by Mitchell Plitnick
Like many of us, I’ve been very busy on social media since Israel began its military operation in Gaza. I see a lot of ignorant nonsense there, and it’s not limited to the pro-Israel side. I also see a lot of shoddy thinking and ignorance of the facts. Since [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Like many of us, I’ve been very busy on social media since Israel began its military operation in Gaza. I see a lot of ignorant nonsense there, and it’s not limited to the pro-Israel side. I also see a lot of shoddy thinking and ignorance of the facts. Since I had to study up a lot of this for my job as the Director of the US Office of B’Tselem, I thought I might set the record straight.
“War crimes”
Various memes make the rounds in discussions of war crimes. One that I found particularly laughable was “Even the UN says Hamas is committing war crimes but they say Israel only might be.” I’ve also seen defenses of Hamas’ firing of missiles at civilian targets in Israel based on Palestinians’ right of self-defense.
Here is the long and short of it: War crimes are defined as “Serious violations of international humanitarian law constitute war crimes.” That’s going to encompass pretty much every violation that might become a public issue in any conflict.
International law recognizes that civilians are going to be hurt, killed and dispossessed in war. The obligation of combatants is to do all they can to minimize the death and destruction if they do need to operate in areas where it is likely that civilians will be hurt.
As a result, when Israel proclaims its innocence of violating these laws, no matter how suspicious we may be, enforcers of international law cannot declare that war crimes have been committed without an investigation. Reasonable people who are not international lawyers can make assumptions, but the investigation needs to happen, and it is always possible, especially when the conflict involves an area as densely populated as Gaza, that it will turn out that the state in question did its best to avoid civilian casualties. High civilian casualty numbers are not proof, but they obviously raise suspicions.
On Hamas’ side, this is true as well, but Hamas makes no secret of its use of weapons which, by their very nature, cannot be used in a manner that can discriminate between civilian and military targets. So, while the UN or other bodies would still investigate and make a case before taking any action, Hamas is committing war crimes. It’s not unfair to say so.
In this case, however, Israel has declared that the homes of leading Hamas activists (and those of other factions) are legitimate targets. They have, in fact, willfully bombed such houses during these engagements as a result. Unlike the 2002 assassination of Salah Shehade, where Israel claimed (falsely, many say) to have believed Shehade to be alone in the building they bombed, Israel has made no such claims this time around. Therefore, it is also not unfair to say that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, even before an investigation.
If not for Iron Dome, there would have been many more Israeli casualties
This statement seems to make sense, but the numbers don’t back it up. A study done through July 14, when rocket fire into Israel was at its most intense, showed that the number of rockets being fired from Gaza was fewer than in Operation Cast Lead and the frequency of hits was about the same.
I’m all for Iron Dome. Any defensive system whose purpose is to protect civilians is something I consider an absolute positive, and I only wish more countries would invest in such systems, endeavoring to protect, rather than avenge, their civilians. The concern that iron Dome would make Israel even more reckless and grant it even more impunity does not seem to be borne out by its actions in the current onslaught. Those actions, brutal as they are, are no worse than what Israel did in 2008 and 2012 to Gaza or what it did in 2006 to Lebanon. So, yeah, please let’s see more Iron Domes in the world.
By the same token, however, it doesn’t seem like Iron Dome is actually protecting Israeli civilians nearly as much as the rockets’ lack of any sort of targeting ability.
Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people
Opponents of Israeli policies in the United States and in Israel itself have an uphill battle against an entrenched propagandistic view of the entire conflict. We do ourselves no favors by using bombastic, easily assailable language in making our arguments.
Genocide has a specific meaning in international law. It does not mean large scale killing. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide provides that definition:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of thr group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
There is no evidence that this is what Israel is trying to do. Indeed, the best evidence that Israel is not doing this is the simple fact that the Palestinian population, in both the West Bank and Gaza, continues to grow, despite the occupation and all its concomitant hardships.
Would Israel like to find a way to get rid of the Palestinians in the West Bank and cut off Gaza? Sure, but that is not genocide, it is ethnic cleansing, and frankly, that’s bad enough. Israel has done that very gradually over the years, confiscating more and more land, forcing Palestinians into ever smaller enclaves and turning Gaza into one big open air prison.
Making claims that are contradicted by the facts, especially the weighty accusation of genocide, is irresponsible and self-defeating; it plays right into Israel’s propaganda hands.
Hamas is exercising legitimate self-defense
It is absolutely true that an occupied people has the right to resist its occupiers. It is also true that the unusual nature of Israel’s occupation makes it very difficult for guerrilla groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and others to take any violent action that would conform to international legal standards. As international legal expert Noura Erekat puts it: “Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested.”
It is also true that Israel itself does not differentiate between attacks on its civilians and its soldiers. It views them as equally illegitimate and labels it all “terrorism,” even though legally, Israeli soldiers are combatants while on duty. Take, for example, the killing of IDF soldier Natanel Moshiashvili in 2012. The IDF statement about his death plainly states: “The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians or IDF soldiers, and will operate against anyone who uses terror against the State of Israel.”
Nonetheless, the fact that Palestinians are mostly unable to strike exclusively at Israeli military targets does not mean that it is suddenly legal to use indiscriminate weapons or to target civilians. These are war crimes, and any credible investigation must investigate both sides while also taking into account the massive differences in capabilities and power of the two. Israel must also be scrutinized more closely because it has a far greater ability to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants than Hamas.
Hamas is using human shields
Saying something over and over again doesn’t make it true, but it does make a whole lot of people believe it. For instance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu willfully and repeatedly lied to the Israeli public and the world about Hamas’ complicity in the kidnap and murder of the three young Israeli settlers, which sparked this latest round. He kept saying he had proof that he never produced, and now the Israeli police are admitting what everyone who was actually paying attention at the time knew: this was an independent act of violence.
It’s the same with the human shield argument. Like genocide, the term “human shield” has a legal definition. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, “… the use of human shields requires an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives.” Again, as Erekat wrote: “International human rights organizations that have investigated these claims have determined that they are not true.” Erekat correctly cites reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which focused on past engagements. There is also doubt being cast by journalists in Gaza today.
In fact, no evidence has ever been presented to support the accusation apart from the high number of civilian casualties and Israel’s word. On the other hand, Israel’s own High Court had to demand that Israel stop using human shields. That happened in 2005, but the practice continued.
In any case, even the presence of human shields does not absolve or mitigate Israel’s responsibility to minimize civilian casualties. Again quoting Erekat: “Even assuming that Israel’s claims were plausible, humanitarian law obligates Israel to avoid civilian casualties…In the over three weeks of its military operation, Israel has demolished 3,175 homes, at least a dozen with families inside; destroyed five hospitals and six clinics; partially damaged sixty-four mosques and two churches; partially to completely destroyed eight government ministries; injured 4,620; and killed over 700 Palestinians. At plain sight, these numbers indicate Israel’s egregious violations of humanitarian law, ones that amount to war crimes.”
Finally, one last point and one more citation of Noura Erekat. The claim that Israel is merely acting in self-defense fails on a number of counts. As I and others have been saying from the beginning, the Netanyahu government willfully and cynically used the murders of three Israelis as an excuse to provoke Hamas with mass arrests and widespread activities that included the deaths of nine Palestinian civilians before this operation started. That removes the self-defense argument from the start. But more than that, the Gaza Strip, despite it being emptied of settlements and soldiers, remains under Israeli control, and is thus occupied territory, contrary to Israel’s claims. Please check out Erekat’s excellent write-up of what this means for the right of self-defense. And please note, she never denies that Israel has a right to protect its own civilians, but that is not the same thing.
Photo: International and Palestinian volunteers accompanied Civil Defense and other rescue crews, as well as family members, into Shujaya, a neighborhood by the separation barrier in the east of Gaza City, in an attempt to locate survivors of overnight and ongoing shelling by the Israeli army on July 20. Credit: Joe Catron
]]>The current Israeli onslaught against Gaza contains many echoes of the assault four years ago. In one regard, however, it is clear that Israel learned some lessons from its experience with “Operation Cast Lead” and is applying it to “Operation Pillar of Defense.” Those lessons are reflected in Israel’s use of [...]]]>
The current Israeli onslaught against Gaza contains many echoes of the assault four years ago. In one regard, however, it is clear that Israel learned some lessons from its experience with “Operation Cast Lead” and is applying it to “Operation Pillar of Defense.” Those lessons are reflected in Israel’s use of social media to spread its “hasbara” (Hebrew for propaganda).
The spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been tweeting for years a consistent stream of reports of thwarted terrorist attacks, pictures of sexualized female IDF soldiers, reports of the many tons of goods allowed into Gaza and almost daily reports of the million or more Israelis living under constant threat of Hamas rockets. Now, Facebook and the IDF blog have been shifted into overdrive, with some rather shocking new features.
There have been, for some time, various programs offering tourists to Israel the opportunity to play as an IDF soldier at various sites in the country. Now, there’s a new game to help urge people to promote IDF hasbara, IDF Ranks. The idea is that you go to various pages, you like them on Facebook or you tweet a page and you help the IDF get its message out. In essence, a virtual army of supporters on the internet.
Here’s how the game is described: “IDF Ranks is an interactive game, directly implemented into all of the IDF’s social platforms allowing YOU to be a virtual part of the IDF.” It’s participants are told that: “Your every action — commenting, liking, sharing and even just visiting — rewards your efforts, as well as helps spread the truth about the Israeli army all over the world.”
The light-hearted air emanating from the game stands in stark contrast to the news reports, even those from the IDF Spokesperson herself, about the fighting.
The IDF Twitter feed has been an opportunity for tough talk, such as this:
@IDFSpokesperson We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead.
And it warns away journalists like this:
@IDFSpokesperson Warning to reporters in Gaza: Stay away from Hamas operatives & facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields.
One might wonder how a reporter is supposed to report from Gaza if they don’t encounter any governmental officials or facilities.
The IDF blog has a “rocket counter” to enumerate the number of rockets launched at Israel and a graphic as to where they have hit. It also has a very telling page about how the IDF avoids harm to civilians.
What is revealing about this page is that it is an almost verbatim repetition of what Israel put out during Operation Cast Lead four years ago. Indeed, it generally references practices used in that attack, including dropping leaflets, pinpoint targeting, tapping rooftops (a low level bomb dropped on a roof that would cause minimal damage and warn those inside that a real bomb was coming), and automated phone calls. As anyone with knowledge of Gaza pointed out at the time, the densely populated Strip offered nowhere for civilians to run when attacks came. Israel is of course well aware of this, which indicates that most of these methods are meant to provide deniability more than protect civilians.
But the online blitz doesn’t stop with the IDF. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a large international organization with a $100 million budget, circulated the following picture on Facebook:
Caption: An Israeli soldier wearing tefillin, which are worn by religious Jews during morning prayers, while he holds his firearm and talks with his commander.
This picture is given the following description: “This awesome photo shows the true strength of the Israeli Army! This soldier’s right hand connects him to his commander, his left to his Creator. “For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.”
Might we stop to wonder how most westerners would react if this was an obviously devout Muslim holding a Koran and a rifle? And how chilling would those words feel to most Western Christians and Jews if it was describing a Muslim with a quote from the Koran, instead of an Orthodox Jew and a quote from the Torah?
All of this comes as a reaction to what Israel realizes was an absolute disaster for their standing in many US citizen and non-Israeli Jews’ eyes: Operation Cast Lead. Despite US scuttling, the Goldstone Report — commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council — severely criticized Israel (Hamas as well, though the wide disparity in the capacity to damage resulted in a spotlight on Israeli actions), and the massive devastation of the onslaught sat poorly with many.
This time around, Israeli leaders met with foreign officials beforehand and laid out plans for communicating their view. Thus far, as well, the devastation of Gaza, bad as it has been, has not yet approached the levels of Cast Lead, especially in terms of loss of life.
Yet media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a staunch right-wing supporter of extreme Israeli policies, lamented in a tweet (since deleted and retracted) “Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?” And the ever repugnant Alan Dershowitz, who will misrepresent the law as far as he can to defend any and all Israeli actions bemoans the “…media and international community’s failure to distinguish between the Israeli military and Hamas terrorists.”
As of now, it looks like Israel is reluctant to engage in a ground offensive this time around. The latest calculation by the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, confirms 41 civilian deaths out of 105 in Gaza at the time they issued their statement yesterday. That is a much lower total and a slightly better ratio than Cast Lead, where B’Tselem catalogued 1,390 dead in Gaza, of whom 759 were civilians. Perhaps this, as much as the greater attention to Israeli hasbara, can be attributed to the world watching these events in a way it could not before.
But it is hard to get past the gaming and the fiery rhetoric we see across social media supporting Israeli action today. It is further evidence, though, of Israel’s alienation from the liberal values that motivate much of the international community, as well as the international Jewish community. In the long term, that may help, despite the fact that political obfuscation and powerful lobbying continue to allow the bombing of a besieged population in Gaza.
]]>The expected verdict in the death of Rachel Corrie, killed under the wheels of an Israeli-modified Caterpillar bulldozer in 2003, came down today and the court found no fault with the Israel Defense Forces. That was no surprise. But the deafening silence about it in Washington is nonetheless reprehensible.
I’ve [...]]]>
The expected verdict in the death of Rachel Corrie, killed under the wheels of an Israeli-modified Caterpillar bulldozer in 2003, came down today and the court found no fault with the Israel Defense Forces. That was no surprise. But the deafening silence about it in Washington is nonetheless reprehensible.
I’ve met Cindy and Craig Corrie, Rachel’s parents, on several occasions. I cannot imagine the lives they lead. I cannot imagine the death of my child, much less the death of a child at the hands of a supposed ally of my country with no accountability. I can’t imagine my child being killed by that ally and then seeing my child being blamed for the incident. Yet the Corries have lived through all this, and somehow, while their frustration has grown, it has never morphed into hate. Somehow they always cling to the hope that Israel, an ostensible ally and fellow democracy, will at some point do the right thing.
I’m sure, though I haven’t spoken with them in years, that the Corries held out little hope that this verdict would be that point. But what is perhaps most stunning is that there is no clamor in the United States, aside from those whose sympathies would be with Rachel’s cause in trying to protect Palestinians from the ravages of occupation, for some kind of action on behalf of a US citizen who lost her life on foreign soil under, to be kind, questionable circumstances.
Take Cindy Corrie’s words today: “This was a bad day, not only for us, but for human rights, humanity, the rule of law, and the country of Israel.” Someone was missing on that list, but Cindy got to them in another comment: “The diplomatic process between the United States and Israel failed us.”
I admire Cindy Corrie’s restraint. But the US failure here is much broader than what she is saying. And it’s a long term one.On March 25, 2003, Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA) introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling on the US government to “undertake a full, fair, and expeditious investigation” into Corrie’s death. The bill gathered 77 co-sponsors, which is not a large number, though a larger one than is typical for a bill critical of Israel. But none had the political muscle to counter defenders of Israel in the House, so the bill died in the Committee on International Relations. Its death, like its existence, generated little attention.
President Bush got a promise from Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, that Israel would conduct a “thorough, credible, and transparent investigation.” An investigation concluded that Rachel’s death was an accident, and that it was, in essence, her own fault for being there in the first place. In a detailed analysis of not only Israel’s several layers of investigation, but also of their own investigation, “Human Rights Watch’s own research indicates that the impartiality and professionalism of the Israeli investigation into Corrie’s death are highly questionable.”
Indeed, the State Department said at the time that “We do not consider this matter closed with the reception of the internal IDF report. We are going to press for a full and transparent investigation.” But none was forthcoming. And what is the US view today? Well, the US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro told the Corries last week that Israel’s investigation into Rachel’s death “…was not satisfactory, and wasn’t as thorough, credible or transparent as it should have been.”
Indeed, the US’ official position is to press Israel for such a thorough and credible investigation. But nine years later, the Corries were reduced to trying to file a civil suit because there was simply nothing else happening. So much for US pressure.
Let’s be clear about this: we have a US citizen who met her death on foreign soil. The State Department and both the Bush and Obama Administrations believed that the investigation into her death was unsatisfactory. George W. Bush, surely not a president anyone would cast as less than enthusiastic in his support of Israel, personally requested a deeper investigation from the Israeli Prime Minister. And nearly a decade later, all our ambassador to Israel is doing is reaffirming that Israel has doesn’t enough.
Is there a better example of the absurdity of the US’ relationship to Israel than Rachel Corrie? It doesn’t matter if one believes that she had no business going to Gaza in the first place. The fact is that Israel has not explained her death to the satisfaction of its closest ally and patron. If this was any other country — including Great Britain, or Canada — there would be a massive outcry and the US wouldn’t rest until the questions were answered and some kind of accounting was seen.
But not with Israel. The relationship is not special, nor is it because it is “cherished,” in the ridiculous words of Mitt Romney. This is the relationship of an over-indulgent parent further spoiling an already selfish and harmful child. As we watch an Israeli Prime Minister brazenly interfere with a US presidential race, and try to manipulate the US into a war that is against our (and Israel’s) interests, we might also notice that our government is not fulfilling its most fundamental obligation: protecting its citizens overseas.
If Israel wants to make the case that Rachel Corrie’s death was an accident or was merited by her actions, then a transparent investigation that meets basic standards of credibility is the way to do that. That Israel refuses to do that would seem to indicate that they do not believe that the outcome of that investigation would be to their liking. Surely it cannot be about secrecy for security’s sake; Israel is no longer present on the ground in Gaza and the tactics, equipment and systems are a decade old.
Nothing can erase the tragedy of Rachel Corrie’s death. But her death offers an opportunity for the US to finally start to try to curb Israeli impunity. Palestinians are injured and killed regularly, and cases are often closed without resolution or even due investigation, as one can easily see by looking at the site of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. And other foreign activists have also been killed by Israeli forces over the years.
But the US continues to be inert on the matter. One can only hope the Corries find some solace and peace elsewhere. Israel, at least, has good reason to want to bury the truth behind Rachel Corrie’s death. The United States has only its own cowardice as an excuse.
]]>But if you’ve been looking to the so-called “liberal” media for more balanced coverage of the events as they’ve unfolded in the international waters off the Gaza coast, you’ve probably gotten the yip-yap of a pro-Israel poodle.
As usual, the “fool’s gold” standard, at the core of most news coverage in the “no sooner done than said” era, begins (and too often ends) with the Associated Press. AP entrusted it initial Gaza report to Amy Teibel and Tia Goldenberg. Teibel , who provides a a good deal of AP’s Israel coverage, is not on CAMERA’s list of journalists who arouse its ire. That’s not to say that Teibel is immune from scrutiny or censure by the “guardians of Israel,” some of it bordering on the bizarre. Neverthless, her articles earn her an occasional whimper, while some of her AP colleagues get a nasty snarl.
Teibel’s co-author, Tia Goldenberg, also isn’t on CAMERA’s journalistic hit list. Goldenberg is a Canadian-born Israeli and a former intern for the Canadian Jewish Congress. More to the point, either unnoticed or deliberately ignored by most newspapers, is that Goldenberg was reporting on the Gaza flotilla’s destruction from the Israeli warship INS Kidon. Not much chance of Goldenberg screwing the pooch, at least not from an Israeli perspective.
Reuters coverage of the confrontation between Israeli forces and the Gaza convoy has been authored or co-authored by Jeffrey Heller, currently the editor-in-charge of Reuters’ Jerusalem bureau. It’s instructive to contrast the development throughout the day in Heller’s online Feed with the one released later in the day.
In his first Feed entry today, Heller had written:
Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of Gaza-bound aid ships on Monday and more than 10 of the mostly international activists aboard were killed, provoking a diplomatic crisis and Palestinian charges of a “massacre.”
The violent end to a Turkish-backed attempt to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip by six ships carrying some 600 people and 10,000 tonnes of supplies raised an outcry across the Middle East and far beyond.
As the navy escorted the vessels into Israel’s port of Ashdod, accounts remained sketchy of the pre-dawn interception out in the Mediterranean, in which marines stormed aboard from dinghies and rappelled down from helicopters. Israel said “more than 10″ activists died. Israeli media spoke of up to 19 dead…
But the most recent Reuters version as of this writing (1:06 am IST June 1), co-authored with Alastair Macdonald, reads:
Israeli marines stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza on Monday and at least nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed, triggering a diplomatic crisis and an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.
European nations, as well as the United Nations and Turkey, voiced shock and outrage at the bloody end to the international campaigners’ bid to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Boarding from dinghies and rappelling from helicopters, naval commandos stopped six ships, 700 people and 10,000 tons of supplies from reaching the Islamist-run Palestinian enclave — but bloody miscalculation left Israel isolated and condemned…
The “commandos” have become “marines.” The ten “international activists” on board are now “pro-Palestinian activists.” The Gaza-bound aid ships are downsized to “a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza.” The consequences are muzzled too: a diplomatic crisis and the accusation that a massacre has taken place” is parlayed into “a profound diplomatic crisis.” And poor Israel is standing alone, “isolated and condemned,” on account of a mere “miscalculation.”
Heller isn’t on the list of journalists CAMERA disapproves of either.
CNN‘s coverage of the fate of the Gaza convoy has had no bark and no bite. Its latest offering (as of this writing) begins with the pretense of “he said/she said” balance but slips easily into Israeli talking points:
Israel insisted Monday that its soldiers were defending themselves when they fatally shot nine activists aboard a ship in international waters that was laden with humanitarian goods for Gaza.
Israel’s assertion was denied by one of the groups that sponsored the boat. The competing claims could not be independently verified.
“They deliberately attacked soldiers,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters at a photo op in Ottawa, Canada, with his Canadian counterpart…
Not surprising that CAMERA was pleased by most of the coverage by the mainstream media, noting with satisfaction that:
AP, Reuters, CNN and the New York Times ran balanced stories, noting the participants are “pro-Palestinian activists,” that Israel is already assuring regular convoys of humanitarian supplies into Gaza and that Israel has additionally offered to transfer materials from the flotilla by land to Gaza. Some reported in detail the preparations in the Israeli city of Ashdod to house any possible detainees before returning them to their home countries.
This is not to say that media coverage of the recent events in Gaza has been ideal from CAMERA’s point of view. Hardly! It has fallen short of CAMERA standards of “objectivity” in several respects:
Missing from all coverage thus far is any indication of the radical nature of the organizations sponsoring the flotilla. To characterize them as “pro-Palestinian,” while accurate, hardly conveys adequately who they are and what they promote. The organizations include far-left individuals, such as members of the Communist Party in Sweden and members of the extremist International Solidarity Movement which advocates “armed struggle” against Israel as well as Islamist groups fronting for Hamas and with ties to the global jihad and Al Quaeda.
Furthermore, CAMERA insists, the flotilla’s sponsors are nothing but a bunch of lying “European and American radicals and pro-Hamas Muslims.” Gaza doesn’t even need any aid:
Contrary to allegations of Free Gaza, there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Convoys of trucks continuously bring food, clothing, medicine and other essentials to the population.
Unfortunately, the harsh and narrow standards of hardline “pro-Israel” media watchdogs like CAMERA, while they may not fully succeed in imposing all aspects of their agenda, have a stultifying effect not only on journalists’ choice of terminology but how they view–and depict–the context of the various conflicts in the Middle East.
At this point, the progressive reader may be thinking that the way to avoid “indogtrination” is to entrust one’s news leash to one or more of the larger progressive media sites.
How about Alternet? As of this morning, the only news coverage was a home page link to an early French Press Agency (Agence France-Presse–AFP) reproduced in full on Raw Story, which was based exclusively on a not-particularly-informative Israeli television report.
According to Israel’s private channel 10 television, Israeli marine commandos had opened fire after being attacked with axes and knives by a number of the passengers on board the aid ships, the television said, without giving the source of its information.
The station did not say whether the dead and injured were passengers or members of the Israeli navy.
Israel’s army radio said between 10 and 14 people had been killed in clashes which broke out after the passengers allegedly tried to grab weapons off the naval commandos who tried to storm one of the boats.
It was not clear whether the clashes were taking place on just one of the six boats making up the aid convoy, and the Israeli army had no immediate comment on the incident.
Shortly afterwards, the Israeli military censor ordered a block on all information regarding those injured or killed during the storming of the ship.
Raw Story also provides video footage courtesy of the Israel Defense Forces.
The main story featured on the Huffington Post home page for most of the day has been AP’s report, no byline for Teibel and Goldenberg. To its credit, HP did interject a link to video footage by Al Jazeera reporter Jamal Elshayyal, recorded while he was on board the aid ship Mavi Marmara. This afternoon an AP Analysis by Karin Laub and Matthew Lee, headlined High Seas Raid Deepens Israel’s Isolation, became Huffington Post’s lead story. CAMERA, which has a litany of grievances against Laub, isn’t going to like its first sentence, which Huffington Post included in in its own headline for the piece, making it a bit more juicy:
Israel’s bloody, bungled takeover of a Gaza-bound Turkish aid vessel is complicating U.S.-led Mideast peace efforts, deepening Israel’s international isolation and threatening to destroy the Jewish state’s ties with key regional ally Turkey.
The Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet of “must reads” is a teaser that provides a link to CNN’s coverage, complemented by IDF video footage. More insightfully, Reza Aslan posted a new entry in his Daily Beast blog this afternoon headlined “An Israel Raid’s Deadly Toll.”
The well-known English proverb “every dog has his day” is rendered Kul kalb bi’gi yomo in Arabic, Kol kelev ba yomo in Hebrew. Yizhar Be’er, writing on the Ir Amim website, points out that “unlike the phrase’s English cousin, which rosily promises that even the lowest among us will have a day of good fortune,” the Semitic form of the proverb is more along the lines of (quoting the author of the Forward‘s On Language column) “Every scoundrel will receive his comeuppance.” In other words, karma will eventually run over dogma.
When it does, don’t expect to find it out much from the coverage from the “liberal” media.
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