Detain This

[The hand and arm of a dead baby pokes out from the rubble of a building in Gaza, July 24, 2002. Debate raged in Israel on Wednesday over the wisdom of killing one of one man at the price of the lives of 14 Palestinians, nine of whom were sleeping children, and international condemnation of the devastating Gaza air raid. A day after the killing of Salah Shehada, it emerged that the U.S. made F-16 warplane that attacked his house used an American one-ton precision "smart bomb". San Diego IndyMedia]

In a December 4, Associated Press release — ”Israel opens Gaza border to foreign journalists” — we get that familiar and obvious double standard in the use of modifiers (divined, as usual, by whether the object of the modifying phrase is a friend or enemy of the U.S.-Israeli warfare state):

Crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip had been closed for more than four weeks since a shaky truce between Israel and Gaza’s violent Hamas rulers began to unravel in a series of cross-border rocket attacks from Gaza and Israeli raids into the territory. [1]

Of course the illegal military occupiers who kill about 30 Palestinians for every Israeli killed by Hamas, are not “violent.” And why the term cross-border? Are Israeli raids not cross-border phenomena? One would assume that when a rocket is fired from Gaza to Israel, it eventually crosses the border. “Cross-border” is inserted to make those oversized bottle-rockets seem more ominous, when in fact only one out of every hundred or so result in injury. Even fewer result in death.

Of course AP has completely omitted the event that began the truce violations: the Israeli invasion of Gaza, razing farmland, detroying private property, and killing Palestinians. But that’s okay, you see, because they have filled in the gap with a warm and fuzzy rendering of “Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad,” who ”heads a moderate, Western-backed government based in the West Bank.” [2] A Grade-A seal, if there ever was one. (Gee, what side of this row should the reader favor? Hmm.)

AP closes the report with an unfounded and fantastic-sounding claim about that “moderate” West Bank governement:

It continues to pay the salaries of Gaza civil servants and members of the security forces who remained loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after its bitter rival Hamas ousted Abbas’ troops from Gaza in 2007. Those incomes have been key to the survival of Gaza’s battered economy. [3]

What economy? And what apparently-unanimous collection of experts are claiming this? If this is what you call “survival,” then please show us what failure looks like.

The sick irony here is that “those incomes” are controlled by the same sources responsible for the ”batter[ing]” of the Gazan economy: the U.S. and Israeli governments and their illicit and immoral economic sanctions, tax withholding, blockades, and other evil aggressions. But of course the U.S. and Israeli governments and their atrocious policies are not to be seen as the problem, anywhere. In fact, in this instance, they are the saving grace! They are the “key” to the economic survival [sic] of Gaza.

Why does the Associated Press keep promoting U.S.-subsidized Israeli tyranny and death under the guise of journalism?

For starters, the W. Jerusalem bureau is an Israeli outpost. Without the approval of the Israeli army, it does not operate. Therefore, no matter the political or social view of the bureau’s staffers, they must not allow the sick and incriminating truth about Israel to seep out of their gutter pipe that passes for a news wire

All key positions in the W. Jerusalem bureau — from bureau chief, to managing editor, to the copyeditors and “reporters” — are either native Israelis or Jewish foreigners with automatic Israeli citizenship. They live in either pre-’67 Israel or an illegal Israeli colony in the Palestinian West Bank. They are ”Steve Gutkin,” “Josef Federman,” “Amy Tiebel,” “Matti Friedman,” “Mark Lavie,” et al. Their names appear mostly on reports dealing with internal Israel matters, or “settler violence.” They do not give a damn about the lives of Palestinians. At every turn, they dehumanize Israel’s enemies. At every chance, they are casting the dominant and oppressive Israeli government in good light, or simply concealing its horrendous acts altogether.

“How can they be biased?” you might ask. ”Look! A Palestinian wrote the story!”

Bull shit.

The appearance of Palestinian names in the bylines of AP’s so-called news reports is a sham. Palestinians or Arab Muslim have no hand in prioritizing, compiling, or copyediting: they are merely stringers, correspondents, news-gatherers, grunts, fodder. They are “Ibrahim Barzak,” “Muhammed Daraghmeh,” “Ali Daraghmeh,” et al. Their names appear almost exclusively on reports dealing with internal Palestinian issues and Palestinian responses to Israeli massacres in Gaza. This lends a superficial credence to their alleged reporting. In fact, you’ll find some of the most egregious examples of journalistic fraud in reports with an Arab byline — the one cited above, for instance.

The New York Times and The Associated Press are the juggernauts of the U.S.-Israeli warfare state’s Propaganda Ministry. Their incessant lying in favor of colonial empire and corporatism reaches more than half the world’s population per day. This, in turn, ensures that public opinion polls favor U.S. and Israeli policies and helps to marginalize political resistance to the looting of U.S. taxpayers for billions every year to subisidize the inhumanity. They’re at their sleazy best when promoting the U.S.-subsidized Israeli occupation of Palestine and the ongoing, U.S.-subsidized, 41½-year, slow-burn, Israeli holocaust of the Palestinians.

Truthrocker points out the following example from the December 3, NYT release — “Palestinians’ Rift Prevents Gazans From Traveling to Mecca” — where the Times does a splendid job of inverting reality to conceal the bloody imperial hands in that “rift.”

As usual, Israeli violence is cast as necessary and proper:

Israel and Hamas are also eyeing each other warily because on Dec. 19 their six-month truce comes to an end, and neither is sure whether to renew it. For the past several weeks, both have violated its terms, with Hamas lobbing rockets into southern Israel, terrorizing and injuring dozens, and Israeli forces carrying out raids into Gaza, killing and wounding militants. [4]

(In other words, the time-line goes thus: Hamas lobbed rockets first; Israel responded. Keep this in mind.)

This account is straight from the IDF. Note the obviously slanted language used. What are “dozens”? And what are “militants”? Every time Israel commits acts of violence, only “militants” are killed by the Israeli “troops” or “soldiers.” When a Palestinian “militant” commits violence, he is “terrorizing” Israeli “civilians” or “communities,” and his act is always the spark.

But does the Israeli blockade and forced mass starvation of Gaza’s 1.5 million people — or the U.S.-supplied F-16s and unmanned drones dropping half-ton bombs and missiles into crowded Gaza neghborhoods — not count as “terrorizing“?

Remember the time-line? Hamas acted first, then Israel responded? Yeah, well, not so fast:

The exchanges began when Israel discovered a tunnel being dug from Gaza to Israel that it believed was to be used for seizing another Israeli soldier — Hamas has already been holding a soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, for more than two years. Israel destroyed the tunnel, killing six Hamas militants in the operation, leading Hamas to accuse it of breaking the truce. It retaliated with dozens of rockets and mortars. [5]

(Talking out of both sides of its mouth from one paragraph to the next isn’t what bothers the NYT, but rather the missed opportunity to sugar-coat an imperial turd.)

That is a lie by deceitful phrasing and omission. The NYT is implying that the IDF’s destruction of the alleged tunnel is what killed the “militants,” when in fact the IDF INVADED Gaza, razed farmland, and destroyed private property. It was only after armed Palestinians attempted to defend the helpless farmers that the Israeli invaders (not “militants” of course) gunned those “militants” down.

Another lie is that only Hamas accused Israel of breaking the truce. By marginalizing this otherwise consensus international opinion, the NYT is telling readers not to believe that Israel ever violated the truce. And hey! After all, who would lend an objective ear to Hamas, when they are “the Islamist militant group that runs Gaza”? They’d be much more comfortable with “the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank, run by President Mahmoud Abbas and backed by the West and Israel.” They are the “moderates,” you know.

Question: When has any member of Hamas ever publicly called himself or his political party “Islamist”
Answer: Never.

Will the NYT ever pin a label on the Israelis when they didn’t choose it for themselves? Judeofascists? Jewish militants? How about their American buddies? Are they not fascists? Corporatists? These are actually accurate terms. Or how about silly term on par with Islamists, like Christianists, or Christofascists? Silly, isn’t it. But this is what passes for objective and professional journalism from the “newspaper of record.”

No. You’ll never see a reciprocating standard here. It’s always from the U.S. and Israeli point of view. The NYT and AP will always take the side of the indomitable imperial bullies. And for that, they can go jump in a lake of fire.

1. apnews.myway.com//article/20081204/D94S0LL01.html
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. nytimes.com/2008/12/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html?em
5. Ibid.

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Source: http://detainthis.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/the-nyts-and-aps-latest-coverage-of-the-us-israeli-genocide-on-gaza/