Common Dreams:
"Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership. 'This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk,' said one former Lebanese diplomat.

As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough 'no' votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.

Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs 'Palestinian aspirations for statehood,' one of the cables asserts that 'it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/palestinian-statehood

-->The NYT didn't print this story; nor did our mainstream media. The story exposes the lier our President really is about stopping the genocide. Biden will be forever known as the genocide president.

=====

Common Dreams and ProPublica:
"Blinken Hasn't Ended Aid for Israeli Military Units Tied to Killings, Rapes. 'Blinken continues a very long American tradition of very selective enforcement of human rights laws,' said one critic.

Amid global condemnation of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip and the Biden administration's complicity, ProPublica revealed Wednesday that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has for months ignored staff recommendations to cut off American aid to Israeli military and police units accused of human rights violations including killings and rapes.

'The incidents under review mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel,' which was the catalyst for the current Israeli escalation in Gaza, reported ProPublica's Brett Murphy. 'They include reports of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli Border Police; an incident in which a battalion gagged, handcuffed, and left an elderly Palestinian American man for dead; and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/blinken-israel

-->We know about the NYT by now. It is a Zionist rag that has instructed its reporters not to use the words: "occupation" or "ethnic cleansing." Also "slaughter" is off the list, unless it applies to what Hamas has supposedly done. One can only hope that Israel, and its propaganda arm the NYT will someday pay for their war crimes.

=====

Middleeasteye:
"Hundreds of alumni from the prestigious New York University (NYU) in New York City will withhold more than $3m worth of potential contributions from the institution's largest fundraising day on Wednesday over its suppression of students and faculty organising against what they call 'genocide' in Gaza.

NYU Alumni for Palestine, the group that mobilised to deter alumni from donating to the university, told Middle East Eye that the stifling of pro-Palestinian voices and its refusal to condemn Israel's killing of Palestinians in Gaza had compelled them to take action against their alma mater. ...

The group cited an informal tracker created by NYU Faculty for Justice in Palestine, which documented retaliatory actions against an estimated 100 students as well as 25 staff and faculty over the past six months because of their comments or mobilising for Palestine."
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hundreds-nyu-alumni-refuse-donate-university-over-palestine-policy

-->Students, parents, and alums are pushing back against their pro genocide campuses. But no coverage from the NYT. Did you expect any?

Middle East Eye:
"Students at Yale University begin a hunger strike after calls for the institution to divest from companies profiting off arms deals with Israel were met with silence. A group of graduate students at Yale University launched a hunger strike on Friday in protest against the institution's investments in companies providing Israel with military weaponry.

Students argue the university is profiting off of what a growing number of Americans say is a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza being carried out by Israel.
The hunger strike was launched after students with the group, Hunger Strikers for Palestine, sent a letter to Yale president Peter Salovey on Wednesday, demanding that the university divest from its investments in companies providing Israel with military technology.

Yale University's Graduate Students for Palestine (GSP), which helped organize the letter and the hunger strike, said this protest is the result of the administration ignoring their protests and demands for months. 'This is the last thing folks are able to give, their bodies,' a member of GSP, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told MEE. 'In the total nonresponse of any kind from the institution we are speaking to, the final thing we can put on the line really is our health and well-being.' "
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-yale-students-launch-hunger-strike-demand-divestment-israel-war

-->No response from the mainstream media on this, except for Fox News, which suggested that the students have access to food if they want it. I don't think our media wants this story to spread. There are tens of thousands of college students looking for something more powerful as they watch the children of Gaza starve to death.

=====

Truth Out:
"In reality the Biden administration has the power to stop Israel’s offensive in Gaza in its tracks. Though Congress authorizes military aid, the president has the authority under the Arms Export Control Act to withhold (or threaten to withhold) U.S. military aid when the recipient nation violates U.S. or international law.

In terms of the international legal system, Israel is currently violating the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of civilians in war time, among a number of other statutes, and it is violating UN Security Council Resolution 2728, which demands an immediate temporary ceasefire. Israel is also in violation of Section 502B(c) of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits aid to countries that prevent access to humanitarian relief supplies; the 1999 Leahy Amendment, which prohibits funding foreign security forces engaged in the commission of gross violations of human rights; and Biden’s own National Security Memorandum 20, which requires U.S. security partners to provide written assurances that they will use U.S. military assistance in accordance with international law and facilitate humanitarian aid.

Instead, Biden has utilized emergency powers to bypass public and congressional oversight in providing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arms from U.S. stockpiles overseas, including Hellfire missiles and bunker-busting bombs which have had a devastating impact on Gaza’s civilian population. At the end of March, his administration approved billions of dollars’ worth of additional bombs and fighter jets to Netanyahu’s forces."
https://truthout.org/articles/biden-has-had-the-power-to-stop-israels-war-crimes-in-gaza-since-day-1/

--The mainstream media does not want it known that Biden could stop the war anytime he wanted to. In this way, our media is aiding the genocide in Gaza. By hiding what Biden could do, our media lets the US escape censure for the charnel house that Gaza has become.   

Common Dreams:
"The U.S. government’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s annihilation of Gaza – torrents of heavy weaponry, diplomatic and political cover, and vast majorities in Congress swearing fealty to Netanyahu’s extremist regime – is usually attributed to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the powerful domestic pro-Israeli government lobby, organized in every Congressional District, with its abundant campaign cash and its many personal contacts in Congress and the Executive Branch.

This is only a partial explanation of the US-Israel alliance. A far more formidably entrenched factor is that Israel and the U.S. have overlapping Empires – one in the Middle East and the other globally – with deep common purposes. Here are some examples of how these empires operate in tandem.

Both Empires violate international laws with impunity. The U.S. sends special forces, drones, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, anywhere and anytime it wants – especially the case of Iraq and Afghanistan. National boundaries and sovereignty mean nothing. Similarly, Israel completely dominates the Middle East militarily, bombing, sabotaging, and killing whomever it wants in neighboring countries. It has attacked Lebanon and Syria routinely with its air force, artillery, and invaded Lebanon on the ground, prompting feeble responses it always labels 'terrorism.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-and-u-s

-->Here is the truth about overlapping empires, described in detail by Ralph Nader. You won't find this truth in the US mainstream media, including the NYT. That's why Americans remain so ignorant of the Gaza genocide being conducted in their name.

=====

The Guardian UK:
"In an earlier interview on This Week, [Chef José Andrés] had said that the IDF attack on his workers is not anymore about the seven men and women of World Central Kitchen that perished on this unfortunate event. 'This is happening for way too long. It’s been six months of targeting anything that seems – moves,' Andrés said.

'This doesn’t seem a war against terror,' Andrés added. 'This doesn’t seem anymore a war about defending Israel. This really, at this point, seems it’s a war against humanity itself.'

The IDF said on Friday that there had been three strikes against the convoy, and confirmed that World Central Kitchen had coordinated their movements correctly with them in advance. ... The strikes, the IDF added, had been 'a grave mistake'.

But Andrés refuted those findings, telling ABC News: 'Every time something happens, we cannot just be bringing Hamas into the equation.' ”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/07/israel-gaza-strike-aid-workers-chef-jose-andres

-->To the NYT, the massacre of foreign aid workers is just another unfortunate mistake. Our newspaper of record failed to print most of Andres' words.

UPDATE: The NYT did print an extended story about Andres on April 8.

=====

Common Dreams:
"After Months of Progressive Outcry Over Biden Israel Policy, Establishment Dems Pile On. ... U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine on Friday became the latest centrist Democrat to display a shift in tone regarding the Biden administration's continued support for Israel—and despite months of intensifying demands from progressive lawmakers and the international community for President Joe Biden to push for a change in policy from Israel, the newly minted critics have appeared to have more success.

The Virginia Democrat, who serves on both the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, cited the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers this week in a lengthy statement in which he said Israel's 'current approach is not working' and pushed back against the White House's opposition to an independent investigation into the attack.

'The United States should join in the call for an independent and international investigation into Monday's strike on World Central Kitchen volunteers, in which an American was killed,' said Kaine. The senator also renewed his call for the administration to 'prioritize the transfer of defensive weapons in all arms sales to Israel while withholding bombs and other offensive weapons that can kill and wound civilians and humanitarian aid workers.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/establishment-democrats-gaza

-->US Sen. Tim Kaine's words did not make it into the NYT, which always tries to water down any criticisms of Israel's genocide.

Code Pink:
" 'The sniper put a gun to my head. They asked me to take all my clothes off.' This is just one of the many haunting experiences of sexual violence the women in Gaza faced at the hands of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

Despite countless eyewitness testimonies of Israeli rape and sexual violence in Gaza, there is next to no coverage of this in the mainstream media. Publications like the New York Times, which was quick to publish a–now widely debunked–'investigation' of 'mass rape' by Hamas fighters on October 7, have failed to report on the sexual violence Gazans are experiencing. The New York Times’ silence is evidence that it is nothing more than a puppet for spreading Israeli propaganda.

The IOF has used sexual violence against Palestinians for decades, with rape of Palestinians regularly documented in Israeli prisons, as well as sexual harassment and assaults at checkpoints. Sexual violence against Palestinians is built into the structure of Israel. In Gaza, first-hand accounts detail the experiences of Palestinian women being blindfolded and forced to strip naked before being assaulted and raped by Israeli soldiers. There is no shortage of videos, many by Israeli soldiers themselves, of the IOF detaining, blindfolding, and forcing Palestinian men to remove their clothes."
https://www.codepink.org/nytnomore

-->Code Pink gathers evidence and then makes its pronouncements to the world. That is what the NYT should be doing. But our newspaper of record just prints what Israel admits to, so its readers never find out how the IOF abuses Palestinian women.

=====

Common Dreams:
"The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday published a draft report that found 'reasonable grounds to believe' that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.

The advance unedited version of the report—entitled Anatomy of a Genocide—concludes that Israel's far-right government and military 'have intentionally distorted jus in bello [minimizing suffering in war] principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.'

'The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,' the draft report states, enumerating Israeli actions that violate Article II ... on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: 'Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-genocide-2667597341

-->Hey, it's a genocide, stupid! But not to the NYT, that didn't cover this story. Perhaps the NYT just can't quite believe that their favorite country is an out and out war criminal. Much better to avoid printing what the UN and the rest of the world is saying.

=====

The Intercept:
"Citing the company’s 'failure to provide answers to important questions,' Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are pressing Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to respond to reports of disproportionate censorship around the Israeli war on Gaza.

'Meta insists that there’s been no discrimination against Palestinian-related content on their platforms, but at the same time, is refusing to provide us with any evidence or data to support that claim,' Warren told The Intercept. 'If its ad-hoc changes and removal of millions of posts didn’t discriminate against Palestinian-related content, then what’s Meta hiding?' ...

The letter was written following widespread reporting in The Intercept and other outlets that detailed how posts on Meta platforms that are sympathetic to Palestinians, or merely depicting the destruction in Gaza, are routinely removed or hidden without explanation."
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders

-->The NYT doesn't care if META censors pro-Palestinian content. Our newspaper of record does the very same thing. How else could the average middle class American live with themselves, after arming and paying for the killings of tens of thousands in Gaza? They depend on the NYT to keep them in the dark.

Common Dreams:
"Australia Restores UNRWA Funding as Israel Kills Aid Workers, Starving Gazans. 'Restoring UNRWA funding is the bare minimum,' said one Australian Green senator. 'The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza.'

Australia said Friday that it would reinstate funding for the United Nations United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in international financing due to unsubstantiated Israeli claims that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

'The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization,' Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in Adelaide while announcing a new funding package for the agency, which works to aid Palestinians forcibly displaced during the Nakba, or 'catastrophe' through which the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, as well as their descendants.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/australia-unrwa

-->The NYT was all over the story of countries defunding UNRWA. But now that the charges look to be more Israeli propaganda, you would think that the NYT would apologize to its readers. But our newspaper of record has no shame when it comes to Palestine.

=====

Common Dreams:
"More than 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators were arrested Thursday after staging a protest at The New York Times' Midtown Manhattan headquarters, where activists handed out copies of a satirical knockoff of the newspaper that skewered what organizers called its biased coverage of the Gaza genocide.

After surrounding the Times' printing plant in College Point, Queens, members of Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), Palestinian Youth Movement, and other groups shut down the paper's Midtown West headquarters, where they chanted, 'New York Times you can't hide, we charge you with genocide,' 'free, free Palestine,' and 'from the river to the sea.'

Around 150 demonstrators occupied the Times building, where they called on passersby to boycott, divest, and unsubscribe. Some passersby confronted the demonstrators. One angry man attempted to steal a large banner from protesters. The New York Police Department said 124 protesters were arrested."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/journalism-gaza

-->Interesting how The NYT won't even cover the ceasefire demonstrations when they shut down access to the NYT's own printing plant. Hello, NYT, anyone home?

=====

Aljazeera:
" ‘Massacre’: Israel forces attack crowds waiting for aid in Gaza, killing 21. Palestinian officials call latest assault ‘premeditated’ as people seeking humanitarian supplies increasingly targeted.

At least 21 Palestinians have been killed after Israeli forces opened fire on thousands of people waiting for aid in Gaza City in the same area that was targeted hours earlier, government officials said. The Ministry of Health in Gaza described the late Thursday attack as a 'new, premeditated massacre' and said more than 150 people were wounded.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces had used helicopters, tanks and drones to target thousands of people waiting on food trucks. It was the latest in a string of assaults on people desperately in need of food and other essential supplies as Israel continues to obstruct and severely control the entry of aid into the enclave."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/15/massacre-israel-forces-attack-crowds-waiting-for-aid-in-gaza-killing-21

-->How did our "newspaper of record" deal with another cold blooded slaughter of starving Palestinians waiting for food? The title of the NYT story says it all: "Israeli and Gazan officials offer diverging accounts of deadly chaos around another aid convoy." Diverging accounts of genocide, and deadly chaos instead of an IDF hail of bullets and tank shells.

Reuters:
"The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said some employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks. ...

The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.

'Agency staff members have been subject to threats and coercion by the Israeli authorities while in detention, and pressured to make false statements against the Agency, including that the Agency has affiliations with Hamas and that UNRWA staff members took part in the 7 October 2023 atrocities,' the report says."
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/unrwa-report-says-israel-coerced-some-agency-employees-falsely-admit-hamas-links-2024-03-08/

-->Could it be that UNRWA staff did not participate in the Hamas attack, and that they were tortured into making those statements? Can the world believe anything that Israel has said? Believing is easier if one only reads the NYT. Our newspaper of record didn't cover this story.

=====

The Intercept:
"Two of the three victims specifically singled out by the New York Times in a marquee exposé published in December, which alleged that Hamas had deliberately weaponized sexual violence during the October 7 attacks, were not in fact victims of sexual assault, according to the spokesperson for the Kibbutz Be’eri, which the Times identified as the location of the attack.

The rejection of the Times reporting in the kibbutz by Be’eri spokesperson Michal Paikin further undermines the credibility of the paper’s controversial December article 'Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.'

The Times article described three alleged victims of sexual assault for whom it reported specific biographical information. One, known as the “woman in the black dress,” was Gal Abdush. Some of her family members have contested the claims made by the Times. The other two alleged victims were unnamed teenage sisters from Kibbutz Be’eri whose precise ages were listed in the New York Times, making it possible to identify them. ...

When asked about the claims made by the New York Times, Paikin independently raised their name. 'You’re talking about the Sharabi girls?” she said. “No, they just — they were shot. I’m saying ‘just,’ but they were shot and were not subjected to sexual abuse.' ”
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/04/nyt-october-7-sexual-violence-kibbutz-beeri/

-->More lies from our nation's premier newspaper. The NYT is still Israel's mouthpiece in the US.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Flanked by photos of hungry children and destroyed buildings, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a speech Wednesday that the Biden administration must stop merely asking the Israeli government to halt its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and begin using real leverage to bring about an end to the war and ensure the free flow of aid to the territory's starving population. 

'The U.S. government should make it clear that failure to open up access immediately and feed starving people will result in the Netanyahu government not getting another penny of U.S. taxpayer military aid,' said Sanders (I-Vt.), who noted that 'right now we have the incredible situation where a U.S. ally is using U.S. weapons and equipment to block the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid. And if that's not crazy,' the senator added, 'I don't know what is.' ...

Sanders argued that ending the war and addressing the humanitarian emergency would require the Biden administration and Congress to 'use the incredible leverage we have over the Israeli government to secure a fundamental change in their disastrous policies. ... Of course we have the leverage,' Sanders said. 'We are funding the war.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-gaza-leverage

-->Of course, the NYT is uninterested in printing Senator Sanders' speech. And the major news outlets followed suit. Pressuring Israel is just off the table for our mainstream media, our Congress and President Biden. This genocide in Gaza is stamped with "Made in America."

Democracy Now:
"New York Times Exposé Lacks Evidence to Claim Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence Oct. 7. ...[In] early December, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government really began an intense propaganda campaign to convince the world that Hamas had engaged in a systematic campaign of rape aimed at Jewish women and girls. And then they launched this fake criticism of feminist organizations, saying that they had all systematically failed to stand up and denounce this systematic rape regime that had been intentionally implemented by Hamas in the October 7th attacks. And on the day that Netanyahu made his most prominent statement about this, President Biden was at a fundraising event in Boston, and he issued — he made a statement at his speech that echoed what Netanyahu said, and said the world, you know, can’t turn away and ignore this. ...

So, The New York Times, they can’t find anyone who works in the rape crisis centers, at the hospitals, among therapists, that are coming forward and saying, 'Yeah, we saw this,' or 'We have documentation of this,' so they go to people who already were known to have promoted false information, and then they start relying on their testimony to paint this tapestry, this notion that there was a systematic rape regime. And in the New York Times article, they do not ever disclose that their key witnesses have serious credibility problems. So, this is, at a minimum, we are looking at a New York Times piece that failed to inform its readers about severe credibility issues among some of its premier 'witnesses,' quote-unquote, that it put forward in this story. ...

My question is: Where are the corrections in The New York Times piece? The New York Times has grave, grave mischaracterizations, sins of omission, reliance on people who have no forensic or criminology credentials to be asserting that there was a systematic rape campaign put in place here."
[Jeremy Scahill from The Intercept]
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/1/nyt_anat_schwartz

-->This story is so similar to what the NYT did right before the US invasion of Iraq. The newspaper brought in unreliable and obviously biased reporters to say what the Pentagon wanted to hear. When push comes to shove, The NYT is always the empire's mouthpiece. And I say, lets bring back Judith Miller and some of her yellow cake uranium!

=====

The Guardian UK:
"The US and UK have been accused by university researchers of obstructing a United Nations inquiry into the 1961 plane crash that killed the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld. A conference in London heard an update from the UN assistant secretary general for legal affairs, Stephen Mathias, on progress in the inquiry, which is seeking archive documentation from member states.

The participants said the US and UK had been dragging their feet in handing over potentially vital information. Hammarskjöld, a Swede, died on 18 September 1961 on the way to negotiate a ceasefire between UN peacekeepers in the Congo and separatists from the breakaway Congolese region of Katanga. ...

Susan Williams, a researcher whose 2011 book Who Killed Hammarskjöld contributed to the reopening of the UN inquiry, said the US and UK were 'global outliers. ...The most recent general assembly resolution to renew the investigation was co-sponsored by 142 UN member states out of 193 – but not by the US and the UK,' Williams said."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/uk-us-obstructing-inquiry-death-united-nations-dag-hammarskjold

-->Could it be that the US and UK were involved in killing a UN secretary general? But the NYT didn't cover this story. Again the empire's mouthpiece.

=====

Counterpunch:
"A little while back, I challenged a group of graduate students to find one article in the New York Times written in the last five years that had anything favorable to say about Russia. Their extensive research turned up one article published in 2021 that described the beneficial effects of global warming on cold countries. The piece was entitled, 'How Russia Cashes In On Climate Change.' Other than that, the newspaper’s sizeable cadre of Russia specialists reported virtually nothing about Europe’s most populous nation other than stories picturing Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation as scheming plotters, corrupt and incompetent rulers, meddlers in other nations’ elections, brutal oppressors of their own people, and aggressive expansionists threatening everyone else’s independence and freedom.

One does not have to be an admirer of Mr. Putin or his right-wing regime to consider this coverage so unbalanced and Russophobic as to amount to a form of warmongering. ...

At times like this, one can only hope that a few sane leaders supported by a public tired of inflammatory rhetoric and needless killing will call a halt to jingoist assumptions of our own side’s essential innocence and the other side’s essential aggressivity. That these assumptions generate billions of dollars in profits for military-industrial corporations does not make them easy to extirpate. Even so, we can demand that journalists who ought to know better stop peddling these lies and exaggerations – and a growing number of clear-eyed citizens will say, 'Amen!' ”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/29/more-anti-russian-hysteria-from-the-new-york-times/

-->Well, we would like to see an end to the warmongering of the NYT. The same is true of other "enemies of the state" like Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Iran. We the people want news, not propaganda.

The Intercept:
"Long before 9/11, Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League lobbied for counter terror legislation that singled out Palestinians, a new report reveals.
Last October, as protests against Israel’s war on Gaza swept U.S. campuses, two prominent pro-Israel groups wrote to nearly 200 university and college administrators urging them to investigate their students for possibly violating federal law by promoting pro-Hamas, anti-Israel messaging.

The Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law suggested that members of Students for Justice in Palestine, the largest Palestine solidarity campus organization in the country, may have been violating a law that prohibits people from providing 'material support' — a broad category that includes money as well as services or other assistance — to U.S.-designated terror groups. 'We certainly cannot sit idly by as a student organization provides vocal and potentially material support to Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,' the ADL and the Brandeis Center wrote.

There is no evidence SJP has ever provided material support to Hamas, and the letter prompted widespread condemnation. The American Civil Liberties Union called on leaders in higher education to 'reject baseless calls to investigate or punish student groups for exercising their free speech rights.' "
https://theintercept.com/2024/02/21/adl-palestine-terrorism-legislation/

-->Maybe the NYT will be covering this story, but it hasn't yet. Will our newspaper of record expose the Anti-Defamation League as a danger to free speech, as it most certainly is?

=====

Common Dreams:
"The New York Civil Liberties Union revealed Friday that it warned Columbia University of plans to take legal action if two suspended student groups opposed to Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip aren't reinstated by March 1.

Amid a crackdown on criticism of Israel at educational institutions nationwide, Columbia leadership in November bypassed existing procedures for campus organizations and unilaterally suspended the university's chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) for an 'unauthorized' protest of the war.

'Universities should be havens for robust debate, discussion, and learning—not sites of censorship where administrators, donors, and politicians squash political discourse they don't approve of,' NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. 'These student groups were peacefully speaking out on a critical global conflict, only to have Columbia University ignore their own long-standing, existing rules and abruptly suspend the organizations,' she continued. 'That's retaliatory, it's targeted, and it flies in the face of the free speech principles that institutes of higher learning should be defending. Students protesting at private colleges still have the right to fair, equal treatment—and we are ready to fight that battle in court.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/columbia-university-suspends-student-groups

-->Is Columbia University illegally restricting freedom of speech on campus? But why isn't this story being covered in the NYT? You have the Civil Liberties Union preparing to sue a major university. Isn't that newsworthy?

=====

Common Dreams:
"Lawsuit Accuses German Leaders of Complicity in Gaza Genocide. 'This lawsuit sends a clear message to German officials: You cannot continue to remain accomplices of such crime without consequences.' ...

The criminal complaint, filed Thursday with federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, accuses Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, and Economy Minister Robert Habeck of 'complicity in the genocide in Gaza' by approving the export of approximately $350 million worth of military aid to Israel.

The suit also lists the German government's diplomatic support for Israel and its suspension of payments to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East—even as Israeli forces have killed and maimed over 100,000 Palestinians, forcibly displaced around 90% of the besieged strip's 2.3 million people, obliterated the territory's infrastructure, and pushed hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the brink of starvation."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-genocide-2667351559

-->This story is so important because it details the responsibility of states in enabling the genocide in Gaza. Well, the Republic of Germany certainly is responsible, with $350 million worth of military aid sold to Israel. Maybe the story is a bit too inclusive; will the people of the world start thinking along these lines about the United States, the real enabler of this slaughter of the Palestinians? So far, however, no coverage by the NYT.

The NYT:
"A Tunnel Offers Clues to How Hamas Uses Gaza’s Hospitals."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/12/world/middleeast/gaza-tunnel-israel-hamas.html

-->That's the NYT headline. It would seem that Hamas was using tunnels under hospitals, and the article is about just how they did it. What evidence is there you might ask? "Classified Israeli intelligence documents, obtained and reviewed by The Times, indicate that the tunnel is at least 700 feet long." Later, the NYT is not so sure: "The Israeli military, however, has struggled to prove that Hamas maintained a command-and-control center under the facility. Critics of the Israeli military say the evidence does not support its early claims."

The article goes on to present more supposed evidence. "the Israeli military showed a video on Nov. 5 of what it said was the entrance to 'a tunnel that was being used for terror infrastructures' on the hospital’s grounds. But the video appears to show something else: a water storage area built in 2016, when the hospital was constructed, according to engineering plans and images from the hospital’s construction reviewed by The Times."

So what evidence do we really have in this story, besides Israeli secret documents, some of them reviewed by the NYT and American officials? Is an army committing genocide really to be trusted? Instead of "A tunnel offers clues," the article's title should read "Israeli intelligence claims tunnels under hospitals were used by Hamas." This is a good example of news being twisted to support Israel. The title on the front page is misleading, but one has to read the whole article to recognize the scam.

=====

Counterpunch:
"[Lets] examine how donor nations responded to a sister UN organization, the Peacekeeping force, when staff faced accusations of misconduct. In 2021, the UN Secretary-General concluded that it was credible that 450 members of the Peacekeeping force in Gabon were guilty of child rape and sexual exploitation. Unlike UNRWA, however, the US and other donors did not suspend funding to the UN agency when reports of sexual abuse emerged, more importantly, they continued the funding even after the allegations were verified. ...

Yet, immediately after Israel raised, yet to be verified, allegations against a very few of UNRWA staff, Canada and other donors preempted any investigation and froze funding to an organization that currently provides vital humanitarian assistance to a population enduring siege and relentless bombing. ...

[The] incongruent response to the two UN Agencies reveals that Western virtue is gaged by the identity of the victim and victimizer. In response to the more than 2000 allegations of sexual abuse, the accusers were from Africa and Haiti. In the second case, the unverified allegations against the 12 individuals came from Israel. The disparity in the two UN cases is a stark illustration of the evident Western bias, and how it’s driven by the victims/victimizers’ racial characteristics rather than a commitment to genuine fairness."
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/14/defunding-unrwa-the-last-phase-of-israeli-genocide/

-->What Western media would dare expose the racist response of much of the white, Christian world? Children are dying of starvation in Gaza. But they are only Muslim; so let's not worry about them.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison 'told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns,' the group said.

The former detainees said groups of 10-20 Israeli civilians were brought in and allowed to record torture sessions in which the men, stripped nearly naked, were beaten with metal batons, electrocuted, and had hot water poured over their heads. The ex-prisoners said some of the Israelis laughed while filming their torture."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-torture

-->Needless to say, this story was not picked up by any US media. It is just too much for our citizens to see. After all, stories like this indicate that the US is aiding and abetting a genocide.

The Guardian:
"Food shipment for 1.1 million Palestinians stuck at port due to restrictions from Israeli authorities, says UNRWA

A food shipment for 1.1 million Palestinians is stuck at an Israeli port due to recent restrictions from Israeli authorities, says the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) as an estimated 25% of families in Gaza face catastrophic hunger.

The Associated Press (AP) report that UNRWA’s director, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Friday that a convoy of food donated by Turkey had been sitting for weeks in the Israeli port city of Ashdod. The agency said that the Israeli contractor they work with received a call from Israeli customs authorities 'ordering them not to process any UNRWA goods'."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/feb/10/middle-east-crisis-israel-gaza-war-hamas-rafah-latest-news

-->Last week, the NYT covered a story about food aid being stopped in Northern Gaza. Nothing so far about the million starving people huddled at the Southern boarder with no place to go. All the news that the Israel Lobby sees fit to print.

=====

Common Dreams:
"The Minneapolis City Council voted on Thursday to override Mayor Jacob Frey's veto of what advocates say is one of the strongest cease-fire resolutions in the country.

The measure, which first passed 9-3 on January 25, with one abstention, calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, an end to U.S. military aid for Israel, the release of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners held indefinitely in Israel. The motion to override the veto also passed by nine votes. ...

With this override, Minneapolis becomes the latest U.S. city to call for a cease-fire, joining at least 60 other localities including San Francisco; Oakland; Atlanta; Seattle; Detroit; Dearborn, Michigan; Albany, New York; Akron, Ohio; and Providence, Rhode Island. Chicago became the largest U.S. city to pass a cease-fire resolution on January 31."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/minneapolis-cease-fire-veto

-->The NYT seems blind to this growing effort to have local governments pass ceasefire resolutions. It didn't print this story.


=====

Common Dreams:
"Around 100 Jewish American and allied activists were arrested in New York City Wednesday after they blocked President Joe Biden's motorcade route to protest U.S. complicity in Israel's genocidal war against the Palestinian people and to demand an immediate Gaza cease-fire.

The group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) led the Upper East Side demonstration, during which activists sat down in the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, where the president was attending a nearby fundraiser. 

'As Jewish New Yorkers we want to make crystal clear that President Biden is not welcome in our city while he continues to fund and arm the Israeli government's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,' said JVP's Jay Saper."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/jewish-protest-cease-fire

-->Amazing that the NYT didn't cover this story. How often does a presidential motorcade get blocked? Isn't that newsworthy? Or how about the story that the blockers were none other than Jewish Voice for Peace activists? Not reporting news like this is indicative of how our major media is still under the sway of the pro-genocide lobby.

Mondoweiss:
"The British Guardian has just published an extraordinary, thorough confirmation of what we already suspected — that CNN’s bias about reporting Israel’s war on Gaza is no accident, but a conscious and complex policy directed from the very top of the network. ... CNN is facing a backlash from its own staff over editorial policies they say have led to a regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinian perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza. You get the impression that CNN spends just as much time distorting the news as it does actually gathering it. Here’s a quick summary:

'Daily news decisions are set by a flow of directives from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta that have set strict guidelines on coverage. They include tight restrictions on quoting Hamas and reporting other Palestinian perspectives while Israel government statements are taken at face value. ... In addition, every story on the conflict must be cleared by the Jerusalem bureau before broadcast or publication.'

This is exactly how authoritarian regimes control their news output. [CNN insiders reported] that the network’s bias 'resulted, particularly in the early weeks of the war, in a greater focus on Israeli suffering and the Israeli narrative of the war as a hunt for Hamas and its tunnels, and an insufficient focus on the scale of Palestinian civilian deaths and destruction in Gaza.' "
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/the-guardian-exposes-how-cnn-slants-the-gaza-news/

-->Do you still believe that our media does a good job in reporting the news from Palestine? This Guardian story wasn't covered in the NYT, or in any other major news source in the US. The Zionists simply own much of our national media.

=====

Common Dreams:
"The nation's leading newspapers were under fire this weekend after publishing opinion pieces seen as 'Bigoted,' 'Islamophobic,' 'Racist,' and 'Reckless.' A Wall Street Journal opinion piece published on Friday afternoon read 'Welcome to Dearborn, America's Jihad Capital.' And on Saturday, The New York Times published a piece by long-time columnist Thomas Friedman titled 'Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom.'

The Islamaphobic article was written by Steven Stalinsky, who is a commentator 'on terrorism' and has served as executive director of the pro-Israel Middle East Media Research Institute based in Washington, DC. ...

Friedman's piece in the New York Times entitled, 'Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom,' posited Iran as a metaphorical 'parasitoid wasp' with proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria as caterpillars. Friedman claimed, 'We have no counter strategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle,' suggesting that the US militarily destroys the entire Middle East to annihilate Iran and its allies. He concluded that he could 'contemplate' the Middle East by watching Animal Planet."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/outrage-over-bigotry-islamophobia-in-wall-street-journal-new-york-times

-->Our major newspapers are not afraid to print bigoted and hateful opinions, maybe because these same ideas are held by our ruling class of warmongers and racists.

=====

Truthout:
"calling on the United States to 'end its complicity in the nightmare unfolding in Gaza,' U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday said he would introduce an amendment to remove more than $10 billion from the foreign aid supplemental requested by President Joe Biden.

The $10.1 billion has been proposed to pay for offensive weaponry funding for the Israeli government, which has killed at least 27,131 Palestinians in Gaza so far—including at least 11,500 children—and displaced 1.9 million.

'Twenty-seven thousand dead—two-thirds of them women and children,' said the Vermont Independent. 'Sixty-seven thousand wounded… 70% of housing units damaged or destroyed. And now, hundreds of thousands of children facing starvation.' ”
https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-moves-to-block-funding-for-israeli-weapons-as-aid-bill-looms/

-->Our supposed "newspaper of record" didn't even cover this story. The NYT was busy promoting racists and warmongers like Thomas Freedman.

Guardian UK:
"The Gaza Strip is facing 'inevitable famine' because of the decision by western countries to pause funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian affairs after Israeli accusations that 12 of the group’s employees took part in the Hamas attack on 7 October last year.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said on Sunday 'famine was imminent' and now 'inevitable', in a comment following the news that the US and nine other countries were suspending additional funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). 'This collectively punishes over 2.2 million Palestinians,' he said. ...

Israel has not publicly shared the details of its allegations against the UNRWA employees, which according to the Axios website were provided by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and internal security service, the Shin Bet."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/28/famine-in-gaza-is-being-made-inevitable-says-un-rapporteur

-->Israel and the US is willing to starve hundreds of thousand, with no proof yet that the UN agency was involved in the Hamas attack. The racism is staggering. Maybe that is why this story got so little coverage in the US.

=====

The Hill:
"The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Sunday condemned Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for linking pro-Palestinian protesters to Russia during a CNN interview in which she also indicated she wants the FBI to investigate any potential financial links.

Pelosi suggested on CNN’s 'State of the Union' that some pro-Palestinian protesters who are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza are spreading a message that is beneficial to Russian President Vladimir Putin. ...

When co-anchor Dana Bash asked Pelosi whether she thought some of the protesters were 'Russian plants,' Pelosi responded: 'I don’t think they’re plants. I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the FBI to investigate that.'
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4434319-pelosi-pro-palestinian-protesters-russia/

-->This story got plenty of coverage in the US media. Very few stores, however, condemned this baseless charge. Or even referred to the huge bribes she has taken from the Israel Lobby for her pro Israel stances ($606,698 in all according to Open Secrets).

=====

The Intercept:
"In a momentous day for the quest to keep Israel and its allies accountable for its brutal war on Gaza, members of leading Palestinian human rights groups, residents of Gaza, and Palestinian Americans argued in a U.S. District Court on Friday that the Biden administration should halt its financial and military support for Israel and uphold its obligations to prevent genocide.

The arguments came in a lawsuit that the Center for Constitutional Rights, or CCR, filed in November against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, charging them with complicity and failure to prevent the 'unfolding genocide' in the occupied strip. Testifying either in person at the Oakland, California, courthouse or remotely from Palestine, the plaintiffs spoke for nearly three hours about the deliberate devastation wrought by Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The hearing commenced hours after the International Court of Justice in The Hague found that it’s plausible that Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa. While the United Nations court fell short of ordering an immediate ceasefire, a panel of judges delivered a historic set of rulings and denied Israel’s request to dismiss the case. A final resolution in that case is expected to take years."
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/26/palestinians-biden-genocide-lawsuit-ccr/

-->This is not a popular story in the US. I think it's because the US now fears being linked to the horrendous genocide in Gaza. And our empire couldn't be much more involved. We send the weapons, we send the money, and we protect Israel at the UN. We are in a position to see the worst holocaust of our century. Look in the mirror and you will see the mark of Cain.

Mondoweiss:
"Don’t believe Haaretz and the NYT. Israeli society fully supports the Gaza genocide.

Haaretz and the New York Times are peddling fantasies about how genocidal incitement in Israel is only coming from an extremist fringe. But evidence shows there is near universal support across Israeli society for the genocide in Gaza.

An editorial in Haaretz last week, as well as a piece by the New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg a few days later, told a similar story. Both articles portrayed genocidal statements by Israeli leaders, and both articles explained them as an expression of far-right extremism. Haaretz seems to suggest that the solution (which would protect Israel at the International Court of Justice) would be for Netanyahu to fire his extremist ministers. Goldberg’s article takes it even further, suggesting that Netanyahu is also part of the problem.

However, there’s a story that is not being fully told in these two main liberal outlets. Both ignore the evidence and the polling that show near universal Israeli support for the unfolding genocide in Gaza — both from the Israeli political class and the vast majority of the Israeli population."
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/dont-believe-haaretz-and-the-nyt-israeli-society-fully-supports-the-gaza-genocide/

-->I wonder if the German people were wholeheartedly behind Hitler's extermination plans for Jews, Gypsies and gays? Its a topic that must be discussed, and not hidden away in supposedly liberal newspapers. Like the NYT and Haaretz.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Gaza's children—already reeling from 102 days of U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment that has killed and maimed tens of thousands of them—are now dying of starvation, with adults likely to soon follow, as famine rapidly grips the besieged Palestinian enclave, doctors and United Nations officials said this week.


Hundreds of thousands of Gazans, half of whom are children, are starving as Israel's bombardment and siege have "brought famine with such incredible speed to the front of the lines," United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said during a Monday interview on CNN.
The Guardian reported Tuesday that doctors in Gaza say that newborn babies there are not lasting more than a few days because their undernourished mothers are unable to feed them. ...

'Not only is Israel killing and causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its indiscriminate bombardments, it is also knowingly and intentionally imposing a high rate of disease, prolonged malnutrition, dehydration, and starvation by destroying civilian infrastructure,' the experts continued.

Salwa Tibi, an aid worker and mother of four, told CNN her children are 'screaming all day from hunger.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-famine

-->This weekend the NYT had a big story on Israeli women serving in the IDF. Very little on starving children. One day, our newspaper of record will pay for its pro-genocide reporting.

=====

Common Dreams:
"OpenAI Cuts 'Military and Warfare' Ban From Permissible Use Policy

Although the company's new policy stipulates that users should not harm human beings or 'develop or use weapons,' experts said the removal of the 'military and warfare' language leaves open the door for lucrative contracts with U.S. and other militaries. 


'Given the use of AI systems in the targeting of civilians in Gaza, it's a notable moment to make the decision to remove the words 'military and warfare' from OpenAI's permissible use policy,' Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI Now Institute and a former AI policy analyst at the Federal Trade Commission, told The Intercept."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/openai

-->AI has the brightest of futures, and now it can kill innocent, helpless civilians, without being bothered by military bans. The NYT didn't think this story was worth printing. All the news that the military industrial complex deems fit to print.

The Guardian UK
"Thousands of marchers descended on Washington DC on Saturday to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to protest US aid to Israel, more than three months into an Israeli offensive against Hamas that is killing 250 Palestinians per day, according to the Oxfam charity.

The protest, called a march on Washington for Gaza, was promoted as likely to be the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in the US since the 7 October attack on southern Israel by Hamas fighters ... Oxfam said the Israeli bombardment has displaced 1.8 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza and turned much of the besieged territory bordering Israel, the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt into rubble and dust.

Saturday’s protest, organized by the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine and aligned groups, was organized to draw attention to what it calls Israel’s 'crimes against humanity' and articulates a position that the creation of a fully recognized Palestinian state is in US national interests.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/march-on-washington-ceasefire-gaza

-->But the NYT didn't print this story, or any story in fact, about one of the largest pro Palestinian demonstrations ever in this country (at least 400,000). But it is the hubris of the NYT that is on full display here. On Sunday, our "newspaper of record" headlined a story about those troublesome Indian courts, making people wait for years. On Monday, the headline was "how Netflix Reels in Viewers With Its Three-Word Hooks." Nothing about millions rising up against US supported genocide. It's simply the empire's newspaper.

=====

Jacobin:
"Less than a month before a catastrophic aircraft failure prompted the grounding of more than 150 of Boeing’s commercial aircraft, documents were filed in federal court alleging that former employees at the company’s subcontractor repeatedly warned corporate officials about safety problems and were told to falsify records.

One of the employees at Spirit AeroSystems, which reportedly manufactured the door plug that blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland, Oregon, allegedly told company officials about an 'excessive amount of defects,' according to the federal complaint and corresponding internal corporate documents reviewed by us.
According to the court documents, the employee told a colleague that 'he believed it was just a matter of time until a major defect escaped to a customer.'

The allegations come from a federal securities lawsuit accusing Spirit of deliberately covering up systematic quality-control problems, encouraging workers to undercount defects, and retaliating against those who raised safety concerns. Although the cause of the Boeing airplane’s failure is still unclear, some aviation experts say the allegations against Spirit are emblematic of how brand-name manufacturers’ practice of outsourcing aerospace construction has led to worrisome safety issues."
https://jacobin.com/2024/01/alaska-airlines-boeing-parts-malfunction-workers-spirit-aerosystems

-->Another missing story from the NYT. Along with its love of US militarism, the paper has always protected the empire's weapons makers. All the stories that the empire sees fit to print.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Members of Congress who expressed more support for Israel during the first six weeks of its war on Gaza received $125,000 on average from pro-Israeli lobby groups and individuals during their last elections, The Guardian reported Wednesday. In contrast, lawmakers who expressed more pro-Palestinian views only received $18,000 on average from these groups.

The Guardian analysis does not prove that legislators changed their views because they received donations; it is also the case that pro-Israel groups are more likely to fund campaigns run by people who express pro-Israel views. However, experts and advocates argue that the lobbying is one reason why around 82% of Congress was more supportive of Israel while only 9% was more supportive of Palestine.


'One of the main reasons most members of Congress don't represent the majority of Americans who want a cease-fire: The Israel lobby gave Congress $58 million last cycle; only 33 members didn't receive donations,' the group Justice Democrats posted in response to the analysis. 'This dark money poisons our democracy.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/u-s-lawmakers-money-gaza-war

-->Amazingly, no national media would touch this story. Exposing just how bought and sold our governing system has become, is just not considered good journalism. And most Americans think they have a free press!

The Intercept:
"Whether reporting from the Middle East, the United States, or anywhere else across the globe, every CNN journalist covering Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review by the news organization’s bureau in Jerusalem prior to publication, under a long-standing CNN policy. While CNN says the policy is meant to ensure accuracy in reporting on a polarizing subject, it means that much of the network’s recent coverage of the war in Gaza — and its reverberations around the world — has been shaped by journalists who operate under the shadow of the country’s military censor.
 
Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNN’s Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forces’s censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. As The Intercept reported last month, the military censor recently restricted eight subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, and reporting on weapons captured by fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of the censor.

CNN’s practice of routing coverage through the Jerusalem bureau does not mean that the military censor directly reviews every story. Still, the policy stands in contrast to other major news outlets, which in the past have run sensitive stories through desks outside of Israel to avoid the pressure of the censor."
https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-reporting/
 
-->I wonder if the NYT sends its stories to this same Jerusalem Bureau? Someone from the NYT decided not to publish this story in our supposed "newspaper of record."

=====

Common Dreams:
"The Israeli government has mounted a pressure campaign urging governments around the world to publicly denounce South Africa's genocide case at the International Court of Justice, which is set to convene hearings on the detailed charges on Thursday.

According to a cable obtained by Axios, the Israeli Foreign Ministry is calling on the country's embassies to pressure host country diplomats and political leaders to swiftly issue an 'immediate and unequivocal statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that YOUR COUNTRY rejects the outrage[ous], absurd, and baseless allegations made against Israel.'

The cable warns that 'a ruling by the court could have significant potential implications that are not only in the legal world but have practical bilateral, multilateral, economic, security ramifications.' Israel is seeking to prevent an injunction ordering the country to suspend its attack on Gaza."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-south-africa-genocide

-->No mention of this story in our mainstream media. Must be that miserable Jerusalem Bureau again.

=====

Haaretz:
"But what ordinary people with little control over any aspect of their lives should be forgiven for, powerful heads of state and decision makers shouldn't be. When Israeli President Isaac Herzog signed a mortar shell in a photo op with IDF soldiers on the border last month, he was saying – like Haaretz journalist Netta Ahituv pointed out – that 'revenge' is an official goal of the war.

And when former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence – a representative of a country that has the power to use military and financial support to Israel to change the course of the war – signed a mortar while on a visit to the Lebanese border last week, he was sending a message of gleeful killing and uncritical thinking. Herzog, of course, thanked Pence for his 'unwavering commitment to Israel.' "
https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?e=e668db0354&u=d3bceadb340d6af4daf1de00d&id=f10985eb76

-->So our former vice president is signing Israeli mortars bound for the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. This action is so shameful that even the NYT refused to print a story about it. Our political elite, be they Republican or Democrat, have blood on their hands. The Israeli genocide is the United States' genocide. And we the people will be held accountable for these war crimes being committed in our name.

Common Dreams:
"As a self-proclaimed observant, practicing Catholic, [Joe Biden], you have not only failed to heed Pope Francis' figurative encyclical regarding Gaza but are shipping billions of dollars of weapons into the arsenal of the Israeli government.

We and many other organizations and peaceful protesters in our country have worked in vain to persuade President Joe Biden to use his influence to have the Israeli regime agree to a ceasefire that would allow hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks daily into the devastated graveyard that is now the Gaza Strip. Biden regularly begs Israel to let in more trucks, paid for by the U.S. At the same time the Biden administration exercises veto power on the U.N. Security Council blocking a cease-fire, truce, or negotiations toward a permanent two-state resolution. A cease-fire would at least allow aid to reach the besieged.

According to Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, '[U]nless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population—close to half a million human beings' can die within a year. (See, The Guardian, December 29, 2023)."
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/biden-genocide-gaza

-->This article written by Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein goes well beyond our mainstream media in predicting a genocide in Gaza. Millions of people around the world fear this outcome. Why doesn't our media want to look ahead and predict what constant bombing, starvation, and loss of shelter will do to millions of displaced Palestinians. Is it because our media doesn't want to be responsible? And isn't that as hypocritical as Joe Biden talking about peace while sending Israel more bombs?  

=====

Financial Times:
"The order books of the world’s biggest defence companies are near record highs after growing by more than 10 per cent in just two years because of rising geopolitical tension, including the conflict in Ukraine. An analysis by the Financial Times of 15 defence groups, including the largest US contractors, Britain’s BAE Systems and South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace, found that at the end of 2022 — the latest for which full-year data is available — their combined order backlogs were $777.6bn, up from $701.2bn two years earlier.

The trend’s momentum continued into 2023. In the first six months of this year — the latest comprehensive quarterly data available — combined backlogs at these companies stood at $764bn, swelling their future pipeline of work as governments kept placing orders. The sustained spending has spurred investors’ interest in the sector. MSCI’s global benchmark for the industry’s stocks is up 25 per cent over the past 12 months. Europe’s Stoxx aerospace and defence stocks index has risen by more than 50 per cent over the same period."
https://www.ft.com/content/001d2e1c-8e59-444b-a07b-9a62be620431

-->Let the good times roll, when it comes to weapons makers! Western factories can't even pump out enough bombs and bullets for the hearts of Palestinians in Gaza. In fact, this article never gets around to mentioning Gaza at all. It's like US weapons manufacturers have played no part in the extermination of the Palestinians.

The NYT has run similar stories, but it is always about Ukraine, rather than Gaza. Readers can tell how sensitive these weapons makers must be about being linked to a genocide. And our media can't bring itself to mention the connection.

=====

Jacobin:
"Earlier this month, the Biden administration joined governments around the world in marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948. At the very same time, US government officials were trying to fend off a legal action accusing them of complicity with Israel’s 'unfolding genocide' of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Now the South African government has filed a case with the International Court of Justice, invoking the Genocide Convention and accusing Israel of 'genocidal acts.'

Some commentators have contemptuously dismissed the idea that Israel’s war on Gaza should be considered genocidal as an absurdity. But academic experts have presented the question in a very different light and insisted on the need for urgent, morally serious debate.

The dismissive attitude to the charge of genocide betrays two forms of ignorance. The first concerns the definition of genocide in the convention itself. Although that definition was greatly influenced by the crimes of Nazism, its understanding of genocide also applies to a wider set of cases. The second form of ignorance concerns the deliberately murderous nature of the Israeli onslaught on the people of Gaza, and the overtly genocidal rhetoric that government officials have used to justify it."
https://jacobin.com/2023/12/biden-administration-israel-gaza-war-ethnic-cleansing-genocide-convention

-->This story was picked up by Code Pink, Vox and Israel's newspaper Haaretz. Why no mainstream media coverage? Perhaps this story will be like the tale of the emperor who had no clothes. Once a country points out that the US and Israel are involved in the worst genocide of the 21st Century, why everyone will finally realize the terrible truth.