Thursday, May 13, 2021

 Aljazeera:
"Over the past few weeks, as the Israeli colonial forces escalated their brutal violence against the Palestinians of occupied Jerusalem, many hoped for some kind of a sharp reaction from the new Biden administration.


But that did not come. Instead, we once again heard about how 'deeply concerned' the US State Department is about 'unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions' and that both Israeli and Palestinian officials need 'to act decisively to de-escalate tensions'. ...


Conspicuously absent from all these statements are words that objectively assess the situation in Palestine, such as 'occupation', 'apartheid', 'settler-colonialism', and 'ethnic cleansing'.


This is the language that has long been entrenched and engineered by the powerful Israeli Lobby in the US to whitewash the Palestinian reality by presenting the Israeli apartheid and colonialism as an issue of 'conflict resolution and mediation' ”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/5/9/should-palestinians-be-mad-at-aoc


-->Yes, it is sickening to hear NPR talk about how confusing the conflict is. Here is a comment sent to "All Things Considered" by Judith: 


"Israeli police and Palestinians clashed … That was the NPR brief report yesterday, neutral as ever. When it comes to Israel/Palestine, what ATC leaves out is always most notable. Did Palestinians suddenly rise up from prayers at their holiest mosque on the holiest day of the Muslim calendar to attack Israeli police? It snuck very briefly into one of your previous reports that the Israeli police had started a riot with Palestinians as they were leaving the mosque. That fact was never mentioned by NPR again. From then on the story begins wherever Israel wants it to, with unruly Palestinians who, for no reason whatsoever, at least none given by ATC, rise up to strike at armed Israeli police. NPR claims the mantle of "most trusted name in news”. On the subject of Israel/Palestine it is rare to hear an unbiased or fair report. Palestinian necks have been under the knee of Israel far longer than the 50 years that NPR is now celebrating. The time is long overdue to tell the truth." 


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FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting):

Aggression, in international politics, is commonly defined as the use of armed force against another sovereign state, not justified by self-defense or international authority. Any state being described as aggressive in foreign or international reporting, therefore, is almost by definition in the wrong.


It’s a word that seems easy to apply to the United States, which launched 81 foreign interventions between 1946 and 2000 alone. In the 21st century, the United States has attacked, invaded or occupied the sovereign states of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.


Despite the US record, Western corporate media overwhelmingly reserve the word “aggression” for official enemy nations—whether or not it’s warranted. In contrast, US behavior is almost never categorized as aggressive, thereby giving readers a misleading picture of the world.

https://fair.org/home/its-aggression-when-they-do-it-but-defense-when-we-do-worse/


-->If there is one thing that the US media won't do, it is to describe the empire and its multiple war crimes over the last seventy years. With an omission like that, what's left of freedom of the press in our good old land of the free?


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Common Dreams:

"Much of the world hasn't been fooled by propaganda about U.S. exceptionalism and superiority, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

On the contrary, almost half of respondents from 53 countries are worried that Washington threatens their democracy, and nearly two-thirds think economic inequality poses the biggest risk to popular rule.


Results of the Democracy Perception Index survey (pdf), conducted between February 24 and April 14 by Latana in collaboration with the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, are based on nationally representative interviews with more than 53,000 people. ...


Although global perceptions of the U.S. have improved since the inauguration of President Joe Biden, almost half (44%) of people around the world remain concerned that Washington poses a bigger threat to democracy in their country than either China (38%) or Russia (28%)."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/05/among-world-superpowers-us-poses-biggest-threat-democracy-global-poll


-->The NYT, asleep in the arms of the American Empire, would never cover a story like this. No wonder people of the US will be the last to discover the empire's dirty secrets.