on Islam that will draw in Israel and bring on Armageddon. And here's the kicker, they have the ear of the powerful, with not only Presidential candidate John McCain but numerous other GOP members (war hawks, neoconservatives, Israel hawks) running to kow-tow to them at every turn. Forget Jeremiah Wright, CUFI and Hagee are the REAL DEAL type of scary, and the ones you ought to be worried about.
Don’t know how many of you watch Bill Moyers, but you should--as it is one of the last bastions of journalistic integrity left in the media. In case you didn’t catch last week’s episode, please stop by and watch the whole expose on Pastor John Hagee, leader of CUFI (Christians United For Israel). A few weeks back, Hagee endorsed GOP Presidential candidate John McCain.
In the midst of media attention on Sen. Barack Obama’s ties (real and nebulous) to figures like Minister Louis Farrakhan or Pastor Jeremiah Wright, the link of much of the GOP to Pastor John Hagee is getting remarkably short thrift. While Hagee was described as an anti-Catholic bigot, whom McCain was later forced to distance himself from (partly), the news media wholly neglected to delve into his beliefs, and that of CUFI, in full. Hagee and his organization are at the forefront of what is known as the Christian Zionist Movement--who preach a mixture of political and spiritual support for Israel that is based on extremism, anti-Arabism, Islamaphobia, neo-conservative ideals of pre-emptive war and unbridled militarism. There is even a strong strain of anti-Semitism in their ideology, as part of their support for Israel is their idea of the role Jews must play in End Times prophecy--which will "allegedly" result in the mass death of most Jews, except for the ones who accept Jesus in the end.
Whoa! And the media is obsessed with a bunch of brothers in suits and bowties slanging bean pies? And of a preacher of a small congregation in Chi-town?
Forget anything you might hear about the "dangers" of Farrakhan for comments he made some 24 years ago, and has since recanted for (in his own way), or the "radical" view points of Jeremiah Wright---Pastor John Hagee and his Christian Zionist crew are the REAL DEAL type of scary, on a level that is beyond disturbing. Hagee and CUFI have the ear of the powerful, with not only John McCain but numerous other GOP members (war hawks, neoconservatives, Israel hawks) running to kow-tow to them at every turn, while their leader continually calls for pre-emptive strikes on Iran and the destruction of the entire Muslim world.
Watching Bill Moyers I half expected Hagee and his congregants to start "worshipping the bomb" like the radiation-disfigured mutants on the Planet of the Apes saga. One of them, a Lebanese Christian, sounded like a self-hating Arabic Ann Coulter--calling the Muslim world barbaric and without souls, words that are dangerously "exterminationist" in their rhetoric. But these guys don’t look like monsters. Instead, like the Cylons, they look just like us (they even got black folks!)--and more important still, they have a plan!
Peep the video and/or transcript in the link below. Or watch part 1 (of 5) from Youtube above. You can find the remaining video at: Hagee: Strike Iran 'for Israel' on Moyers - part 1 of 5
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL reports on the politically powerful group Christians United for Israel, whose leader, Pastor John Hagee recently endorsed John McCain for the presidency.
Bill Moyers: Christians United For Israel
Monday, November 26, 2007
Peace in the Mideast...via Annapolis?
So President Bush--after butchering the name of Palestinian authority president Mahmoud Abbas--inaugurated his bid for a Mid East peace plan in Annapolis, Maryland this week. For the record, I'm all for peace--the world could certainly use more of it. But the notion that this administration, which has engaged in a pre-emptive unjust war in Iraq, supported repression at home and abroad, backed violent military take-overs to sow renewed chaos in Somalia and is now saber-rattling daily at Iran, is now trying to promote peace seems beyond bizarre. Is this some bid for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to recapture her tarnished image, when just little over a year ago she allowed Israel to bomb Lebanon with near impunity--actually blocking any chance for an early end to the conflict? Does the Bush Junta think the world will suddenly have a change of heart and nominate them for a Nobel Peace Prize?
Sorry, call me a cynic, but I see little in the way of "peace" that will come out of this--not when major regional players like Iran and Hamas (you know, the entire *other half* of the Palestinians!) are completely shut out and ignored. And if this summit goes as most others, the Palestinians I'm sure will be asked to give up everything but the clothes on their backs, while the Israelis offer feeble gestures (we'll stop occupying your land, but retain the right to invade whenever we see fit) and hide behind their need for security--because goodness knows the most powerful military in the mid-East, equipped with several hundred nuclear bombs, can't protect itself. Again, call me a cynic. But I don't appear to be alone.
The following story by Eric Margolis in the Toronto Star I thought summed it up nicely.
THE DREARY CHARADE AT ANNAPOLIS
November 26, 2007
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2007/11/the_dreary_char.php
After the disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, the misery and bloodshed in Palestine, looming war against Iran, the mess in Pakistan, and worldwide anger against America, President George Bush desperately needs a foreign policy success in the final year of his ill-starred term.
So a group of US Mideast Arab allies and Israel have been dragooned into reluctantly appearing at a hastily-arranged meeting at Annapolis, Maryland this week that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice actually claims will lead to a final Palestinian-Israeli settlement over the next year.
The attendees includes Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian semi-leader Mahmoud Abbas, and delegations from US Arab allies. Syria, which fears a joint US-Israeli invasion, finally decided to send a junior minister. To no surprise, Great Satan Iran was not invited to Bush’s Maryland clambake.
Israel’s strategy has long been to talk about talks about peace while steadily continuing to expand by building settlements on the West Bank and the former Syrian Golan Heights. According to Israeli human rights groups, Israeli settlements and military bases now occupy over half the entire West Bank and its best farmland and water resources –in violation of international law and numerous UN resolutions.
To make sure nothing substantial is achieved at Annapolis, Israel’s rightwing parties in parliament rammed through a resolution that any change in the status of Jerusalem would require a two-thirds vote instead of a simple majority, an impossibility under the Knesset’s fragmented party system. Next, Olmert issued a new demand that the Palestinian leadership and other Arab nations recognize Israel not just as a state but as `a Jewish state.’ This means the 20% of Israeli’s who are Muslim or Christian would become non-people. Olmert knew perfectly well that this insertion would make it extremely difficult for the Arab states to recognize Israel. That, of course, was his objective: a diplomatic poison pill.
West Bank Palestinians have been squeezed into arid land and squalid towns forming a giant outdoor gulag, reminiscent of the science fiction film `Escape from New York,’ filled with misery, crime, 50% unemployment and malnutrition, all surrounded by Israeli `security walls,’ checkpoints and hilltop settlements.
Mahmoud Abbas can’t even control his own extreme factions within Fatah who launch attacks on Israelis, never mind militant Hamas Islamists who stupidly lob rockets at Israel from that other open air prison, Gaza. Israel responds to each pinprick attack with massive force, killing ten Arabs for every dead Israeli. Palestinian infighting and bitter divisions provide Israel’s government with a perfect excuse not to deal with them.
Meanwhile, Washington and Israel are trying to starve Hamas and Gaza into submission while building up the ineffectual but obedient Abbas, whom they engineered into power after PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s mysterious death. The US and Israel have been arming Abbas’ Fatah faction in hopes they will go after Hamas – which, however unloved in the west, remains a legitimate government that won power through a democratic vote.
The Bush Administration’s goal is to get Israeli PM Olmert to agree to a feeble Palestinian mini-state made up of tiny cantons – call them Arabistans - isolated by Israeli-only roads, led by US and Israeli appointed yes-men who will keep their more volatile compatriots in line. This was also the goal of former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, who is now in deep coma. Had his health held up, Sharon might have pulled it off.
But even this political Potemkin Village faces fierce opposition in Israel. Olmert, still reeling from the bloody disaster he created last year in Lebanon, is under heavy fire from Israel’s powerful right wingers and their US neoconservative supporters not to cede an inch of Biblical Greater Israel.
Equally important, as election year nears, US Republicans and Democrats are vying to support the ultra-hardline positions of Israel’s expansionist right, ignoring the 50% of Israeli voters who support a real land for peace deal. They are doing Israel a grave disservice by pandering to its most extreme parties while ignoring its mainstream.
As one of Israel’s finest thinkers, Uri Avnery notes about US elections, `the Jewish and Evangelistic lobbies, together with the neo-cons, will not allow one critical word about Israel to be uttered unpunished.’
In North America, anything that is not fulsome praise of Israel is deemed criticism. Failure to fully support Israel means political or professional suicide . Every politician remembers Democrat Howard Dean. His campaign for the presidency was quickly destroyed by the US media after Dean called for an `evenhanded’ approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
This means Bush and whoever succeeds him, whether Republican or Democrat, will be most unlikely to put any pressure on Israel to create a viable Palestinian state.
The only peace plan that would work is being ignored: the 2002 Saudi proposal calling for a return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders with some rectifications; sharing Jerusalem; dealing with millions of homeless Palestinian refugees; and normalized relations between the Muslim World and Israel.
Nothing will happen without US pressure. But Bush won’t seize the last chance to do some good for the world though, as a lame duck president, he could at least try without jeopardizing his political future. Israel is happy with the status quo. The Palestinians and other Arab states are too weak and divided to achieve a solution to the world’s biggest international headache.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Media Propaganda & the Palestinian "Civil War"
The recent so-called "Civil War" in Gaza has been widely reported by the mainstream media. However the story that is most often told is blatantly one-sided and lacking in any context. Since Hamas came to power through democratic elections in 2006, the U.S. and Israel have done all they could to, beat, starve and push the more militant Palestinian faction from power, going as far as to cut-off aid and shooting down any proposals for reconciliation with Fatah. The key reason given for this is the refusal of Hamas to disarm and recognize the state of Israel--a crime somehow far greater than Israel's 40-year occupation and establishment of an apartheid system that routinely destroys Palestinian infrastructure, cuts off water and electricity as a tactic of war, carries out extra-judicial assassinations and more...
Following the White House administration line, the present conflict is presented by the mainstream press as the inevitable outcome of the "violence-prone" Hamas government. According to most U.S. news outlets there are definite "good" and "bad" guys here, with Fatah becoming America's allies and Hamas serving as intractable enemies. Yet As Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifadah stated on the June 15th Democracy Now, "What we've seen is really a direct result of the Bush doctrine. Since January 2006 when Hamas won the legislative election fair and square, the United States refused the election result and it has been arming several Palestinian militias, particularly those controlled by the Gaza warlord, Mohammed Declan." The arming of Fatah by the U.S. and Israel, noted as recently as this past May in major newspapers, has been all but buried in more recent news accounts--portraying the U.S. and Israel as disinterested observers rather than powerful state actors stirring the pot of conflict. Now the U.S., Israel and EU move to lift economic sanctions and supply aid to Fatah, while simultaneously denying the same to Hamas controlled Gaza--amounting to nothing less than a "seige" that places more than a million Palestinians at risk. Collected here are a few news stories that do not march in lock-step with the official government and media line.
After Gaza, Some Question Who Was Overthrowing Whom
By Adam Entous
JERUSALEM, June 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. government began to lay the ground for President Mahmoud Abbas to dismiss the Hamas-led Palestinian government at least a year before the Islamist group's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week.
Western, Israeli and Palestinian official sources said over the weekend that, far from being an ad hoc response to Hamas's offensive, Abbas's declaration of a state of emergency and his replacement of a Hamas prime minister with Western favourite Salam Fayyad marked the culmination of months of backroom deliberations, planning and U.S. prodding.
In the end, pressure on Abbas to act against Hamas was as great -- if not greater -- from within his own Fatah faction as from Washington, which is seeking to play down its own role. Only the triggering event, resulting in total Hamas control of the Gaza Strip, can be said to have come as a nasty surprise to the Americans. It left in tatters plans by U.S. and Arab allies to build up Abbas's own forces in Gaza against Hamas.
Many Western officials and analysts see the offensive as a pre-emptive strike by Hamas before Washington could build up Fatah. Hamas says it made its move against a U.S.-backed "coup".
full article:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17443574.htm
Media Propaganda & the Palestinian Civil War
by Anthony DiMaggio; June 18, 2007
Hamas’ recent takeover of the Gaza Strip has been described as many things: an escalation of Palestinian civil war, a threat to Israel’s existence, and a major setback for Palestinian statehood. The last of these descriptions, prevalent throughout the American mainstream press, has dramatic consequences for those seriously interested in the peaceful co-existence of both Palestinian and Israeli states.
The American mainstream press has long prided itself in one-sided demonizations of the Palestinian leadership, perhaps most notoriously for blaming the late Yasser Arafat for monkey-wrenching the 2000 Camp David “Peace” proposal. However, with the popular election of Hamas in 2006, American reporters and editors have found a new whipping boy that can effectively be blamed for holding up Israeli-Palestinian peace.
American media coverage has been unequivocal in the placing of blame squarely at the feet of Hamas for hampering possibilities of Palestinian statehood in the foreseeable future. The New York Times reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud “Abbas faces the collapse of Fatah power in Gaza and a putative Palestinian state divided into a West Bank run by Fatah and a Gaza run by Hamas.” The Washington Post claimed: “the territorial cornerstones of a future Palestinian state have been reduced to strongholds of each faction.” Regional coverage has hardly fared better. The Chicago Sun Times commented that Abbas’ firing of Hamas leader and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh left Palestinians “struggling to adjust to a new political reality that has crushed their long-standing hopes for their own state.” Perhaps the most critical that any corporate media outlet has come to blaming the U.S. or Israel for the failure of a two-state solution was seen in the Chicago Tribune, where Ali Jarbawi, a professor of Political Science at Bir Zeit University was cited arguing that the U.S. has “failed to empower Abbas politically through genuine progress toward a negotiated two-state solution, leaving him domestically weakened.” Substantive condemnations of Israel and the U.S. for denying Palestinian statehood and engaging in terrorism against the Palestinian people have predictably been out of bounds, as only Hamas’ acts of terror are deemed to be a salient issue.
full article:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=13090
Decoding the media's Palestinian "civil war"
Ben White, The Electronic Intifada, 19 June 2007
Major news stories from Palestine/Israel are often accompanied by what becomes a self-reinforcing "vocabulary," typically generated by Israeli government ministries or other propaganda outlets, and then picked up by the Western media. A classic example was the redeployment of Israeli settlers and military from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which was successfully packaged as a "disengagement" that pitted "Israeli against Israeli," in a "painful compromise." This kind of marketing exercise often works even when there are widely available contradictory reports, such as how "disengagement" was openly trumpeted by Sharon and his advisors as a strategy for destroying the peace process.
This phenomenon went into overdrive recently, as dramatic events across the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but especially in Gaza, presented the evening news with a problem of how to reduce the conflict in the internal Palestinian political arena into an easily digestible sound bite. The solution was, as usual, lazy journalism and an almost total blackout on Israeli/US collusion in the dark events unfolding. Here then, is a guide to decoding the Palestinian "civil war," presented as a series of oft-repeated, yet entirely misleading, clichés.
full article:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7042.shtml
Carter Blasts US Policy on Palestinians
By Shawn Pogatchnik
The Associated Press
Wednesday 20 June 2007
Dublin, Ireland - Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was "criminal."
Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with Abbas' moderate Fatah movement.
full article:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062007V.shtml
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Media News Roundup- Sunday June 10th to Sat June 16th
Keeping an eye on the failing Fourth Estate and looking for some TRUTH in journalism.
Media plays disingenuous about roots of recent Palestinian conflict between Fatah and Hamas. MSNBC has day long discussion on immigration, featuring only conservatives. Bright spot of the week: Democracy Now's Amy Goodman Talks "Vulture Funds" with BBC Reporter.
Media Ignores Roots of Recent Palestinian Conflict Between Fatah and Hamas
The recent Civil War in Gaza has been widely reported by the mainstream media. However the story that is most often told is blatantly one-sided and lacking in any context. Since Hamas came to power through democratic elections in 2006, the U.S. and Israel have done all they could to, beat, starve and push the more militant Palestinian faction from power, going as far as to cut-off aid and shooting down any proposals for reconciliation with Fatah. The key reason given for this is the refusal of Hamas to disarm and recognize the state of Israel--a crime somehow far greater than Israel's 40-year occupation and an apartheid system that routinely destroys Palestinian infrastructure, cuts off water and electricity as a tactic of war, carries out extra-judicial assassinations and more. Following the White House administration line, the present conflict is presented by the mainstream press as the inevitable outcome of the "violence-prone" Hamas government. According to most U.S. news outlets there are definite "good" and "bad" guys here, with Fatah becoming America's allies and Hamas serving as intractable enemies. Yet As Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifadah stated on the June 15th Democracy Now, "What we've seen is really a direct result of the Bush doctrine. Since January 2006 when Hamas won the legislative election fair and square, the United States refused the election result and it has been arming several Palestinian militias, particularly those controlled by the Gaza warlord, Mohammed Declan." The arming of Fatah by the U.S. and Israel, noted as recently as this past May in major newspapers, has been all but buried in more recent news accounts--portraying the U.S. and Israel as disinterested observers rather than powerful state actors stirring the pot of conflict.
For Seven Hours, MSNBC Hosted Only Conservatives and Reporters to Discuss Immigration
The conservative bent towards the immigration debate in the mainstream media is now well known. On stations like FOX News, Bill O'Reilly opines that pro-immigrant activists "hate America, and they hate it because it's run primarily by white, Christian men." On the same channel Paul Gibson warned white Americans to "Make more babies" because in "[t]wenty-five years ... the majority of the population [will be] Hispanic." On the more mainstream CNN, host Lou Dobbs has made a name for himself through incessant attacks on "illegal immigrants," going as far as to say they will bring in leprosy. So it may not be too surprising that after the defeat of the flawed immigration bill, most mainstream news sources went straight to conservatives for opinions, with little or no time devoted to pro-immigrants rights activists or advocates. MSNBC proved to be a case in point:
From Media Matters:During the seven hours of the June 11 edition of MSNBC Live (9 a.m.-4 p.m. ET), 15 segments aired about immigration or the Senate immigration bill, none of which featured a Democratic or progressive commentator. Indeed, in nine of the 15 segments, the anchor interviewed a conservative anti-immigration activist who had opposed the bill -- including six separate solo interviews with MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan. The remaining six segments consisted of two panels with Buchanan and conservative activist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Tamar Jacoby (who, alone among the guests, favored the recent immigration bill), an interview with Congressional Quarterly immigration reporter Michael Sandler, an interview with MSNBC terrorism analyst Joe Cantamessa, and two reports from MSNBC congressional correspondent Mike Viqueira.
With such biased media coverage perhaps it's little wonder then that the entire discussion on immigration has been caught up in nativist rantings and fearmongering, stalling the needed debate as quickly as the doomed bill.
Bright Spot of the Week
Democracy Now's Amy Goodman Talks "Vulture Funds" with BBC Reporter
As with most anything dealing with the negative effects of global financial institutions, trade agreements and neoliberal policies, the mainstream media has neglected a massively important story surrounding the aptly named "vulture funds." Riding the coat-tails of so-called "aid" promised by the G-8, “vulture funds” are companies which buy up third world debt at low prices (like your average collection agency) and then sue those countries for the full value and more. Democracy Now's Amy Goodman has been one of the few reporters to cover this important story, but can do so only through European journalists like the BBC's Greg Palast. Palast exposed the case of one vulture fund, Donegal International owned by US resident Michael Sheehan, which was forcing collection of $40 million from the African country Zambia after buying one of its debts for $4 million. The story was so explosive that when it reached the ears of Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the US House Judiciary, and Don Payne, head of the Africa Committee, who were listening to Democracy Now on the way to a White House meeting, they immediately pressed the matter with the President. Such incidents beg the question, would our politicians perform better if they were at least better informed by our news media?
For full story:
Democracy Now's Amy Goodman Talks "Vulture Funds" with BBC Reporter
