The NY Times:
"Aided by the Sea, Israel Overcomes an Old Foe: Drought" is the front page headline touting Israel's supposed environmental miracle. But what gets left out of this article?
Palestinians in Gaza subsist on water that is 95% non-potable, thanks to Israel's vicious blockade and wartime destruction of most of Gaza's infrastructure. Israel's citizens consume five times as much water as Palestinians in the West Bank, who often have to pay much more.
In fact, The NYT article is all part of what Aljazeera calls "Brand Israel ... a multimillion dollar effort to improve the country's image abroad. Israel is presented as the country that provides an answer to one of the globe’s most ominous threats - global warming, drought, and water scarcity."
As Aljazeera reported last year, "To nervous Californians, Netanyahu crowed, 'Israel doesn't have a water problem!' - no doubt expecting to dazzle his audience with this miracle before trotting out the virtues of his country's innovation and industry. The statement was a stunning show of hubris and mendacity in light of the fact that Netanyahu's country has long deprived Palestinians of their own water. The visit [to California] - and the message it carried - are just the latest in the PR ploys aptly called 'bluewashing'. Israel doesn't have a 'water problem' because it steals water from Palestinians."
-->Shame on our newspaper of record for bluewashing Israeli apartheid.
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Democracy Now:
"AMY GOODMAN: An article last week in The New York Times also argued for reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, citing unnamed Obama administration officials saying such security measures cannot be suspended at a time of, quote, 'mounting terrorism threats.'" In the piece headlined 'White House Presses for Deal on Phone Data Bill,' the author goes on to quote an unnamed senior official saying, 'What you’re doing, essentially, is you’re playing national security Russian roulette. ...'
GLENN GREENWALD: I mean, The New York Times, the biggest disgrace journalistically in their history was the fact that they helped the Bush administration sell the Iraq War to the American public by disseminating false claims. And the way they did that was by giving anonymity to government officials to make utterly false claims with no accountability and then laundering it to the public. And after that all happened and it got exposed, they said they had learned their lesson and that they would no longer allow government officials to scare the public while hiding behind anonymity. And yet nothing has changed at The New York Times. That article that you just referenced is a pure illustration of exactly what Judy Miller got scapegoated and fired for, which is giving anonymity to government officials to scare the public in order to get what they want."
-->Yes, Glenn Greenwald gets it right. Our newspaper of record is always giving its readers government propaganda dressed up like real news. Nothing like "anonymous sources" for covering up the lies either.
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Common Dreams:
"Echoing the protests of civil society organizations and social movements around the world, a panel of United Nations experts on Tuesday issued a stark warning about the threats that secret international 'trade' agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pose to the most fundamental human rights.
'Our concerns relate to the rights to life, food, water and sanitation, health, housing, education, science and culture, improved labor standards, an independent judiciary, a clean environment and the right not to be subjected to forced resettlement,' reads the statement, whose ten signatories include Ms. Catalina Devandas Aguilar, Special Rapporteur on the rights of person with disabilities and Ms. Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples.
In particular, the officials raise the alarm about the 'investor-state dispute settlement' systems that have become the bedrock of so-called 'free trade deals,' included in 3,000 agreements world-wide, according to the count of The New York Times. Popularly known as corporate tribunals, ISDS frameworks constitute a parallel legal system in which corporations can sue state governments for allegedly impeding profits and thereby supersede democratic laws and protection."
-->The NY Times didn't cover this story, although it did print an analysis back in March that outlined the dangers of 'investor-state disputed settlement." Why not print the UN report right before the big vote on TPP in the House?
