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Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have decried Israel's continued aerial bombing campaign as unlawful and denounced the killing of more than 300 Palestinians since 27 December, including scores of unarmed civilians not taking part in the hostilities. Israel's attacks on the densely populated Gaza Strip also elicited condemnation from numerous world politicians and sparked protests in global cities.
Despite international outcry over escalating violence, the U.S. mainstream media continues to privilege a prepackaged narrative in which Israel's actions are never disproportionate, never counterproductive and certainly never gratuitous. According to the mainstream media, the U.S. must continue uncompromisingly supporting Israel because the allegedly beleaguered democracy is held hostage by monomaniacal Islamofascists who are inherently evil. Promoting a paradigm in which Israel is always David up against Goliath, the U.S. media presents suffering Palestinians as expendable for the greater cause of Israel winning its epic struggle. To justify U.S.'s carte blanche to Israel, the mainstream media restricts American readers to an echo chamber in which the following claims are repeated ad nausem until they are mistaken for fact:
The mainstream media is culpable for American's ongoing ignorance and knee-jerk loyalty to Israel. Instead of elucidating motives and contextualizing actions, reporters' biased diction obscures facts and editors' cursory commentary muddles logic. By de-historicizing the conflict, the media reduces Palestinians to stock-characters who reject generous olive branches offered by Israel in favor of advocating for the dissolution of the Jewish state. A column by Israeli Gideon Levy in Haaretz, entitled "The neighborhood bully strikes again," could never appear in a paper in the U.S nor could a single paragraph be uttered by any American politician, in either party, of any national prominence without damning consequences.[10]
While visiting Israel in July, President-elect Barack Obama said, "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing." The question remains, what would Obama do if his daughters were deprived of food, electricity, medical care, and human dignity? What would Obama do if his daughters were humiliated when they traveled, maimed when they walked away from bomb shelters and robbed of their childhoods? If Obama fails to answer these questions with humanity, we can expect 4 to 8 more years of President Bush's failed Middle East strategy.
Notes:
[1] Wall Street Journal (Asia Edition), Editorial, December 30, 2008 (https://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051140769338457.html)
[2] If Americans Only Knew https://www.ifamericansonlyknew.org/
[3] Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) https://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2974
[4] BBC News https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/population_settlements.stm
[5] Evening Standard (London) https://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23608798-details/Defiant+Palestinians+fire+rockets+deep+into+Israel/article.do
[6] BBC News https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7803569.stm
[7] TIME Magazine https://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1868929,00.html
[8] AFP News, https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWdYoZ5ATqNC6YY2jiHKiBQ0D5FA
[9] AFP News, https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWdYoZ5ATqNC6YY2jiHKiBQ0D5FA
[10] Salon.com https://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/28/peretz/
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Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have decried Israel's continued aerial bombing campaign as unlawful and denounced the killing of more than 300 Palestinians since 27 December, including scores of unarmed civilians not taking part in the hostilities. Israel's attacks on the densely populated Gaza Strip also elicited condemnation from numerous world politicians and sparked protests in global cities.
Despite international outcry over escalating violence, the U.S. mainstream media continues to privilege a prepackaged narrative in which Israel's actions are never disproportionate, never counterproductive and certainly never gratuitous. According to the mainstream media, the U.S. must continue uncompromisingly supporting Israel because the allegedly beleaguered democracy is held hostage by monomaniacal Islamofascists who are inherently evil. Promoting a paradigm in which Israel is always David up against Goliath, the U.S. media presents suffering Palestinians as expendable for the greater cause of Israel winning its epic struggle. To justify U.S.'s carte blanche to Israel, the mainstream media restricts American readers to an echo chamber in which the following claims are repeated ad nausem until they are mistaken for fact:
The mainstream media is culpable for American's ongoing ignorance and knee-jerk loyalty to Israel. Instead of elucidating motives and contextualizing actions, reporters' biased diction obscures facts and editors' cursory commentary muddles logic. By de-historicizing the conflict, the media reduces Palestinians to stock-characters who reject generous olive branches offered by Israel in favor of advocating for the dissolution of the Jewish state. A column by Israeli Gideon Levy in Haaretz, entitled "The neighborhood bully strikes again," could never appear in a paper in the U.S nor could a single paragraph be uttered by any American politician, in either party, of any national prominence without damning consequences.[10]
While visiting Israel in July, President-elect Barack Obama said, "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing." The question remains, what would Obama do if his daughters were deprived of food, electricity, medical care, and human dignity? What would Obama do if his daughters were humiliated when they traveled, maimed when they walked away from bomb shelters and robbed of their childhoods? If Obama fails to answer these questions with humanity, we can expect 4 to 8 more years of President Bush's failed Middle East strategy.
Notes:
[1] Wall Street Journal (Asia Edition), Editorial, December 30, 2008 (https://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051140769338457.html)
[2] If Americans Only Knew https://www.ifamericansonlyknew.org/
[3] Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) https://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2974
[4] BBC News https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/population_settlements.stm
[5] Evening Standard (London) https://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23608798-details/Defiant+Palestinians+fire+rockets+deep+into+Israel/article.do
[6] BBC News https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7803569.stm
[7] TIME Magazine https://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1868929,00.html
[8] AFP News, https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWdYoZ5ATqNC6YY2jiHKiBQ0D5FA
[9] AFP News, https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWdYoZ5ATqNC6YY2jiHKiBQ0D5FA
[10] Salon.com https://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/28/peretz/
Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have decried Israel's continued aerial bombing campaign as unlawful and denounced the killing of more than 300 Palestinians since 27 December, including scores of unarmed civilians not taking part in the hostilities. Israel's attacks on the densely populated Gaza Strip also elicited condemnation from numerous world politicians and sparked protests in global cities.
Despite international outcry over escalating violence, the U.S. mainstream media continues to privilege a prepackaged narrative in which Israel's actions are never disproportionate, never counterproductive and certainly never gratuitous. According to the mainstream media, the U.S. must continue uncompromisingly supporting Israel because the allegedly beleaguered democracy is held hostage by monomaniacal Islamofascists who are inherently evil. Promoting a paradigm in which Israel is always David up against Goliath, the U.S. media presents suffering Palestinians as expendable for the greater cause of Israel winning its epic struggle. To justify U.S.'s carte blanche to Israel, the mainstream media restricts American readers to an echo chamber in which the following claims are repeated ad nausem until they are mistaken for fact:
The mainstream media is culpable for American's ongoing ignorance and knee-jerk loyalty to Israel. Instead of elucidating motives and contextualizing actions, reporters' biased diction obscures facts and editors' cursory commentary muddles logic. By de-historicizing the conflict, the media reduces Palestinians to stock-characters who reject generous olive branches offered by Israel in favor of advocating for the dissolution of the Jewish state. A column by Israeli Gideon Levy in Haaretz, entitled "The neighborhood bully strikes again," could never appear in a paper in the U.S nor could a single paragraph be uttered by any American politician, in either party, of any national prominence without damning consequences.[10]
While visiting Israel in July, President-elect Barack Obama said, "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing." The question remains, what would Obama do if his daughters were deprived of food, electricity, medical care, and human dignity? What would Obama do if his daughters were humiliated when they traveled, maimed when they walked away from bomb shelters and robbed of their childhoods? If Obama fails to answer these questions with humanity, we can expect 4 to 8 more years of President Bush's failed Middle East strategy.
Notes:
[1] Wall Street Journal (Asia Edition), Editorial, December 30, 2008 (https://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051140769338457.html)
[2] If Americans Only Knew https://www.ifamericansonlyknew.org/
[3] Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) https://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2974
[4] BBC News https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/population_settlements.stm
[5] Evening Standard (London) https://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23608798-details/Defiant+Palestinians+fire+rockets+deep+into+Israel/article.do
[6] BBC News https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7803569.stm
[7] TIME Magazine https://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1868929,00.html
[8] AFP News, https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWdYoZ5ATqNC6YY2jiHKiBQ0D5FA
[9] AFP News, https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWdYoZ5ATqNC6YY2jiHKiBQ0D5FA
[10] Salon.com https://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/28/peretz/