Another Chorister for Israel
January 9, 2009
Nidal El-Khairy
On February 29 last year the BBC’s website reported deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai threatening a ‘holocaust’ on Gaza. Headlined “Israel warns of Gaza ‘holocaust’”, the story would undergo nine revisions in the next twelve hours. Before the day was over, the headline would read “Gaza militants ‘risking disaster’“. (The story has since been revised again with an exculpatory note added soft-pedalling Vilnai’s comments). An Israeli threatening ‘holocaust’ may be unpalatable to those who routinely invoke its spectre to deflect criticism from the Jewish state’s criminal behaviour. With the ‘holocaust’ reference redacted, the new headline shifted culpability neatly into the hands of ‘Gaza militants’ instead.
One could argue that the BBC’s radical alteration of the story reflects its susceptibility to the kind of inordinate pressure for which the Israel Lobby’s well-oiled flak machine is notorious. But, as I will show in subsequent examples, this story is exceptional only insofar as it reported accurately in the first place something that could bear negatively on Israel’s image. The norm is reflexive self-censorship. Read the rest of this entry »
What Obama missed in the Middle East
July 23, 2008
‘Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and Palestine this week seemed designed to appease pro-Israel groups in the US’, writes Ali Abunimah.
When I and other Palestinian-Americans first knew Barack Obama in Chicago in the 1990s, he grasped the oppression faced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He understood that an honest broker cannot simultaneously be the main cheerleader, financier and arms supplier for one side in a conflict. He often attended Palestinian-American community events and heard about the Palestinian experience from perspectives stifled in mainstream discussion.
In recent months, Obama has sought to allay persistent concerns from pro-Israel groups by recasting himself as a stalwart backer of Israel and tacking ever closer to positions espoused by the powerful, hard-line pro-Israel lobby Aipac. He distanced himself from mainstream advisers because pro-Israel groups objected to their calls for even-handedness.
Like his Republican rival, senator John McCain, Obama gave staunch backing to Israel’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon, which killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and the blockade and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, calling them “self defence”.
The secret of Hizbullah’s success
July 22, 2008
In Tariq Ali’s recent piece on Pakistan in the London Review of Books he quotes from a letter sent by the deposed Chief Justice to Nikolas Sarkozy pleading with him to use his influence with the Pakistani government. Behind the letter lies an assumption which accepts the West’s own conception of itself as a champion of Human Rights and principle. This naive hope has ill-served any leader who has entertained it in the past. The story of how Ho Chi Minh was snubbed by Woodrow Wilson is well known. Power is the only concept that the West appears to honour. If the South has any hope of ever achieving a fair hearing, it would have to do it from a position of strength — as an equal. And in order to reach such a position, it would have to invest in strategic alliances; it would also need to build military strength and deterrence. Having witnessed the western government and society in the past five years, the conclusion I have reached is that to rely on its political activism to prevent future invasions and occupations would be a costly and unforgivable mistake. They will always be too preoccupied with weightier matters such as football, or reality TV (or, as Ward Churchill put it in his caustic essay on Western public apathy, ‘Getting “Jeremy” and “Ellington” to their weekly soccer game, for instance, or seeing to it that little “Tiffany” and “Ashley” had just the right roll-neck sweaters to go with their new cords.’). Al-Qa’ida’s reprehensible targeting of civilians is no different than the indiscriminate murder of the Western nemesis it purportedly fights. Hizbullah, on the other hand, offers a model of national resistance worth emulating with its disciplined and principled approach. Charles Harb shares a similar view in the following article on Hizbullah’s recent success. ‘Hizbullah’s unbudging resistance to Israel –- and the results that has achieved -– explains its clout in the Arab world,’ he writes.
Lebanon celebrated with lavish festivities the return of the last prisoners held in Israeli jails, and clamoured to be the only Arab country to have done so, and to have done so by imposing its demand on a reluctant Israel. Hizbullah fulfilled yet another pledge, and successfully ended another chapter in its longstanding battle with Israel.
Lebanese dignitaries from across the political and religious spectrum, Muslims and Christians alike, were lined up to welcome the freed prisoners, in a display of unity not seen since the earlier prisoner exchange of 2004. While many had previously lamented the cost of war and resistance, they now seemed eager to share in the glory of welcoming the last Lebanese prisoners of war.
Hizbullah’s success can be added to its already long list of achievements, and reminds Arab and Muslim audiences worldwide of the effectiveness of a steadfast resistance. In an Arab world used to humiliations and defeats, the list of achievements claimed by Hizbullah in the past decade is indeed noteworthy.
Candidates Punt on Iraq-Israel
July 19, 2008
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses his recent article on the probable Israeli/U.S. attack on Iran, Israel’s need for new war in Iran to keep the U.S. military in the Mideast due to the failure in Iraq, the outspokenness of the military brass against an attack on Iran, AIPAC’s drafting of the new Iran war resolutions, Bush and Cheney’s loyalty to Israel, the never-ending conflicts created by the Israel occupation of Palestine, the need for the American people and Congress to understand the catastrophe that would ensue from attacking Iran and the urgency of impeachment.
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years – from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush and is a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Nasrallah ‘most admired’ Arab leader
July 19, 2008
From Jerusalem Post, via Norman Finkelstein.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah is the most admired leader among the Arab public, a survey released Wednesday showed.
Twenty-six percent of respondents in six countries selected Nasrallah as their most admired leader, compared to 16% who chose Syrian President Bashar Assad and 10% who picked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the survey published by the the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The poll was published the same day Israel completed a lopsided prisoner swap with Hizbullah that is likely to further boost Nasrallah’s standing in the Arab world.
The Shi’ite Hizbullah leader was also the top pick in predominantly Sunni countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Jordan.
Ninety-nine percent of Lebanese Shi’ites polled said Israel was weaker than it looked and that it was only a matter of time before it was defeated.
The numbers are up from 59% in an identical survey two years ago.
Israeli PR on Kuntar
July 17, 2008
Western media, including the Guardian and the Independent have bought the story hook, line and sinker, yet there is nothing beyond the account of the Israeli military to corroborate it. The official story is all PR.
‘PR campaign will make clear: Samir Kuntar is a murderer’, reports Ha’aretz.
Israel yesterday launched an international media campaign against Hezbollah. The Prime Minister’s Office’s public relations unit is handling the information, which includes an Internet film for YouTube about Samir Kuntar, portraying him as a murderer who crushed a four-year-old girl’s skull.
Israeli envoys abroad and the Foreign Ministry are telling international and Arab media that Kuntar is “no freedom fighter but an abominable murderer.” The campaign, which emphasizes Israel’s moral values compared with its enemies, is also intended to prevent the possibility of international recognition and legitimization of Hezbollah.
Another message is that the soldiers were abducted on a mission on Israeli territory while Kuntar came from Lebanon to attack civilians.
Lebanon Prisoner Exchange
July 17, 2008
As with anything involving Hizbullah, Robert Fisk has a pretty pathetic article on the prisoner exchange. Besides finding the discomfort of those waiting for the arrival of the bodies ‘exquisite’ he also repeats the claim put out by anti-Hizbullah elements that Dalal al-Mughrabi’s mother does not want her daughter’s body returned to Lebanon. She does, and it is abundantly clear from the interview above. Only her brother has conflicting feelings.
As’ad AbuKhalil has a good post on the Lebanese prisoner exchange.
Watching the prisoner release in Lebanon, somebody of my generation can only reach this conclusion: Israel has been humiliated in Lebanon in the last 2 decades, and its ability to inflict pain on Lebanon and the Lebanese without restraint or punishment (as it has done in 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) has been deterred. What Israel has said (racistly) about all Arabs (that the only language they understand is the language of force) paradoxically applies to Israel itself. It also brings to mind–to my mind at least–that Yaser `Arafat was one of the worst people to preside over a revolution–any revolution. He so miserably mismanaged the confrontation with Israel, and did not treat Palestinian prisoners in Israel with the respect that they deserve. Muhammad Dahlan is the legitimate “child” of Arafat. And none of the Western coverage is pointing out the cruel and inhumane role of Ehud Barak in 1978: the man who shot Dalal Mughrabi while she was dead. He pulled her by the hair (only after she died as he would not dare do that to an alive Dalal) and mutilated her body before tearing her shirt off. Such are the sexual perversions of the former prime minister of Israel. And as for the details of the deeds of Dalal and her comrades, don’t ever believe Israeli accounts of “enemy” operations. The state consistently lies and consistently fabricates. And that saying from the Babylonian Talmud applies to Israel: the punishment of the liar is that he is not believed even when he tells the truth. Just go back to my posts during the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006: I tried to catalogue the lies and fabrications of Israel during the war. Don’t you remember the account of the three dead Iranian soldiers that Israel “found” in South Lebanon? Don’t you remember that Israel claimed to be holding “hundreds” of bodies of Hizbullah fighters? (The number now it admits is five). I don’t know what happened in 1979, but the family of Samir Quntar also denies the typically fabricated account that is put out by Israeli propaganda (repeated verbatim typically in the U.S. press). Quntar was 16 at the time and his brother Bassam has something to say about his brother in Al-Akhbar today. Israel lied about Munich and about every other confrontation with its Arab enemies, just as Arab governments lie. It is not easy for a state (Israel) that was founded on a racist ideology to accept that Arabs are like other people: that they cherish their dead and their living just like other…people.
Rory McCarthy Does Lebanon
July 17, 2008
The headlines in the media about the Hizbullah-Israeli prisoner exchange have been quite sensational. In the following letter Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada addresses some of the more outrageous language. (via Angry Arab)
Dear Mr. McCarthy,
On what basis do you write that:
“Five Lebanese prisoners, including the notorious murderer Samir Qantar, crossed free out of Israel today in a prisoner swap after the Hizbullah militant group handed over two black caskets containing the remains of two Israeli soldiers”?
Is it on the basis of the claims of the Israeli government that you refer to Mr. Quntar as a “notorious murderer”? I agree that if the Israeli account is true, then he would be a murderer. But Israel lies at every turn and its claims can never be believed without independent verification, as you should well know.
The New York Times reports today: “Mr. Kuntar, who was formally pardoned by Israel on Tuesday as part of the swap agreement, gave a different version of the night of the attack in his court testimony in 1980, excerpts of which were published for the first time on Monday in Yediot Aharonot, an Israeli newspaper. He told the court that Israeli gunfire had killed Mr. Haran as soldiers burst in to free him and that he did not see what happened to Mr. Haran’s daughter.”
War in Lebanon, Two Years On
July 15, 2008
Comment from Aussie3
David Chater calls that a news report? It might as well be an minute and a half advertisement pimping for the criminal Israeli regime. The focus is on HA’s enlarged arsenal, no mention of Israel’s belligerence and illegal fly-overs and cluster munitions and numerous flagrant violations of UN resolutions on the “point of collapse”. What a joke.
Fortress Britain
June 26, 2008
Variant, Issue 32, Summer 2008; Spinwatch, June 23, 2008; Scoop (New Zealand), June 25, 2008; UK Watch, June 25, 2008; Media Monitors Network, June 25, 2008; Dissident Voice, June 27, 2008
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“The public has to be more alert”, warned one “international terrorism expert” in the Daily Mail late last year, because Scotland “is set to become another Israel within five years”. “[A]nti-terror measures will soon become a common feature of life”, he added, requiring “routine arming of police officers”. He called for increasing children’s “awareness of the dangers of terrorism” and for them to be “encouraged” to report anything “out of the ordinary”.
The oracle of doom was one Amnon Maor, identified as the head instructor of counter-terrorism for the IDF and Israeli border police.[1] Maor is working with security firm 360 Defence, based near Glasgow, which is “training Scottish police, military and civilians in security techniques”. This wouldn’t be the first time the British police benefits form Israeli anti-terror expertise; so had the police squad that carried out the extrajudicial execution of the young Brazilian electrician Jean-Charles de Menezes in the London underground.
In the post-September 11 world, Naomi Klein writes, Israel has pitched its “uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror’”. Britain, which is now in possession of its own occupied Arab territory, is eager to learn; and it has discovered that the only thing more useful than a thing to fear is fear itself. The give away line in Maor’s prescription above is his offer to increase children’s awareness of the dangers of terrorism. Absent the real thing, fear should suffice. The Prime Minister may not have many achievements to his name, but he can claim patents to ‘Fortress Britain’, whose battlements sit on a foundation of fear.
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