Commentary by Khalid Amayreh

In 1978, the famous American Jewish author Alfred Lilienthal wrote his masterpiece book "the Zionist connection: what price peace?", in which he described in great detail the Jewish-Zionist stranglehold on the American media, especially the so-called agenda-setters.

Lilienthal, who died two years ago, knew what he was talking about. He explained that the Zionist cabal controlling the American media had only one mantra to invoke, one cause to serve, and one goal to achieve, namely Israel. Every other consideration, whether professional ethics or simple honesty, was subject to Zionist expediency.

Lilienthal used strong terms to describe the Zionist-Jewish octopus plaguing the American media discourse. I have no doubt that he would have cited the sacking by CNN this week of its senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs, Octavia Nasr, as a classical and scandalous example of how the American media is decidedly at Israel's beck and call.

Nasr was sacked after she published a twitter message saying that she respected the Shiite cleric the Grand Ayatollah Muhammed Hussein Fadlullah, who died on Sunday.

She reportedly wrote in her twitter message “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlullah … One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

Fadlullah was a man of dignity who enjoyed a lot of respect throughout the Middle East and the Muslim world. He didn't hesitate to call the spade a spade, which earned him the hostility of many parties, including Israel and some extremist pseudo Islamic groups.

A religious moderate, Fadlullah supported the just Palestinian struggle against Israeli Nazism, arguing that supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice was a paramount moral duty incumbent upon all Muslims.

In the mid 1980s, Fadlullah narrowly escaped death when CIA-agents detonated a huge-car-bomb at the Bir al Abd neighborhood in southern Beirut, killing dozens of innocent people.

However, the attempted assassination of Shiite scholar didn't succeed in silencing the Sheikh, who continued to speak up against Israeli Nazism and America's embrace of it. In fact, it was largely thanks to Fadllullah's preaching that Lebanon didn't become the American-Israeli colony that influential Zionist circles in Washington and elsewhere had been planning for decades.

The decision by the CNN administration to fire Octavia Nasr, a secular and thoroughly westernize woman, underscores the ethical bankruptcy of the leading American media, especially its harsh intolerance of non-conformist perceptions and convictions.

We all know that had Nasr voiced admiration for Meir Kahana, the notorious racist American Jewish rabbi, or Ariel Sharon, the certified Israeli war criminal, or other Judeo-Nazi thugs, no measure would have been taken against her.

Needless to say, in a healthy democratic atmosphere, people may freely sincerely and thoughtfully express their views and feelings. This is what Nasr exactly did. In so doing, she was only voicing the feelings of millions of people around the globe.

To CNN, her views may be viewed as controversial or non-conformist or even repugnant. However, her right to express her views, however objectionable, via a twitter message, not CNN screen, is absolute. In the final analysis, freedom of speech is a fundamental human right for all people, including CNN journalists. Even CNN's own employment charter doesn’t stipulate that applicants must be dedicated Islamophobes or firm believers in Israeli Nazism and in the legitimacy of Israel's Nazi-like occupation of Palestinian land.

But the problem at CNN is neither philosophical nor academic, but rather ideological and political. Israel is CNN's ultimate idol-god. And any shred of thought, or view, or gesture that can be construed to imply criticism of Israel will not be tolerated. Ultimately, a pro-Israeli slant is the ultimate qualification that overrides any other qualification.

I am glad that the tight enslavement of the American information consumers by such Zionist-run outlets as CNN is beginning to disintegrate. Thanks to the proliferation of the Internet, people around the world, including millions of Americans, are discovering the truth which the likes of CNN had made tremendous efforts to obfuscate and hide. Indeed, it was thanks to the largely silly, superficial and ignorant discourse adopted by the agenda-setter media in the US that the bulk of the American people became thoroughly ignorant and shamefully misinformed about foreign affairs. And when it comes to Israel-Palestine, the enormity of ignorance and stupidity is conspicuous.

It is this enormity of ignorance and naivety that has allowed successive US administrations to beguile the American public by waging wanton and unnecessary wars that destroyed entire nations and claimed the lives of millions of victims, including tens of thousands of Americans.

This is why the American people and other western people do need an alternative media to tell them the real facts, not the facts according to the Zionist robber barons in New York and London.

In the final analysis, how can the American people, who are thoroughly preoccupied with their daily affairs and making a decent living, know the truth about what is going in Gaza, for example, when major American media networks, such as CNN, refuse to report on Israeli atrocities in the coastal enclave or in southern Lebanon on the ground that the scenes are too gruesome for the viewers' feelings?

Knowing what goes on in Gaza, for example, may seem a secondary preoccupation for many Americans. However, with the US waging two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with Israel constantly instigating the US to wage total war against the entire Muslim world, mainly in order to promote Jewish territorial aggrandizement in Palestine, knowing the truth about Israeli Nazism may play a key role in saving the lives of thousands of would-be victims, Americans and non-Americans alike.

After all, Americans have a right, indeed a duty, to prevent Israel and its agents at the US arena, from leading their government to wage stupid and disastrous wars for Israel. And there is no reason why America's young must die a painful death for the sake of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

One more thing. The American media claims independence from government. However, the latest scandal involving CNN shows that the American media nearly sheepishly follows the government line, which shows that freedom and US media are an oxymoron.

The shipyard dogs of Zionism, who constantly seek more and more control over the information industry in the West, would bark uncontrollably when their designs are exposed.

However, when a journalist working in "the land of liberty" is fired from her job for merely saying she respected an elderly man, who had just died, and who happened to be a critic of Israel and the US policies , one is prompted to feel that the "Nazi experiment" can and may experience a certain reincarnation, somehow, somewhere.

-###-

Khalid Amayreh is a journalist living in Palestine. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983. Since the 1990s, Mr. Amayreh has been working and writing for several news outlets among which is Aljazeera.net, Al-Ahram Weekly, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), and Middle East International. He can be reached through politics.indepth@iolteam.com.