By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

New York Times: Railing Against Palestinian Statehood

In so doing, it turns a blind eye to its most egregious violations of international law, norms and standards.

It's no surprise that Times editorial policy opposes Palestinian statehood and full UN membership. A previous article explained.

Endorsing wrong over right, its August 7 "Palestinians and the UN" editorial falsified and distorted key facts. It also suppressed others instead of explaining issues forthrightly.

That's never been NYT's long suit.

Its latest broadside did it again. More on it below.

On September 10, Times writer Ethan Bronner headlined, "In Seeking Statehood, Palestinians Stir Concern," saying:

Days ahead of "Palestinians plan(ning) to 'defy' the Obama administration by requesting (UN) membership and statehood recognition....there is a growing fear that the Arab-Israeli conflict is entering an explosive new phase."

Despite clear benefits greatly outweighing concerns, Bronner claims "many (predict) disaster, especially after the storming of Israel's Cairo embassy and the expulsion of its ambassador from Turkey."

In fact, Washington and Israeli acquiescence would go a long way to ease, not heighten, tensions, a point Bronner omitted. Instead, he quoted an unnamed "senior Western diplomat," saying:

Israel "will react to a Palestinian statehood bid with punitive measures in the West Bank. Congress will probably cut off aid....The Palestinian Authority could collapse. We're watching a potential train wreck."

Fact check

Under military occupation, Palestinians have no rights. Gazans are suffocating under siege. Daily Israeli attacks and/or incursions into neighborhoods terrorize millions of civilians. Israel at times preemptively declares war. Its modus operandi is death, destruction and immiseration.

Statehood and full UN membership is step one for something better, regardless of how long it takes.

It's already as bad as it gets unless NATO intervenes supportively for Israel. If so, it may do to Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem what it did to Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, turning the Territories to rubble and slaughtering tens of thousands, defending the indefensible on whatever pretext it chooses.

For America, its NATO partners and Israel, it remains a frightening option, given how many previous times it was chosen.

Bronner quoted Yuli Edelstein, Israel's public diplomacy minister, saying:

"If the Palestinians go to the United Nations, it will begin a long funeral for the peace process and negotiations."

Fact check

Of course, Israel long ago buried what for decades it refused to tolerate and won't now. As a result, resurrecting a corpse makes no sense, especially when one willing side has no partner.

Bronner highlights negatives over positive statehood benefits. For example, "rocket(s) from Gaza would be cause to bring them to account."

Fact check

True enough except in self-defense, a universally accepted right. Moreover, ineffective "rockets" only follow multiple Israeli attacks. If Palestinians initiated them, Israel might declare war.

Palestinians have nothing to gain from conflict. In contrast, Israel thrives on it, knowing it can act with impunity.

Bronner also denigrated Palestine's legitimate government, saying:

If the Palestinian Authority under Abbas "ended up withering for lack of support and security cooperation with Israel, Hamas would be waiting in the wings. A Hamas 'takeover' attempt in the West Bank is not something Israel would accept lightly...."

Fact check

In January 2006, Hamas won a decisive 74 seat majority victory as Palestine's legitimate government. Fatah under Abbas got 45, and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's Third Way party won only 2 of 132 Palestinian Legislative Council seats.

Though almost entirely rejected, he's now illegitimately second in command, serving, like Abbas, as an Israeli collaborationist.

Bronner entirely omitted that context from his article. He also excluded comments from Palestinian statehood advocates. Instead, he concluded, quoting Israeli MK Einat Wilf, saying:

Abbas "knows he is not getting a state. He knows he is not resolving anything. He is simply taking the conflict to another place. (He and other Palestinians) will take each and everybody of the UN and use it as a theater to continue this whole conflict."

Fact check

Of course, conflict persists because of Israeli and Washington obstructionism and belligerence.

Long ago, Palestinians wanted peace, an equitable resolution of longstanding grievances, and a legitimate sovereign state they deserve after Israel stole their homeland in 1948.

Bronner didn't explain. Instead, he one-sidededly backed Israel.

So did another disgraceful Times editorial (dated 9/11) headlined, "Palestinian Statehood" saying:

"A United Nations vote on Palestinian membership would be ruinous. Yet with little time left before the UN General Assembly meets, the United States, Israel and Europe have shown insufficient urgency or boldness in trying to find a compromise solution."

Fact check

After 44 years of occupation, statehood and de jure UN membership are long overdue. Opposing it is inexcusable. Nothing less than full recognition is acceptable within 1967 borders, as well as East Jerusalem as its capital.

"Last week, the United States made a listless effort to get Palestinians to forgo the vote in favor of new peace talks. (The) best path to statehood remains negotiations."

Fact check

As explained above, for decades Palestinians have had no willing partner for peace and don't now. Moreover, Israel doesn't negotiate. It demands, with backup muscle like its Washington/paymaster partner.

Nonetheless, the editorial says America "and its Quartet partners (EU, UN and Russia) should put a map and a deal on the table, with a timeline for concluding negotiations and a formal UN statehood vote. The core element: a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps and guarantees for Israel's security."

Fact check

The same futility repeated numerous previous times. Resurrecting a corpse won't revive it. Relying on Israel and Washington assures subjugation, exploitation, and continuity, not justice or peace.

It's long past time that ended, especially with overwhelming world support when Israel is growing increasingly isolated, and along with America, reviled on Arab streets.

"To get full UN membership the Palestinians have to win Security Council approval."

Fact check

Previous articles explained that the Security Council recommends. Only the General Assembly admits new members by a simple two-thirds majority.

Times writers know it but won't say. Instead, they keep beating the same dead horse lie, plus a blizzard of others daily in print, notably on what's most important.

"Congress has threatened to cut millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority if it presses for a UN vote. Instead of just threatening the Palestinians, Congress should lean on Mr. Netanyahu to return to talks."

Fact check

True enough. Congress may withhold aid. Perhaps the 113th one will restore it after January 3, 2013.

In the meantime, other states can and should fill the void. It's pocket change for them collectively, even during hard times, especially if they wage less war and more peace.

For his part, Netanyahu doesn't respond to pressure. Efforts are better directed on what works, or at least has a better chance.

"Israel has said it would cut millions of dollars in tax remittances to the authority."

Fact check

Israel no longer would control policies of an independent Palestinian state, including matters relating to taxes.

The piece concludes saying "Washington and its partners will have to limit the damage" following a vote.

In fact, under the best of circumstances, Palestinians are cursed by bordering on a belligerent rogue state, menacingly there all the time.

That's a real concern, including for neighboring states knowing they, too, are vulnerable.

Shut Out of the Process Hamas Responds

On September 12, Haaretz headlined, "Hamas distances itself from Palestinian statehood bid at UN," saying:

Hamas officials said PA efforts omitted Gaza interests entirely. Abbas proceeded on his own, without consulting Hamas, Palestine's legitimate government.

Other Palestinian factions expressed their views. Islamic Jihad also opposes PA efforts. Spokesman Dawood Shihab said the "move needs to be studied to make sure it will not ignore major issues such as the right of return, and the future of the (PLO) as an umbrella for" all Palestinians.

Nothing compromises either if proper procedures are followed. In fact, the right of return for diaspora Palestinians will be strengthened.

Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar said no one "asked the people of Gaza to take to the streets showing solidarity with the so-called September bid. If the Palestinian Authority calls for that, we will oppose it because they detain people in the West Bank."

"How can I give them the right to demonstrate in Gaza while they do not give us that right in the West Bank?"

Hamas official Mushir al-Masri accused Abbas of acting "without consulting any faction."

An anonymous PA official said Abbas "was surprised by the international opposition to the reconciliation with Hamas so he decided to slow down at least until September."

"Now, with all efforts focused on" petitioning the UN, "we want all voices to be with us. We are not giving the Americans or anyone else a reason to shun us because of the reconciliation or anything else."

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and The Palestinian National Initiative support petitioning the UN, saying it's the last (or perhaps best) chance for statehood, given the futility of peace talks.

PFLP official Kayid al-Ghoul said:

"We support the Palestinian leadership's plan to go to the UN because (it's) a natural right of the Palestinians and part of the political battle against Israel."

"Regardless of the outcome, this step should be part of the political battle we fight against occupation. It will also be an opportunity to enlarge the circle of solidarity with the Palestinian people's rights, and to expose Israel's policies and the supportive US policy."

Palestinian National Initiative leader Mustafa Barghouti called the UN initiative "the last option for two states," adding "time has come for an alternative. There is no space or place for talks. We won't be slaves to apartheid for the rest of our lives."

He also said if South Sudan could get statehood in 48 hours (no matter that America and EU nations pushed for balkanization), why not Palestinians after decades of failure.

Why not indeed, despite opposition from Washington, Israel, and at least several key European states.

Nothing important ever comes easily. Nothing comes at all without trying. Delay is the enemy of success. Whoever said there's no time like the present got it right.

A Final Comment

Since taking office, Obama's presidency has been defined by duplicity, lawlessness and betrayal.

He proved it by waging multiple imperial wars, lying about why they're fought.

He did it by handing Wall Street giants multi-trillions of taxpayer dollars - called "emergency loans" that perhaps never were repaid. He and the Fed also refused to say how much until finally it was learned that at least $16.1 trillion was involved.

Some observers think it's lots more, plus an open-ended checkbook for as much as they want.

He rubbed it in by demanding austerity cuts during a Main Street Depression when growing tens of millions need help, not a hammer to the back of their heads.

On September 8, his "American Jobs Act" address to Congress was, in fact, another thinly veiled wealth transfer scheme to corporate favorites and super-rich elites already with too much.

He also proposed stealth measures to weaken Social Security and Medicare ahead of destroying them altogether to free up money for more wars and bailouts.

On September 12, he reiterated his contempt for Palestinians, saying:

If Palestinian statehood comes "to the Security Council, we would object very strongly, precisely because we think it would be 'counterproductive.' We don't think that it would actually lead to the outcome that we want, which is a two-state solution."

"Counterproductive" with no "two-state solution?"

Of course, his doublespeak distorts and inverts what Palestinians want and can get if proper procedures are followed.

Obama, Netanyahu and other officials from both countries are pushing to prevent them from achieving rights they've been denied for decades.

It's high time a ground swell of right over wrong support thunderously rejects the criminal class causing so much harm to so many.

It's time it emerges globally against these two rogue states and their duplicitous allies.

When committed and sustained, it's how great victories are won.

Though never easily or quickly, they're only possible by trying.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously ruled for Fox News, saying no rule or law prohibits distorting or falsifying news.

Just as Wall Street, war profiteers, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and other corporate favorites steal with impunity, it's OK for America's media to lie.

The ruling pertained to a 1996 Jane Akre/Steve Wilson Fox affiliate WTVT, Tampa reports on bovine growth hormone (BGH) dangers, Monsanto's hazardous to human health genetically engineered milk additive.

At first, the station loved them. Later, however, Fox executives and their attorneys ordered its reporters to admit falsifying evidence and produce bogus reports on BGH safety.

They refused, threatened to inform the FCC, were fired, and sued. A district court jury decided on their behalf, awarding Acre alone $425,000 in damages.

Fox appealed and won, the Appellate Court saying Acre wasn't protected under Florida's whistleblower statute, loosely interpreting it to mean employers must violate an adopted "law, rule, or regulation."

In other words, Fox simply followed "policy" entitling its stations to lie - whether on product safety or falsifying facts about anything, including 9/11 truth.

In 2005, Project Censored chose this story among its top 25 most important, titled "The Media Can Legally Lie," and lie they've done about 9/11 from that day to the present.

Those old enough to remember won't forget, including how media distortions turned it into perhaps the most hyped ever spectacle, especially on television.

For days, images of planes hitting the twin towers and their collapse were aired repeatedly.

A personal note. I was in a doctor's waiting room with others watching events on television. When the South Tower collapsed, everyone audibly gasped, unaware as I was how or why, let alone what lay next.

When the North Tower collapsed 30 minutes later, unsettling thoughts crystallized enough to make me sense much more was involved than met the eye or what news reports claimed.

It was almost anti-climactic when WTC 7 collapsed at 5:21PM. Notably, BBC's Jane Standley reported the event at 4:54PM New York time, 27 minutes in advance.

Later she claimed she didn't "remember minute-by-minute what she saw," or perhaps (like BBC's management) doesn't want to explain how she could report an event before it happened without advance knowledge.

Earlier in the afternoon, I smelled a rat and wrote my brother, saying: "They're drinking champagne in the White House tonight," precise words I'll never forgot. Yet they failed to imagine the horror-filled decade to come.

Back then, the whole world watched the horrific spectacle, including planes hitting the towers, both bursting into flames, desperate people jumping out of windows to avoid incineration, and then collapse at near free-fall speed, later proved (but unreported) by controlled demolitions.

A 2002 HBO film titled, "In Memoriam" called 9/11 "the most documented event in history," stopping short of revealing what really happened or why.

It provided a collage of images produced by news crews, filmmakers, amateur videographers and photographers, some of them risking their lives by so doing.

For three or more days, US television covered the event and its aftermath nonstop commercial free. In the process, they hyped war hysteria belligerently.

On October 7, 26 days later, it began against a nation having nothing to do with the attack. However, falsified reports held Osama bin Laden responsible. Later, the FBI admitted no evidence linked him to the incident.

Nonetheless, Washington demanded Taliban authorities extradite him. They, in turn, rightly wanted proof of his culpability.

None, of course, was provided to let the Bush administration go to war on false pretenses. March 2003 against Iraq followed.

Both wars rage today, besides Obama's naked aggression, notably against Libya - another nonbelligerent country America and its NATO allies systematically destroyed, butchering tens of thousands of Libyans on the pretext of protecting them.

America's post-9/11 decade is best called its visible fall from grace, waging permanent wars on humanity for wealth and power, never for falsified hyped reasons everyone needs to understand and condemn.

But don't expect America's media to explain. They're, in fact, complicit by regurgitating official lies, vilifying Islam, and resonating war fever discourse for intervention, featuring one-sided reports and commentaries.

Absent was critical debate. Vital questions weren't asked. Militarism instead was promoted as the solution to "global terrorism."

For days, political and military officials and spokespersons shared air time with so-called national security state experts and various crackpots, ranging from right-wing to hard-right to the lunatic fringe.

The common theme argued was that America was at war with Islam, Samuel Huntington's racist "clash of civilizations" notion, "good v. evil," "freedom (and our) way of life" against "forces of darkness."

Bush administration officials used cowboy metaphors, including wanting bin Laden "dead or alive," calling its campaign a "crusade" until criticism forced its change to "Operation Enduring Freedom," and vowing to "smoke out and pursue" barbaric evil doers.

Their underlying theme was fear because it sells, even when cause for it doesn't exist.

At the same time, Bush's "war on terrorism" didn't mention democracy, instead emphasizing his fighting for "freedom" mantra, no matter the human toll or illegitimacy of the Big (9/11) Lie, permitting America's war on the world to follow.

Inaugurated on January 20, 2001, his nationally televised address to Congress declared war on terrorism, describing a conflict between "those governed by fear (who) want to destroy our wealth and freedoms" and others wanting to defend it.

Thereafter, the major media hyped fear, promoted revenge, and defended falsified notions that Washington wages wars for freedom and democratic values by ridding nations of dangerous tyrants, especially ones threatening Americans.

In other words, wars of aggression are liberating ones. Civil and human rights are suppressed for our own good, and patriotism means going along with lawless governments, committing crimes of war and against humanity against one country after another.

Bin Laden and Al Qaeda replaced "the evil empire." Terrorism became the new mantra. Manichean good v. evil notions were hyped. Fear and hate overwhelmed sanity and defending right over wrong, as well as holding venal politicians accountable for acting lawlessly with impunity.

An earlier article explained that when America goes to war, managed news follows, spreading rumors, half-truths, misinformation, and willful deception about targeted nations, regimes, leaders, and other enemies, whether despots of democrats.

John Pilger said "Journalism is the first casualty" of war. "Not only that: it has become a weapon of war, a virulent censorship (and willful misreporting) that goes unrecognized in the United States, Britain and other democracies; censorship by omission (makes all) the difference between life and death for people in (targeted) countries...."

It suppresses debate, substitutes fiction for facts, filters out truth, and cheerleads in lockstep with government policy, right or wrong.

As a result, it supports America's right to be judge, jury and executioner, as well as get victor's spoils because that's why all wars are fought, never for falsified reasons, regurgitated on air and in print ad nauseam.

Because America's business is war, supported by its major media, war profiteering is a growth industry, and as famed comedian Jimmy Durante used to say:

"Everybody wants ta get inta da act," and they do.

In addition, not telling the truth and holding venal politicians accountable for taking America to war on false pretenses lets them do it again with impunity.

At best, damage control tactics follow, including Bush officials relying on 9/11 Commission liars to let them off the hook by sanitizing policy and concealing facts.

David Ray Griffin brilliantly exposed them in his book titled, "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions." He explained that Bush officials "deliberately" failed to prevent the attacks or, in fact, were "actively involved in (their) planning and execution...."

His introduction calls his book important because of the significant consequences of 9/11, taking America to war on false pretenses, and its major media lying about it supportively.

His reasons for wanting to examine the 9/11 Commission's report included:

• to determine if Bush's "war on terrorism" response to 9/11 was appropriate;
• to learn if the Commission's account was "definitive;" and
• "whether the success of the attacks would have been less likely if the recommended structural changes had already been in place."

A fourth reason was the "possibility of a cover-up," and indeed that's precisely what happened. Instead of "provid(ing) the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11," damage control suppressed them.

The Commission, of course, was hardly "nonpartisan," "impartial," or "thorough," especially with Philip Zelikow as executive director, a Republican Bush administration member at the time, appointed to assure whitewash, not full disclosure.

In his exhaustive account, Griffin brilliantly, "painstaking(ly) and devasting(ly) demoli(shed)" the Commissions findings, according to Peter Dale Scott.

Though Griffin didn't address America's media, he nonetheless exposed its complicit role. They regurgitated Commission lies as truth, the way they always represent powerful interests at the expense of good journalism, commentaries and full disclosure.

To this day, 9/11 mythology remains official dogma on air and in print. As a result, most Americans remain unaware of the biggest lie of our time and its horrific consequences, touching their lives directly.

A Final Comment

Sunday marks the 10th 9/11 anniversary. This writer plans two more articles about the big lie and its aftermath to be published on or about the date.

On September 10 and 11, the Progressive Radio News Hour will feature more discussion on it, especially its horrific consequences.

Expect America's media also to react. The Washington Post already features "Full coverage: Remembering 9/11," with features headlined:

"After 9/11, security guard on high alert," against what wasn't explained.

"Brought together by catastrophe," focusing on marriage vows exchanged, not 9/11 truth.

"Twin misses his other half," killed in the attack on the Pentagon, instead of explaining the toll on millions of dead Afghans, Iraqis, and their families, their countries destroyed by US lawlessness.

"Trying to find the new normal," about a wife coping in the aftermath of her military husband's death, again ignoring a global catastrophe because of America's post-9/11 wars.

On September 4, New York Times writers Jeremy Peters and Brian Stelter headlined, "Media Strive to Cover 9/11 Without Seeming to Exploit a Tragedy," saying:

Coverage of its 10th anniversary will walk "a fine line between commemoration and exploitation. Mindful of this, television networks and magazines and others planning special coverage....are approaching it differently," some commercial free.

Unfortunately, freedom from truth already is featured. Neither writer explained, instead saying news outlets will vary in their approach with special print and on air specials.

As on previous anniversaries, they'll cover everything except what Americans most need to know - the truth.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

FOX's 3P Mission: Polarization, Propaganda, and Prejudice

"This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it...the battle ground is everywhere – the media, multinational organizations, NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make ISRAEL a pariah."
--Rupert Murdoch, .A.D.L. Speech upon receiving ADL's "International Leadership Award", October 13, 2010

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent. "
--Gore Vidal, novelist and critic

CAUTION: You Are About To Enter the "No Spin Zone."

No Corporation or Media mogul has had as much impact on the corruption and manipulation of minds, opinions, and attitudes in the U.S. and abroad than Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Fox News Channel in particular.

This mogul has singlehandedly created a nation within a nation--the Fox Nation. A nation dedicated to the principle that the only deserving humanity for wealth, power, supremacy, and governance are mainly white Republicans, Corporate and Business tycoons, those who support militarism as the sole means of projecting America's power abroad, and those who blindly and unquestionably support Israel's hegemony, illegal occupation, the building of illegal settlements, and who identify its offensive militarism as self-defense. Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are an offense to western civilization and thus are expendable collateral damage to the greater good of Israel which naturally translates to the greater good of the U.S.

Rupert Murdoch is the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation which owns vast holdings in newspapers, movie studios, television stations, cable and satellite stations, entertainment companies, book publishing, music, radio, and internet companies around the world..

In terms of revenue in 2010, News Corporation was second only to Walt Disney Company, with Time Warner and Viacom as third and fourth respectively.

With the exception of Rupert Murdoch the remaining three media conglomerates are run by Jewish Americans.

For his Zionist efforts Murdoch has received awards and high praise from Pro Israeli groups in the United States such as the Anti Defamation League which presented him with the "International Leadership Award" and the American Jewish Committee which presented him with the "AJC National Human Relations Award" on March 4, 2009.

The Jewish Commentary Magazine on October 14, 2010 published Murdoch's speech to the A.D.L. and made the following observation.

"Last night, Rupert Murdoch gave an extraordinary speech at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in which he revealed, yet again, that he is a true and selfless friend of the Jewish people and of Israel."

Not to be out done, Roger Ailes, Chairman and C.E.O. of Fox News and Fox News Channel was honored at a gala dinner by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Former President Bill Clinton appeared on a video saluting "red-state Roger" for his concern for "the security for the State of Israel

Murdoch is also a staunch Republican Conservative who's unashamed to donate millions to Republican causes.

Murdoch's News Corporation donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association in June 2010. Similarly he donated $1 million to the United States Chamber of Commerce, a staunch Republican organization. No one is investigating if such media donations to political organizations are ethical.

Thus it is a fact that Murdoch and News Corporation are propaganda patsies for Israel and the Republican Party.

Fox News Channel is the most popular and most influential cable network which for years has left CNN, MSNBC and other cable networks in the dust.

Fox Channel uses the following two slogans: "We Report, You Decide", and, "Fair and Balanced". In fact the channel is a weapon of mass deception that instills fear in a large segment of the U.S. population with lies and blasphemous bigoted hateful commentary. Goebbels would be proud in seeing an American "News" Channel implement his propaganda philosophy.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

The best that can be said about Fox News Channel and its bigoted, racist, fear mongering hosts and pundits is that it is committing "Intellectual Terrorism" upon a nation devoid of intellectual curiosity, a passion for truth and civic involvement, a self absorbed populace distracted with consumerism, and devoid of all outrage at the crimes committed by its government and corporations here and abroad.

The three most popular Fox Channel hosts are Bill O'Rielly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck who share the same viewpoints, personality traits, and fear mongering propaganda.

All three have delusions of grandeur, absolutism of truth, are paranoid, self promoting salesmen of their books and products, hold hallucinatory conspiracy theories where Looney lefties, Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Islamic terrorists, Sharia Law, George Soros, and radical media outlets are collaborating and planning to overtake America and western civilization to establish a one world government run by radical Islamists.

Perhaps this quote by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaking to thousands of Evangelicals in a bid to build his base for a possible Presidential run is emblematic of the mindset of Fox News Channel, where he is a contributor, and the propaganda it pursues.

"I have two grandchildren - Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

--Newt Gingrich, Politico 3/27/2011

However a most revealing study conducted by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland showed the following results from surveying American's knowledge of current events based on their viewership of the cable networks Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.

Their conclusion as reported by the Iowa Independent, December 2, 2010:

"People who regularly watch Fox News are more likely to be incorrect on a wide range of major issues. But the audiences of MSNBC, PBS and National Public Radio are frequently better informed than most, according to a new study by the University of Maryland.

The study finds Fox News viewers to be the more likely to be incorrect with each incremental increase of exposure to Fox. The respondents who watched Fox News on a daily basis were at times twice as likely to be wrong as those who never watched Fox "

Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation, and Fox News Channel are the greatest threat to American democracy, unity, and stability. Al Qaeda's threat is a distant second to the daily propaganda drum beat for War, Hate, Incitement, and Prejudice. (W.H.I.P.)

FOX News is the WHIP against civilized behavior, the use of reason, logic, and rationality of thought and policy in our national discourse.

Shockingly, the second largest shareholder of News Corporation is the Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al-Saud (7% of shares) who obviously is unfazed by Fox's relentless attack on Islam, Muslims, Arabs, and Saudi Arabia. Like all Arab tyrants and business tycoons, fame, wealth, and glory far outweigh their devotion to faith and brethren.

SOURCES:

1. http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Mise_00/5873_00.htm

Rupert Murdoch's Speech to the A.D.L. (Anti-Defamation League).upon receiving the annual "ADL International Leadership Award"; October 13, 2010

2.http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.5018279/k.7184/AJC_Honors_Rupert_Murdoch.htm

Rupert Murdoch Speech upon Receiving the American Jewish Committee's Award; "AJC National Human Relations Award", March 4, 2009 (From Murdoch's Speech)

3. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0624-25.htm

Must Read: How Only 118 People sit on the Board of the 10 Largest Media Conglomerates as well as on Boards of other Companies: See examples

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

When imperial America wants war, peace advocates are shut out by official rhetoric and hawkish media reports supporting militarism, not diplomatic efforts to achieve peace. Those for it aren't heard. Hugo Chavez's government is one. On February 28, Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, warned against belligerence saying:

"We would be against any military intervention against the Arabic people of Libya, and I'm sure that all peoples of the world would support a struggle against any interventionism that some powerful countries would commit against it....Arabic people who are in a process of rebellion, seeking a better destiny, (can) find their way to peace. (Venezuelans understand) very difficult times, (but have) gone about finding our ways to independence, democracy, and freedom, which in our case" is Bolarivarianism.

"Just as we were against the invasion of Iraq and the massacre of the Palestinian people of Gaza, we would be against any military (attack or) invasion of Libya."

Chavez added: We "want peace for this country and for the peoples of the world. Those who immediately condemn Libya don't talk about (Israel's) bombing (of Gaza, America assault on) Fallujah, and the thousands and thousands of deaths including children, women, and whole families. They are quiet about the bombing and massacres in Iraq, in Afghanistan, so they don't have the right to condemn anyone," especially from unverified reports.

Amidst hawkish official rhetoric and supportive media reports, Chavez and Maduro are shut out, unheard voices in the wilderness outside Venezuela and parts of Latin America.

Official US Policy: War Yes, Peace No

For imperial America, giving peace a chance isn't an option when war is planned to destroy another nation, replace its leader with a more amenable one, and plunder its resources. In Libya, its to exploit its vast energy reserves and people, commodities for greater profit.

A previous article said Gaddafi without question is despotic, governing by "fear and cronyism," treating Libya as his "private estate," as well as spawning a hierarchy of corrupt officials, disdainful of popular interests.

The same holds for dozens of other countries, most of which Washington supports, some as close allies. Ones allied with America escape media scrutiny, their crimes airbrushed from daily reports. Enemies, however, are pilloried, including by unverified misreporting, willfully distorting the truth, violating good journalism principles.

Until it closed at year end 2005, Chicago's famed City News Bureau gave young reporters rigorous training, explained in its notable principle: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out with two independent sources." In other words, get it right or not at all, what's absent in today's deplorable reporting, from Fox to The New York Times, BBC and others, offering managed, not real news and information.

Fox News especially, as America's official voice of right wing politics. On US television, it's in full battle mode, beating the drums of war, its staff under strict management guidelines, manipulating facts to be hardline.

As a result, news anchor Jon Scott said, "If I were President Obama, I would unilaterally" impose a no-fly zone, no matter that doing so is an act of war. Bill O'Reilly called Obama's position "beyond wimpy." Sean Hannity wonders when America will attack Libya, calling Obama "extraordinarily weak." Glenn Beck said Wisconsin protests prove the Caliphate's presence in America. Other hosts are just as extreme. No wonder Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) calls Fox "the most biased name in news." It reports. It decides. Truth is nowhere in sight.

The New York Times editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies," matched Fox, saying:

His "crimes continue to mount." Citing unverified reports, it said "Libyan Air Force warplanes bombed rebel-controlled areas in the eastern part of the country. Libyan special forces mounted ground assaults on two breakaway cities near the capital. (Finally), the United States (EU and UN want) Qaddafi and his cronies to go (and) called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes."

This is the same paper that exonerated Washington and Britain for fabricating Iraq WMD intelligence to justify war, citing London's whitewash Hutton inquiry in its January 29, 2004 editorial headlined, "Testing Two Leaders; Tony Blair, Vindicated."

Despite clear indictable evidence, The Times endorsed the findings for being "fully consistent with the information available to British intelligence (and Washington) at that time and that no claims then known to be false or unreliable were concluded." In fact, they were independently exposed as false and misleading, though nonetheless used to wage war.

Moreover, discredited reporter Judith Miller wrote daily propaganda, functioning as a Pentagon press agent, not a legitimate journalist. Commenting on her earlier, Alex Cockburn said:

"With Miller, we (sunk) to the level of straight press handout. Lay all Judith Miller....stories end to end, from late 2001 to June 2003, and you (got) a desolate picture of a reporter with an agenda, both manipulating and being manipulated by US government officials, Iraqi exiles and defectors, an entire Noah's Ark of scam-artists."

Worst of all was The Times itself for giving her daily front page space, then never adequately apologizing when their complicity was exposed. Powerful media outlets never have to say they're sorry. They stay in full battle mode against new targets.

Now Times editors have the audacity to advocate Libyan intervention for reasons other than humanitarian, including asset freezes, a no-fly zone, harsh sanctions, travel bans, encouraged insurrection, criminal prosecution, stopping just short of endorsing war, but expect that to change if Washington attacks.

The Washington Post is just as belligerent, its February 21 editorial headlined, "Moammar Gaddafi must pay for atrocities," saying:

His "beleaguered dictatorship (is) waging war against its own people and committing atrocities that demand not just condemnation but action by the outside world," accusing Gaddafi of committing genocide based on mostly unverified reports, according to reliable independent in-country sources. Nonetheless, the Post endorses "regime change" and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution, ignoring far greater Bush and Obama administration crimes, ongoing daily but not reported.

On March 2, a Wall Street Journal editorial headlined, "The Reluctant American," saying:

"The moral and strategic case for US leadership in Libya is obvious. A terrorist regime is slaughtering its people who will appreciate America's support and protection. A bloody civil war could create chaos that turns Libya into a northern African failed state, an ideal home for terrorist groups. The US should support a provisional government that can take over when the regime collapses....What is Obama waiting for?"

Ask beleaguered Iraqis and Afghans if they appreciate US intervention, occupation, mass destruction, genocide, depravation, disease, and for many living early deaths! Ask them if they recommend this for Libyans! Ask them if they prefer America to Saddam and Taliban rulers!

Ask Kosovars and Serbs! Ask Koreans and Southeast Asians with long memories! Ask Central and Latin Americans! Ask Somalis and other African nationals! Ask Palestinians! Ask Libyans if they know what awaits them if America intervenes! If not, explain and let them decide! It won't for Washington's military option, growing more imminent daily.

On February 28, New York writers Mark Landler and Thom Shanker headlined, "US Readies Military Options on Libya," saying:

"The United States began moving warships toward Libya and froze $30 billion in (its) assets on Monday," ahead of plundering them, Libyan oil, and other resources, not mentioned in The Times report.

Conflict looks increasingly likely. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton want Gaddafi out "without further violence or delay." "No option is off the table," said Clinton, stopping just short of declaring war. Secretaries of State can't do it. Neither can presidents, but it hasn't stopped them since December 8, 1941, the last time America legally went to war.

In meetings with NATO allies, said The Times, "European officials have resisted military action," but didn't rule it out. "Should NATO get involved in a civil war to the south of the Mediterranean," asked French Prime Minister Francosi Fillon? "It is a question that at least merits some reflection before being launched," weasel words perhaps ahead of proceeding.

Pentagon officials want an international action mandate, either from NATO or the UN, usually easily pressured to get. War winds are blowing. Expect anything ahead, especially if misreporting incites it the way it precedes all US wars.

Notable was Al Jazeera's March 1 report headlining: "Battles rage in Libya," saying:

Gaddifi's forces stepped up attacks, including "fighter jets bomb(ing) an ammunition depot in the eastern city of Ajdabiya." Up to 2,000 deaths were reported in Tripoli. Many thousands fled. Gaddafi remains defiant.

Most of what Al Jajeera and Western media report isn't verified. Yet it's inflammatory enough to stoke war for "humanitarian intervention," the usual bogus reason America and Western nations use, the same one earlier for Iraq, Afghanistan and other imperial interventions. Affected nations are never the same.

Breaching Libyan Sovereignty

Britain and Germany already launched air operations to evacuate their citizens. France is sending two or more planeloads of aid to opposition forces in Benghazi. Italy suspended its Libyan nonaggression treaty, saying the state no longer exists, an outrageous assertion.

In a BBC interview, Gaddafi called Western actions "betrayal," adding: "They have no morals." Indeed not and never did, despite Big Oil profiting handsomely in Libya, and Gaddafi offering his security forces for America's "war on terror."

Nonetheless, he's targeted for removal, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley saying US officials have "been reaching out...to a range of figures within the opposition." Hillary Clinton added: "We are going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the US." Nothing is ruled out, including weapons, intervention and war.

Nothing is said about client regimes engaged in similar or worse practices, including killing, arresting, torturing, and otherwise abusing thousands of its citizens. Decades of Israeli atrocities are ignored. So are those of Iraq and Afghanistan puppet governments, proxy force belligerence in Somalia and elsewhere, and numerous global client states doing the same things.

Only outlier leaders are vilified, in Gaddafi's case an embraced one now betrayed for broader aims. Washington seeks greater regional dominance. Doing it requires compliant leaders, willing to let America and European nations colonize their countries, plunder their resources, exploit their people, and provide locations for new Pentagon bases. For six and half million Libyans, that awaits them as Washington moves in for the kill.

Final Comments

According to Russia Today (RT) television:

Russia's military has been monitoring Libya by satellite since unrest began for accurate information about what, in fact, is ongoing. Its Joint Staff confirms no evidence of air strikes or destruction on the ground. Reports from US media, BBC, other Western sources, and Al Jazeera are entirely bogus.

Writer Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Middle East/Central Asian special maintains reliable Libyan contacts, essential for accurate accounts on the ground.

On March 2, he said the following:

-- "Qaddafi still has control over much of the country."

-- "There are claims that cities have fallen, but in reality old videos or (ones) of other cities are being shown (in airing) these reports....to the public."

-- "The words 'claim' and 'claimed' are now systematically being used....to (corroborate) distorted or incorrect information."

-- World attention is on Libya, excluding other vital events "in the Arab world - such as the continued protests and demands of the Egyptian people (and others regionally) for authentic democracy," jobs, better wages, and other social issues.

-- "Reports have been made (about) fighting in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, (saying) parts of it have fallen, when it has been peaceful for days."

-- "On February 26, 2011, claims were (falsely) made that all the main cities were not in Qaddafi's control." In fact, he controls the following ones: "Sabha (in central Libya), Sirt/Surt (on the coastal mid-point of Libya), Ghat (on the southern border with Algeria), Al-Jufra, Al-Azizya (close to Tripoli) and Tripoli itself."

-- Media reports ignore Qaddafi "trying to negotiate with the places not under his control."

-- Most important: Outrageous misreporting persists, "blowing the violence out of proportion to justify foreign intervention."

It's coming - Washington-led naked aggression justified as "humanitarian intervention." In fact, it's imperial lawlessness against another target before advancing to the next one.

While one-sidely focusing on Libya, Western media ignore the March 1 Amnesty International (AI) report titled, "Tunisia in Revolt: State Violence during Anti Government Protests," saying:

During December and January protests, Tunisian security forces engaged in "unlawful killings and acts of brutality....act(ing) with reckless disregard for human life in all too many cases," according to Malcolm Smart, AI's Middle East and North African program director.

"People detained by the security forces were also systematically beaten or subjected to other ill-treatment, according to (corroborated) evidence" obtained. Innocent bystanders were killed in cold blood, some shot from behind. Death, injury and arrest numbers are far higher than acknowledged. Major media sources, including Al Jazeera, largely suppress this.

Brutal Egyptian military treatment is also ignored, including mass arrests, disappearances and torture. An Egyptian human rights group said thousands are in military custody. Many have been beaten or tortured. US media ignored Egypt after Mubarak was ousted, despite protests, strikes and violence continuing after a brief quiet period.

On February 15, AI condemned Bahrain's "heavy-handed....excessive police force" violence, including killings against peaceful protesters. An eyewitness said police, without provocation, opened fire on demonstrators, wanting a new constitution and democratically elected government.

In its January 11 report titled, "Crackdown in Bahrain: human rights at the crossroads," AI cited serious human rights abuses, including suppressing free expression, closing critical web sites, and banning opposition publications, besides arrests, killings, beatings and other abuses.

US major media reports suppress client regime crimes. Only leaders Washington opposes draw attention, mostly by distorted misreporting. Major focus now is on Gaddafi to provide legitimacy for imperial intervention. As issue is replacing one despot with another willing to open Libya to Western colonization, ahead of regional expansion for greater plunder, exploitation and profits.

Arabs and North Africans want democratic change. Washington and Western allies plan raw power to suppress it. Battle lines are drawn. Sustained popular resistance is essential for real reform, what people want, not dark forces allied against them repressively, especially America treating all developing countries as exploitable low-hanging fruit. What better time than now to stop it.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

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

At least seven times today [12 February] I heard TV newscasters refer to Muslim or Islamic extremists.

The amount and level of this kind of fraudulent suggestiveness has been increasing almost daily.

I call it fraudulent because people hearing this mix of Muslim with extremist repeated often enough become brainwashed into thinking that all Muslims are extremists.

The reference to Islamic extremists is frequently made on Fox News by Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

A headline on MMTV asserts that "O'Reilly supports Rep. King's Islamic Extremism Hearings: 'you've got to get a handle on it'". The language of Islamic extremist has infected the US congress.

For years, since he was on CNN, Glenn Beck has made wild false claims, like, "Islamic extremism is the biggest threat to our way of life since World War II and we'll never be able to fight it – if we can't see it".

Now, as chief Fox propagandist, Glenn Beck has the American left wing collaborating with his paranoid vision: "Believe what you want but the left is working hand-in-hand with the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim extremists... Hand-in-hand"...

Sean Hannity isn't much better, saying things like, "It seems to me that Islamic extremism is the 21st century threat that (communism) posed in the last century..."

Similar Islamophobic references have been heard on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and other networks in the USA. Even reporters on the liberal MSNBC have been guilty of falsely connecting Islam and extremism.

The Associated Press says: "A Senate report on the Fort Hood shooting is sharply critical of the FBI's failure to recognize warning signs that an army psychiatrist had become an Islamist extremist..."

Do lunatics who commit wanton killings need to be identified according to their religious affiliations? If so why weren't the killers at Columbine and in Arizona recently referred to as Christian extremists?

That is if indeed they were Christians. The media only seems interested in making the religious connection when the mad murderer also happens to be a Muslim.

A Senate committee, headed by Joe Lieberman, asserted that "The enemy – Islamist extremists – must be labelled correctly and explicitly ... in order for the military to counter the extremism."

Recently, while commenting on the protesters in Egypt, several reporters referred to the Muslim Brotherhood as extremists.

Professor Sami Hamod says that the Muslim Brotherhood originated as a tool of America. How can they be extremists?

It seems that members of groups opposed to US interference in the Middle East get labelled Islamic extremists.

Palestinians trying to protect their property have been dubbed Muslim extremists, even when they're Christians.

According to Western broadcasters, all members of Hamas and Hezbollah automatically qualify as Islamic extremists.

The entire population of Iran seems to have qualified as Islamic extremists because Iran refuses to cow-tow to Israel and America.

Syria and Lebanon, despite non-Muslim populations, have been dubbed Islamist extremists because they have failed to sign peace treaties with Israel.

So-called Islamic extremists have forced the king of Jordan to fire his entire cabinet. In Yemen, they provided the impetus for Ali Abdullah Saleh to announce that he won't run for re-election. Both instances were obviously meant to stave off popular rebellions.

Despite the fact that Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the departed president of Tunisia, were both dictators hated by their publics, the rebellions have been referred to as the work of Islamic terrorists.

Recently Tony Blair warned the West that it must abandon its "wretched posture of apology" towards Islamic extremism.

Newscasters, reporters, commentators, politicians and leaders, infected with religious bigotry, need urgent rehabilitation.

* 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.

By Steve Amsel * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Did you hear about the 'kidnapping' of passengers on a Flotilla to Gaza? Did you hear about 'ransom demands' by the 'captain' of the ship?

NO???

Just what I thought.... you know why? It's all BS!

Nothing but a cheap and slimy way to get the attention of the press... but it does not seem to be working.

The entire 'drama' seems to have been unfolded on FaceBook of all places. The 'actors' on board the ship were strongly advised by responsible activists not to disseminate false information to the press.... but this was met by the stubborn continuation of same.

The first report of the 'incident' was in the Guardian... BUT that is NOT the Guardian that we are all acquainted with, it appears to be nothing but a cheap supermarket tabloid. The only mention of this in the Palestinian press was THIS Ma'an report. The Israeli press would jump on this story to discredit the Movement if there was any validity to it.... but it didn't. Just THIS report from YNet which echoes the others... THIS Reuters report appeared in HaAretz.... same as the other. Ask yourselves why it's not headline news in the press here...
BBC News aired the 'story' ..... listen to it carefully...

Now, let me ask you a few questions...

Do you think that a 'reliable' shipping company would not take money in advance for such a mission? With all the problems the past Flotillas have had with piracy and thievery, do you think this shipping company would risk holding that amount of cash on board, in the pocket of the 'captain' risking it being stolen by the Israelis?

I THINK NOT....

Would YOU board a ship that is potentially unsafe knowing there is a good chance of it being rammed or hijacked by the Israeli Navy?

I THINK NOT!

The Movement to Free Gaza has many enemies, most notably the Israeli government. WE DO NOT NEED ENEMIES WITHIN THE MOVEMENT!
We do not need grand standers or people with 'Rambo' complexes. We need Humanitarian Aid!
We need medicines, we need building materials, we need hospital equipment!!

We need to see an end to the siege of Gaza NOW!!!
If you are joining an Aid Flotilla for the adventure of it or to discredit the Movement, stay home!
If you have a martyr complex and want your name in the headlines, stay home!

Don't rely on the commercial media or FaceBook to get the truth about ANYTHING, especially not about aid to Gaza. That's what we are here for .... honest reporting and integrity!

UPDATE 1: Not only did the foul deeds committed on this ship not get the press attention they wanted... it is actually backfiring on them as their lies are exposed... BY THE VERY PRESS THEY HOPED WOULD HELP THEM...

Two Reports, both worth reading are linked here:

• Gaza activists willingly on ship from Libya-ship manager
• Activists tried to hijack ship to Gaza: owners

Not only is this a ship of fools, they think we all are fool enough to believe their saga at sea… Perhaps they can sell their story to the Enquirer.

* Steve Amsel is a Jewish active peace and civil rights worker living in Israel. He can be reached at manopeace@gmail.com

THE PHONY PRESS, SEX, SIN AND WAR

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has asked for a UN investigation of 9/11. For this, he has been branded a "wingnut" and "evildoer" by the American press. However, the 9/11 Commission itself asked for a criminal investigation, saying it uncovered a conspiracy and was prevented from getting the truth. They were quickly silenced. 9 years later, top scientists from around the world, supported by engineers, architects, military and intelligence officials agree on one thing. What thing is that? We will never know. Reporting that "one thing" would be the last thing any member of the press would ever do. A day later, they would become unpaid bloggers and have their name on the "no fly" list. Do things like this happen? How long did CNN's Rick Sanchez last after pointing out that Jon Stewart's fanatic pro-Israel bias is a form of "bigotry?"

Let's take a second to look at Ahmadinejad. Nearly daily stories hit newspapers around the world, "Iran is 15 minutes from being a nuclear power." Ahmadinejad threatens to "wipe Israel off the map." "Ahmadinejad supports a new holocaust."

The press, of course, continually reviles Ahmadinejad as a terrorist and mass murderer. What he isn't, however, is a liar. Every time it comes down to checking on who is telling the truth, Ahmadinejad or the press, it turns out Ahmadinejad is telling the truth. How can this be possible?

Well, a couple of things come into play. First of all, the press purposefully distorts what is said. The press lies, lies consistently. There is no nuclear program in Iran, not a weapons program. There is no credible information that varies from this fact, yet the press continually takes a line here and a statement there, out of context, and tries to build a case for war. Why is the press doing this? The answer is simply, Israelis control the American press and want the United States to destroy Iran, not because it is a military threat. It is technically impossible for Iran to attack Israel, every military expert in the world knows that and all have said it.

That will never be reported either.

Why is Ahmadinejad reviled with such venom? The answer is simple. He is being made an example. Anyone who speaks up, disagrees with reality as defined by the media, not any government, mind you, but the media that tells those in every government what they can and can't say or think, risks destruction. There is a clear methodology here. Let's look at some issues the press doesn't like very much, starting with our favorite, the villain of all time, Mr. Adolf Hitler.

Hitler got his start, speaking up much like Ahmadinejad. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles opened up Germany for abuse by financial criminals. However, it even started before that. Germany tried to quit the war in 1916 when it was winning. Britain and France refused, not on their own, but because the Rothschilds cut financial deals with them and promised to bring the United States into the war. 5 million more Europeans died along with nearly 200,000 Americans.

The Rothschilds got the Balfour Declaration, giving them a base to control Middle East oil, the Suez Canal and India, the things that the wars nearly a century later are being manipulated to bring about.

Communism took over Russia. Nearly every communist leader was Jewish and Zionist. Even today, every Russian "oligarch" is a Jew and Zionist. Hitler said that "communism' was the real Jewish religion. He believes he saved Germany from communism when he was elected chancellor. The country he took over had been economically destroyed through currency manipulation. A loaf of bread cost billions of Marks at one point. The currency was devalued by the Rothschilds supported by France and Britain, by force. Cash smuggled out of the country by the ton and reimbursed at full value, at gunpoint, stripping Germany clean, starvation, humiliation and, eventually, that nasty "right wing" government the world had so much trouble with, the Third Reich.

During the 1920s, when the French and British, really the Rothschilds, were destroying Germany, 80% of the property was foreclosed on and bought by, well, do we say it? Jews? Bought for pennies. This is the "billions" in property the Nazi's seized. Not a simple story when you get to hear all of it. An excuse, Auschwitz, Gaza, are there excuses for inhumanity?

This is all true. This is history. This will never be reported. Not only will this be kept secret but the fact that the Zionist groups that wanted Palestine settled by Jews supported Hitler and worked closely with him, not just in 1927 but as late as 1945. This is also historical fact, not conjecture.

So, lets go back to Ahmadinejad. Why would he have a "Holocaust Conference" in Tehran? Serious students of history that don't have to live off a university paycheck, telling the same myths and lies term after term all know what Ahmadinejad knows. They also know that there are some nasty secrets about the holocaust. The real reason, however, is to anger Israel. Why? Israel pretty much hates everyone, is arrogant, obnoxious and predatory.

Since Israel controls, not only the press but the world banking system, all major banks being "children" of the original Rothschilds banks, including and especially the Federal Reserve which controls the American economy, the idea that Israel may have "fictionalized" the holocaust in collusion with Josef Stalin of Russia, a mass murderer well beyond anything Hitler ever imagined, interested Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad never said there wasn't a holocaust. He simply asked for an honest and accurate historical assessment of the facts.

Israel went into a total panic. Israel was hiding a terrible secret about the holocaust. They still are. We don't know what it is, I won't even hazard a guess. We do know that millions were spent, tens of millions in bribe money to have laws passed suppressing any study of the holocaust. In 11 western nations, questioning the Israeli version, one that changes hourly it seems, is a crime.

So, what was Ahmadinejad's game? He was simply telling Israel that "he knew." Knew "what?" We don't know and may never find out but it is something horribly discrediting to Israel, so threatening that they would stage a nuclear attack to keep it secret. We all agree there were camps. We all agree the Nazis were bad. What could it be? It is something that Iran uses to blackmail Israel, that and the fact that China, a major military power, a massive nuclear power, quietly stands behind Iran. Nobody is supposed to know it. We all know it.

WHY SOME REALLY NEED TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT WWJD, WHAT JESUS WOULD REALLY DO...

Let's broaden things a bit. How do you tell if a Christian is a total phony or not? There is a standard question:

"Who was Mary Magdalene?"

If the answer you get uses the word "whore," you know you are dealing with someone whose religious education came from urban legends and comic books. If you are told she was an associate of Jesus cured of "demons" you have a student of the canon gospels. If you get a complex story of priest schools, a possible marriage of Jesus and Magdalene, Magdalene's own gospel, her sainthood and death in France, you may have a religious scholar on your hands.

Yet today, you can turn on your radio and hear dozens if not hundreds of radio stations, all blaring the same tune, "nuclear Armageddon...Obama the Muslim....Ground Zero Mosque.......family values....and how Magdalene was the "whore of Babylon."

The experts are all the same. Their name starts with Doctor." They have a degree in "Divinity Studies" from a college that can't be found on a satellite survey. What their 8 years of religious education and decades of bible study, some claim over 12 hours a day, they continue to harp on about Magdalene and her sins. Where did they get their ideas? From a Mel Gibson movie perhaps? Perhaps we could refer to the King James Version of the Bible as a reference:

Mt 27:56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children.
Mt 27:61 And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.
Mt 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
Mr 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
Mr 15:47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.
Mr 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
Mr 16:9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
Lu 8:2 And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
Lu 24:10 It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
Joh 19:25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
Joh 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
Joh 20:18 Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

This is every biblical reference to Mary Magdalene, quoting the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. What do we prove? Do we prove that the religious education of most Americans is based on Hollywood films? Dozens of films have depicted Mary Magdalene as a whore. Why would the film industry do this? Who runs the film industry? If I answer my own question, will I lose my job?

Christian Zionism: The Tragedy & The Turning, Part 1 from WHTT on Vimeo.

This week, dozens of stories of 9 year old brides in Yemen hit the papers. In fact, stories of the sexual abuses of Islam fill the papers in Western Europe and America. Sex sells papers and there is nothing that the same ethnic group that owns both Hollywood and America's newspapers loves more than sex and that's money. Are we being unfair, perhaps even bigoted? Yes, perhaps we might be with some exceptions. One of these is that the other group constantly attacked is Christians. Hardly a day goes by without the poor old German pope's photo next to a headline describing child rape.

Do we see those same headlines in the same papers as stories about Israeli organ theft rings? Oh, you mean you don't know that Israel has a huge industry tied to the theft and trade of human organs? Perhaps you might think this was an urban legend, you might think that, had you ever seen it reported.

Has anyone ever seen a news story about Jewish law and how it applies to pedophiles? Nothing? Curious. One of the few to speak up is Reverend Ted Pike. Here is some of what he has to say:

This year, top Israeli Rabbi Moti Elon was indicted by police for sex crimes against minors. "Far from being the rabbi of an obscure Hasidic sect, the charismatic Elon is a high-profile leader, educator and media personality, representing the more mainstream religious Zionists and former head of the renowned HaKotel (Western Wall) Yeshiva. He comes from a family of high achievers in law, politics and academia that has drawn comparisons with the Kennedy clan."

In 2006, Elon was restricted by an organization of rabbis in his contact with students, after confessing to sexual relationships with male students. Yet he continued to act as the president of a Talmudic academy in Jerusalem and did not fully honor the agreement. One Ha'aretz commentary says Elon "managed to turn himself into almost a kind of saint" –a fate certainly to be envied by American religious figures turned pedophiles.

Dr. Aviad Hacohen, dean of the Sha'arei Mishpat College, in 2007 reported that "95% of sexual offenses in Jerusalem were performed by the religious and haredi." "Several years ago, I began looking into the issue on a data-based level," said Hacohen. "It turned out that the law enforcement authorities, both the police and the prosecutor's office, were aware of the data but refused to expose it based on sectorial affiliation in order to avoid branding a certain group in the population..."

Since the following article was written in 2006, cases of Jewish leadership figures in Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism being involved in homosexuality or pedophilia scandals continue to mount not only in Israel, but in New York, where Ultra-Orthodox are strongest. The reason is simple: some of the very greatest rabbis who wrote the Talmud were pedophiles.

So, after a busy day reading the news, 9 year old brides in Yemen, women being stoned in Iran or the unending perfidies of the Catholic Church with its list of priest rape victims at 2 million and counting, reported much as though it were a sign counting "burgers sold" at a fast food restaurant, I find nothing in the "news" about such problems in the Jewish community, even though, as we read above, the scandals are real, pervasive and very noteworthy. I would think the arrest of Israel's top Rabbi for sex crimes would be reported.

It wasn't.

We are told daily, nearly hourly, the the Koran supports sex crimes and is unique among religious works for its "impurity." News networks in America actually encourage Koran burning, networks owned by Israeli's we admit, but American in some ways, at least some of the personnel are American citizens, still, at least. So, is there a problem in the Talmud that is being covered up, a problem that has driven the media to continually attack Islam while failing to look closer to home? Let's take a look:

R. Joseph said: Come and hear! A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition and if her deceased husband's brother cohabits with her, she becomes his. (Sanh. 55b)

A girl who is three years of age and one day may be betrothed by cohabitation. . . .(Yeb. 57b)

A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabited with her she becomes his. (Sanh. 69a, 69b, also discussed in Yeb. 60b)

It was taught: R. Simeon b. Yohai stated: A proselyte who is under the age of three years and one day is permitted to marry a priest, for it is said, But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves, and Phineas (who was priest, the footnote says) surely was with them. (Yeb. 60b)

[The Talmud says such three year and a day old girls are] . . . fit for cohabitation. . . But all women children, that have not known man by lying with him, it must be concluded that Scripture speaks of one who is fit for cohabitation. (Footnote to Yeb. 60b)

Where, in our news, do we read that a 9 year old girl would be considered an "old maid" in the Talmud? Have we proven bias and bigotry? When is the last time Jon Stewart talked about sex with three year olds? His audience would love hearing about it and I am sure he has some good "one liners" he could use. Can you see his smirk as he describes the physiological aspects alone? You are saying it would be in bad taste, something he would never do. Have you really seen his show?

Let's imagine Jon Stewart, "How about those rabbi's, can't you just picture it? A 3 year old? Like King Kong with a yamaka putting a move on Barbie."

How about Howard Stern? He has hour after hour attacking the sexual ills of Islam. Can you imagine how popular he will be when he starts pulling in callers screaming about the Talmud and sex with three year olds or the sex crimes of the rabbis, even higher by percentage than priests.

Imagine where Howard Stern would go with this. I'd rather not. "What did the rabbi say to the kindergartener?"

Is an Islamophobe a bigot? Is a Jew who rants about the sins of sex and Islam not only a bigot but a hypocrite as well? Am I going to be fired for saying this?

It isn't just that members of the press, our congress and 95% of our military are corrupt, moderate to severe, along with being functionally delusional. They believe everyone else is even dumber. When 300 billion goes missing in Iraq, they don't think we know who got it and that they all got a piece of the action? How could this much money disappear, news stories covering it, GAO accounting docs proving it but nobody notices that there are no hearings, no grand jury, no indictments.

The new rule in Washington, "if you steal it, you keep it."

Years ago, congress was attacked for passing the Patriot Acts, laws filled with unconstitutional provisions, some already overturned even by our Hitleresque Supreme Court. Here we sit, a new broom in the White House, freedoms restored, or are they? Government police from unspecified agencies whose powers and mandates are clearly outside the scope of any law, can arrest and detain anyone and do, not only disregarding color, race or ethnicity but guilt or innocence also. Anyone can be arrested, detained, shipped anywhere in the world, tortured, raped, murdered. It is done every day.

Ask the press. You say they don't care?

Remember when we learned that Stan McChrystal and Dick Cheney were running death squads under something called the JSOC? Now, years later, we find that our death squads are still out there, some official, some simply making it up as they go along. If you want to throw a hand grenade under a school bus, go ahead. If you want to open fire on civilians from your helicopter, simply mouth a few military sounding phrases, hit the button and sent a few hundred pounds of depleted uranium into a residential neighborhood.

Then again, you can fly into Pakistan and kill a few of their troops at a border checkpoint like was done last week, seemingly on a whim. Who needs Pakistan anyway? Isn't Peru still with us, part of the remains of the old Bush/Cheney coalition of the willing, the blackmailed, the bought and paid for?

Now no more gasoline for trucking the opium crop to the heroin processing facilities south of Kandahar or to the airfields in Balochistan for shipment to Western Europe or North America. As the press about this? Oh, you are saying they know, have written stories about this but were told they won't be "embedded" anymore unless they tone down the "self righteousness."

Remember the torture controversy? How about this one, did you know that 95% of the "terrorists" arrested during the Bush administration were found "innocent?" How about Pat Tillman, the former football player who joined the Army but became disenchanted with what he was seeing in Afghanistan. The press said nothing when he died a "war hero." Then he suddenly became a victim of an innocent and childish accident, not at all dissimilar to the accidents the Kennedy brothers suffered back in the 1960s.

The press is still buying the "accident' story even though the closely grouped head shots that killed Tillman were a "one in 10 billion" accident.

Before the Army is done, Tillman will have shot himself in the head 4 times and then, as usual, disposed of the weapon. You don't want to know how many accidents like this the Army has. You don't have to worry, you'll never find out about it anyway.

The press is still falling all over themselves for eventually figuring out that Tillman wasn't killed by the Taliban. All they had to do was read the coroners report, you know the one, it said "murder" on it.

What is the news? Anymore, we might as well get press releases sent directly to our I-Phones and cut out the jokers in the middle. Can you imagine, millions of Americans have Islam explained to them by a former Mossad public relations officer named Wolf Blitzer. (Jerusalem Press/CNN)

I wouldn't trust Blitzer doing a weather report, certainly not sports scores.

Remember a week ago, Benjamin Netanyahu, former furniture salesman now running Israel, the "American hating" extremist, demanded that we release spy Jonathan Pollard?

Remember that Congressman Barney Frank immediately ran to his side?

The press reports that Pollard was jailed for life because he "gave Israel information on PLO locations, information America failed to share."

Not one word of this is true. OK, one word, there is a person named Jonathan Pollard. Thus far, this is the only thing the press reported properly.

Pollard never gave anyone anything, he sold it. Nothing went TO Israel, Pollard and the State of Israel were spying FOR the Soviet Union AGAINST the United States.

The information was: (this has been confirmed)

• The identities of all CIA agents and the full NOC list, agents of "non official cover" (A movie was made about this, Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible)
• Full NATO defense plans in case of Soviet Attack
• Full information including strategic vulnerability assessments on what would be needed to defeat the United States in a nuclear war
• Design specifics on all American nuclear weapons and delivery systems
• America's military and diplomatic codes

This information was sold by Pollard to controllers in Israel who then sold it to the Soviet Union. We have learned that because of this information a couple of things happened:

• The Soviet Union came close to a nuclear "first strike" on the United States
• Over 100 CIA agents were executed after extensive torture
• Over 1500 "intelligence assets" were rounded up, tortured and interrogated, then killed behind the Iron Curtain
• America lost all ability to use intelligence to defend itself from the Soviet Union
• America's strategic capabilities were diminished by over 50%, with many ‘capabilities' totally unviable
• 15 years of weapons research was lost
• Several weapons systems were totally compromised including our stealth aircraft and nuclear submarines

However, when Barney Frank and his furniture salesman buddy, the one who continually brags about how stupid Americans are and how he can get them to do anything he wants, publicly demanded this monster, Pollard, be set free, the press was silent. The furniture salesman was right, about the press anyway, he can get them to do anything he wants.

Netanyahu wasn't serious about Pollard, he simply brings it up, from time to time, when he has a need to humiliate the United States, reminding them how naive and gullible they are as a people and how corrupt their military and government are.

There are no worries about the press. In fact, even though military and intelligence sources have leaked, for years, how serious the Pollard disaster really was for America, the press loves telling the same old Israeli yarn, the poor country of holocaust victims trying to protect themselves from uncaring America, their "bestest friend" and ally that they have to keep on a "short leash."

Can we think of something else the press has overlooked? Back in 2007, the American economy imploded. Prior to that, America ran up trillions of dollars of secret debt. We call it secret because no news ever reported it or its consequences. Debt is the clearest indicator of economic health. The levels of debt during the Bush years, a president who took office with a budget surplus, reached beyond epidemic proportions yet nothing was ever reported, not in such a way as to make the public aware the nation was going bankrupt.

In 2007, America hit full default, totally broke, dead, gone, bankrupt. Savings disappeared, retirement systems collapsed, markets plummeted and "blue chip" stocks became worthless. How did the news respond? They claimed that a small non-profit called ACORN, a group that worked registering voters, had caused the collapse. Proving this, we were told, a Republican party operative trained at an Israeli intelligence school, had "debunked" the entire crisis.

ACORN did it. According to America's right wing, fronting for the pan-Israeli banking cartel, a few dozen $30,000 dollar home loans managed to run up $3,000,000,000,000 in debt. Maybe it was extra fees or ‘handling charges?'

Then we learned that none of this happened and that trillions of dollars were stolen by a series of "banks" tied to the Rothschilds, run by Israeli Americans and long involved in massive criminal fraud in full collusion with the Bush administration, coordinating wars, defense fraud, bilking the economy and suspending constitutional rights, in a concerted effort, Bush, Cheney, Israel, the Rothschilds and their creature, the Federal Reserve System, permanently sinking America in a "Pearl Harbor" that made 9/11 tame in comparison.

So, where are these people, the "coalition of corruption," the "banksters" and the corrupt politicians? How many are in jail? Thousands? Bernie Madoff only?

What did the American press have to say? Anything? A story here, one there.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

By Anthony Lawson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Whatever happened on the Mavi Marmara on the morning of 31 May 2010, the BBC's Panorama team failed to give a balanced view of it in its so-called documentary, 'Death in the Med'. Even the title sounds more like that of a paperback mystery, rather than a serious analysis of Israel's worst atrocity since Operation Cast Lead.

Documentaries should be truthful and informative and expand our understanding of situations and events; their content should be rigorously checked for errors in statements which are presented as facts and conjecture, and the personal opinions of their writers and presenters should be explicitly identified as such. But 'Death in the Med' failed any test based on those parameters.

The BBC's television and radio services reach an audience measured in hundreds of millions, worldwide, but are primarily funded by taxes and licence fees paid by the British public; not by Israel or its influential friends. The BBC's biased and often untruthful treatment of Israel's worst atrocity since Operation Cast Lead should trigger a public enquiry about who is really in charge of one of the most influential broadcaster's on the planet.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afBr10f38TI

* Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson) is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn’t find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

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.

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

Born and raised in America, I learned that my country was built on outstanding principles propped up by a great constitution. When I saw those principles violated and the constitution ignored, I complained. At times, I was told to shut up.

The Vietnam War was well underway when I started teaching at a California university. I learned as much as I could about the war, believed it was wrong and joined the protesters. My untenured position was at risk for joining the peaceniks.

I also learned that Arabs and Israelis were more alike than different when expressing their antagonism toward each other. One of each happened to be in a class I was teaching. Each would sidle up to me, separately and at different times, to explain what was wrong with the other.

The Israeli told me how Arabs wanted to drive Israelis into the sea. The Arab explained how Arabs and Jews had lived in harmony for centuries in Palestine; and he couldn't understand why the Israelis were stealing their land.

Assuring me that they were threatened, the Israeli reminded me of how 6 million Jews suffered the fate of a holocaust in Germany. He even argued that Israel was under constant threat from millions of Arabs surrounding his people.

Telling me how groups called the Stern Gang and Irgun were terrorists who slaughtered both British and Palestinians, the Arab explained that thousands fled their lands after Israelis massacred hundreds of Palestinians in the village of Dair Yassin.

Thus, it has evolved for years, with most Israelis believing a myth that they have an absolute right to Palestine, and many Arabs under an illusion that America or Europe will put things right some day.

Learning what had been happening in Palestine, and was still happening, I discovered that my country was supporting the wrong side in the conflict between a heavily armed Israel and Palestinians with stones and sling shots. Jewish friends in America told me to shut up.

To make matters worse, the Western media has presented a distorted view of the story. Arabs have been vilified in the media for decades, while Israel has been generally portrayed in the most favourable light.

I discovered how Americans had been brainwashed by media propaganda distorting the facts, ruining peace efforts and supporting theft of land and murder of innocent civilians. I discovered this same media would never publish the truth. Commentators who have been outspoken about many other issues had been told to shut up.

Since the sanctions and invasion of Iraq, I have bemoaned the more than a million Iraqi lives lost along with America's 4000 dead and 10's of thousands wounded, all to satisfy Israel by yielding to their control of our media and our government.
Warmongers want to silence me.

I have bewailed the disastrous handling of Afghanistan and the threat of war with Iran, again to satisfy Israel’s urge to control the Middle East completely. Zionist supporters tell me to shut up.

It's not my business to criticise other countries unless mine is supporting their genocide, rape or slaughter of innocents. For that criticism, a few people have told me to shut up.

It's my patriotic duty, however, to criticize my own country where there's injustice, inhuman cruelty, bigotry, brainwashing or disinformation inadequately revealed in any major media.

Are any of the labels hoisted on me true? Some are. I am a rebel, but not without a cause. I am dedicated to exposing injustice, inhuman cruelty, disinformation and bigotry.

Don’t tell me to shut up.

* 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.

By Anait Brutian* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

by Jeremy Nell

Ray McGovern is not the only one to openly criticize the "Zionist Media." Saeed Shabazz of The Final Call, describing the Zionist influence on the Western press, claimed that "most of the press core at the U.N.," "if not Zionist sympathizers," "are Zionist." "The reporting that you're getting" from the New York Times, AP, Reuters, CNN is controlled by the Zionists. Relating his experience from two years ago, during the horrific attack on Gaza, Shabazz said that he had "silent battles" with Zionist reporters because "they were in complicity with what went on in Gaza." "Right now it's the same attitude; so you're not going to get anything called balanced reporting." "Don't expect the New York Times, don't expect any of them to give you the truth. They cannot give you the truth; they are not allowed to give you the truth."

The fact that the Western Media is controlled by Zionists is adamantly dismissed by Zionist sympathizers. In a debate with Noam Chomsky, Alan Dershowitz, a staunch supporter of the Zionist State, argued that since certain news items were not reported by the U.S. media under both Democrat and Republican administrations, "they just never happened." "To hide the truth from the American public just doesn't bear reality." Dershowitz blamed Chomsky of unjustifiably accusing the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, or the New York Times for not telling the truth. Typical to the Zionist manner of diverting attention from the reality by discrediting the messenger of truth, he engaged in personal insults and name calling, tagging Chomsky's claims as "figments of Chomsky's imagination" and mockingly suggesting that "in order to get the true meaning of the world you have to move to planet Chomsky, where the news reflects his perspective on reality." Dershowitz' overt anger betrays the Zionist attitude towards the critics of Western media. The control of the media, painstakingly achieved through money and manipulation, would not serve its objective, if critics like Ray McGovern, Saeed Shabazz and Noam Chomsky were to question its truthfulness. Discrediting the critics of the mainstream media allows the Zionists to continue manipulating public opinion. And this is what Dershowitz' plea to his young university audience – "I urge you to move to the real world, read the real news, don't read the selective Israeli journalists that he [Chomsky] talks about" – stands for.

Zionists' manipulation of the media doesn't stop at controlling the news items that make to the front pages of the newspapers. It is also actively engaged in deliberately misrepresenting reality, distorting facts and fabricating news. Israel's preposterous accusation relating to the Freedom Flotilla is a case in point. Calling the members of the Freedom Flotilla terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, Israel completely ignored the very important fact that the passengers onboard the ships included people, whose age ranged from 0 to 88. A child barely a year old and an old man of 88 are unlikely candidates for "ties to global Jihad, Al-Qaeda and Hamas" as Israel's deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon claimed. Similarly, an exiled archbishop of Eastern Catholic Church of Jerusalem, MPs, doctors, paramedics, humanitarian aid workers don't seem to fit the profile of a global Jihadist.

Israel's outrageous accusation that there were terrorists on board the ships, designed to fool the public into believing that the massacre on Mavi Marmara took place in Self-Defence, is clearly denied by Viva Palestina coordinator Kevin Ovenden who explained that the attack took place in "indisputably international waters." "We were 70-80 miles off the coast of Israel. The internationally recognized limit is 22 miles, within which a country can claim that they have territorial sovereignty." Confiscating "every single camera, computer, mobile phone belonging to people aboard the ships," Israeli authorities produced pictures of their own, claiming that "knives were used as weapons." According to Kevin Ovenden, "the knives that they show were quite simply taken from the kitchen by the Israelis to claim that knives were used as weapons." Ovenden's evaluation that the story "won't wash anywhere in the world" as Self-Defence is accurate, but one should not underestimate the power of propaganda that has been going on for years both in the United States and Israel.

Israel's strong influence on its national media means that Israeli citizens will not see the world's outrage against the IDF's killing of nine civilians onboard Mavi Marmara. Ehud Shem Tov of Israeli Social TV explains that "all Israeli military correspondents worked in the army and there is a deep connection between them because they rely on the army for contacts and access to information." According to Mr. Shem Tov, "the IDF controlled the way the Flotilla videos were represented in the media. They chose to release it one by one, so they could make their message clear. They also seized all the footage from the Flotilla, so they could control it. Definitely, there are videos the IDF is not releasing."

But the videos the IDF did release are all too familiar to the world. They show passengers beating up IDF soldiers – by all means an impossible feat because those heavily armed soldiers belonged to an elite group of commandos trained to withstand military opposition, let alone the resistance of unarmed civilians. These days, LT. Aliza Landes, the New Media Head of IDF's Foreign Press Branch, faces heavy criticism because one of the images posted by IDF showed military equipment Israel claimed belonged to the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara. To offset the angry reaction of the world, Israel came up with an "explanation." LT. Landes said that the camera used by one of the photographers had a technical problem which resulted in an old picture from 1998, appearing as a recent one. But the "explanation," a cover-up of sorts, would not have been necessary if the world had been less vigilant in noticing the "mistake." Similar to other preposterous Israeli claims, this one would have passed as unalterable truth.

Looking at the images of an Israeli newspaper, Prof. Tamar Liebes of Department of Communication at Hebrew University calls the media "a very bad trap," "a terrible trap." Blogger and Film-maker Danny Schechter explains: "Israel is in the business of manipulating public opinion. It's been in that business for ... forty or fifty years. They're very smart about how to create a media narrative, how to present themselves as the victims in almost every ... instance, and how to ... portray anyone else as the aggressor, even perhaps, anti-Semitic."

Confiscating the existing footage from the passengers of Freedom Flotilla, doctoring the audio of the raid, controlling the images it put on the IDF website, Israel attempted to manipulate public opinion as it had done in the past. Indeed, victimhood helped to create the necessary support for this "Illegal Settler State imposed on the Arab world, implanted at the crossroads of Asia and Africa." But Israel's show of victimhood will not silence international community. Legal authorities around the world dismiss Israel's claims of Self-Defence arguing that at the time of the attack, the humanitarian ships were in international waters. The director of Justice International S. Mohyeddeen Wahed explains that since international waters are used by all nations, Israel has violated Turkey's right to navigate in international waters, when boarding Mavi Marmara. Moreover, by killing Turkish civilians on board a Turkish ship, Israel has technically declared war on Turkey. Unlike the doctored audio and video footage, these facts won't wash away easily. Israel's 62 years of premeditated slow genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has suddenly dawned at the world. But, it doesn't seem to have affected Israel's relationship with its main supporter, the United States.

According to Jeremy M. Sharp, a Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. "From 1976 to 2004, Israel was the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance" and "since 1985 the United States has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel." "In August 2007, the Bush Administration announced that it would increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the next decade." The Obama Administration requested $2.775 billion in FMF (Foreign Military Financing). At present, most of the U.S. bilateral aid to Israel takes the form of military assistance. But Israel also received "significant economic assistance" from the U.S., in the past. Mr. Sharp observes that "strong congressional support for Israel" has resulted in "benefits not available to other counties." This statement explains Israel's insistence on continuing the manipulation of the U.S. media with more ferocity than the media of any other country in the world.

The "strong congressional support," enjoyed by Israel at the moment, largely depends on two factors: the commitment of the politicians to the Zionist cause of conquest disguised as Self-Defence, and the perpetual manipulation of public opinion. Brenda Stokely of the Million Worker March Movement explains: "We have to find popular ways to counteract the lies." The way to "break the silence is by arming people with information." Information is what Israel and its supporters do not tolerate. The Freedom Flotilla raid, resulting in the confiscation of almost all photographic and video equipment, first and foremost was aimed at suppressing the flow of information, especially truthful information Israel considers hostile to its grand manipulative designs. The "Illegal Settler State," visibly imposed on the Arab world, invisibly imposed itself on the United States, the largest democracy in the world.

Reporting the recent bombing raids in Gaza and the death of the 16 Palestinians would hurt the victimhood make-believe. Instead, the victimhood farce was successfully presented at the United Nations in New York by the Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Monday June 21, 2010. "For Israel, the Gaza Strip today is an Iranian military base three kilometres from the closest Israeli city, and 60 kilometres from Tel Aviv." Calling the Freedom Flotilla a "pure provocation," Barak bluntly denied the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, let alone admitting that Gaza is "an open-air concentration camp": "The ships that were organized throughout the last few weeks to ‘break the blockade', are actually pure provocation, since there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip." Playing the role of a benefactor, Barak claimed that "Every day Israel provides, in addition to electricity and water, approximately 150 trucks loaded with equipment, and not only humanitarian aid products. Therefore, any international group or organization interested in sending additional aid, is welcome to do so through the Ashdod port, which in accordance with an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, is also used for the needs of the Gaza Strip."

Barak's blunt lies are not difficult to dismiss. But breaking the silence takes more than that. Israel's premeditated atrocities against the Palestinians and its manipulation of the media must be brought to light. The Zionists' cumulative catalogue of crimes, openly exposed to the world will serve as a wakeup call if not for the politicians but at least for the people that have been held "ignorant, blind, deaf, dumb and stupid," to keep them silent. Armed with information, people will hold their elected representatives accountable for supporting the "Illegal Settler State" with taxpayers' money. Armed with information, people will hold Israel accountable for "the murder of a nation." Armed with information, people will fight for American Democracy long hijacked by the Zionist media.

* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music. She can be contacted at anaitbrutian@videotron.ca

By James M. Rockefeller* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Zionist operatives ambushed veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, a friend and a great American. When they won, America lost.

When reviewing the unedited video of her "interview," what you see is a rabbi rephrasing her answers to a question about Israel. Her response: "They should get the hell out of Palestine." The United Nations long ago endorsed that stance.

It was not Thomas but the rabbi that offended the Jewish community. Language cited as "anti-Semitic" came not from her but from responses that the rabbi restated as leading questions. She simply spoke the truth: Jewish settlers should leave the occupied territories and, as she rightly said: "go home."

The rabbi, an operative for the Anti-Defamation League, knew what he was doing when he ensnared this frail and distinguished 89-year old journalist. The ADL and other Zionist strategists have long sought her removal from this influential position.

This operation was carried out as part of Jewish Heritage Week, a first in White House history. Nothing was said about the perils to which America has long been subjected due to its entangled alliance with the Jewish state.

The campaign to force Thomas' removal was led by former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. Recall that Fleischer is the Zionist insider who repeatedly insisted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

How did those seeking recognition for their "Jewishness" repay the trust of a nation and its people? Zionist operatives targeted the only reporter who challenged Israel's nuclear weapons program. By bushwhacking her on the White House lawn, Zionists reconfirmed that they are, in fact, in control.

No one dared mention how Zionist Heritage has ravaged America from within. Or how Zionism was aided by a series of pathetic presidents and advisers offering their unflinching support for an increasingly unstable Israeli leadership.

The Tel Aviv Two-Step

In the same news cycle when the current White House press secretary portrayed Thomas' remarks as "reprehensible," nothing was said about the Turkish-American teenager shot in the head when Israeli forces boarded a Gaza relief flotilla. As "our" media fixated on Ms. Thomas, the public's attention was diverted from that murder.

What is reprehensible is this: no U.S. journalist has shown the courage to challenge a U.S. president on Israel. When President Obama gave his first news conference, it was Helen Thomas who asked which country in the Middle East has nuclear weapons. Rather than reply, he did the Tel Aviv Two-Step and avoided her question.

That's a key reason an ADL operative targeted her. The strategic objective: to serve notice that NO ONE can pose honest questions about the many perils that the U.S.-Israel "special relationship" poses to the security of the U.S. and other nations.

Why Now?

When the latest "terrorist incident" fizzled in Times Square, the U.N. was then advancing an agenda pursued by President John F. Kennedy in the 1960s: a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. In a historic U.N. vote, even the U.S. agreed-over Israeli objections-to make the Middle East a Nuclear Free Zone.

That treaty would mandate that Israel dismantle its nuclear arsenal. An idealistic young U.S. president was vigorously pursuing that goal when his life was brought to an abrupt end. As the first woman to serve as a White House correspondent, Helen Thomas knew Kennedy as the first of ten presidents she covered over five decades.

This history was well known to those who brought her truth-seeking career to an abrupt end. That's why she was ambushed. She was the last mainstream American journalist who dared question a U.S. President about Israel's nuclear weapons.

Had Zionists not removed her, they knew she would have asked President Obama: "When is the U.S. going to pressure its ally to give up a nuclear arsenal estimated to be in excess 200 nuclear warheads?"

Zionists won this round. No remaining White House correspondent is likely to ask the hard questions about Israel's impact on America's national security interests. ADL operatives, acting on behalf of a foreign government, made sure of it.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama's love fest with the Jewish state continues while Zionist policies persist in undermining America's credibility and endangering U.S. troops abroad.

Today's White House resident resembles previous occupants in his inability to say no to Zionist demands. By his silence, he enabled an agent of a foreign government to silence one of America's most trusted voices covering the White House.

Helen Thomas knows the scope and scale of Zionist operations inside the U.S. She saw it firsthand through ten presidencies from both major U.S. political parties.

By silencing this voice of truth, Israel's goals were advanced. Now the American public can once again be denied the facts they require to make informed choices.

* An international businessman, Mr. Rockefeller resides in Arizona

ISRAELI HOAX VIDEOS DEBUNKED, USS LIBERTY REMEMBRANCE SUPPRESSED

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The second the faked videos were available, cheap edits and voice overs first, Sky News and Fox, both owned by Israeli Likudist Rupert Murdoch, began the disinformation campaign. The "Freedom Flotilla" of peace activists suddenly became an armed Al Qaeda invasion force replete with heavy artillery, dirty bombs and terrorist trainers.

Patched in over the wounded calling for aid was the Israeli soundtrack, "Go Back to Auschwitz." This was played dozens of times before technicians showed it and other Israeli released video and audio from the attack to be counterfeit. With hours of video smuggled out, those tiny memory cards fit in the oddest places, Israel, Fox, Beck and the parade of media who ate up the lies are now delegitimized as are the groups that stood with them in silence.

It isn't just the dubbed audio or the new video showing IDF troops executing wounded. With so many witnesses of unquestionable integrity all saying the same thing, Israel and the media married to them are on the ropes. The belief that any story contrary to the political or economic ties of the corporate owners could easily be tagged as "conspiracy theory" has backfired.

As a result, every media outlet and every anchor and pundit that took a wrong side against this unexpected avalanche is tumbling into obscurity, Wolf Blitzer, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck leading the way.

THE TEA PARTY DILEMMA

Surprisingly, to many, the Tea Party has failed to criticize President Obama's weak response to our failure to chastise Israel. There had been earlier debates on whether the our inability to reign in Israeli extremism was costing American lives in war. That debate is clearly over. Israel has become, not only a massive liability but has shown America to be emasculated.

Even more surprising, as our Israeli lobby is headed by Joe Biden, Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman, the political enemies of America's Tea Party movement, creating one of the most noticeable cases of "strange bedfellows" in recent political history.

Does the covert financing from Fox and AIPAC sources that underwrites Tea Party activities, travel, entertainment and staff limit how patriotic they are allowed to be?

With revelations that Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, hated by the Tea Party as founder of the "modern welfare state," shown to have authorized Israel to killed 300 US Navy personnel because of blackmail tied to a sexual "indiscretion" with a Mossad operative, anyone would think that USS Liberty Remembrance Day would be a good time to remind Americans about the duplicity of liberal democrats.

But there is silence on the USS Liberty issue and, not a word in support of the survivors or in remembrance of the dead. Who is sleeping with the Mossad now?

AMERICA'S CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

With Britain's largest labor union, Unite, boycotting Israel and organizations around the world, even those tyically distanced from any mention of support for Palestinians now openly condemning Israel for everything from piracy to kidnapping and murder, even charges against the Israeli government for fraudulent use of credit cards stolen from Flotilla passengers, the silence from America is deafening.

The United States Senate is planning to vote on a resolution condemning victims of what has been universally characterized as a war crime. Here again, conservatives lead the way, in lockstep with President Obama and his top aide, Rahm Emmanuel.

To dodge international condemnation, President Obama has promised Gaza a $400 million payoff, "blood money" to buy silence for America's unwillingness to an endless series of international conventions including Articles 5 and 6 of the NATO charter.

In fact, no major group in the United States, no veteran's organization, political party, trade union or activist group has challenged Israel.

A KNIFE IN THE BACK OF NATO

Unreported in the American news, the Turkish ship attacked in international waters is, by law, sovereign soil of a NATO signatory state. An attack on such a target is an act of war on NATO itself as outlined in the treaty ratified by the United States Senate.

With one American citizen executed and several kidnapped, some tortured, American sovereignty has, in itself been challenged. After the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, then Undersecretary of State, George Ball said:

"The ultimate lesson of the Liberty attack had far more effect on policy in Israel than America. Israel's leaders concluded that nothing they might do would offend the Americans to the point of reprisal. If America's leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of American citizens it seemed clear that their American friends would let them get away with almost anything." (Undersecretary of State George Ball)

With the keystone of the "Bush Doctrine" the mutual aid provisions of the NATO agreement and America's increased vigilance, even to the point of pugnacity, defending citizens from the actions of rogue nations or terrorist groups anywhere in the world, our "blind eye" to Israeli transgressions, be they murder on the high seas, assassination in Dubai, spying in the Pentagon or "bankster" fraud, has dug a "credibility hole" that America may never be able to crawl out of.

THE DIVERGENT MEDIA, THE MORAL AND THE MORASS

With news outlets around the world, some even in Israel, condemning, not only the brutality of the attack but the criminal and nakedly blatant attempt to "spin" the aftermath, destroying press "assets" enmasse in the process, the corruption of the mainstream media has now been put on display.

Typically, a major blunder by a news organization, even those such as Fox that are continually caught in open fabrication of stories, is lost in the events of the next day or next week. The slow unfolding of the Freedom Flotilla story seems to have fostered a renewal of real investigative journalism, an art thought dead in today's fast moving world.

Millions around the world, tens of millions of Americans have a clear memory of the carefully scripted narrations to the Israeli videos, now known to be, not only edited for context but also suspected of being "reinacted," read "fabricated."

With the mainstream media tied to the scripted limits set by the corporate masters, the real story, the scandal, the sex and violence was left to the internet news outlets, now grown powerful and some too independent, a threat to the Orwellian model.

When balancing between "professional liars" and "conspiracy theorists," it seems like this has been a big win for conspiracy. Where this will lead, many so very deserving need to fear.

* Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet. He has been a featured commentator on TV and radio including Al Jazeera and his articles have been carried by news services around the world. He has been a UN Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues. He is active in the financial industry and is a specialist on global trade. Gordon Duff acts as political and economic advisor to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East. Gordon Duff is currently working on economic development projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan to counter the effects of poverty and global extremism.

Source: veteranstoday.com

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

What were Israel's excuses for hi-jacking the Free Gaza ships in international waters and imprisoning their passengers after gunning down 9 of them and wounding several more?

• There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and
• Israel already allows sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza so the flotilla was "an armada of hate and violence", said Israel's deputy foreign minister.

But according to John Ging, UNWRA director of operations in Gaza, "It's a struggle to survive [with] the infrastructure and water and sanitation in a state of collapse and all that goes with that... People are at their wits' end to understand when all of this will come to an end."

• If the Free Gaza ships delivered the humanitarian cargo to the Israeli port of Ashdod, Israel would ensure it was delivered to Gaza after checking it for arms.

That's very unlikely. The report Failing Gaza: No rebuilding, no recovery, no more excuses by a group of 16 European NGOs, published in December 2009, showed that the Israelis allow only a feeble trickle and what is permitted changes from day to day.

• Israel could not allow the ships into Gaza without searching them for arms that might be of use to Hamas.

There are peaceful alternatives for checking cargoes. Besides, it's time Israel implemented The Agreement on Movement and Access it signed in November 2005, under which it promised to allow its crossings into Gaza to "operate continuously" so that people and goods could move freely.

The agreement also provides for

• the reduction of obstacles to movement within the West Bank
• bus and truck convoys between the West Bank and Gaza
• the building of a new seaport in Gaza
• re-opening of the airport in Gaza

There would then be no need for ships bringing humanitarian aid.

The European Council on 8 December 2009 stated: "The EU again reiterates its calls for an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza. In this context, the Council calls for the full implementation of The Agreement on Movement and Access."

Israel has ignored countless verbal appeals. The EU is in position to twist its arm because it has granted Israel privileged access to European markets under the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the plug can be pulled. These trading advantages are conditional on Israel showing respect for human rights and democratic principles. Compliance is an essential element, not an option.

• Israel's interference with the mercy ships was an act of self-defence against the threat posed by Hamas firing rockets and mortars out of Gaza.

This isn't about rockets. A ceasefire, brokered by Egypt, was negotiated with Hamas in June 2008. Hamas honoured the agreement, firing no rockets and restraining other resistance groups. Israel broke the ceasefire on 4 November by suddenly making a military incursion into Gaza and killing 7 members of Hamas. Operation Cast Lead followed, supposedly to stop the rockets. The deaths of over 1,400 people and the maiming of thousands more were unnecessary. All Israel needed to do was observe the ceasefire. It chose not to.

And whatever Israel may say, the blockade inflicts "collective punishment" on the people of Gaza, which is a violation of international law and Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.

• Hamas wants to destroy Israel.

Not true. Hamas has said it will accept Israel within its internationally-recognised 1967 borders, which is the same position the United Nations has adopted.

• Prime minister Netanyahu now says "dozens of thugs" from what he called "an extremist, terrorism-supporting" organisation were on-board the flotilla.

No evidence has been produced so far.

• Israel is a vibrant democracy.

Actually Israel is a racist ethnocracy, which discriminates in countless vile ways against its Arab minority.

As usual Israel's chief propagandist, Mark Regev, was on hand to give the tragedy the benefit of his spin.

• "We did everything we could to avoid violence... They [the aid workers] chose the path of confrontation... Our boarding party was attacked with live fire..."

No such weapons were found.

• "Violence was initiated by these activists..."

No, violence was initiated by armed troops storming the peace ships in the dead of night.

• "We didn't attack them, they attacked us... We tried to do, in accordance with international law, a peaceful intervention as they were entering a blockaded area..."

International law does not permit armed intervention in international waters, and the blockaded area has no legal basis.

• "There are no shortages in Gaza..."

That is not what the UN and countless NGOs and charities say.

Meanwhile, in London, Israel's Ambassador Prosor was saying:

• "The people on board the ships behaved appallingly... they really did everything in order to provoke and confront..."

What is confrontational about sailing lawfully and peacefully on a humanitarian mission?

• "We disengaged completely out of Gaza..."

No, Israel remains in occupation of Gaza's airspace and coastal waters and in control of all entrances and exits except on the Egyptian border. It has Gaza bottled up.

As always, newspaper and television editors, reporters and presenters were happy to retail the Israeli version of events, the distortion and the plain lies, along with the exaggerated language such as ‘extremists' and ‘militants' to describe aid workers, without bothering to examine or question the material in any way.

More pearls of wisdom from Regev

Mark Regev, the Israeli prime minister's spokesman, is a rich source of propaganda nonsense, for example...

• "It's not just Israel who refuses to speak to Hamas. It's the whole international community... Most of the democratic world refuses to have a relationship with Hamas because Hamas has refused to meet the most minimal benchmarks of international behavior."

Isn't that a little cheeky, Mr Regev, coming from a regime widely condemned for war crimes, piracy and mega-lawlessness?

• "It was the former UN secretary general Kofi Anan that put four benchmarks on the table. And he said, speaking for the international community ...That if Hamas reforms itself... If Hamas recognizes my country's right to live in freedom... If Hamas renounces terrorism against innocent civilians... If Hamas supports international agreements that are being signed and agreed to concerning the peace process... then the door is open. But unfortunately - tragically - Hamas has failed to meet even one of those four benchmarks. And that's why today Hamas is isolated internationally. Even the United Nations refuses to speak to Hamas.

Which of those benchmarks has Israel met, Mr Regev?

If you're getting the impression that Israel is going all-out to demonise Hamas you'd be right, as we'll see later.

• "Iran's President openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. The Iranian nuclear program is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it's incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating."

Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mr Regev? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel's 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat to the region? Would you also tell us why Israel hasn't signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and hasn't ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty or the Chemical Weapons Convention? What proof do you have of Iran's nuclear weapons plans?

And why do you deliberately misquote Mr Ahmadinejad? For the record, the Iranian president said, quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

Israel's Crapaganda Handbook

The Israeli administration's scriptwriters use a propaganda training manual that teaches the art of lying and how to sugar-coat their poison so that gullible audiences will easily swallow it. Everything Israel dislikes, and everything that thwarts their lust for domination, is now labeled "Iranian-backed"... They would have us believe that everyone in the West - and that includes you and me and the dog - is in mortal danger from Iran and must therefore huddle together in a collective act of aggression orchestrated by Tel Aviv and Washington.

Situations are defined in language that suits only Israel's case and ensures that Israel's narrative, which has little or nothing to do with truth, is the one that is carried by the media.

Take, for example, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu's speech to the UN in 2009.

Referring to the critical Goldstone Report on Israel's blitzkrieg against Gaza, he said:

"Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?"

The false choice is a propaganda favourite. Why would anyone wish to stand alongside either? The fact is, Israel reneged on a ceasefire agreement just before it launched its murderous onslaught, which it had been planning for months.

"In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza... We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent."

Israel, camped on the Gazans' doorstep and still occupying Gaza's airspace and coastal waters, lobs high explosives into the tiny enclave's 1.5 million starving and defenceless civilians, and there's no escape because all exits are sealed.

"...If Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace."

What exactly are these "risks for peace" Israel has so bravely taken? In 62 years what peace dividends has Israel delivered?

The 116-page manual is designed to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war, keep their ill-gotten territorial gains and persuade international audiences to accept that their crimes are necessary and in line with "shared values" between Israel and the West.

It was written by The Israel Project, which describes itself as "devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace". The organization provides journalists, leaders and opinion-formers with "accurate information about Israel".

What it really does is undermine with clever words and discredited techniques the inalienable rights pledged by the UN to all peoples, including the Palestinians.

The manual teaches the sort of propaganda bollox that Israel's scribblers and drivellers use to try and justify the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and their blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, and make it all smell sweet with a liberal sprinkling of persuasive words. It is designed to hoodwink hard-bitten media types into believing that we actually share values with the racist regime in Israel and that its abominable behaviour is therefore deserving of support.

Priority: isolate Hamas

How does it do that? The manual's strategy from the start is to demonise democratically-elected Hamas and rob the resistance movement and the Palestinian population of their human rights. It is packed with advice such as this...

• "Clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas... Hamas is a terrorist organization - Americans get that already. But if it sounds like you are attacking the Palestinian people (even though they elected Hamas) rather than their leadership, you will lose public support."

• "The big picture approach is this: You must isolate Hamas as:

-- A critical cause of the delay in achieving a two-state solution

-- The biggest source of harm to the Palestinian people, and

-- The reason why Israel must defend its people from living in terror.

Read from the Hamas Charter. Now, here's how to attack Hamas: indict them with their own indoctrination materials. Yes, people know Hamas is a terrorist organization - but they don't know just how terrifying Hamas can be. The absolute best way to heighten their awareness is to read from the Hamas Charter itself. Don't just "quote" from it. Read it. Out loud. Again and again. Hand it out to everyone."

That's a very good point. Hamas is mad not to have re-written its charter. Israel's barbarous behaviour makes Hamas look good, but all that will count for nothing if the charter remains unchanged.

• "ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO DEFENSIBLE BORDERS: The big picture is that they [specifically the Americans, but equally the British and other Europeans] believe that Hamas' leadership of Gaza has made Israel and the region less safe... they are willing to grant Israel more leeway in resisting calls to give more land for more peace."

Here we see the motive for demonising Hamas....Israel wants more leeway to continue its land-grabs and colonisation. The idea that they are "giving land for peace" is utterly absurd - they are required to return land they have seized at gunpoint.

• "If... If... If...Then. Put the burden on Hamas to make the first move for peace by using If's. If Hamas reforms... If Hamas recognize our right to exist... If Hamas renounces terrorism... If Hamas supports international peace agreements... then we are willing to make peace today."

Just substitute Israel for Hamas. It reads much better.

• "Peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you. Terrorist organizations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are, by definition, opposed to peaceful co-existence, and determined to prevent reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?"

Hamas and Hezbollah are only regarded as terrorists by the White House and Tel Aviv and by US-Israeli stooges elsewhere.

The definition Bush used to blacklist those it suited him to accuse of committing, threatening to commit or supporting terrorism goes as follows...

"The term "terrorism" means an activity that —

(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and

(ii) appears to be intended —

(a) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(b) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(c) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking."

This of course fits the US and Israel perfectly.

• "There is NEVER, EVER, any justification for the deliberate slaughter of innocent women and children. NEVER.... civilized people do not target innocent women and children for death."

So where does that leave Israel, which recently killed 320 children in Gaza and 773 civilians including 109 women? From 2000 up to the start of Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 Israel had slaughtered 4,790 Palestinians in their homeland, including 952 children, according to the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem. In the same period Palestinians killed 490 Israelis in Israel including only 84 children. So Israel's kill-rate is nearly 10 to 1, and rising since the blitzkrieg on Gaza.

Israelis are also expert at making families homeless. Since 1967, according to ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), Israel has demolished in total 24,145 homes in the Occupied Territories including 4,247 (a UN figure) destroyed during Operation Cast Lead.

Israel talks a lot about its right to defend itself. Here is the rationale....

• "Americans fundamentally believe that a democracy has a right to protect its people and its borders... There is one and only one argument that will work for Israel:

1) As a democracy, Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend its borders and

protect its people.

2) Terrorist groups, including Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to pose a

direct threat to Israeli security and have repeatedly taken innocent Israeli lives.

3) Israel is America's one and only true ally in the region. In these particularly unstable

and dangerous times, Israel should not be forced to go it alone.

4) With America's financial assistance, Israel can defend its borders, protect its people,

and provide invaluable assistance to the American effort against the war against

terrorism."

But it seems that Americans don't believe in democracy enough to allow Palestinian democracy to flourish.

• "When the terror ends, Israel will no longer need to have challenging checkpoints to inspect goods and people. When the terror ends we will no longer need a security fence."

No rockets are coming out of the West Bank, so why is the wall still there - and still being built? Why are the occupation troops still there? Why are hundreds of checkpoints still there? Why is Israel still stealing land, demolishing Palestinian homes and building settlements there?

• "Remind people - again and again - that Israel wants peace. Reason One: If Americans see no hope for peace... they will not want their government to spend tax dollars or their President's clout on helping Israel. Reason Two: The speaker that is perceived as being most for PEACE will win the debate... peace should be at the core of whatever message you wish to convey."

Israelis do NOT want peace and never have. They failed to honour previous peace accords. Every action is directed at provoking security crises and keeping the conflict boiling until they have stolen enough land and established enough 'facts on the ground' - Jews-only settlements, highways, disconnected Palestinian bantustans - to enable them to re-draw the map to suit their expansionist agenda and make the occupation PERMANENT.

• "Draw direct parallels between Israel and America—including the need to defend against terrorism.... The more you focus on the similarities between Israel and America, the more likely you are to win the support of those who are neutral. Indeed, Israel... faces many of the same challenges as America in protecting their citizens."

Israel's strategy is dependent on the false idea that they are victims of terror and western nations need to rally round Israel for mutual protection.

• "The language of Israel is the language of America: 'democracy', 'freedom', 'security' and 'peace'. These four words are at the core of the American political, economic, social, and cultural systems, and they should be repeated as often as possible because they resonate with virtually every American... Remind your audience that Israel wants peace and then repeat the messages of democracy, freedom and peace over and over again.... we need to repeat the message, on average, ten times to be effective... But don't confuse messages with facts.... ".

Right, never let facts get in the way of a good message! The only word that matters to Israel is security (at everyone else's expense, of course). How can democracy be a shared value when Israel is a nasty ethnocracy? How can freedom be a shared value when the world is still waiting for Israel to end the occupation and allow the Palestinians their freedom.

• "How can the current Palestinian leadership honestly say it will pursue peace when previous leaders rejected an offer to create a Palestinian state just a few short years ago and now refuse to live up to their responsibilities as outlined in the Road Map?"

This refers to Barak's so-called "generous offer", a favourite myth. It wasn't enough that the Palestinians, at the time of the Oslo Agreement in 1993, were willing to concede 78% of the land that was originally theirs, accept the remaining 22% and recognise Israel within 'Green Line' borders (i.e. the 1949 Armistice Line), Barak wanted to include 69 Israeli settlements within the Palestinians' 22%. He also demanded that the Palestinian territories be placed under "Temporary Israeli Control", meaning Israeli military and administrative control indefinitely. The 'generous offer' also gave Israel control over all the border crossings of the new Palestinian State. What nation in the world would accept that?

• "Why is the world so silent about the written, vocal, stated aims of Hamas?"

Why is the world silent about the written, stated aims of the racist regime and its political parties? Read their manifestos.

• "The situation in the Middle East may be complicated, but all parties should adopt a simple approach: peace first, political boundaries second."

Why should Palestinians renounce resistance while Israel's jackboot is still on their throat? The international community should first insist on Israel's compliance with international law and the many UN resolutions it has defied. The boundaries are already defined by these. Whatever issues then remain to be decided, Palestinians should not have to negotiate with a gun to their heads.

• "Bottom line: What will happen if we fail to get the world to care about the fact that Israeli parents in southern Israel need to literally dodge rockets when they drive their children to kindergarten in the morning?"

Only one in 500 makeshift Qassam rockets causes a fatality. The devastation and carnage resulting from the barrage of Israel's state-of-the-art rocketry targeted on Gaza is a very different story.

• "Humanize Rockets: Paint a vivid picture of what life is like in Israeli communities that are vulnerable to attack. Yes, cite the number of rocket attacks that have occurred. But immediately follow that up with what it is like to make the nightly trek to the bomb shelter."

Israel claims 12,000 rockets were fired from Gaza in the 8 years up to the start of Operation Cast Lead. Would they care to tell the world how many bombs, rockets and shells (including the illegal and prohibited variety) Israel's F-16s, tanks, armed drones and navy gunboats poured into the densely-packed humanity that is Gaza in the same period? Probably not.

And Israelis are careful not to mention that the township of Sderot, targeted by Gaza's rockets and a major propaganda asset for Regev & co, is built on the ruins of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village whose inhabitants were forced to flee by Jewish terrorists.

• "Living together, side by side. This is the best way to describe the ultimate vision of a two-state solution without using the phrase."

Sounds cute and fluffy, but who would want to live alongside bigots and extremists who have made your life hell for 62 years?

• "When talking about a Palestinian partner, it is essential to distinguish between Hamas and everyone else. Only the most anti-Israel, pro- Palestinian American expects Israel to negotiate with Hamas, so you have to be clear that you are seeking a 'moderate Palestinian partner'."

What gives anyone, American or Israeli, the right to ignore a nation's democratically elected representatives? And where are the moderate Israeli partners?

• "The fight is over IDEOLOGY, not land; terror, not territory. Thus, you must avoid using Israel's religious claims to land as a reason why Israel should not give up land. Such claims only make Israel look extremist to people who are not religious Christians or Jews."

If the fight isn't about land, why has Israel been stealing it? And why won't they give it back when told to by the UN?

• "Think PRO-PALESTINIAN...I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children. No parent should have to bury their child."

Reach for the sick-bag. Israel won't even allow cement into Gaza to build the graves.

• "And so I say to my Palestinian colleagues... you can stop the bloodshed. You can stop the suicide bombings and rocket attacks. If you really want to, you can put an end to this cycle of violence. If you won't do it for our children, do it for your children."

This is recommended as "an effective sound bite" for pro-Israel activists.

• "I want to see a future where the Palestinians govern themselves. Israel does not want to govern a single Palestinian. Not one. We want them to govern themselves. We want them to have complete self-determination."

Pure tosh! That's not what Israel's political parties are pledging. For decades Israel has dismissed the Palestinians' right to self-determination. It is desperate to snuff out Palestine's fledgling democracy and destroy its chosen government.

What's to become of The Holy City?

• "The toughest issue to communicate will be the final resolution of Jerusalem. Americans overwhelmingly want Israel to be in charge of the religious holy sites and are frankly afraid of the consequences should Israel turn over control to the Palestinians."

Israel is in control right now and prevents Muslims and Christians from outside the City visiting the holy places. Israel has proved it can't be trusted. In any case, the UN's partition plan decreed that Jerusalem should become a ‘corpus separatum' - an international city - under international management.

And here's a final example of the twisted mentality of those who wrote the manual....

• "The force undermining peace is Iran and their proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You must not call Hamas just Hamas. Call them what they are: Iran-backed Hamas. Indeed, when they [the West] know that Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah, they are much more supportive of Israel."

By the same token should we call the racist regime what it is - US-backed Israel or US proxy Israel? Take your pick.

In addition to their expertise in disinformation the Israelis are adept at concealing or destroying the evidence of their crimes. We saw it again with the confiscation of the flotilla passengers' cameras, phones, laptops and other personal effects. If they ever get them back they'll be corrupted. Israel also makes it difficult for even VIPs to enter Gaza - they don't want outsiders inspecting their major crime scene. Anything to obstruct justice and make it difficult to bring their thugs to book.

Israel's dirty tricks will be to no avail in the end. They are beginning to lose the propaganda war. That was inevitable. In the long run you cannot succeed with a communications programme based on lies and deception. Even the best PR is only as good as the ‘product' or brand, and Brand Israel's reputation was never great. It has now fallen off a cliff. The truth is spreading despite big efforts by mainstream media to block or disguise it.

The thing we must cling to is the obligation that binds all decent people to respect and promote human rights. The following words, written nearly 62 years ago, explain why good will eventually triumph over the selfish and evil outpourings of the Israeli crapaganda machine.

"Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."

* 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.

NOTE: Greatful thanks to Dr David Morrison for sending me the Sadaka Briefing Papers that inspired this article. See...
http://www.sadaka.ie/Files/Israels_bogus_excuses_for_piracy.pdf
http://www.sadaka.ie/Files/The_blockade_of_Gaza_must_be_lifted_completely.pdf

Funny ha...? Well, not really!

I don't understand why Helen Thomas regretted what she said, but if we know who controls the mainstream media in US then we can understand the reason why would she regret what she said.

But that's not the funniest part.

Watch this video clip from Fox News and pay attention to the part @ 1:18 and you will understand:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw8acitWn1M

So, as you can see, the most intelligent lady anchor I ever saw has explained why Helen said what she said:

"You know her parents are Lebanese!
Her parents are Lebanese.... Lebanon obviously is part of ancient PALESTINE!
That is the perspective from which she is saying comment of Jews to go home!"

I don't understand. Wait! Please allow me to ramble a bit.

• Lebanon was part of Palestine and Palestine is now occupied by Jews SO ancient Lebanese are upset that Jews are occupying part of ancient Palestine? Is that what she is saying?
• OR, because her parents are Lebanese and Hezbollah is Lebanese, so if Helen's parents were alive they would be supporters of Hezbollah, which automatically makes Helen a Hezbollah supporter and thus the call for Jews to go home?!

But wait; weren't Jews part of ancient Palestine and weren't they Palestinians too just like the Christians and Muslims who were born and died there? What does that have to do with Lebanese parents?

Please HELP!

Poor Helen! She is now anti-so-and-so and pro-so-and-so, and the most ignorant anchor caught her with "historical background evidence" which she can't deny.

Poor Helen! She is now anti-so-and-so and pro-so-and-so, and the most ignorant anchor caught her with "historical background evidences" which she can't deny.