By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The press is down on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for all the wrong reasons.

They ought to be after Assange for giving governments reasons for censorship – just the opposite effect of the transparency he presumably wanted to promote.

What is the press after him for? Whatever happens to suit the politics or niche of their publication or network.

Scandal sheets are going after Assange for an alleged sexual offence in Sweden, where a couple of his consensual sex partners admitted that they wouldn't have pressed charges if Assange had willingly been tested for HIV.

The gossip sheets have been denigrating Assange for social ineptitude. Stories about his dictatorial rudeness seem to abound in these rumour mills.

A story appearing in one of the gossip sheets reports that an American journalist said: "Mr Assange was unusually rude, and when he offered him a copy of his recent, well-reviewed book, he said: ‘Don’t bother. I’d only throw it away.’ After that, he says Mr Assange ignored him, focusing intently on his girlfriend instead."

Another newspaper has been trying to bring Andy Coulson to book for his alleged role in the News of the World phone hacking affair but has no compunction in revealing nuggets of gossip and information to the world obtained illegally by WikiLeaks.

Other reporters have questioned Assange's belief in total openness, saying that national security is at risk and should be a consideration.

Some of those same newspapers enjoy adding that Assange "delights in asking politicians what they have to hide" but doesn't believe in total openness for himself.

The Daily Mail claims: "He preaches openness but demands privacy. He reveals 'secrets' but 99 per cent are prurient gossip. He's accused of rape but won't face his accusers. Why do the left worship the WikiLeaks 'god?"

The Jerusalem Post doesn't seem to think Assange is such a bad guy. None of the cables from WikiLeaks about Israel embarrassed or irritated Israelis.

Judith Levy asks: "How has Israel responded to the WikiLeaks information dump? Mostly with a shrug."

She adds: "What revelations there were about us are mostly positive, and they fall predominantly in the ‘Friends You Didn’t Know You Had’ category."

Could it be that those who send cables know that Israelis spy on everything? Diplomats don't dare expose uncomfortable truths about Israel.

Dutch Business Insider SAI, as might be expected, revealed concern about WikiLeaks that affect business.

"Two young Dutch hackers," they relate, "who attacked sites like Visa in protest at actions against WikiLeaks were arrested, and now one of them gave an interview."

The Wall Street Journal reports that "Bank of America Corporation, thought to be a potential target of WikiLeaks, became the latest US company to ban transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for WikiLeaks."

Yahoo News claims: "Assange really didn't like last month's New York Times profile of him – so much so, apparently, that he opted against giving the Times an advanced look at the State Department cables his organization began publishing..."

Adds Yahoo: "It's not the first time Assange has cut off a news organization following a WikiLeaks profile that he didn't consider to be completely accurate."

Investigative historian and journalist Gareth Porter, writing in Counterpunch, revealed how Russians challenged the existence of a mystery missile the US claims Iran acquired from North Korea.

But readers of the two leading US newspapers never learned key facts about the document. According to Porter, WikiLeaks revealed how the press has been complicit in cover-ups by the government.

That alone should justify WikiLeaks’ efforts to expose cover-ups and promote transparency – even in the press.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

Related posts:

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• Wikileaks Reprised – A Whiff Of… What?
• Why Wikileaks Doesn’t Add Up

Decmocracy Now! Interview With John Pilger:

John Pilger, award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. He began his career in journalism nearly half a century ago and has written close to a dozen books and made over fifty documentaries. He lives in London but is in the United States working on a forthcoming documentary about what he calls "the war on the media." It's called The War You Don't See.

TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: It's been a week since Rolling Stone published its article on General Stanley McChrystal that eventually led to him being fired by President Obama. In a piece called "The Runaway General," McChrystal and his top aides openly criticized the President and mocked several top officials. Joe Biden is nicknamed "Bite me." National Security Adviser General James Jones is described as a "clown." Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is called a "wounded animal."

Since the article came out, Rolling Stone and the reporter who broke the story, Michael Hastings, have come under attack in the mainstream media for violating the so-called "ground rules" of journalism. New York Times columnist David Brooks penned a column attacking Hastings for being a, quote, "product of the culture of exposure." Brooks wrote, quote, "The reporter essentially took run-of-the-mill complaining and turned it into a direct challenge to presidential authority." He goes on to write, "The exposure ethos, with its relentless emphasis on destroying privacy and exposing impurities, has chased good people from public life, undermined public faith in institutions and elevated the trivial over the important," he said.

On Fox News, Geraldo Rivera attacked Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings for publishing quotes McChrystal and his aides made at a bar.

GERALDO RIVERA: This is a situation where you have to put it in the context of war and warriors and honor and the penumbra of privacy that is presumed when it's not on the record specifically. When you're hanging out at a bar waiting for a plane or a train or an automobile and you're stuck together hours and hours, and you're drinking in a bar, or you're at an airport lounge, this is not an interview context. These guys, particularly the staffers who gave the most damning statements about the civilians in office, including the Vice President of the United States, these guys had no idea that they were being interviewed by this guy.

BILL O'REILLY: I'm not sure about that, Geraldo.

GERALDO RIVERA: This reporter—wait, hold on, Bill.

BILL O'REILLY: I'm not sure about that.

GERALDO RIVERA: This reporter from Rolling Stone, he was a rat in an eagle's nest.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that's Fox News. But other mainstream media outlets have also attacked Michael Hastings for writing the story. This is Lara Logan, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, being interviewed by Howard Kurtz on CNN.

HOWARD KURTZ: If you had been traveling with General McChrystal and heard these comments about Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Jim Jones, Richard Holbrooke, would you have reported them?

LARA LOGAN: Well, it really depends on the circumstances. It's hard to know here. Michael Hastings, if you believe him, says that there were no ground rules laid out. And, I mean, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, because if you look at the people around General McChrystal, if you look at his history, he was the Joint Special Operations commander. He has a history of not interacting with the media at all. And his chief of intelligence, Mike Flynn, is the same. I mean, I know these people. They never let their guard down like that. To me, something doesn't add up here. I just—I don't believe it.

HOWARD KURTZ: Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior military official as saying that Michael Hastings broke the off-the-record ground rules. But the person who said this was on background and wouldn't allow his name to be used. Is that fair?

LARA LOGAN: Well, it's Kryptonite right now. I mean, do you blame him? The commanding general in Afghanistan just lost his job. Who else is going to lose his job? Believe me, all the senior leadership in Afghanistan are waiting for the ax to fall. I've been speaking to some of them. They don't know who's going to stay and who's going to go. I mean, just the question is, really, is what General McChrystal and his aides are doing so egregious that they deserved to—I mean, to end a career like McChrystal's? I mean, Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Lara Logan, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, being interviewed on CNN. Meanwhile, both the Washington Post and ABC have published articles quoting anonymous military sources attacking Hastings's Rolling Stone article.

For more on the story, we're joined by the award-winning investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker John Pilger, began his career in journalism, oh, nearly half a century ago and has written close to a dozen books and made over fifty documentaries. He lives in London but is in the United States working on a forthcoming documentary about what he calls "the war on the media." It's called The War You Don't See.

We welcome John Pilger to Democracy Now! John, welcome. Talk about the war you don't see.

JOHN PILGER: Well, the war you don't see is expressed eloquently by the New York Times, that range of extraordinary media apologists that we've just seen. The reason we don't see the war on civilians, the war that has caused the most extraordinary devastation, human and cultural and structural devastation in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is because of what is almost laughingly called the mainstream media. The one apology, not these apologies that we've seen this morning from Fox to CBS, right across the spectrum, to the New York Times this morning, the real apology that counted was the New York Times when it apologized to its readers for not showing us the war in—or the reasons that led up, rather, to the invasion of Iraq that produced this horrific war. I mean, these people now have become so embedded with the establishment, so embedded with authority, they're what Brecht called the spokesmen of the spokesmen. They're not journalists.

Brooks writes about a "culture of exposure." Excuse me, isn't that journalism? Are we so distant from what journalism ought to be, not simply an echo chamber for authority, that somebody in the New York Times can attack a journalist who's done his job? Hastings did a wonderful job. He caught out McChrystal, as he should have done. That's his job. In a country where the media is constitutionally freer, nominally, than any other country on earth, the disgrace of the recent carnage in the Middle East and in Afghanistan is largely down to the fact that the media didn't alert us. It didn't report it. It didn't question. It simply amplified and echoed authority. Hastings has proved—God bless him—that journalists still exist.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it's interesting to read the first paragraph of Hastings's piece. He talks about, yes, this group in a French bar—and, by the way, Rolling Stone said, you should see what we didn't print, because in fact there were things they said that were off the record. But to say that Hastings violated the off-the-record rule, they said, was not the case. There was many things we didn't print. But right after they talked about the French—he talked about the French bar and McChrystal and his high officials in the bar, his aides, you know, dancing and singing the words "Afghanistan, Afghanistan," Hastings writes, "opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany's president [and] sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him." But this is something most people in this country don't know, that the US, despite the US-led coalition, the NATO troops, is very much almost going this alone.

JOHN PILGER: Yes, it's going it alone in terms of the American people. And what journalism, like Hastings, does is represent the American people. A majority of the American people are now opposed to this colonial debacle in Afghanistan. I mean, I was very interested to read what President Obama said about Afghanistan, if I can find it. Yes, here it is. On February the 10th, 2007, quote, "It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement [that lies] at the heart of someone else's civil war," unquote. That's what President Obama said before he became president. And unless the people of the United States, like the people of Europe, like most peoples in the world, understand that, that this is a long-running civil war, that it needs the kind of sympathy, if you like, for the people of Afghanistan—it certainly doesn't need this brutal imposition of a colonial force there.

Now, that happens to be a truth that the likes of Michael Hastings and others are expressing. But it's also a forbidden truth. And the moment you even glimpse that truth in the United States, the kind of barrage that—the grotesque sort of cartoon barrage of Fox, right up to the rather sneering barrage that comes from the New York Times, through to CBS and so on, the barrage against truth tellers becomes—Amy, we're dependent now on the few Hastings, but also on whistleblowers. The most important exposé was the Wikileaks exposé of the Apache attack on those journalists and children in Iraq. And here they are prosecuting the whistleblower, when in fact those responsible should be prosecuted. But that's verboten now.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to encourage people to go to our website at democracynow.org. We interviewed Julian Assange, who's on the run now, afraid that he will be picked, that he will be arrested. He's the founder of Wikileaks, and we played that 2007 video that someone within the military gave to Wikileaks, to Assange, to show the killing of civilians on the ground in Iraq. Astounding.

I wanted to go back to this comment of the CBS correspondent, of Lara Logan, who says, "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has." This is the reporter. You say that the media is not covering the war; it's promoting the war.

JOHN PILGER: Michael Hastings is serving his country. This country tells the rest of the world about its magnificent beginning, about its magnificent Constitution, about its magnificent freedoms. At the heart of those freedoms is the freedom of speech and the freedom of journalism. That is serving your country. That is serving humanity. The idea that you only serve your country by being part of a rapacious colonial force—and, you know, I'm not speaking rhetorically here. That's what is happening in Afghanistan. This is a civil war in which European and American forces have intervened. And we get a glimpse of that through the likes of the Hastings article. I really call on journalists, young journalists, to be inspired, if you like, by this Rolling Stone article, not to be put off by the apologists, not to be put off by those who serve their country embedded in the Green Zone in Baghdad, but to see journalism as something that is about truth telling and represents people and does serve one's country.

AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting you say this, as up in Toronto—we just came from Toronto yesterday—well, hundreds of people and a number of journalists have been beaten and arrested—

JOHN PILGER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —as they try to cover what's happening on the streets, the protests around the G8/G20 meetings, as they talk about protecting banks and promoting war—

JOHN PILGER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —in the summits.

JOHN PILGER: Yeah. Well, there is a war on journalism. There's long been a war on journalism. Journalism has always been—I mean, if you read, let's say, General Petraeus's counterinsurgency manual, which he put his name to in 2006, he makes it very clear. He said we're fighting wars of perception—and I paraphrase him—in which the news media is a major component. So, unless the news media is part of those wars of perception—that is, that not so much the enemy that is our objective; it's the people at home—then, you know, they're out. They're part of—they can easily become part of the enemy. And as we've seen in the numbers of journalists who have been killed in Iraq—more journalists have been killed in Iraq, mostly Iraqi journalists, than in any other war in the modern era—there is a war on this kind of truth telling. And we're seeing this—another form of this attack on truth telling by the likes of Fox and CBS and New York Times this morning. It embarrasses them. What Hastings has done deeply embarrasses these apologists.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, interestingly, it was Hastings himself that exposed the mainstream media. Just quoting from Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, as Barrett Brown notes in Vanity Fair, "Hastings in 2008 did to the establishment media what he did to Gen. McChrystal—[he] exposed what they do and how they think by writing the truth—after he quite Newsweek (where he was the Baghdad correspondent) and wrote a damning exposé about how the media distorts war coverage. As Brown put it: 'Hastings ensured that he would never be trusted by the establishment media ever again.'"

JOHN PILGER: What a wonderful accolade! My goodness! That's a tremendous honor for him to bear.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we wrap up, I want to ask you about the coverage of the Gaza aid flotilla that was attacked by the Israeli commandos. You've come in from Britain to the United States—

JOHN PILGER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —to do this piece on the media.

JOHN PILGER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Your assessment of the media's coverage?

JOHN PILGER: Well, it's very different. I mean, there was—I think things—I think the perception of Israel and Palestine has changed quite significantly in Europe, and there was horror at the murder of these people on the Turkish ship. And there was quick understanding, I felt, that how the Israelis manipulated the footage in order to suggest that the victims were actually assaulting those who attacked the flotilla.

The coverage here has been bathed in the usual euphemisms about Israel. It's always put into the passive voice. Israel really—the Israeli commandos never really killed anybody; it was a tragic event in which people died, and so on and so forth.

Having said that, I must say, Amy, since I've been in the United States, I see a—there's a shift that is in—both politically, but certainly in the media. Since Lebanon, since Israel's attack on Lebanon in 2006, since the attack on Gaza, Christmas 2008 and early 2009, and now this assault on the flotilla, Israel can't be covered up. It can't be apologized for as effectively anymore. And even in the New York Times, which has always been a stalwart in supporting the Israeli regime, the language is changing. And I think this again reflects a popular understanding and a popular disenchantment with the Middle East and the United States role in the Middle East, the apologies for one atrocity after the other, the lack of justice for the people in Palestine. So, I don't know whether I'm being optimistic or not, but there is a change. And where that change is going to, I don't know.

AMY GOODMAN: Are there any other key stories that you feel the media is missing or distorting?

JOHN PILGER: Well, I mean, one of the key stories is the devastation, the economic devastation, in people's lives, that it seems to me extraordinary. And this is true in Britain, as it is in the United States, that ordinary people have suffered since the collapse in September 2008 of significant parts of Wall Street, since the bubble burst. The idea that a president was elected as a man of the people—at least that's the way he presented himself—is still, I think, promoted by the media, whereas Obama has made clear that he has very much reinforced Wall Street, he has helped to rebuild Wall Street, his whole team is from Wall Street. He's reached into Goldman Sachs for his senior people. I think that that anger that I've felt in the United States over the last few years, that anger at a popular level, is still not expressed in the so-called mainstream media. I remember in the last year of George W. Bush, someone said that in one day 26,000 emails bombarded the White House, and almost all of them were hostile. That suggests to me a popular anger in this country that is often deflected into—down into cul-de-sacs, like the Tea Party movement. But the root of that anger—and that is a social injustice in people's lives, in the repossession of houses, the loss of jobs, a rather weak reform, if it is a reform, of the scandalous healthcare arrangements, none of these—this popular disenchantment, disaffection, is not expressed in the media.

AMY GOODMAN: John Pilger, I want to thank you very much for being with us. John Pilger here in the United States doing a film, The War You Don't See, as he covers the media's coverage of war. He's an award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker. Thank you so much.

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By Maidhc Ó Cathail* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

It would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joseph Lieberman.

Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the "global war on terror" which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it.

On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Lieberman introduced S. 1534, a bill to establish a Department of Homeland Security. Since then, he has been the main mover behind such draconian legislation as the Protect America Act of 2007, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, and the proposed Terrorist Expatriation Act, which would revoke the citizenship of Americans suspected of terrorism. And now the senator from Connecticut wants to kill the Internet.

According to the bill he recently proposed in the Senate, the entire global internet is to be claimed as a "national asset" of the United States. If Congress passes the bill, the US President would be given the power to "kill" the internet in the event of a "national cyber-emergency." Supporters of the legislation say this is necessary to prevent a "cyber 9/11" - yet another myth from the fearmongers who brought us tales of "Iraqi WMD" and "Iranian nukes."

Lieberman's concerns about the internet are not new. The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which Lieberman chairs, released a report in 2008 titled "Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat." The report claimed that groups like al-Qaeda use the internet to indoctrinate and recruit members, and to communicate with each other.

Immediately after the report was published, Lieberman asked Google, the parent company of You Tube, to "immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations." That might sound like a reasonable request. However, as far as Lieberman is concerned, Hamas, Hezbollah and even the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are terrorist organizations.

It's hardly surprising that Lieberman's views on what constitute terrorism parallel those of Tel Aviv. As Mark Vogel, chairman of the largest pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC) in the United States, once said: "Joe Lieberman, without exception, no conditions ... is the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress. There is nobody who does more on behalf of Israel than Joe Lieberman."

Lieberman has been well-rewarded for his patriotism – to another country. In the past six years, he has been the Senate's top recipient of political contributions from pro-Israel PACs with a staggering $1,226,956.

But what is it that bothers Lieberman so much about the internet? Could it be that it allows ordinary Americans access to facts which reveal exactly what kind of "friend" Israel has been to its overgenerous benefactor? Facts which they have been denied by the pro-Israel mainstream media.

How much faith would American voters have in the likes of Lieberman, who claims that the Jewish state is their greatest ally, if they knew that Israeli agents planted firebombs in American installations in Egypt in 1954 in an attempt to undermine relations between Nasser and the United States; that Israel murdered 34 American servicemen in a deliberate attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967; that Israeli espionage, most notably Jonathan Pollard's spying, has done tremendous damage to American interests; that five Mossad agents were filming and celebrating as the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001; that Tel Aviv and its accomplices in Washington were the source of the false pre-war intelligence on Iraq; and about countless other examples of treachery?

In his latest attempt to censor the internet, does Lieberman really want to protect the American people from imaginary cyber-terrorists? Or is he just trying to protect his treasonous cronies from the American people?

*Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan.

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• Maidhc Ó Cathail – The Merchants of Fear: Israel’s Profiting from Homeland Insecurity
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In this 45 minute video, Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow questions whether the Images of Iraq which dominate the Western TV news bulletins are sugar-coating the bloody reality of war and the sectarian violence under the US-led occupation.

Iraq: The Hidden Story shows the footage used by TV news broadcasts, and compares it with the devastatingly powerful uncensored footage of the aftermath of the carnage that is becoming a part of the fabric of life in Iraq.

- Warning -
This video contains images that should only be viewed by a mature audience

Video link:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2179700192640504810&hl=en#

Prod/ Dir: Christian Trumble; Exec Prod: Stephen Phelps; Prod Co: Zenith Entertainment Ltd - 2006

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By Yvonne Ridley* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Illustration By Pete Pasho: www.dollopsofirony.com

Anyone then, suspected of being linked to communism was arrested, interrogated and either imprisoned or forced to give names of others suspected of communist tendencies. And so the fear and intimidation spread like a great plague across the USA.

Names were blacklisted, careers and lives ruined as the authorities ruthlessly traded on peoples' fears, paranoia and weaknesses.

With little or no evidence people were found guilty and anyone daring to question any of the actions and the wild accusations also had suspicion cast upon them. But hey folks, that was back in the Fifties and various administrations resolved the same insane hysteria, hatred and fears would never again cast a dark shadow across the Land of the Free.

Sadly, the Salem-style witch hunts have returned, but the new villains are no longer communists. The Red Scare has been replaced by those who shout Viva Palestina!

From the very highest law-makers right down to ordinary John Doe there is an irrational fear so great that it holds many of them hostage in their homes, workplaces and schools.

Their vision has become so skewed they are unable to distinguish between what is real and what is not.

And so when they're told that heavily armed Israeli soldiers shoot peace activists at near point blank range because they are defending themselves, few dare to question.

When they see babies dying on the Gaza Strip because of lack of medical equipment because of the Israeli-enforced blockade, they remain silent.

And even fewer dare to criticize Israel.

Millions upon millions of Americans wake up frightened, go to sleep frightened while others feed on the hatred and bile spewed out by politicians, preachers, academics and the media who tell them Israel is good and Palestine is bad.

There are some politicians who want to see the heroic Americans who took part in the Viva Palestina convoys and the recent Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla prosecuted as terrorists.

Today I trolled through some of the pages in the American media and there, among the column inches, are stories that perfectly illustrate the Zionist Fear Factory in operation.

The Los Angeles Times reveals that UC Irvine has told its university students that the Muslim Student Union will be suspended for one year because it dared to criticize Israel and protested during a speech given by the Israeli Ambassador. So there you have it - freedom of speech is now banned.

The unprecedented action also sends out a chilling message to students across the USA who might consider demonstrating, rallying or protesting against the Zionist state and its supporters. Free speech, it seems, is a thing of the past in Barack Obama's America.

And should you be in any doubt, read a story about the latest decision to emerge from the US Supreme Court.

In a majority 6-3 ruling it becomes virtually impossible for anyone to put food into the mouths of malnourished babies in Gaza or to give money to a charity to do the humanitarian act for you.

Insane as it sounds, it is now a crime in America to work for peace and human rights in Gaza because the day-to-day running of The Strip is carried out by the democratically-elected Hamas government. Therefore it would be virtually impossibly to bypass Hamas to operate in Gaza.

In an astonishing McCarthy-like ruling any American who even offers advice to banned organizations like Hamas, including legal assistance and information on conflict resolution, will be prosecuted as terrorists. Be afraid, be very afraid ... this is happening in the USA, here and now.

Barack Obama's barmy administration reckons that even giving advice intended for peaceful purposes will amount to "material support" for terrorism. "The supreme court has ruled that human rights advocates, providing training and assistance in the nonviolent resolution of disputes, can be prosecuted as terrorists," said David Cole, a Georgetown university law professor who argued the case before the court. In the name of fighting terrorism, the court has said that the first amendment [on free speech] permits congress to make it a crime to work for peace and human rights. That is wrong."

The ruling is designed to intimidate Palestinian supporters and their fundraising activity. Some have already been prosecuted and jailed for raising cash for social groups dealing with issues such as housing and welfare in Gaza.

The government's case was enthusiastically argued in February by Elena Kagan, who is now the Obama administration's nominee to the supreme court. She said: "Hizb'Allah builds bombs. Hizb'Allah also builds homes. What Congress decided was when you help Hizb'Allah build homes, you are also helping Hizb'Allah build bombs. That's the entire theory behind the statute."
Well if that's the case an interesting legal situation looms on the horizon - unless all of this legislation is purely designed for Palestinian supporters.
A Congressional subcommittee, led by Representative John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, has uncovered evidence showing US tax dollars are funding the Taliban.
The source is a Pentagon-issued $2.1 billion dollar contract called Host Nation Trucking, which pays for the movement of food and supplies to some 200 American bases. It appears Afghan security firms have been extorting as much as $4 million a week and then funneling the spoils to warlords and the Taliban in return for a safe passage. In short, the US is financing the enemy and undermining international efforts to stabilize the country.

Hmm, isn't this material support for terrorism? I think we need to have the Commander in Chief charged with immediate affect.

* Yvonne Ridley is one of the founders of Viva Palestina and European President of the international Muslim Women's Union

Source: ICH

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Why conceal the fact that the Shin Bet has a "hit list" and gives license to its commando units to carry out field executions? Anat Kam is finding out the price of speaking truth to power.

By Gila Svirsky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

This story is a testament to the Internet. And to Anat Kam, the whistleblower, who is widely regarded in Israeli security circles as a traitor and will probably soon be charged with treason.

Anat (I'll use her first name, though I don't know her) is a 23-year old journalist who wrote for the popular Israeli portal Walla. Some months ago, Anat did the unthinkable: she passed on information that was decidedly newsworthy, but that the Shin Bet – Israel's security services – did not want outsiders to have. It was a"hit list" – the names of Palestinians living in the West Bank who were on the Shin Bet's "wanted" list. And it was a copy of the Shin Bet protocol stating that if these "wanted" figures are identified during the course of a military action, permission is granted to carry out "an interception". Nice language for execution without trial.

Reports are that Anat photocopied this classified information while serving in the IDF. She allegedly passed on this classified information to Uri Blau, a journalist, who published it months ago as a major scoop in Ha'aretz. Now Ha'aretz has whisked Uri away to London to protect him from the Israeli authorities, who would love to interrogate him about his informant. Meanwhile, Anat has been under house arrest and held incommunicado for at least three months.

This is a big story, but until today no Israeli newspapers could publish it because a judge issued a gag order at the Shin Bet's request. But go ask Henry Miller about banned books. Thanks to the ban and Israel's inability to control cyberspace, the story has taken on vastly greater proportions. Every news outlet in Israel – newspapers, radio, TV, news portals – has front-paged the story now that the gag order was lifted. It would never have received such widespread attention had the authorities not tried to hide it in the first place. And had the Internet not cloned the story through every webpage eager to expose state secrets.

This is not the first time the Israeli authorities have arrested suspects and held them incommunicado for extended periods. It happens to Palestinians all the time. The best known case of an Israeli is Mordechai Vanunu, who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear warfare capabilities 24 years ago and was tried behind closed doors. More recently, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Yaakov, an Israeli citizen now living in the U.S., was arrested on a visit to Israel in 2002, and a gag order placed on news of his month-long detention and interrogation. Yaakov, a key scientist in the development of Israel's nuclear weapons program, was suspected of divulging some of Israel's secrets, but eventually was released without charge.

So Israel has managed to draw widespread international attention to a story it wanted to hush up. But why conceal the fact that the Shin Bet has a "hit list" and gives license to its commando units to carry out field executions? After all, doesn't the U.S. do the same thing in its own so-called war against terror?

Israel, in my view, wanted to hide this information to avoid the legal and diplomatic ramifications of disclosures that its soldiers were once again breaking international law. Israel has been playing defense ever since the Gaza Campaign, trying to keep its senior politicians and officers out of European courts on charges of war crimes. Most recently (December 2009), opposition leader Zipi Livni cancelled a trip to London out of fear she would be arrested, thanks to universal jurisdiction of human rights violations. Similar arrest orders were deflected by other senior Israelis (Barak, Mofaz, and Almog). Publicity about a hit list and hit squads could only add fuel to the growing criticism of Israel and the fear among its leaders of being arrested on a visit to Europe. Not to mention the fact that Israel's own Supreme Court outlawed such unprovoked assassinations just months ago.

But really, isn't Israel still the "only democracy in the Middle East"? Concealing someone's arrest and the charges against her are clearly pages from the annals of dark regimes. And the broader context is the growing McCarthyite culture inside Israel – the silencing of its critics, the squirreling away of its whistleblowers. We see this in the hate campaign against Israeli human rights organizations, which has now reached a new peak – a bill before the Knesset that would severely hamper these organizations from receiving funds from foreign states, one of their only sources of support as the Israeli government is not about to fund human rights activity.

What's not to love about secrecy, lies, and human rights violations? Praise the whistleblowers and all those who turned on the Internet lights, making it impossible for the authorities to turn them off again.

* Gila Svirsky is a writer and an Israeli Jew peace and human rights activist.

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• Oct. 29th massacres in Palestine history and Ben Gurion wonders: “How can an order be given to shoot children?”
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By: Anthony Lawson | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Demonstrating that the continued attacks being made on Iran, by presidents, prime ministers and the mass media, are smokescreens for the real danger to world peace: Israel and more lies about weapons of mass destruction.

Commentators from the mainstream media accept just about anything that is fed to them, by the White House or favored politicians, and repeat it, like parrots, to their mass audiences, whether the information is accurate or not.

"The International Bureau of Double Standards" is, of course, a euphemism for the way that the New World Order operates, and, unless we all learn to see through the lies, half truths and damaging innuendo, we will only have ourselves to blame for the way our futures and those of our children are affected.

References: Scott Ritter in the Guardian, U.K.: http://bit.ly/3ceHLZ

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czDi0Koct94

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Ethan Bronner and Susan Chira

Ethan Bronner's Conflict With Impartiality

Ethan Bronner is the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief. As such, he is the editor responsible for all the news coming out of Iasrael-Palestine. Iact is his job to decide what gets reported and what doesn't; what goes in a story and what gets cut.

To a considerable degree, he determines what readers of arguably the nation's most influential newspaper learn about Israel and its adversaries, and, especially, what they don't.

His son just joined the Israeli army.

According to New York Times ethics guidelines, such a situation would be expected to cause significant concern. In these guidelines the Times repeatedly emphasizes the importance of impartiality.

This is considered so critical that the Times devotes considerable attention to "conflict of interest" (also called "conflict with impartiality") problems, situations in which personal interest might cause a journalist to intentionally or unconsciously slant a story.

The Times notes that family affiliations may cause such a conflict; as an example, it explains that a daughter's high position on Wall Street could be problematic for a business reporter.

In situations where such a familial affiliation is considered significant, the journalist may be moved to a different area of reporting.

Ethan Bronner's situation, therefore would appear to be sticky, at the very least. It is difficult to imagine that a son fighting for the foreign nation an editor is charged with covering does not constitute such a potential conflict with impartiality. Apart from Mr. Bronner signing up with the Israeli military himself, it is difficult to imagine a clearer example of familial partisanship.

Yet, to date, Bronner and the Times have refused to address his situation. Foreign Editor Susan Chira (who may also have family allegiances to Israel) has declined to comment, other than refer people to her curt response to Electronic Intifada, which had asked her whether it was true that Bronner's son was in the Israeli military:

"Ethan Bronner referred your query to me, the foreign editor. Here is my comment: Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."

If that were, indeed, the case for Bronner's reporting, there would undoubtedly be less concern from outside observers. There are numerous instances of accurate reporting by both Israeli and Palestinian journalists; familial and personal affiliation do not necessarily or always result in flawed journalism.

However, while both Chira and Bronner may believe he has been "scrupulously fair" in the years that he has been the paper's top editor on Israel-Palestine (before assuming his current position as Jerusalem bureau chief in March 2008, he had been deputy foreign editor overseeing the region for four years), a number of studies and analyses contradict this contention.

- In 2005 a study by If Americans Knew found that the Times had covered Israeli children's deaths at a rate over seven times greater than it had reported on Palestinian children's deaths – even though Palestinian children's deaths had occurred first, in far greater numbers, and there was considerable evidence that Palestinian young people were being killed intentionally by official Israeli forces.

- Princeton Professor Emeritus Richard Falk and media critic Howard Friel undertook a meticulous analysis of the Times' coverage of the issue; the title of their book indicates their findings: "Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East." Among others things, Falk and Friel discovered that the Times had failed to report the essential fact that all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

- A 2006 study published in the Electronic Intifada revealed that during the previous six years there had been 80 reports by respected international organizations detailing human rights violations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of these, 76 had been primarily critical of Israel, and four had been primarily critical of Palestinians. The study found that the Times had reported on two of the reports for each, giving readers an exceedingly distorted view of the real situation.

- In a recent announcement expressing concern at Bronner's apparent conflict of interest, media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) stated that "Bronner's reporting has been repeatedly criticized by FAIR for what would appear to be a bias toward the Israeli government," detailing specific examples.

Shifting the Blame

Several years ago the San Francisco Jewish Bulletin published an article exploring Jewish student journalists' views on how to report on Israel-Palestine. Several said that they would find it difficult to report negative aspects about Israel, one interviewee saying that he would try to avoid printing such news. If that proved impossible, he said, he would then try to find a way "to shift the blame."

New York Times' news coverage often seems to follow this pattern. When the Gaza massacre of December-January is reported, Gazan rockets are inevitably mentioned. However, the fact that these largely home-made projectiles have killed far fewer Israelis in the eight years they have been used (under 20) than Israeli forces killed in a few minutes during the invasion is virtually always omitted. Likewise left out is the fact that their use began only after Israeli forces had invaded Gaza on a number of occasions, killing and injuring numerous civilians.

The Times consistently reports Israeli actions as retaliatory, despite the fact that, according to an MIT study, in at least 96 percent of ceasefires and periods of calm it was Israeli forces that had first resumed violence. In the conflict that began in fall of 2000, Israeli forces killed over 140 Palestinians before a single Israeli in Israel was killed, 91 Palestinian children (major cause of death, gunfire to the head) before a single Israeli child was killed.

An example of Bronner's Israel-centric reporting is a November, 2009 report on prisoners. Bronner notes that the Israeli soldier captured by Palestinians (the only Israeli prisoner held by Palestinians) is "bespectacled and boyish-seeming," while failing to mention that many of the over 7,000 Palestinians prisoners held by Israel are equally bespectacled and boyish-seeming – in fact, 300+ are not just boyish, they are children.

While Bronner includes personal information about the Israeli prisoner, he includes very few facts about Palestinian prisoners; for example, that hundreds have never been charged with a crime and that those whom Israel has found "guilty" were tried in military courts under military law in a military occupation of Palestinian land that much of the world deems illegal. While Bronner's story contains considerable mention of "terrorism," it fails to report that Israeli forces killed over a thousand Gazan civilians; Palestinians killed one Israeli civilian.

Interestingly, connections to the Israeli military may not be rare for journalists covering the Middle East for US media.

From left, Linda Gradstein, Jeffrey Goldberg and Isabel Kershner

The husband of NPR's longtime correspondent for the region, Linda Gradstein, was a sniper in the Israeli army (and may still be a reserve officer). "Pundit" Jeffrey Goldberg, who appears throughout the media, immigrated to Israel, became an Israeli citizen, and served in the Israeli military. (It is unknown whether he is still in the Israeli reserves; it is possible he received a dispensation from this requirement.)

The New York Times' other major correspondent from the region, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli citizen. While there is universal compulsory military service in Israel, we have been unable to confirm that Kershner herself and/or her family members have been or are in the Israeli military.

Breaking the silence

Recently, the Israeli organization "Breaking the Silence" published 96 testimonies by female Israeli soldiers. They describe a pervasive pattern of violence, harassment, theft, and humiliation practiced by Israeli forces against Palestinian men, women, and children. Below are excerpts:

"We caught a five-year-old... the officers just picked him up, slapped him around and put him in the jeep. The kid was crying and the officer next to me said 'don't cry' and started laughing at him. Finally the kid cracked a smile – and suddenly the officer gave him a punch in the stomach. Why? 'Don't laugh in my face' he said."

"...it's boring, so we'd create some action. We'd get on the radio, and say they threw stones at us, then someone would be arrested... There was a policewoman, she was bored, so okay, she said they threw stones at her. They asked her who threw them. 'I don't know, two in grey shirts, I didn't manage to see them.' They catch two guys with grey shirts... beat them. Is it them? 'No, I don't think so.' Okay, a whole incident, people get beaten up. Nothing happened that day."

"...two of our soldiers put him [a Palestinian child] in a jeep, and two weeks later the kid was walking around with casts on both arms and legs...they talked about it in the unit quite a lot - about how they sat him down and put his hand on the chair and simply broke it right there on the chair."

An officer described soldiers shooting to death a nine-year-old as he was trying to run away: "They shot in the air, as they say – shot in the air in the lungs..."

In their testimonies, these soldiers emphasize that mistreatment of Palestinian civilians is widespread, routine, and known to everyone. Both the Israeli and the Palestinian press have published excerpts.

Yet, New York Times Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner has so far failed to report this information about Israeli forces.

And his son has just joined up.

* Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and a board member of the Council for the National Interest (CNI). For more information on Ethan Bronner and his upcoming speaking tour on college campuses, join IAK'S email list. Alison can be reached at contact@ifamericansknew.org

Sources:

The New York Times Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism. This also states: "Companywide, our goal is to cover the news impartially... and to be seen as doing so. The reputation of our company rests upon that perception..."

"Susan Chira, New York Times Foreign Editor, confirms, excuses Bronner's conflict of interest," Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines," Jan. 27, 2010

"New York Times fails to disclose Jerusalem bureau chief's conflict of interest
Report," The Electronic Intifada, January 25, 2010

"New York Times' Ethan Bronner's Conflict of Interest: Conversation with Bronner and Alternative News Sources" AlisonWeir.org, January 26, 2010

"Off the Charts: Accuracy in Reporting of Israel/Palestine – The New York Times," If Americans Knew, 2005

"Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East," Richard Falk, Howard Friel; ZNET Interview, May 31, 2007

"The New York Times Marginalizes Palestinian Women and Palestinian Rights," Electronic Intifada, Nov. 17, 2006

"Does NYT's Top Israel Reporter Have a Son in the IDF?" FAIR, January 27, 2010

"Killing Palestinians doesn't count: Is a ceasefire breached only when an Israeli is killed?" CounterPunch, January 29, 2009

"Reigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End?" Huffington Post, January 6, 2009

Remember These Children

B'TSELEM - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

"The Coverage--and Non-Coverage--of Israel-Palestine," The Link, July-August 2005, Vol 38, Issue 3

"Jewish journalists grapple with 'doing the write thing'" Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, Nov. 23, 2001

"Prisoner Swap Appears Near in the Mideast," Ethan Bronner, New York times, Nov. 23, 2009

"Political prisoners in Israel-Palestine," If Americans Knew

Addameer Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association

"Israel, Hamas in mutual gestures on prisoners," Reuters, Sept. 30, 2009.

"Female soldiers break their silence," YNET, Jan. 20, 2010 (According to its website, "Ynetnews is part of the prominent Yedioth Media Group, which publishes Yedioth Ahronoth – Israel's most widely-read daily newspaper)

"Testimonies of Israeli Female Soldiers Regarding Violations Against Palestinian Civilians," International Middle East Media Center, January 30, 2010

"BREAKING THE SILENCE: Women Soldiers' Testimonies," 136-page booklet by the Israeli Breaking the Silence organization

* Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew. Photos and videos referenced in the article can be viewed on the website (http://ifamericansknew.org) She can be reached at contact@ifamericansknew.org

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By Phillip Marlowe | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

You know, when I sit down here and decide to pound out a blog posting, I always start thinking about what kind of image I'll end up using to illustrate what I'm trying to say. I think it's important since it gets people's attention and makes them want to read the copy. It's the copy and what I want to say, that's really important. Or so I tell myself.

The photo artwork is only a kind of compilation of what the article says. There is that old saying of the Chinese about a picture being worth a thousands words - which I think is true. Sometimes I want to use (with good reason) a picture of a thermonuclear mushroom cloud, but try not to. Why? Because it's a bit hyped-up and paranoid to do so. Yet the reality is that it is these people who are really over-doing the paranoia bit on your White butt.

So I'm watching this show called Glenn Beck on FOX Jew news yesterday, and this image comes up in spades. Now, Glenn Beck appears to be some kind of good old boy type cable news personality, basically just another entertainer (who gets tantalizingly close to off-limit topics - the best kind of disinfo tactic). And you can tell they are entertainers, because they talk more than the guests they bring on (Bill O'Reilly especially). The guests are really there just to sell a book, while the personality is really there just to be personable.

Anyway, Beck had this smarmy little Jew on named Joel Rosenberg (above left). Rosenberg is some kind of "born again" Neocon who apparently loves jerking the chains of the Dispensationalist Evangelicals with all the "End Times" business, writing both fiction and non-fiction (supposedly). So now he's on Beck's show pushing all the Iran paranoia biz so he can sell copies of his new book "Epicenter" to the Mideast-concerned Goyim masses.

Beck and Rosenberg both turn into little Dr. Strangeloves over the Iranian threat - all the Mad Mullahs and nuclear bomb stuff - and going off about Iran launching a satellite into orbit. But Beck doesn't forget to keep chiming in that most of Iranians are still "good people," just to keep it all PC palatable for the indoctrinated Diversity people. How considerate - too bad none of that makes one whit of difference to the real powers that be.

The History Channel has been on a tear lately with 'End of the World' programming for some odd reason - from the usual Nostradamus crap to Aztec 2012 prophecies to the Bible code. What's up with that? Oh yeah, sometimes they do have shows on the evil Hitler and Chupachapras.

Basically, all this Dispensationalist "End Times" stuff is a take-off from the Revelation part of the New Testament, where this hermit guy named John, living in a cave on a island called Patmos, scribed away some wacked-out parchments about the hated Roman emperor Nero. It's full of breaking of the seals or jars or something in the heavenly abode, the Whore of Babylon (I love that one) and horses of the Apocalypse riding through the fires of hell - all right in your face, the viewer of tonight's History Channel show.

Jews, like this smiling Rosenberg creep, have glommed onto all this Dispensationalism crap, not only to make big shekels off books, but also to feed the Israel-supporting American putzes who hope that all the End Time catastrophes will usher in the real Jesus, who will put a stop to all the sleaze out of Hollywood (Jews always seem to work both sides of the equation).

They thought this guy was the Messiah -- until he croaked and stayed that way.

So, Rosenberg is talking about the Mad Iranian Mullahs believing in a Messiah, something called the 12th Iman, whom they think is due to make his appearance and will destroy the Great Satan (us) and the little Satan, Israel (his bros). This is all truly nightmarish since they are on the verge of getting the Bomb and looky-here America, they just launched a missile into outer space, so they can now come drop the Big One on us!

All the while watching this, I'm thinking to myself, hell, everything this Rosenberg Jew is blathering about is exactly, not a little, what many crazy Jews themselves think and can really do now. And what's worse is that some of them believe their Jew Messiah (Moshiach in Hebrew) will either wipe out or enslave all the Gentiles - not just those pesky Iranians, but even all those dam fool Christian Evangelicals back here giving them money!

The Chabad-Lubavitchers (also called Chabad Hassids) think that once the Great Rabbi of the Sanhedrin appears, he'll magically increase the borders of Israel to include the entire globe. What this really means is, of course, you'll be under their yoke and a slave to them, or be one dead Goyim.

Bibi boy.

All these Orthodox Jews are big time right-wingers or Likudniks who love Bibi Netanyahu, now in a tight race for PM with the Kadima party's hard-liner woman and daughter of Irgun terrorists, Tzipi Livni (the elections were just today). They love to chant "Netanyahu is good for the Jews." And let's not forget what Netanyahu once said was so good after witnessing all the death and destruction of 9/11 - when he just happened to be in New York that day (curiously, he was also in London during the subway bombings of 7/7):

"It's very good," he said, then quickly added "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)."

But you'll never, ever see one dam thing about any of this Jewish religious craziness in the US media, though. That, my friends, is the power of Jewry. They can go off all day to us about the dangers of mad Muslims and all their efforts at making a nuke, but not breath a word about themselves doing and thinking exactly the same mad things.

Ask yourself these questions: Why do they absolutely never mention the Jew's Talmud whenever the History Channel does a program on religion? Or discuss the Federal Reserve's beginnings? Why do we never see the History Channel doing something on Israel secretly building the nuke? For that matter, why do we absolutely never hear one word about Israel's nuclear capability on the mainstream news? Most Americans don't even know that Israel has 200 to 400 nukes, ballistic missiles, US Stealth bombers and even ocean-capable, German-made submarines for crying out loud.

You should check out the story of Mordecai Vunanu (above), the brave Israeli (called a "self-hating" Jew), who converted to Christianity and brought to the West concrete evidence of the extant of Israel's nuclear program. The Mossad then literally kidnapped him from a sovereign country (Italy) and threw him in jail for 18 years. When they finally released him, he wanted to leave the country (who wouldn't?), so the evil Jews threw him back in jail to keep him from becoming a symbol in the West. He's still there, last I heard.

This is one guy who really should win the Nobel prize (note how they give them to Zionist terrorists like Begin), but you'll never see that one happen. Wonder why? Check out this quote from Vunanu when he temporarily had his freedom and the situation in America with the US media:

"Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew... Thanks to Jesus Christ I survived...This US media who are here in Jerusalem are afraid of Israel. Because I am under orders and they don't want trouble, they cooperate with Israel. A good example is the US media who talk about freedom of knowledge, freedom of information like CNN, ABC, 60 Minutes. In this case they are all silent and cooperate with Israel; they fear the Israel lobby and the Israeli authority here. My view is the US Media is totally under the Israeli control. Very sad, very bad that US Media is not free. The Zionist lobby in Washington decides what people in the US should know and hear about. Not just the West Bank is under occupation, but the US Media is under Israeli occupation too." Read more here

Just the barest time researching this on the Internet will show you all this about Israel. But that's not the issue. Get it straight in your head: Why do we not hear about things like this on the telly? Should that not well-prove to you the power and will of these people to keep you in the dark in the US? Note the operative verb there - the "will" to keep you in the dark over what they don't want you to think or know!

The Iranians are not a threat to the US of A. We can melt them into a sheet of glass within 30 minutes should we want. They know this, we know this. The Iranians are simply fighting against the Jew's hegemonistic designs in the region and genocides of fellow Muslims, the Palestinians. The Jews cannot have the Iranians become a power in the region because of what they want to eventually do with the Palestinians and their "Greater Israel" designs on Iraq and Syria. Already, Kurdish Jews are moving into areas of Iraq and forcibly displacing the Chaldean Christians, who lived there for eons.

And there is plenty of reasons to think the Iranians want peace. Even Ahmadinejad. Hell, the Jews often lie when it comes to this guy (he's the new Hitler of the world and it's 1939 all over again!). The Jews at 60 Minutes and Mike Wallace did a interview with him and carefully edited the piece to make him look evil to the American public. That's the kind of Jew-job propaganda tactics they employ on your head!

Jew embedded propagandists (mistakenly termed 'journalists') are all over the airwaves and in print, too. Not only in America, but Britain (bottom left), Canada or any White country really. White Americans have little idea of the pervasiveness of their viewpoints and how vigorously they work to protect Jewry's image, no matter what they do.

All Jews wants you to believe that they are the "good guys," unmercifully attacked simply because they are always "eternally victimized." They are the masters at this schtick on the stupefied, sleeping White populations of the West. It's like this: You accept their view of things, but if you dare to say anything about it, then it's you who are the terrorist supporter, anti-Semite, Hater, or NeoNazi, blah-blah, blah-blah.

Glenn Beck is just another Goyim media personality who knows what he can and can't talk about. All of the talking heads on the air are like this, on both sides of the political equation - MSNBC, CNN, FOX. That's right. Have you ever noticed how people define themselves on who they watch on TV? You can be a Kieth Oberman guy (tough guy liberal) or a Bill O'Reilly fan (tough guy conservative) or a middling quisling, like the friendly Charles Gibson of ABC.

But all of them are really just Jew tools when you get down to it. They would be gone in a Jew York minute should they dare mention "the Jews" or any inconvenient fact about the sacred State of Israel. You can see how they tiptoe around it with all the careful wordage used in any story involving Jews or Israel. Most of the time they take the easy way out and just try to ignore it entirely. That's how it works, people.

Helen C. Thomas

An ancient fixture in all this, Helen C. Thomas (right), asked a question about the "so-called terrorists" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She ended by asking him directly "do you know what countries in the Mideast have nuclear weapons?" Simple question, really.

Obama went on and on about Pakistan, etc. but deftly skipped on by the question on exactly what country in the Mideast has the nuke, saying he wasn't going to speculate and how he didn't want to see things "proliferate." Then he quickly he went on to another reporter just as Helen Thomas vainly tried to ask the question again: "the question was on what countries have them!" Which Obama blatantly ignored.

After the show, Bill O'Reilly had the Neocon Bernie Goldberg on to dissect the press conference and wax Jewish on Obama's performance. Both of them had a big laugh about Thomas as being too old and out of it; saying Thomas should have quit her job back in the days of Lincoln (the first one). And, of course, they never once mentioned her very sharp and important question about nukes in the Mideast. Funny, huh?

They know the deal!

Dick Morris and Eri Fleischer also joined Bernie on Bill O'Reilly's little show to dissect Obama's hot air. Guess what? All of them are dam Jews. Hell, Ari Fleischer is a ordained rabbi in the Chabad Lubavitcher Orthodox Jew group I talked about earlier; the ones who are real-life religious crazies and are every bit as bad as the mad Muslim fundamentalists. Every G-Dam bit.

All Jews, all the time: 1) Bernie Goldberg, Bill O'Reilly's guest pragmatic, conservative Jew mouth and book-pusher (all of them write Iran paranoia books, even the liberal ones). 2) Goldberg with CNN's Old Jew, Larry King, who recently gushed about his kid wishing he was born Black. 3) Dick Morris, a crypto-Jew who, supposedly, is not Jewish (because he married a Shiksa) and 4) Ari Fleischer, former Bush spokes-liar and now a Chabadist-Lubavicher Rabbi. Fleischer doesn't wear the usual Chabadist attire nor grow his beard out, like the bunch (5) chumming it up with former Bush White House Chief of Staff, JoshUA Bolten (yep, another Jew). Fleischer must've had special dispensation so he can look Goyish on FOX Jew News.

####

It's all Jews and how they view the issues. It's their perspective and if you dare to see it any other way and have the temerity to speak openly, then out comes all the "Nazi" business. Not only with all us out here in sheep land, but also with the real White news people, too (or the rapidly increasing number of on-air Negro talking heads).

It's all a sham folks. All of this is a set-up to keep YOU from seeing THEM. Why? Well, if you cannot talk about the almighty Jews and what they do and want to do in the world, then that's what it is. All a distraction to keep you from asking the real questions. Questions they don't want you asking or even thinking.

And it's not only TV, people. These Jews are all over the media - top to bottom - writing stories and editorials in newspapers from the New York Times to your local rag. Magazines too: Newsweek, Time magazine and any of the political "organs" (weird Commie term). They might write about conservative or liberal topics, but pretty much every one of them protects Jewry and toes the Israeli, Zionist line.

Now, I'm certain that some of you who come here are yelling "he's a conspiracy nut!" and all that. If you read so far, then I want to thank you for at least that. But the majority of people who jump to this conclusion will not bother to hear me out any further - they want to live in the false world created for them by the Jew-controlled media. The very same media that stays silent about real things that makes this world much worse and possibly very dangerous to all of us in the near future.

It's dangerous because of what some of these people propose to do. The Iranians learned from the Jew's out-of-the-blue attack on the Osirik reactor that Saddam Hussein built in Iraq, so they buried everything underground, as well as spreading things out. To fully put a stop to it, they'll need to use tactical nuclear weapons. Anything less, will only be damaging and just serve to piss off the entire Muslim world and maybe even Russia and China.

Look, we don't want these kind of bald-faced liars telling us the news, always giving us the Jew perspective and leaving all kinds of stuff out. We don't want them hypocritically manipulating the religious thinking of people in the US, people that are already messed around with by the elite Jew liberals in the media. One would hope you can see all this and be willing to speak out about it to everyone you know.

Hell, maybe I will put in that nuclear bomb image after-all.

- Phillip Marlowe

Go to my History of PC (Politically Correct) page to learn exactly how all of this has been done to minds in the US over the years and why!

Note: Be careful when visiting Wikipedia, since they have so many embedded Jew Zionist editors who carefully go over and edit any Jew-related entries to protect Jews and Israel. You can pick up on it sometimes when you read over the editing decisions. Here, read this revealing article: CAMERA: Rewriting History on Wikipdedia

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Why doesn't the US Embassy in Beirut 'get it'?

By Franklin Lamb* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Al Manar TV

What sources report to this observer was that he saw a Boeing 737-800 aircraft which had taken off from Rafiq Hariri airport gain altitude as it headed for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Hezbollah, on full military alert these days, presumably called in the report to Al Manar (the Dawn) station which it founded in 1991 and which since 2004 has been on one o the various US Terrorism lists.

As Lebanese woke to the news this morning an estimated 80% of the population is thought to have turned into Al Manar at least once sometime between the hours of 7 am and 11 am, as they and the region regularly do during war or crisis. The reason is Al Manar's reputation for accuracy, thoroughness and objectivity and getting the latest news on the air fast.

Al Manar was the first Lebanese station to give the most details including the fact that 90 passengers were on board and that at press time 40 bodies, including that of the wife of the French Ambassador, Marla Pieton have been found. No survivors have been found so far and as of 5 p.m. local time on 1/25/10 flotsam and jetsam from the aircraft is being brought in by the stormy sea along Beirut's beaches including Ramlet el Baida.

Ironically, staff at the American Embassy, and surely the large contingent of CIA agents here, almost certainly sat glued to Al Manar to evaluate what really has happened. If the US Israeli lobby succeeds in passing H.R. 2278 on the Senate side of Congress, US officials may be deprived of this reliable source of information.

As for the Lebanese, they continue their opposition to H.R. 2278 widely seen as an American-Israeli assault on more than 400 TV channels based in Lebanon, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

A continuing crescendo is rising of regional cries of gross hypocrisy, attacks on freedom of expression, aggression against the 19 black listed countries, and violations of Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights which reads: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

The State Department reaction has been, to feign surprise, "what's all the fuss about", while insisting that potentially closing down more than 400 Middle East TV channels is no big deal and has nothing to do with freedom of speech and access to information which is a cornerstone of the "New Middle East Project." which seems not to have faded along with its former cheerleader Condoleezza Rice.

At noon on 1/17/10 a crowded news conference was held at Lebanon's Syndicate de Presse near the sea at Raouche. Dozens of local and international media attended as Lebanese officials called for a withdrawal of the hostile measure, which is currently before John Kerrey's Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The National Lebanese Council for Audio-Visual Media and the Lebanese Press Association on 1/23/10 urged the United States to reverse a decision to take "punitive measures" against a satellite channels in the Middle East. The Council hinted that it will resort to banning from Lebanese airwaves US-networks such as Cable News Network (CNN) and others financed by the US.

Council head Abdel Hadi Mahfouz speaking at a news conference on 1/23/10 stated that if the US bill is adopted, "for sure we as an independent council will cut off transmissions of US-based stations such as CNN and (US-backed Arabic satellite channel) al-Houra by asking cable distributors in Lebanon not to air such channels."

"We have expressed our refusal for such a legal measure (ed: H.R. 2278) against channels which the US has listed, without giving us any evidence, as Arab terrorist entities," said Mahfouz.

Meanwhile, following the intense grilling US officials who dare set foot on Lebanese soil have been receiving as reported last week in Counterpunch, the US Embassy's disconnect here continues.

The American Embassy's Public Affairs Officer, Ryan Gliha, told representatives of local news portals on 1/22/10, that "This is only a bill (meaning a draft-law, he explained) that was only passed by the House of Representatives. In order for it become law, it has to be passed by the Senate and signed by the President."

On the subject of whether H.R. 2278 represented the view of the Obama Administration, the Embassy press officer answered; "The Obama administration "doesn't have an official position on it because it is still an idea," the diplomat stressed. The response did not satisfy some who were present.

Then Mr. Gilha added "This is not a question of freedom of speech. It is about al-Manar which is owned by Hizbullah… The U.S. government believes there is no difference between a terrorist organization and a media outlet run by it.

The comment made clear to many in Lebanon and the region, that indeed the AIPAC initiative was purely political and the effect of the proposed law on freedom of speech and Art. 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was not of interest to the 395 members who voted for it or those defending the measure.

Mr. Gliha's language that potentially shutting much of the Middle East TV Channels " just an idea " is suspect by some here and gives rise to more questions to be answered by the State Department and its Embassy staff in the affected countries as well as the international community that is obliged to defend freedom of speech and expression.

Given the past quarter century of the US Congress churning out all manner of Resolutions, Letters to the President or Secretary of State, and enacting many laws demanded by Israel that are against American vital national security interest, and the fact that H.R. 2278 breezed through House side Congressional 'deliberations' with barely a word being uttered, by a vote of 395 to 3, made the Embassy's Press Office statement about "just an idea" appear absurd and disingenuous.

A question being asked increasing by Lebanese officials and Arab League Information Ministers who met in Cairo over the weekend is: "Will the US government provide to the region a written Report that details why the American government believes the Lebanese and other TV channels covered by H.R. 2278 "incites violence against American civilians?"

Lebanon and the region await the answer from Washington DC.

*Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and is  a member of the Lebanese Steering Committee seeking to pass the 2010 Civil Rights Law for Palestinian Refugees in the current 'Unity' Parliament.  He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

Related posts:

• Is Congress planning to destroy every Middle East TV Channel that criticizes Israel? (Part II)
• Is Congress planning to destroy every Middle East TV Channel that criticizes Israel? (Part I)
• Uncensored News Reports From Across The Middle East

By Stuart Littlewood* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Its mission statement says: "Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest."

However, people are complaining bitterly to the BBC about its pro-Israel stance when reporting on the situation in the Holy Land.

Once renowned as the benchmark for fairness and accuracy, the BBC nowadays is careless with the truth when handling news from the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel - the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

We were treated to a prize example earlier this week. The flagship 'Today' programme, which goes out weekdays from 6am to 9am on Radio4, marked the anniversary of Israel's blitzkrieg with a feature on the Gaza economy, in which I heard presenters claim at least three times that the purpose of Operation Cast Lead was to stop the rocket attacks across the border.

This is untrue. The rockets stopped months before Israel's assault with the start of the ceasefire, brokered by Egypt, which held from 19 June until 4 November 2008, when Israel deliberately dashed hopes for peace by staging an armed incursion into Gaza killing several Hamas men.

Under the ceasefire Israel had undertaken to lift the economic blockade, but didn't do so. Nevertheless Hamas kept its side of the bargain and fired no rockets.

So 1,400 Gazans, including some 350 women and children, didn't have to die under Israeli bombardment. All Israel needed to do was extend the truce by keeping the peace and lifting the evil blockade as promised.

But it's not about rockets, is it? No rockets are launched from the West Bank, yet Israel keeps the West Bank tightly sealed and all movement cruelly restricted under a punitive military and administrative matrix of control.

The death and devastation inflicted on Gaza is really about Israel's unquenchable lust for land and its criminal desire to subjugate, expel or annihilate the native population.

The BBC also failed to provide accurate context regarding the Israeli township of Sderot, the main target for Hamas rockets. Ed Sturton reporting from Sderot didn't explain how the land on which Sderot stands was once a Palestinian village called Najd, whose residents were ethnically cleansed and put to flight by Jewish terrorists in May 1948. Many of them ended up in refugee camps in Gaza. Sderot is therefore a source of real grievance to the Palestinians.

Under UN Resolution 194 and also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the villagers of Najd, along with hundreds of thousands of others who were dispossessed at gunpoint, are entitled to return to their homes but have been denied their rights by Israel.

So, has our "trustworthy" BBC fallen under Zionist influence just like the British government? They certainly give a disproportionate amount of air-time to pro-Israel figures such as the Israeli ambassador, the regime's spokesman Mark Regev, the Chief Rabbi and assorted politicians who wave the flag for Israel, all of whom speak good, clear English. On the rare occasions when the BBC interviews a Palestinian they choose someone who is unintelligible. I can't remember when I last heard the Palestinian ambassador Manuel Hassassian, who speaks excellent English and can put the Palestinian case eloquently.

The BBC also adopts Israel's language and definitions. Palestinians not Israelis are the militants. Hamas not the murdering occupiers are the terrorists. A single captured Israeli soldier is deemed more newsworthy than the 10,000 abducted Palestinians (some of them women and children) rotting in Israeli jails. It is imperative that Israelis not Palestinians feel secure within their borders. Israelis not Palestinians have a right of self-defence…

A few years ago a study of TV news coverage by Glasgow University's Media Group showed how the BBC and others distorted the Arab-Israeli conflict and misinformed the British public by presenting the Israeli government perspective and featuring mostly pro-Israel politicians. Today the gap between the BBC and its mission pledge to be "independent, impartial and honest" seems just as wide.

Of course, none of this is news to the Palestinians. I make these points only for the benefit of western readers especially Brits and Americans who are victims of media bias, and for Israelis who live on a diet of fiction, and for Zionists everywhere who wouldn't recognise the truth if it fell on them.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Related posts:

• Video: American Dream – Biased Media
• Mohamed Khodr – America’s Media? A Colonial Force for Israel’s Infallibility
• BBC: Exclusive News on Viva Palestina Convoy to Gaza

Illustration By Carlos Latuff

By Franklin Lamb* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Part II: Israel and H.R. 2278 vs. Lebanon's Al Manar TV et al. (Part I here!)

"Al Manar is being singled out by the US Israel lobby precisely because it excels as a responsible TV channel that demands and applies the highest industry standards and because Israeli and Western viewers trust its news broadcasts more than they do much of their own media"
An Advisor to the Dean, Columbia University School of Broadcast Journalism, New York City 12/26/09

Having inherited the Bush administrations rising stack of terrorism lists, President Obama's team had expressed interest in culling them "so they are more accurate and manageable and Americans experience less stress", according to Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano. These lists, plus the reported existence of others that have not been made public, are supposed to reduce the fear and stress on Americans just knowing there are such lists and that someone is 'watching out'.

In many cases travelers experience more stress because they never know when Transportation Security Authority (TSA) agents at airports might eye a 'hit' on a computer screen, lung into action and ruin a trip. Duplicate names on various lists plus the difficulty of getting oneself off the lists have led to increasing pressure on The Obama administration to refine the concept of who really is a terrorist. The various "T" and watch lists are swelling annually by thousands of names-some quite similar leading to confusion and uncertainly who really is and isn't on and who is on but shouldn't be and vice versa.
As of Christmas Eve, the 'Terrorism Watch List' reportedly included some 900,000 names with a "selectee" list with somewhere close to 30,000 people within the higher-risk category, and a "no-fly" list with an estimated 10,000 names of people who are not allowed to board planes. Today it's anyone's guess who is on but shouldn't be and who is off but should be on. All passengers departing the US may face more delays and physical' pat downs' of any part of their bodies and possibly being watched in bathrooms, according to the TSA. Calls are increasing for full body scanning devices to be installed and used on anyone who wants to fly. Meanwhile, on 12/26/09, President Obama issued instructions to his administration "that all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel".

As Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab is interviewed to find out how he got on a US bound flight, since he was known to be in contact with Al Qaeda in Yemen, the US 'T' lists remain a riddle inside a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, as Winston Churchill once described both Russia and Jane Austen.

Updating the 'T' lists: How a Lebanese TV Station got included

Professor Noam Chomski, among others has noted that no person or organization should be placed or kept on a US Terrorism list unless there is compelling evidence that they pose a clear and present danger to America, and certainly not news organizations.

One such media outlet is Lebanon's Al Manar TV Channel, affiliated with Hezbollah, leader of the Lebanese National Resistance.

The "case" against Al Manar has never been convincingly explained since the Bush administration, on 17 December 2004 added Al Manar to a post 9/11 terrorist list at the behest of Israel's then Prime Ministry Ehud Olmert.

According to Reporters without Borders, a press freedom organization, the listing appeared unjustified given no offered evidence of Al Manar being involved in terrorism. In addition, there was the fact that the Al Manar Channel was the first media anywhere to carry Hezbollah's condemnation of the 9/11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center. Reporters Without Borders, urged the US authorities to "take care not to lump the fight against unproven anti-Semitism with the fight against terrorism and putting this TV station in the same category as terrorist groups worries us and does not strike us as the best solution." As if RWB foresaw H.R. 2278, the NGO warned, "We fear that this measure could be just the first of many others, and that all news media that have been accused of helping terrorist organizations in their coverage could end up on this list, in which case there will definitely be abuses."

The three other air terrorism attempts against the US were also denounced on Al Manar, including the latest one claimed by Al Qaeda, Hezbollah's mortal enemy which on 12/28/09 called on "the people of the Arabian peninsula to attack American military installations, ships and "spying embassies." The U.S. Embassy in Yemen was attacked by Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in September 2008, and the U.S.S. Cole, a U.S. Navy destroyer, was hit by Al Qaeda in 2000. All these attacks were condemned on Al Manar. Beirut's US Embassy and its personnel have been protected more by Hezbollah, from Al Qaeda and its affiliates, than the State Department would likely care to admit or may actually know about.

The main 'evidence' offered by the US State and Treasury departments was that Al Manar was "anti-Semitic" for criticizing Israel was its showing the Syrian produced 29 Part television series, The Diaspora. Al Manar aired this series during October-November 2003.

The popular series, surveys the history of the founding of the Zionist movement until the creation of the state of Israel. It includes discussions of some subjects sensitive to the Zionist movement including claimed Zionist-Nazi cooperation, alleged Zionist involvement in plotting the Russian Revolution, claims of Zionist pressure on US President Harry Truman to use Atomic bombs against Japan and later to recognize the establishment of the State of Israel on Arab land, ignoring the rights of the Arab population.

One example of claimed "Diaspora" anti-Semitism was the challenged statement of an alleged Zionist leader talking to Adolf Eichmann and telling the SS official, "Mr. Eichmann, believe me that if we Zionists were not Jewish, we would have been Nazis. You Nazis consider the Aryan race to belong to the perfect people and the German people as the most perfect. We also consider ourselves a perfect people, and Zionists, the most perfect ones."

According to the US based Anti-Defamation League, this statement is not accurate but rather was based on the 1982 comment of Ariel Sharon in which he was reported to have said to Menachem Begin, while arguing in favor of invading Lebanon, "The Nazi's of course were correct Prime Minister, they just chose the wrong people to persecute", implying that killing of the Roma gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, French and Russian prisoners, and Polish citizens was acceptable as was the likely 20,000 deaths estimated to occur during Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

Stereotypical myths about Jews do appear in the documentary, as clichés.. Specifically in the form of repeating the unproven 1840 accusation that the Damascus Jewish community murdered a priest and his assistant to obtain their blood for making Passover matzo, unleavened bread. The Diaspora series also includes some unproven accusations from the discredited 1891 Russian Protocols of the Elders of Zion about Rabbi's sanctioning the killing of Christian children.

Al Manar management apologized for airing the series, dropped it and explained that the Station had purchased it without first viewing the entire series. Al Manar's lawyer at the time, Frenchman, Dinis Garreau added that the broadcast of the series had been "unfortunate" and asked for a chance to demonstrate that such airings would not be repeated, while adding that Al Manar's management was in agreement that showing the series was a mistake, and that it violated Al Manar's Professional Values and Principles for verifying information before it is aired. He explained that Hezbollah is well known for its frequent differentiation between Judaism and Zionism, believing Jews, as 'people of the book' are to accorded the same respect as Christian and Muslims (see "The Professional Values & Principles of Al Manar Channel,, paragraph 19 and Al Manar's Values and Principles pages, 6, 7.and 12, published by the Lebanese Communication Group, Beirut, 2009). On the other hand, as with most people in the Middle East, and increasing beyond, Hezbollah believes that Zionism is a 19th Century racist colonial enterprise which must be expelled from Palestine, and is committed to the Right of Return of those ethnically cleansed during the Nakba and their offspring-now living in 59 camps in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

In 2004, the Diaspora series was shown in Iran. And then in Jordan during October 2005 on Al-Mamnou, a Jordanian satellite network. Not a murmur from the Bush administration was heard in either case about anti-Semitism and millions have since viewed the Diaspora series without apparent complications.

On 12/16/04, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the decision to put Al Manar on the Terrorist Exclusion List (T list # 2 in Department of Homeland Security lingo) was taken because of "Al Manar's incitement of terrorist activity." Al-Manar's Foreign Editor Ibrahim Mousawi replied to BBC News, that the proposed ban resulted from "political pressure by the Jewish lobby". "We are not anti-Semites and we do not incite hatred," he insisted.

The Bush administration did not acknowledge Al Manar's explanation and the TV channel remains on the 'T" list. The standard of "incitement of terrorism" has been recently change, one reason being that for the past five years no evidence of "incitement of terrorism" involving Al Manar (or Hezbollah) has been documented by the CIA despite requests for proof from the US Senate Intelligence Committee. This failure of the CIA to support the Israel lobby case disappointed Tel Aviv and led AIPAC to craft a new standard which is now being used in H.R. 2278. The new applicable standard is "incitement of violence against American citizens." This new language is believed by many lawyers and the Center for Constitutional Rights, based in New York, to be too broad to constitute a legal basis for prosecution. This view is not of concern to the US Israel lobby since its goal are not judicial prosecutions but rather intimidation--of more than 400 channels operating in 19 Middle East countries.

Lest other Middle East countries than Lebanon think they can escape the wide net of H.R. 2278, according to a 12/16/09 report in the Egyptian daily Al-Mesryoon, "The American administration intends to threaten the blocking or reduction of American aid offered to Egypt each year in order to pressure the Egyptian government into discontinuing the broadcasting of a number of satellite channels ( reportedly at least ten in number) airing from Egypt via the Egyptian NileSat, under claims that they are violating the new 'incitement' standard and are attacking American policies in the region."

Al Manar as "inciter of violence against American citizens"

Concerning the claim that Al Manar is anti-American, the channel regularly invites American and western guests to discuss all manner of subjects. Indeed, American and western achievements and beliefs in human rights, scientific achievements, protection for women, are featured and openly admired.

The evidence from scholars, including years of Al Manar program monitoring by Professor Anne Marie Baylouny, Assistant Professor of Comparative politic at the Naval Postgraduate School in California suggests that H.R. 228 is not even applicable to Al Manar and its programming, but rather that the Lebanese station is being scapegoated for purely political motives.( please see: "Not Your Father's Islamist TV: Changing Programming on Hizbullah's al-Manar (PDF)," Arab Media & Society (Issue 9, Fall 2009). http://www.arabmediasociety.com/?article=728)

The claimed xenophobia of Hezbollah to the West is nowhere to be found in Al Manar programming and while political programs are critical of US Middle East policy, no more so than some programs aired in all 50 States in America. Often, on these programs, American scientific studies are used to support a debate thesis. Guests are international with many being from America, often with Lebanese expatriates.

Al Manar's Professional Values & Principles as outlined in its publication by the Lebanese Communication Group, noted above, has been described as being as rigorous as any in the industry. And they are applied with respect to fairness, admitting mistakes, respects for women and youth, encouragement of dialogue, sensitivity for the public's distaste for offensive materials and profanity, and working to achieve transparency, independence, and objectivity.

Al Manar strictly applies its rules relating to completion with other channels as well as its standards for interviewing, respect for all religions, privacy, prohibition on secret recording, and 'gotcha' or 'ambush' interviews, disclosing sources and exhibiting respect for the audience.

Some examples of its rigorous application of these rules can be found in recent programs where: a hostess disconnected a caller who refused to an Israeli leader as "a dog", a hostess ignoring a caller who insisted that Lebanon should look only to Islamic solutions for domestic problems, such as spousal abuse and not Western ideas, and Al Manar hosts or hostesses often correcting a guest for repeating stereotypes.

Some facts about Al Manar that American and French citizens can't learn by watching their TV sets at home given that this Lebanese Channel is banned in both countries in violation of international customary law and numerous conventions requiring protection for journalists, free access to the airwaves, and freedom of speech. Only via Internet free steaming can these viewers watch Al Manar live. Something it is sure those who voted for H.R. 2278 did not do before they rushed to judgement.

- As Hezbollah has 'Lebanonized' following its 1992 entrance into politics and its expulsion of Israel in 2000, its dramatic changes are reflected in Al Manar TV programing.

- Al Manar demonstrates Hezbollah's evolution over the past quarter century and the parties desire to reach out to its former adversaries by its integration with the multi-religious community that is Lebanon, particularly with programming for youth and women;

- The bulk of Al Manar programs have nothing to do with Hezbollah, the resistance to Israel's occupation of Palestine or Shia religious beliefs.

- Women without veils dominate much of the programming with only about 90 minutes per day having to do with praying or religious subjects;

- Christians are frequently invited as experts and audience members including priests, bishops and non-believers from the west without regard to personal beliefs;

- Al Manar's programming regularly promotes values considered western such as individual and human rights, and non-violence.

- Al Manar programs frequently discuss subjects critical of some aspects of a patriarchal system including examining domestic violence, rights of women, shared household chores, violent videos games etc.

- Al Manar programs generally feature more of an Oprah style of discussion rather than a Pat Robertson or Fox TV approach. A common theme is encouraging civil society to volunteer and help those in society who need assistance;

- Al Manar is viewed by a broad array of broadcasting analysts in Lebanon and abroad, as progressive in the sense that it focuses attention on women, youth, and civil society with multi-communal aspects of programming that is in contrast to the Lebanese norm of media promoting the sponsor's particular confession. (please see Baylouny cite above)

- Al Manar programming involves the participation all of Lebanon's sects and the acceptance of diverse lifestyles and ideas beyond the communities with which Hezbollah is politically allied;

- Programming eschews the affirmation of violence In daily lives, and tend to avoid religious preaching or proselytizing found on many western evangelical channels;

- For the past decade there is no evidence in any Al Manar programming, as claimed by MEMRi and AIPAC of "bomb making classes.

- Foreign soap operas, including unveiled and scantily-clad women, and men's and women's personal problems are shown uncut and uncensored.

- Al Manar is said by Haaretz to be the most popular TV Channel in Israel as it is in Jordan and much of the region during conflicts and for news of the Palestinian resistance. The reason is because of its trusted coverage and up to the minute reports, often with reporters embedded close to fighters at the front and resisters on the West Bank and in Gaza. It is also the most popular channel in Lebanon's 12 Palestinian Refugee camps.

- Several of Al Manar's programs parallel US and western public broadcasting such as PBS, featuring "Discovery" type features on animals, agriculture, the environment, nature and children's programs including puppet shows warning about bad habits such as smoking, drugs, and alcohol.

The MEMRI claim that Al Manar program showed puppets of children stabbing US President George W. Bush turned out to fake and part of its disinformation project named 'Sampson', according to a former MEMRI employee.

Islamic-Arab model of broadcast quality or mouthpiece for anti-American incitement?

Al Manar has won more International Awards for its programming than any other International Channels in its category, including more than 76 Awards for excellence in broadcasting between 1998 and November of 2009. One internationally coveted award was received from the 8th Cairo Television and Radio Festival where Al Manar won the most awards. In 2008 it was awarded the prestigious Thompson Prize from the BBC for the best documentary. Al Manar's subject was Lebanon's Pollution crisis.

A random sampling of Al Manar broadcasting awards during a 48 month period is illustrative of the scope and variety of reorganization the Channel received for its programming: Cairo Festival for Radio and Television Supreme Committee Award - the documentary film "Observatory" 1998, Beirut Documentary Film Festival prize for the documentary film "victors" 1999, United Nations Prize in Beirut-the first prize for "sustainable development" 1999 ,The first exhibition of the media Beirut Award "the best television station from" 200l, The first exhibition of the media Beirut Award "the best sports program GOAL" 2001, The first exhibition of the media Beirut Award "the best cultural program and pen N" 2001, Arab States Broadcasting Union Gold Award program "evidence of time" 2002, Ebona Festival - France award for a news report "Donkey stuck in the minefield," 2002.

A typical broadcast day at Al Manar starts with Prayers just like the other religiously oriented stations in Lebanon. Then the News, followed by Manar's Morning show, a talk show, program for youth, travel, soap opera, and often five hours per day of live programs on issues of interest to the Lebanese such as social or family problems. The public is involved with with guests and callers urged to participate. Most Al Manar programming is all about participation, dialogue, and discussion.

A teaching assistant at Harvard's school of communications, studying Al Manar programming, offered her opinion: "Frankly, the same agility and competence Hezbollah exhibits on the battlefield its TV channel replicates on the TV screen. Al Manar is deliberative, analytical, state of the art, dedicated, and innovative. Both Hezbollah's military wing and its TV Channel come from the same culture and if channeled, no pun intended, they will to continue to lead the way to remarkable achievements."

Many Americans and Westerners in Beirut choose Al Manar TV News in English on the internet (http://almanar.com.lb/newsSite/News.aspx?language=en) for the latest news on Lebanon, Palestine, and the region because it is usually first in presenting details with accuracy as well as sound analysis.

Time for the State and Treasury departments of show their cards?

To say that there is no justification for the Al Manar TV Channel to be on the US Terrorism is an understatement. That any TV station is on the list is a disgrace and humiliation for fair minded Americans everywhere and makes a mockery of the First Amendment to our Constitution. It undermines cherished American principles which we hope could someday make us, to embellish a bit John Winthrop's 1630 description of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, "a shining beacon on a hill." Admittedly we have lost ground the past few decades but the objective remains valid.

Al Manar will survive and likely its audience will continue to grow despite being targeted by H.R. 2278 and other efforts to silence its quality programming and to prevent the American public from judging for themselves the worth Al Manar's programming. Denied the right to view certain TV channels, the American people may someday judge harshly those who facilitated US-Israel lobby efforts at destroying free speech, and undermining the American public's national interest in protecting and preserving it.

Its remains for the US Embassy in Lebanon to publicly and thoroughly explain this latest Israel-US project and for the Lebanese government to take measures to protect its communications from Israeli initiated attacks such as H.R. 2278.

Just as every time a 'dud' US cluster bomb or land mine in South Lebanon or the Bekaa detonates and kills or injures someone and that explosion constitutes another aggression by Israel against Lebanon, so it is that H.R. 2278 targeting of Al Manar Television and more than 400 other Middle East Television channels is an aggression against all of these countries.

Presumably Lebanon's President and Parliament will make known their views of projects like H.R. 2278 to the White House and Congress and encourage the 22 member League of Arab States and the 57 member International Organization of the Islamic Conference to raise this issue publicly and demand that the US government drop this assault on free speech in the Middle East.

Now that Lebanon has a two year tenured seat on the UN Security Council, which has the responsibility under the UN Charter to address "all threats to International Peace and Security", the effort to intimidate Middle East satellite providers and hundreds of TV Channels in the region will no doubt be placed on the Security Council's agenda.

* Franklin Lamb is working in Lebanon for the enactment of Civil Rights Legislation for Lebanon's Palestinian Refugees in the new Parliament. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

Related posts:

• Is Congress planning to destroy every Middle East TV Channel that criticizes Israel? (Part I)
• Uncensored News Reports From Across The Middle East
• James Petras – From Gaza to Tehran: Israel Asserting Middle East Supremacy

Illustration By Carlos Latuff

By Franklin Lamb* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Part I: Targeting Lebanon's Al Manar

"Regarding Al Manar it's personal for Israel. The reason is that Al Manar did to the Israeli government propaganda machine during and following the July 2006 war what Hezbollah fighters did to Israeli troops. Al Manar kicked butt. That station must be made to disappear. The plan is to stop the 15-20 million daily viewers of Al Manar from receiving its transmission and well as to intimidate all the other Middle East TV channels that are suspected of moving toward the growing 'Culture of Resistance' spreading in the Middle East from Lebanon." A Washington DC observer of how Israel controls the US Congress 12/9/09

Lebanon is a small country, approximately 0.7% the size of Connecticut with a population a bit more than 1% of America's. But according to the four public US 'Terrorist' and Watch lists and at least seven supposedly secret US 'T lists' there are more Lebanese 'terrorists' and 'inciters' on the loose per square meter of planet Earth than any other nationality. Way more than say Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan could reasonably hope to muster. Increasingly these 'terrorists and inciters' work is claimed by some in the US Congress to be done via satellite TV channels. Such is the thesis of Congressman Gus Bilirakis, the 'author' of the 122nd US Congressional anti-Arab, anti-Muslim initiative in the past decade now known as the "Terrorist TV" Bill which passed the House on 12/08/09 and is now before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Taking out the 'TV Terrorists' Enter Gus Bilirakis: A fresh Lobby Frontman

Veteran Congressional staffers sometimes identify the following four general groupings of supporters of Israel in Congress:

- Jewish members who care a lot about Israel and some of whom may or may not be ardent Zionists but who generally, but not always, put Israel's concerns first;

- Evangelical Christians, who are eager to advance end-times, believe in Biblical prophecy and that Armageddon is rapidly approaching and strongly supports Israel over Arabs and Muslims in the Holy land conflict;

- Ultra Zionists with elements of racist feelings towards Arabs and Muslims;

- Members who normally don't favor Israelis much over Arabs or Muslims in their normal lives but who are regularly collared by the Israel lobby and who get the message and want to keep their congressional seats and add to their generous $100,000 –plus yearly pensions and are willing to 'go along to get along' and generally will do AIPAC's bidding.

Gus Bilirakis, Reagan Republican from Florida's 9th District is from this latter category. Filling the seat his late father Michael held since 1983, "Congressman Gus" as he prefers to be known back home, has the reputation of being a nice, affable fellow who does not claim to know much about the Middle East or foreign affairs. Hard to stereotype as being a fanatic supporter of Israel, gross Islamophobe or Arab basher, Bilirakis basically wants to get along by going along. AIPAC likes him because he appears 'regular American' and not too 'neurotically pro Israel.' as one of his District office interns explained, adding that "our boss is ordinary, folksy, and just wants to help the simple people." Certainly he appears to fit the recent AIPAC mode shift of lining up more conservative members of Congress to do Israel's bidding and to pull back a bit from the type casted "Liberal Jewish establishment" stereotype. By selecting Gus to introduce H.R. 2278, AIPAC and friends scored a public relations bonus.

Gus told his District's Bay 9 News TV station on 12/9/09 that:
"My legislation will provide the United States with critical baseline information to combat media outlets that serve as vehicles for violent anti-American incitement," said Bilirakis, who is a member of the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security. "Given the danger such incitement and radicalization poses to Americans both at home and aboard, it is crucial that these tools of terror be distinguished from reputable news outlets."
We already spend too much on foreign aid to countries that take our money with one hand and slap us with the other. This legislation will help us ratchet down foreign aid to countries who take this approach."

Bilirakis' reputed suspicion towards 'foreigners' may be part of his general conservatism. The American Conservative Union Chairman, David Keene, noted during an award ceremony in May of 2009 that Gus scored "way higher than the 80% necessary to win ACU's top award during the second session of the 110th Congress. In a short space of time, Congressman Bilirakis has already shown he is someone grass roots conservatives in Florida and elsewhere who love Israel will be turning to for future leadership."

The Washington DC based "U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation" a pro Middle East Peace advocacy group saw things differently and gave Gus a -4 rating on its just released Congressional Report Card for the 111th Congress, which was barely above the worst rating assigned to any member of Congress, earned by Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (who represents Florida's 18th District including the Florida everglades opposite Havana , Cuba, about which she likes to joke, "on a clear day I can see Havana and keep an eye on the Castro boys", reminding some of Sarah Palin learning about foreign affairs by watching Russia from her bob sled), who kept her position from the 110th on the groups 'Hall of Shame' with a -5 score. Gus calls Ileana 'my main Middle East tutor'.

How HR 2286 can save America from 'terrorists and inciters'

The 'TV Terrorist' bill passed on a House roll call vote, while, as is the norm, an eager AIPAC staffer in the front row of the House Visitor's Gallery with clip board and pen in hand, peered down on the Floor keeping tabs on how the Members voted. As is the Congressional practice with 'Israel Bills' or Psych-War Resolutions Israel wants passed, the vote on H.R. 2278 was held under a suspension of the rules to cut debate short and pass it quickly with the needed two-thirds majority. This fast track is normally used for relatively minor items like honoring "butterfly watchers day", "national be kind to fat stray cats day" etc. The totals were 395 Ayes, 3 Nays, 36 Present/Not Voting- a slightly above average tally when AIPAC sends a legislative request 'up the Hill.'

H.R. 2278 is what some employees in Congress call "a sleeper bill". Legislation that is quickly and quietly passed, without much public notice, but which is very powerful in its effect. The language of the Bill, while far overbroad and many first Semester law students would no doubt hammer it on Constitutional Law grounds, and some lawyers think a case brought under this law would be nearly impossible to prosecute, this legislation, if it passes the Senate, will de jure establish that "It shall be the policy of the United States of America to designate as a Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) any satellite provider in the Middle East (including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen) that knowingly and willingly contracts with entities designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order No. 13224, to broadcast their channels, or to consider implementing other punitive measures against satellite providers that transmit anti-American declarations (read criticize US support for Israeli crimes) or incite violence against Americans.

Bilirakis' bill also requires that state-sponsorship of anti-American incitement to violence be taken into account when determining the level of assistance to, and frequency and nature of relations with, all states (Ed: such as Lebanon whose hoped for millions in US aid could be stopped) and urges " all governments and private investors who own shares in satellite companies or otherwise influence decisions about satellite transmissions to oppose transmissions of telecasts by... al-Manar ... or any other Specially Designated Global Terrorist owned and operated stations that openly incite their audiences to commit acts of terrorism or violence against the United States and its citizens."

The Bill also provides that beginning 6 months after the date of the enactment of the new law and annually thereafter, the President must prepare a report on anti-American incitement to violence in the Middle East including a description of all media outlets in the Middle East for program and news broadcast scrutiny.
Congressional sources report that the political goal is to stop the 10-15 million daily viewers of Al Manar from receiving its transmission as well as to intimidate other Middle East TV channels that are suspected of moving toward the growing "Culture of Resistance' in the Middle East.

More than 600 Middle East TV channels risk being closed down among the 19 target Countries listed in H.R. 2278. Some of the most strident criticism of America comes from Israeli colonists and extremist Rabbi's in occupied Palestine.

'MEMRI as Congressional staff'

Part of the job description of all Congressional staff employees who works on legislation includes doing research in support of proposed legislation or to demonstrate to the Member who employees them the need for a new law. This system by and large works in the US Congress except for the Middle East. This area of inquiry is hands off for all but ardent supporters of Israel.

One Congressional staffer who recently retired after 28 years working on the hill, noted on 12/13/09:
"It used to be that Congressional staffers actually did research and wrote recommendations for their bosses around here. Those days are long gone when it comes to Middle East issues. The Israel lobby handles all that now. If staffers want to be heard on Middle East issues from Iran to Palestine, they are discouraged. If they persist they run the risk of being targeted for unemployment by AIPAC and their bosses may cut them loose rather than confront the Lobby. In essence Israel is saying to Congressional staffers, "Listen up! We know best and will handle Congressional Middle East legislation. Just get out of the kitchen, leave this to us and busy yourselves elsewhere."

Those who demonstrated to Congress the urgent need for a "TV Terrorism" law included the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

This was confirmed by the office of Congressman Gus Bilirakis and indeed the Congressman himself noted that 'research' provided by MEMRI helped to establish the need for the new legislation.

MEMRI supplied the video excepted from Al Manar and cited by the sponsors as 'evidence' of incitement against Americans by the station and its satellite provider because it broadcasts the speeches of Hezbollah leaders on special occasions, as does virtually every other TV news channel in the Middle East that transmit at least portions of the speeches which are popular across the region. In fact all the video shows in spliced together excerpts from two speeches Hassan Nasrallah gave and two by his deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassim. They contain no incitement against Americans but rather criticism of Israel and of US support for Israel that can be heard any day of the week in all 50 States in the US.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) describes itself as a "free media monitoring service." Based in Washington DC with half a dozen offices set up in countries including China, Tokyo, Germany, England, Italy and Israel, MEMRI was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence and its first three employees were also veterans of Israeli intelligence. Following 9/11 and George W. Bush's executive order 13222 and the unleashing of the War on Terrorism, MEMRI shed much of its earlier pretense of being objective and became stridently anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.

Increasingly, MEMRI's work has been criticized on three grounds: that their work is biased; that they choose articles to translate selectively so as to give an unrepresentative view of the media they are reporting on; and that their translations are frequently inaccurate.

The Middle East editor for the UK Guardian newspaper, Brian Whitaker has been one of the most outspoken critics of MEMRI, writing: "My problem with MEMRI is that it poses as a research institute when it's basically a propaganda operation, "to further the political agenda of Israel."

Several critics have accused MEMRI of selectivity. They state that MEMRI consistently picks for translation and dissemination the most extreme views, which portray the Arab and Muslim world in a negative light, while ignoring moderate views that are often found in the same media outlets.

Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan reported that MEMRI "cleverly cherry-pick the vast Arabic press, which serves 300 million people, for the most extreme and objectionable articles and editorials." Laila Lalami, writing in The Nation stated that MEMRI "consistently picks the most violent, hateful rubbish it can find, translates it and distributes it in e-mail newsletters to media and members of Congress in Washington".

Professor Norman Finkelstein, in a June 2007 interview with In Focus newspaper explained that MEMRI "uses the same sort of propaganda techniques as the Nazis... it's a reliable assumption that anything MEMRI translates from the Middle East is going to be unreliable."

In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert and Arabic translators accused MEMRI of mistranslating portions of a Palestinian children's television program. MEMRI translates one caller as saying "We will annihilate the Jews," said Shubert. "But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says "The Jews are killing us." According to one CNN source, "Put bluntly, MEMRI is a hate group".

Working with MEMRI, as its Al Manar specialist, Avi Jorisch senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies published 'research' in 2004 entitled "Beacon of Hatred-Inside Al Manar", funded by the Israel advocacy 'think tank', Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), with the assistance of Dennis Ross. Jorisch proudly admits he had the political goal of getting the Bush administration declare Al-Manar a " Terrorist organization." One of Jorisch consistent worries is "that al-Manar broadcasts may contain coded communications - a way for Hezbollah's terrorist "generals" to command terrorist "troops" in the field, for example sleeper cells in the United States and elsewhere."

During its 2008 annual Conference, Jorisch was honored in a private reception arranged by MEMRI and AIPAC, and given a champagne toast while being introduced "as the man who put Al Manar on the Terrorism list." As recently as 11/4/09, writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jorisch accused Iran of using the UN to skirt sanctions and various other 'terrorist' acts relating to importing "foodstuffs, textiles and medicine" which could help it create a nuclear weapon. Jorisch's campaign against Al Manar is designed to show that it is anti-Semite, but he repeatedly misunderstood the context of some of his 'proof' including the phrase, "Jerusalem we are coming" , which he claimed to have heard on Al Manar.

Jorisch and MEMRI claim this language shows a threat against the Jewish state and therefore is anti-Semitic. In fact, the phrase "Jerusalem, we are coming" comes from the classic song of the Lebanese Christian singer Fairouz, whose, "Jerusalem, we are coming", extols religious unity, worshiping in Jerusalem by all religions, and Jerusalem as a city of peace. Viewers in Lebanon and the Middle East and fans of Fairouz everywhere know this song which is in no way anti-Semitic and its been played on hundreds of TV and radios stations including many in Israel.

(Comment: Lebanon's Prima Diva Fairouz, Israeli troops, and 'Beirut Jane'. According to an AP report of July 7, 1982, Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden visited Israeli troops in East Beirut and watched the shelling of West Beirut from Israeli positions next to St. Anthony's School. Israeli soldiers crowded around Miss Fonda to be photographed with her." Not mentioned in the report was that singer Fairouz was to meet with actress Jane and then hub Tom.

AP: "Mr. Swersky, the Israeli command spokesman, gave Miss Fonda and her husband a private briefing on the military situation. Mr. Hayden, who was a leader of the opposition to the Vietnam War, told the assembled troops that 'the Israeli invasion is justified because the PLO refused to recognize Israel'. Hayden said he spoke with Lebanese Christians in Sidon, Tyre and east Beirut, but did not meet any Palestinians during the trip, which began Friday. In November, he faces Republican businessman Bill Hawkins in California's heavily Jewish 44th Assembly District."

AP: "Miss Fonda stated that the visit to Israel and Lebanon was "a very good and important opportunity for me personally to try to understand the situation better. I learned a lot. It helped me to be there and to see this interesting - and maybe unique to Israel - situation where you have a tremendous Israeli defense force, and unanimity when it comes to the necessity to defend, to not pull back right now and to do everything that's possible," she said. "I think that's why they were happy that we came here."

One employee of the Beirut weekly, Monday Morning, who was present, still remembers: "Jane applauding with Israeli troops while cluster bombs ripped through apartments and hospitals, and Israeli helicopter gunships strafed those trying to escape. Some still refer to her as 'Beirut Jane' and last time I checked, her films were still banned in Lebanon."

Fairouz was reportedly enraged by the spectacle and declined to have any part of it and walked out. Elements of the Israeli lobby began a campaign against the distribution of her songs, but nearly 28 years later Fairouz has out lasted most of the Israeli soldiers on Lebanese soil, still sings beautifully, and earlier this month sold some of her song rights, including, "Jerusalem we are coming', for $ 2million to a Syrian company. In fairness to 'Beirut Jane', twenty years later, on 12/10/02, (Universal Declaration of Human Rights day), she did finally meet some Palestinians during a visit to Deheshih Palestinian Refugee Camp near Bethlehem in the West Bank)

With the 22 State member Arab League and the 57 member International Organization of the Islamic Conference condemning the House bill, and the Lebanese Foreign Ministry planning to summon US Ambassador Michele Sisson to discuss the matter, late word is that John Kerrey, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman may actually hold hearings on the Bill. If so it will be a major setback for Aipac and friends. Will Al Manar actually be invited to present testimony? Debate Aipac?

Part II: Inside Al Manar TV and its record as 'inciter against Americans'.

* Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and is a member of the Lebanese Steering Committee seeking to pass the 2010 Civil Rights Law for Palestinian Refugees in the current 'Unity' Parliament. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

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• James Petras – From Gaza to Tehran: Israel Asserting Middle East Supremacy
• US Empire and the Middle East: Zionism, Puppet Regimes and Political Allies
• Uncensored News Reports From Across The Middle East

At Last! BBC NEWS coverage of the Viva Palestina Convoy:
13 days into the journey and the BBC has yet to cover the 200+ vehicle Viva Palestina Convoy that is travelling with aid from London to Gaza.

With massive media coverage in Greece, Turkey and around the World the UK Media should be ashamed of its dereliction of duty.

Public interest is intense, our map ( http://readingpsc.org.uk/vp3 ) has received 500,000+ hits in the first 2 weeks alone.

About the Convoy: http://vivapalestina.org
Get news & track the Convoy: http://readingpsc.org.uk/convoy
List of UK media contacts: http://readingpsc.org.uk/media

CALL THE BBC: 03700 100 222

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoeBlKzy9Q

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• Viva Palestina
• Ewa Jasiewicz – Free Gaza News: Eye Witness Reports From Gaza [Video]
• Is it a flogging offence to send friendly greetings to Gaza’s beleaguered PM?

By Paul J. Balles* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Two disturbing news items: The first, a Haaretz column (29 November 2009) on a "Senate report: U.S. decided to let bin Laden slip through their fingers. According to the report, US could have captured or killed bin Laden shortly after 11 September 2001 attacks."

Charles Cooper, one of few bloggers commenting on the report says: "The Senate report notes how Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks rejected requests for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away near the border with Pakistan."

This news is important enough to deserve more than a passing nod by bloggers and one major TV news channel. The leading news sources have been busy covering Sarah Palin's book signings, White House party crashers, Tiger Woods's 2 a.m. auto escapades and other mundane issues of little relative importance to most people.

The US is about to add 30,000 or more troops to keep Afghanistan from appearing to be a NATO failure, yet few ask why Franks and Rumsfeld failed to capture bin Laden eight years ago.

The media simply rubbishes off the Senate committee findings – a kind of acceptance of their discovery as self-evident – something like a pre-emptive strike against ferreting out the truth.

The second major news commentary travesty came from op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman in the New York Times (28 November 2009), who provided a leading example of disgusting Islamophobic punditry in mainstream media.

Friedman couldn't resist using his position as a major columnist to turn a psychopathic killer's shootup into a general diatribe against Arabs and Islam.

After asking, "What should we make of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who apparently killed 13 innocent people at Fort Hood?" Friedman uses that to develop a generalized Arab-Muslim "narrative".

Friedman brays:

The narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist websites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books – and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes...

To Friedman, the villain happens to be any Muslim exposed to the extremist voices in the Islamic community. Before making idiotic judgments, Friedman should look around at some of the crimes and criminals in America and conclude that the American "narrative" is the root problem.

Friedman continues his diatribe against Muslims with "this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand 'American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy' to keep Muslims down."

American Muslims have justified fears that Americans have declared war on Islam. Leslie Evans, reporting on a lecture by Abdulkader Sinno at University of California, Los Angeles, wrote:

There have been indiscriminate deportations of Muslims in the US. Hundreds have been quietly deported. Many spent months in windowless solitary confinement cells without even the opportunity to undergo questioning in which they could confront the supposed charges against them.

An eight-year crusade is enough reason for Muslims to believe that America is waging a battle against Islam. However, Friedman has been listening to the wrong voice and accepting what he hears without question.

Sinno had more to say:

Thousands of Muslims were interrogated by the FBI, mosques were put under surveillance. Bush described the war on terror as a crusade, a most unfortunate choice of words. Hundreds of Middle Eastern immigrants in Los Angeles were incarcerated when they reported in response to a request from the INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service).

Strangely, a newspaper like Haaretz in Israel occasionally does a better job of reporting on important events in the USA than the American press. It's shameless when a major American newspaper – the New York Times – publishes anti-Muslim bile from a bigoted commentator.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.

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