Robin Hood of the Information Age

Julian Assange

Julian Assange, who might be the man most hated by the U.S. government, was given Australia's Walkley Foundation Award for outstanding journalism last week. He accepted it from a distance, using Skype, because he is under house arrestin England pending extradition to Sweden. He is threatened with extradition because, curiously, the Swedish police have reopened a case of alleged rape against him that had been previously dismissed.

Assange is a kind of Robin Hood of the Information Age–purloining vital information from often criminal governments, and distributing it to the information-poor citizenry. As a result he has become the hero of all those who would defy a media environment of government-warped news. And rightly so, for he and Bradley Manning are the first ones since 1971 (when Daniel Ellsberg and Neil Sheehan made public the Pentagon Papers) to defy U.S. government secrecy and reveal the official criminality committed in the names of its citizens.
Assange accomplished this feat back in November of 2010 when his Wikileaks website began the release of over 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. Ever since then the U.S. government has been searching for ways to silence him and his web based operation. To date, two approaches have proved effective:

1. The use of official pressure to shut down the avenues through which Wikileaks gets its financial contributions. These have been coming mostly through paypal and other web based sources.

2. And tying Assange up with a rape charge that was active, then inactive, and now, lo and behold, is active again.

Corruption of the News Media

On 28 November, just days after receiving the Walkley Award, Assange addressed, again by Skype, the News World Summit in Hong Kong . Here he was blunt, and quite accurate, in his description of U.S. government behavior in relation to open access to information. "It is not an age of transparency at all" he said (perhaps alluding to President Obama's unfulfilled pledge to promote "an unprecedented level of openness in government")...the amount of secret information is more than ever before."

For this Assange blames not just governments, but also the profession of journalism. In his opinion journalism has become "corrupted" by editors and reporters who value the prestige of being associated with important centers of power more than the uncensored practice of their craft. Such ambition does not allow the profession to hold those in power to account. "There is a crisis of legitimacy within the mainstream press, a rightful crisis of legitimacy." For Assange, the consequences of this crisis are potentially catastrophic. "If the press doesn't hold powerful corporations and governments to account then how can a democratic process work?"

Assange has a point. Yet historically, journalism's record of keeping the powerful honest, and itself uncorrupted, is mediocre at best. In the United States, modern mainstream journalism has its roots in the shady reporting known as "yellow journalism." That refers to the exaggerations and outright lies that passed for news at the end of the 19^th century. Unfortunately, such "journalism" did build up the distribution numbers, and thus the profitability, of the papers that practiced it. And often the consequences have been catastrophic. One of yellow journalism's most notable achievements was whipping up support for the Spanish American War. That is a role the press, and now the news media in general, has played over and again. At least at a national level, the muckraking alternative of honest expository journalism (think of the Watergate reporting of the Washington Post back in 1972) is the exception and not the rule.

The Complicity of Public Taste

Why is that the case? Well, just ask yourself how regional U.S. newspapers which run into financial difficulties reorganize the presentation of their papers. They put in more pictures, up the amount of entertainment "news," gossip and especially sports (lots of sports), favor local happenings and downsize national and international events. This is not really a conspiracy to keep us all stupid, though it might contribute to that end. It is a business decision based on market surveys that tell owners and editors what the customer prefers in his or her paper.

It you want to see a recent example of such a maneuver take a look at the comparison of TIME magazine covers at the website Common Dreams. Buy TIME's upcoming December 5, 2011 issue in Asia, Europe or even in the South Pacific, and you will see an Egyptian protester on the cover with the title "Revolution Redux." Buy the U.S. version of the same magazine and you will see a silly little cartoon guy with the title, "Why Anxiety Is Good For You." That not only says something about how the editors and owners of TIME see their American readership, it also says a whole lot about the apparent tastes and interests of that readership.

The fact is that Julian Assange, and the rest of us who are interested in a truly free press, have run smack up against the fact that as long as we have a capitalist news media, we will also have an easily corruptible news media. Just like any other capitalist enterprise, what such a press or media aims at is profit, and not factual accuracy. It also will follow the lead of its corporate owners and board of directors because that is what private enterprise prescribes. Just take a look at every media enterprise Rupert Murdoch owns. Given this situation you will have a range of news organizations that fall out on something like a bell curve. Most of them will be middle of the road nonentities while on the extremes you will have right-wing and left-wing offerings. It is a sign of our times here in the U.S. that the right-wing media has taken a jump in popularity (witness Fox TV).

That is not to say that what passes for press and media in the non-capitalist world is any sort of worthy alternative. It certainly is not. What is needed is a formula to create endowed, and therefore truly independent, news media. As Assange suggests this is a sine qua non of a free society.

We Will Always Need The Whistle Blower

Most of the world's population has only a minimal interest in what is happening beyond their local environment. That is why the market surveys noted above deliver the message they do. Occasionally something comes over the hill and hits the locals in the head. That something thereby becomes both part of the local scene and demands explaining. The 9/11 attacks qualify as such an event. Originating from afar, how are the locals to understand it? They have no ready context in which to do so. So they listen to so-called "experts" from the government and media who they assume will give them the "truth." That is the only explanation most people ever get.

We have all seen where this leads us–right off a cliff. When Julian Assange dumped those hundreds of thousands of documents onto the web he was saying "Here: you want the truth? It is somewhere in here. Let's all take a look." Some did. Most did not. But the precedent he set sent shivers through the U.S. government as if it had caught an institutional flu. For this Assange is persecuted. That is the sort of world we live in. A world that will always need the whistle blower, will always need a Julian Assange.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

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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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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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WRITTEN BY MARY RIZZO*

While preparing the insertion of the article by Nahida Izzat About anti-Semitism, as do all of her thoughtful and intense contributions, many segments caused me to reflect. Her analysis and especially her questions are so important and meaningful, that it would only be logical to address them bit by bit, and I would like to begin with a segment that I believe holds the core to so many of the difficulties of keeping the Palestinian Nakba on the table… it’s that presence in the room of the elephant of the Holocaust.

Incredible, it seems as though it is often the primary argument discussed. I don’t mean only by those who back Israel tooth and nail, but even by those who claim that Israel as a Jewish State must come to an end. Nahida’s first question:

Why is it that we Palestinians are constantly reminded of the horrors of the holocaust, when we had nothing to do with it?

Yes. Why? Why is it the argument in a UN General Assembly the week that the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War was released? Why is it that we have to bear yet again with the Israeli PM raging on about the Holocaust and about how Ahmadinejad denies it, so therefore, “all good people of the world, keep the light of the Holocaust burning bright and let’s keep the focus on Israeli victimhood, current vulnerability and the danger Iran poses” becomes the leitmotif of the day, week, month, year… It is permanent, fuelled constantly.

The Goldstone Report was no small feat of the UN to pull off, and some focus there would have been something close to a dream come true: it was the outcome of an official UN commission headed by a respected judge (a Jewish South African) which revealed that Israel engaged wilfully, deliberately and recklessly in war crimes against the people in Gaza… not in the 1940s, but just last winter. So why did Netanyahu rant and moan? The response is simple: to shift focus with the justification for it that “Ahmadinejad is denying the Holocaust”. But the question begs… Did he?

Had he mentioned the Holocaust in the speech to the UN? I could find not one reference to the Holocaust, much less it’s being denied or not. It was not even mentioned. Yet, what does Netanyahu do? He brings the argument there, because it is beyond doubt that it is effective for Israel’s goal of achieving world sympathy as well as condemnation of Iran, which is a goal of a big part of the “International Community”, and for various nefarious reasons. It gets “sexed up” with the nuclear threat, as if this is indeed the major problem and issue regarding humankind, and we get more and more of these claims that are not really ever verified, “Iran’s got it,” “not yet but close,” “Iran could strike Israel very soon.” All of it backed a few days later by the most intense PR mistake that Iran could muster, long range missile tests. It doesn’t matter now what they do or say, we see the film of the missile set off in a loop for hours and hours on every news show or even commentary.

As I often do, I wonder who’s advising Ahmadinejad, because it sure works wonders for pushing the “Israelis in danger” narrative. Are nuclear weapons going to help bring down the Zionist regime? I really do doubt it, but they sure do a lot to gain them support from the wealthy international community and the political and public backing that would keep Israel’s survival (as a Jewish State) as the priority. I would say that on the face of it, it looks like backward logic.

While Netanyahu and the West rant and rage about the alleged sins of Iran’s President in order to help Israel stay on the top of the game, we see another really bizarre trend in this “constant reminder of the Holocaust”. Surprise surprise, it’s not only the main theme for those whose purpose for existing is to enable Israel who are keeping the “constant reminders of the Holocaust” in the place of prominence. It is also the committed anti-Zionists who like to keep this fil rouge of Ahmadi and the Holocaust running.

Gilad Atzmon, whose views about Zionism are almost always astute, makes the same mistake that Netanayahu does. In his recent paper about Ahmadinejad, Who is a Jew? just a few days after the UN brou-ha-ha he writes: “It is pretty much impossible to deny the fact that Ahmadinejad's take on the holocaust and Israel is coherent, consistent and valid. He seems to have three main issues with the narrative…” and he elaborates on these elements which include numbers, the relevance of historical revision and on the Western responsibility for it.

In the past few years, and in quite a noticeable way, the references to the Holocaust have been decreasing. Did Ahmadinejad deliberately omit the issue of the Holocaust in his important UN speech (which obviously, and predictably, no one seems to know the content of or its theme?) Quite apparently this is the case, and it is indeed plausible that he did it because this was his intention. Nor was the Holocaust mentioned in his speech in Geneva at the International Conference on Racism.

In fact, there is deliberate omission of the matter, and if the translation is to be trusted, we see that he actually says what is not even his own theory, but rather something close to a fact, that is repeated as well by Netanyahu, that the establishment of Israel in Palestine was “in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe.” Following is the entire quote:

Following World War II, they resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless on the pretext of Jewish sufferings. And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine… [Delegates walk out in protest. Applause] And in fact in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe… Okay, please. Thank you. And in fact in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive, racist regime in Palestine. [Applause]

One may ask themselves the classic questions: If we know that the Israelis are always up in arms about Ahmadinejad/Holocaust, and that they use this as justification for reinforcing their garrison mentality and use it effectively to get more money, arms and support, and then if Ahamdinejad has actually reduced this kind of intervention from his international speaking appearances – why is this focus constantly there even by those who are against the Zionist State and its garrison mentality as if he had indeed said what Netanyahu wants everyone to believe he said? If we are getting our information from Ynet and the Western mainstream media, of course we are using distortion as our resource. We have to be careful to avoid that error. When we are debating, discussing the Holocaust of the Second World War, an event that is over, finished and (as both Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad concur) compensated for at least for the Jews, what space does that leave us for debate, discussion and dissemination of information on TODAY’S Holocaust, the Nakba of the Palestinian people? Has a single Palestinian EVER been compensated for the losses which started at the beginning of the last century and are increasing in violence and frequency? No. Certainly not. Nor have the Lebanese been compensated for the losses they have suffered in the brutal war raged against them… no, not in the past century, but just three years ago.

Is it very productive to reiterate the same narrative of Netanyahu even when it’s an instrumental distortion of reality and the Palestinians are tired of it? Is it productive for the Palestinian people?

Another question by Nahida: Why is it that we Palestinians, are to suffer the same fate as the victims of the holocaust by the hands of those who brag worldwide to act for “never again”?

I would venture to guess, Nahida, that your situation is always pushed to the margins because it is simply not deemed as being interesting enough, and Jews and Israelis have been successful in rendering their own situations more appealing, even by way of deceit and distortion.

It seems obvious that while the Holocaust was indeed used as a pretext for the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, it had a lot more than that “going for it”. It was always used by the West to cover its own sins such as Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden occurring in the same years. It was used to have an “ultimate evil” to point to… in this way, there is no self-reflection that would lead to change, which is actually what political writing in the West often aims to do. Once you have an evil that is defined as something that will be unequalled, once you have established clearly that there is a group that is represented as being a victim more worthy of pity than any other victim (so that any other suffering is going to be relatively inferior), the mechanism of turning a blind eye to Palestinian and Arab suffering can become the norm. And, suffer they must, if there is to be a Jewish State in Palestine, which is simply a racist construct that dictates that Jews have rights that “non-Jews” (the negation terminology is interesting) shall never have. In fact, those who are non-Jews are also peddled as “enemies” even by the institutional peaceniks adored in the West and used for the Hasbara, such as David Grossman and Noa. When you have an enemy, naturally, the narrator is a good guy and almost “forced” into “defence”. It’s a great and handy little game for the Israelis, and the Palestinians have not yet been able to show the world the full extent of their situation. Part of that is because Palestinians are denied a voice and they are often told that it would be preferable for them to follow the arguments that those in Europe or North America are dictating. The very most they can do is to learn to be satisfied with assuming the passive victim role in some progressive sites.

I’ve been running Palestine sites for a long time, but before that, I’ve been reading these sites. It is quite interesting that aside from independent blogs, the Palestinian voice is the exception, not the rule, in the progressive or pro-resistance media. I believe that Palestine Think Tank is a happy exception, because most of our contributors and editors are Palestinians, as well as the majority of our content being written by Palestinians. However, just a glance on almost any site about Palestine in English, you are going to find out quite soon that the Palestinian voice is nearly absent. You will see papers (mostly) by Jews and Israelis, articles taken from Haaretz, books by Americans and Britons, but the Palestinian voice is not given its due space.

It certainly is not because they do not have opinions and do not express them well. PTT alone is testament to the variety, vibrancy and originality of these writers. Sometimes, it seems, there is a lot of gatekeeping surrounding what Palestinians say, and by those who make a point of defending freedom of speech for those whose main or sole argument is the Holocaust. I will enter into detail further in this article.

Self-criticism and self-analysis are the basis of any transformation, personal and national alike. Active transformation in the form of popular uprising, which by now a vast majority of Palestinians see as inevitable and necessary, given the failure of politics, also entails the awareness of the level of distress that is growing, distress that time is running out and that even the most basic Palestinian requirements and demands will not be met, as even the most steadfast resistance movements contemplate the realpolitik of recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. This would ratify an enormous injustice, and cancel forever the chance of return. It is necessary for Palestinians to voice all of their views and to act, as the feeling is strong that time is not on their side.

Revolutions imported from anywhere else but internally, among the people, are by necessity viewed with suspicion. The foundation of a popular revolt is always internal. It entails coming into consciousness of the corruption and ineffectiveness of the system or leaders, and thus instilling and encouraging the active, revolutionary spirit of resistance. It is an overthrowing of the mentality that “the people” are passive subjects who must be controlled and must surrender their consent, even against their better judgment. There is no ruling or governing body in the world that tolerates too much dissent.

Every Western country prides itself on claiming that it tolerates dissent. Whether they actually do or not is questionable, but this is at any rate one of the yardsticks to measure the level of democracy they have achieved. Within activism, the dissenting voice is indeed the dominant one. Thus, promotion and support of self-critical voices, whenever they have the freedom to arise, as this is always a risk, is a necessary basis for changing a negative status quo. Fighting gatekeeping within our ranks is a primary concern, and Palestine Think Tank has never backed off on fighting this unhealthy censorship mechanism. Especially vocal gatekeepers, as we know, are the Jewish activists, who always have been very effective in keeping their agendas as the dominant ones. They tend to impose focus on arguments that are more interesting to them, and ones they presumably feel are interesting to others. These arguments are invariably the “Jewish experience”, past, present and future. This naturally includes the two hot topics that always stir up attention, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. These issues are woven into every discourse, as we have seen, by Zionists and anti-Zionists alike, as if the Jewish experience is indeed the interesting one, and the Palestinians simply have to adjust to playing second fiddle, even at the cost of “constantly being reminded” of these issues, precisely the complaint that Nahida has made in her recent article. As both Meshaal and Nasrallah have said, with the blood of their people still fresh from Israeli aggression, “there is a real Holocaust going on today”, the Holocaust against the people of Palestine and Lebanon.

It is with the goal of keeping the Palestinian and Arab demands for freedom and the necessity of promoting their own voices, that this site has published hundreds of articles by Palestinians and Arabs which call for a more active involvement in building their own future, and refusal to negotiate away their rights, or allow anyone else to set their agenda. At the end of the day, they ought to know what is best for themselves more than a European, American, Israeli or Jew does. This was the spirit of the excellent article by Mohamed Khodr, An Embarassment of Riches and Riches of Embarassments where he pointed out the vast level of the failure of governments in Arab nations to be true to the principles of Islam, often at the expense of the Palestinians. Another important article that was similarly self-critical was by Sami Jamil Jadallah What is Wrong with the Palestinian People? It was his appraisal of the apparent Palestinian complacency in the face of betrayal of the Palestinian people at every level. Anyone who engages regularly with Palestinians knows that this is a big part of the content of their conversations. There was nothing really new or shocking in these positions, despite the enormous pain being expressed of being unable to get angry enough at this state of affairs. The apathy, caused by years of neglect of their cause and the extreme subservience they have in the global sphere, leads to a lack of hope and the feeling that there is no chance to control their own destiny. There is also a frequent tendency of activists who are neither Muslims nor Palestinians to be unaware of this condition of frustration, and they prefer as well to not “offend” Palestinians and insist upon viewing them exclusively in the prism as the “victim” who is waiting for rescue from afar.

Certainly, Palestinians and Muslims are the victims of the worst sort of oppression and war. Their ability to counter the multitude of factors keeping them defeated can’t be denied by anyone. However even “victims” have the capacity to rise up and contribute to the discourse in all of its dynamics. They have the right to mobilise themselves, to speak their minds against not only the Israelis, but also against the “House Arabs” who sell them out or bend to pragmatism when it will run counter to their fundamental demands.

The only effective resistance has only ever been when people stop waiting for approval from outside, when they stop hoping for reform or rescue and when they point their fingers at traitors and encourage healthy rage. Effective resistance has only been determination to not be subjects of someone else’s projects for them or to fit into a profile people have outfitted for them, but to see themselves as the creators of their own destinies. The case of Palestinians is more complicated than one might imagine. It seems as if new hurdles are set in front of them at every turn: they have been unfortunately abandoned by the world when they applied the democratic principles of elections and their situation is further complicated by their’s being a dynamic and complex society that is divided into factions and geographically separated. Acquisition of one’s own narrative, of one’s own power to dissent, being recognised as the protagonists and not the side issue, this is something Palestinians are attempting to gain and their efforts are necessary to enable their own resistance at all levels, and the unity they need to succeed. One is free to disagree with the content of their discourse, but one has the obligation to not discourage the necessary act of their right to free speech.

While circulating especially thought-provoking or controversial papers, as I do at times to a small mailing list of readers, I encouraged the reading of this bitter, painful but powerful essay that offered many points for discussion. I was included in a group mailing of some dozen or so people started by a Jewish activist primarily focused on the subject of the Holocaust who has written a half dozen or so essays, some of which I’ve published. The fact that I may not agree with everything he has written did not however prevent me from encouraging him to write more often so that his right to say unpopular things that could be discussed was safeguarded by me. This is what he wrote:

I don't think this piece should have been written (certainly not in English) and should certainly not have been posted on your website.

I had to wonder if this the same person who wrote back in 2006, published on my previous site, Peacepalestine:

The last point on Ernst and Ingrid (Zundel) has become something of a mantra that I have had to recite so many times in the last year or so: Neither Ingrid nor Ernst has ever used violence, nor have they ever called on anyone else to use violence. Neither has ever discriminated against anyone on ethnic or religious grounds, nor have they called on anyone else to do so. Finally, and for me, most importantly, neither has ever suppressed anyone's right to think, speak and write freely or called on anyone else to do so. Can the same be said for their opponents - particularly those anti-Zionist, and often Marxist Jews?

Whatever I say or write is always characterised by doubt and hesitation. Some have said that this is because I'm afraid of coming clean about my beliefs. But that's not true. It's simply that I am never so sure about anything, other than the value of keeping an open mind and tolerating other opinions.

Evidently, the value of keeping an open mind and tolerating other opinions, well, at least a Palestinian one, has been scrapped.

Besides the fact that the Palestinian author has a long track record for actively demanding redress from the Jews without renouncing the Palestinian right of return, calls for justice, truth and comprehensive archives of all the appropriations of Palestinian property and of all crimes committed against his own people, something hindered time and again by the PLO, calling for his silencing or censorship of him on a Palestinian site is quite inappropriate.

Is tolerance of others’ opinions only a value if those opinions coincide with one’s own or if they are being expressed by a Westerner, Israeli or Jew? Wouldn’t it be more constructive, rather than suppressing someone else’s right to think, speak or write freely or telling an editor they should certainly not have published work one disapproves of, to debate the author? To understand his views? To challenge his claims that one disagrees with and ask him to substantiate them?

Well, my contact in the mailing group didn’t only ignore that invitation to him to do so, something I’ve always encouraged all to do with his own writing, he also chose to not participate in the lively debate between the author and many other people, most of them Palestinians. It seems as though the issue was of great interest and relevancy to quite a few people. Well, that’s his loss, because others have gained by the experience. Someone who is by and large considered to be the maximum expert on and opponent of the Israeli and Jewish lobby, Jeff Blankfort, had this to say in the comments:

Sami, your opening piece on this thread has really made me look at the reality with new eyes. The time has indeed come to put away the bombast, romanticism, and delusions that have contributed to the current situation and not wait for another generation yet to be born to liberate the land.

As an editor and translator of activists for a decade, particularly for writers whose focus is the occupation of Palestine, quite a few of them Palestinians, in fact, I have seen and edited and published every type of argumentation: obviously, this fact would prevent me from agreeing with all of the content, but it is not my duty to censor, but to facilitate discourse. The arguments are so varied in their dominating theme, be it religious, secular, socialist, revolutionary, feminist, Arab Nationalist, pragmatic, strategic, focused on sensitising Westerners, aimed at an Arab public, even satirical pieces that refer to themes that are quite particular. For many of these writers, getting their issues to a broad public is an infrequent event. Although the material is extremely enlightening, the lack of exposure of their voices keeps their issues in the margins. Just the idea that Arab Nationalism as a means of gaining Palestinian liberation, a major item of discourse in the Middle East, is all but unheard of in many progressive sites should not be surprising. These sites are busy (still) thinking about the Holocaust rather than issues that interest Palestinians and are part of a strategic paradigm. As a Palestinian person once wrote in comments on the site, “If I convert to Judaism, I think I will all of a sudden start becoming interesting to people. Should I do it?”

So, with all of this in mind, I have a few modest proposals to make for those who are involved in any way in the Palestinian issue:

1) Freedom of speech should be the right of everyone. This would include the right and duty to critique people’s arguments as well as criticise across the board, “House Arabs”, “censors and gatekeepers”. They aren’t really serving the Palestinian cause, are they? If they are, we need to know how.

2) Demand broader dissemination of the Palestinian and Arab voice. They alone are the victims of Western, Imperialist and Zionist domination, and indeed, they are the last victims of the Holocaust. Anyone who can, should encourage their right to dissent, just like Westerners expect for themselves.

3) To get the Holocaust issue once and for all in its perspective and not as the core issue of international policy and the consequential activist focus. Just like 9/11 has shown us, focus on one single dramatic event, even when all the facts will never be made available, serves as a pretext to legitimise things such as the Global War on Terror and the actual wars against nations that are the consequence of this. New wars are being planned and justifications made for them in the same moment that old wars are still producing their scores of victims. This precaution should be heeded since it is proven again and again that this is the modus operandi. If focus on Holocaust we must, let us focus on the Holocaust of epic proportions going on in Gaza right now.

4) Ahmadinejad is not Iran. He is the President who governs in a situation of major internal dissent on the verge of further popular explosions. He should not be used as a convenient instrument to attack the sovereign nation of Iran. His words about the world situation may be sincere, but he must be judged (primarily by his own people) by his actions, not all of which do gain popular support and some of which feed the Israeli paranoia. But, his words MUST actually be the ones he is using, not some narrative of him that can be pulled out as an instrument for any cause, be it Zionist or anti-Zionist.

The active choice for those who seek true and complete Palestinian liberation has to be openness to the voices that do not accept compromise or surrender of their rights. Support of people who will not betray the Palestinian and Arab search for freedom. We have to have faith in the power of the Word, in the power of popular uprising, and continue to have faith in the future of the Arab populations who WILL set their own agendas and speak their own minds without waiting for anyone’s permission or approval. Like all of us, they are seeking solutions to their problems and analysing their own reality, putting it in the spotlight, where it belongs. They are tired of being “constantly reminded of the Holocaust”, and who can blame them?

The diversity of their voices is an asset that needs to be consolidated, not a liability to eliminate. Different thoughts contribute to growth, and the more we hear, the more we learn. Variety, diversity, space for participation and discussion of the issues that Palestinians find important is the key to keeping their agenda on the table and raising the consciousness that is at the basis of all resistance. Free Minds for a Free Palestine is not just the motto of our site. This IS a THINK tank, after all!

*Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in Italy. Editor and co-founder of Palestine Think Tank, co-founder of Tlaxcala translations collective. Her personal blog is Peacepalestine.

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