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The role ofUSmedia in the Isaraeli palestinian conflict

The Role Of U.S.  Media in The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
 
 

By Jayne Gardener

Following a war between Israel and the countries of Syria, Jordan and Egypt in 1967, Israel established a military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

That same year, United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242 calling upon the State of Israel to withdraw. To date, Israel has yet to comply.

Millions of Palestinian Arabs live under a brutal, oppressive military occupation while the everyday lives of both Palestinians and Israelis are plagued with violence and insecurity. Palestinian people react to the oppression within the limited means of resistance at their disposal bringing upon themselves the full weight of Israel’s military arsenal. While there have been many casualties on both sides, the number of dead Palestinians, including children, far outweighs any loss of life on the opposing side.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dominates the news media in the United States when it comes to coverage of foreign affairs. But does the mostly Jewish-owned corporate media reflect the truth of the situation? Or are we being given biased coverage that is failing to reflect the stark and extremely harsh reality of the tremendous human suffering created by the ongoing situation?

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The shaming of america

By Robert Fisk

(source: The Independent UK)

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who’d been tortured and you’d be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or “collateral damage”, or a simple phrase: “We have nothing on that.”

Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday’s ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I’ve identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

It’s always tempting to avoid a story by saying “nothing new”. The “old story” idea is used by governments to dampen journalistic interest as it can be used by us to cover journalistic idleness. And it’s true that reporters have seen some of this stuff before. The “evidence” of Iranian involvement in bomb-making in southern Iraq was farmed out to The New York Times’s Michael Gordon by the Pentagon in February 2007. The raw material, which we can now read, is far more doubtful than the Pentagon-peddled version. Iranian military material was still lying around all over Iraq from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and most of the attacks on Americans were at that stage carried out by Sunni insurgents. The reports suggesting that Syria allowed insurgents to pass through their territory, by the way, are correct. I have spoken to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers whose sons made their way to Iraq from Lebanon via the Lebanese village of Majdal Aanjar and then via the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to attack the Americans.

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Mashaal why is Obama setting preconditions only for hamas?

Mashaal: Why is Obama setting preconditions only for Hamas?

Jun. 11, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

While most of the Arab world responded with enthusiasm to the overtures in Cairo of US President Barack Obama last week, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Thursday complained that the president was presenting Hamas with preconditions ahead of entering into dialogue while he was not insisting on these preconditions regarding both Syria and Iran.

"Obama adopted a new language for speaking with Hamas," Mashaal told Asharq Al-Awsat, but added "we hope this will translate into actions on the ground, and that he will cancel the preconditions for talking to Hamas. He is opening a new page with the region and is beginning dialogue with the Iranians and the Syrians without preconditions, then why is he setting up preconditions for Hamas?"

On Tuesday night, Mashaal said "Hamas will be a positive force in helping to find a fair solution to the Palestinian people and enabling them to fulfill their rights."

"Hamas will not be an obstacle. Everyone knows that Israel is the obstacle," he said.

In his Cairo address, Obama called on Hamas to end violence, abide by previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians and recognize Israel’s legitimacy.

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