Both CNN and The Washington Post have been caught engaging in some pretty shady journalistic malpractice with their Israel reporting in recent days.
In a new article titled “CNN Runs Gaza Coverage Past Jerusalem Team Operating Under Shadow of IDF Censor,” The Intercept reports that all of CNN’s reporting on Israel and Palestine is funneled through a bureau in Jerusalem which slants reporting to benefit Israeli information interests and is subject to regulation by Israeli military censors. The Intercept also reports that last year CNN “hired a former soldier from the IDF’s Military Spokesperson Unit to serve as a reporter” at the onset of the war on Gaza.
Unnamed CNN staff told The Intercept that CNN’s iron-fisted protocols for regulating information related to the Israel-Palestine issue have had a “demonstrable impact on coverage of the Gaza war”.
“‘War-crime’ and ‘genocide’ are taboo words,” the anonymous CNN staff member said. “Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as ‘blasts’ attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed.”
The Intercept reports that the former IDF spinmeister has been bylined in dozens of CNN stories since the attack on Gaza began, with one report being “little more than a direct statement released from the IDF.”
Kind of makes you wonder why CNN doesn’t just cut out the middleman and run all its reporting directly through IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. Seems like it would be a bit more efficient, and certainly a lot more honest.
Meanwhile The Washington Post has been caught assigning a reporter with a history of anti-Palestinian bias to write a smear piece on independent media outlets Electronic Intifada and The Grayzone for their critical reporting on Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza.
As Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah highlighted on Twitter, when Dwoskin was at Columbia University twenty years ago she was authoring Nakba denialist claims that Palestine never existed and that prior to Israel’s formation the land was inhabited only by “desert Bedouins without a sense of national identity as we know it today.”
It’s bad enough for The Washington Post to be attacking independent media for asking the critical questions and doing the real journalism the Post itself should also be doing, but to assign someone with a public history of egregiously anti-Palestinian rhetoric to the task is especially lacking in journalistic integrity.
“If I’m following, a reporter that has denied the fact that Palestinians existed before the state of Israel is allowed to cover Israel/Palestine and write about ‘misinformation’ for Washington Post?” tweeted award-winning journalist Laila Al-Arian of Abunimah’s revelation.
Neither of these instances will come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying critical attention to the amazingly awful reporting the western mass media have been churning out about the Gaza assault these last three months, but they do offer some rare insight behind the curtain into how the sausage gets made.
The biggest misconception about propaganda is that it is something that happens to other people, and is done by other countries. Westerners like to think of themselves as free-thinking people whose worldviews are formed by facts and truth, contrasting themselves with nations like North Korea and China where populations are viewed as being subjected to conformity-enforcing propaganda. They believe that if propaganda does occur in the west, it comes here from nations like Russia trying to corrupt our minds and weaken our trust in our institutions, or if the propaganda is domestic in origin it only affects people in other political parties.
In reality the typical western mind has been marinating in domestic propaganda throughout its entire life, and its worldview has been manufactured for it by powerful manipulators who benefit from its intellectual compliance with their interests. The indoctrination into the mainstream western worldview began in school, and it continues throughout adulthood with the help of mainstream media outlets like CNN and The Washington Post.
If we’re ever to have a healthy civilization, we’re going to have to wake up from the propaganda-induced coma we’ve been placed in so we can begin pushing against the cage walls we’ve been indoctrinated our whole lives into ignoring and start using the power of our numbers to force real change in the systems which govern our world. Luckily the atrocities that have been taking place in Gaza have been rapidly waking people up, because it turns out there’s only so much propaganda spin you can put on the murder of thousands of children.
The more people become aware that our civilization is built on deception and everything we’ve been told about the world is a lie, the closer we get to living in a truth-based society where nothing like the Gaza massacre would ever be permitted to occur.
Media in other countries are controlled in a similar way, but Japan has the longest and most successful story of corporate media’s obedience to the pro nuclear dogma that prevails across the world.
Paul Richards 5 Jan 24
Starting with, the source: KISHA CLUBS OF JAPAN
Japan’s Press Club System, known as “kisha clubs,” is a unique arrangement that fosters close relationships between journalists and the institutions they cover. This system is prevalent in government offices, ministries, major corporations, and other influential entities.
1] STRUCTURE OF PRESS CLUBS
Exclusive Access:
Journalists from major media outlets join these clubs, gaining exclusive access to news briefings, announcements, and events hosted by specific institutions. Each institution typically has its own press club.
Regular Briefings:
Officials provide information to journalists within these clubs, fostering a symbiotic relationship. In return for access, journalists are expected to adhere to certain unwritten rules, which can include not reporting certain sensitive topics or leaks without permission.
2] HIERCAHICAL EFFECT
Access to Information:
Press club members receive information directly from sources, creating an information hierarchy where those outside the clubs might lack timely or direct access to crucial news.
Influence and Reporting Bias:
The system can create a situation where reporters develop close ties with the sources they cover. This might lead to a reluctance to publish critical or controversial information that could jeopardise their access or relationships. As a result, it can challenge the ability of the press to hold political power accountable.
3] CHALLENGING POLITICAL POWER
Limited Critical Reporting:
While the press club system provides access, it can also limit critical reporting. Journalists might self-censor to maintain access or avoid upsetting their sources, which can indirectly challenge the media’s ability to scrutinise political power thoroughly.
Alternative Media and Challenges:
Independent or smaller media outlets not part of these press clubs might face difficulties accessing information. However, these outlets sometimes challenge the established narrative and provide alternative perspectives, albeit with limited resources and access to official sources.
While the Press Club System provides journalists with unique access to information and sources, it also poses challenges to independent and critical reporting.
The hierarchical nature of information distribution in Japan within these clubs can lead to a cosy relationship between the press and political power, impacting the media’s ability to fully challenge or scrutinise those in authority.
There have been many concerns raised about the Japanese government’s ruling parties, and pressure on media outlets indirectly, such as withholding access to information or using informal means to influence coverage.
This might affect the independence and objectivity of reporting, though direct censorship is not a prevalent practice.
Overall, Japan maintains, it has a reputation for press freedom compared to many other countries.
However, concerns persist about self-censorship, indirect influences, and the limitations of the press club system that can impact the diversity and depth of news coverage.
The nature of political control over the press in Japan tends to be more subtle and indirect rather than overt and explicit.
We all know now that Israel can do no wrong, for it is blessed with immunity for being the eternal victim. For Israel, Hitler is the gift that keeps on giving.
We all know that the USA is complicit in the crimes, rushing more and more PMGs to Israel so it will never run short in its precise bombing of important military targets, such as churches, hospitals, schools, mosques, universities, and ordinary homes and residential high-rises.
We all know that no matter how many UN “emergency” meetings are held to rein in Israel’s bloodlust, no matter how many resolutions voted on, the bombs will continue to fall, because Israel can kill as many Palestinians as it wants. There is no one to stop them.
No one seems to know, let alone care, that all the people of Gaza (2.2 million)—not just some—cannot get enough to eat each and every day, and mass starvation is happening right now.
The usual response among most people in the West is—both sides are the same (meaning, Israelis and Palestinians); they both lie and cheat and murder, it’s hard to know where the truth lies. We should worry about our own countries.
If that were true, then why is it that as of now there is only side that has had over 8,000 bombed to pieces? That has had killed nearly 30,000, and left 55,000 people injured? That has had the only place given them to live turned into a wasteland? Why is it that ordinary citizens of one side have been heavily armed with the latest weapons, while those of the other side buy what they can on the black market?
Why is it that one side is well-fed and will not be worrying about food and water, while the other side must starve it out?
How exactly are both sides the same? How is it that both sides lie, cheat and kill?
Then the argument is made that Palestine and Israel are so far away. Let them fight it out. I have other things to worry about.
If that were true, then what about February 2022, when the entire West went into a paroxysm of Russphobia (which still shows little signs of abating), and you couldn’t go to get some milk without being told to to help the poor Ukrainians who were bring “brutally invaded” by the “dictator” Putin, etc.
Why was Ukraine not so far away, then—but Palestine is now so far away? Why was it so easy to care for one side and hate the other in 2022, but now we must be neutral?
Where is the International Criminal Court, which could not issue an arrest warrant for President Putin fast enough, but which now can see no crimes being committed in Gaza by Netanyahu and his ilk?…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
why does Israel slaughter Palestinians with impunity? Because Western powerbrokers and their ruling class have chosen Israel to play the role both of victim and “hero” of civilization. To that end, Palestinians (and Muslims generally) have been assigned the role of “villain,” who can only move from one outrage to the next atrocity. Just imagine the negative press if Zionism were a Muslim invention. In this way, “our values,” the “international rules-based order,” Western “civilization” are stood up against “barbarism.” When Israel kills babies, it kills for our good, for our “civilization,” for “our values.” We, in the West, are the beneficiaries of the “heroic” slaughter by the gallant IDF. Just as all those dead Ukrainians have let us keep our “democracy” and our “freedom.”
Emilija Škarnulytė’s hypnotic documentary zooms into the science of uranium and radioactivity, as well as cold war politics.
Occupying the liminal space between a geological excavation and speculative realism, Emilija Škarnulytė’s hypnotic documentary effortlessly moves between the micro and the macro. Zooming into a 3D-configuration of uranium ore, the film’s opening cuts to X-ray-esque renderings of radioactive household objects, all cast in an eerie shade of sickly green. These abstractions soon give way to something seemingly concrete yet equally mysterious: the camera plunges underwater, bringing us face to face with the remains of a 1950s uranium mine in Poland, once dug out in secrecy under the Soviet Union. Slithering through the wreckage is a water python, whose glistening presence serves as a kind of cosmic counterpart to the exploitation of natural resources.
Such slipperiness, both in terms of the imagery and the camera’s point of view, recurs throughout Škarnulytė’s film. Cutting to the Ignalina nuclear power station in Lithuania, a sister plant of Chernobyl, the film uses on-screen text to describe its decommissioning process, which produced millions of cubic metres of reinforced concrete structures to be demolished. This colossal waste will, hopefully, be processed at a research facility at Meuse in France, which is situated about 500 metres below sea level.
Though moving through these highly technological spaces, Škarnulytė’s film also makes space for bursts of surrealism. The python reappears in the Ignalina plant, as its gleaming form coils around the station’s switchboards. Bringing together the lush forests, the mushroom clouds of nuclear tests, and closeups of a snake shedding its skin, Burial questions the very possibility of rebirth and transformation. Even as Ignalina is ground into dust and buried away from prying eyes, the political spectre of the Soviet Union control continues to lurk, as the film offers a final message of support for Ukraine.
John had been battling illness since early 2023. The news was announced on John’s Facebook page a short time ago.
“It is with great sadness the family of John Pilger announce he died yesterday 30 December 2023 in London aged 84. His journalism and documentaries were celebrated around the world, but to his family he was simply the most amazing and loved Dad, Grandad and partner. Rest In Peace,” the post read.
John was twice awarded Britain’s Journalist of the Year, and his work has received numerous accolades around the world including from the British Film and Television Awards, and the Sydney Peace Prize in 2009.
John was a regular contributor to New Matilda, and a staunch ally of jailed Australian publisher Julian Assange, a campaign which engulfed much of the last decade of Pilger’s life. But it was his work on documentaries for which he was known globally. His first documentary, The Quiet Mutiny, was released in 1970 after a visit to Vietnam. His most recent work was The Dirty War on the NHS, an investigation into the assault on Britain’s health system.
John had a strong and enduring interest in Indigenous affairs. His book The Secret Country became renowned internationally for blowing the lid on the Australian Government’s treatment of its Aboriginal people. He turned the book into a film in 1985, and then completed several more documentaries on the First Australians, including Utopia in 2014, with New Matilda editor Chris Graham, and former New Matilda writer Amy McQuire.
John was also a friend of the Palestinian people. In 1977, he released a documentary entitled ‘Palestine is Still The Issue’. He released a new documentary in 2002 with the same name.
In total, he’s propduced more than 50 documentaries. but it was Year Zero (1979), about the aftermath of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, which launched John into the journalism stratosphere. John was amongst the first journalists into Cambodia after the collapse of the regime, and when his documentary for ITV aired in Great Britain, it shocked the conscience of a nation. It also broke records, raking in almost $50 million in fundraising to assist the people of Cambodia.
John remained a prolific writer throughout his life, and has published countless articles and at least a dozen books.
New Matilda will release a more detailed tribute to John Pilger in the coming days.
SCHEERPOST, By Deborah Brown and Rasha Younes / Human Rights Watch, December 23, 2023
Summary
Meta’s policies and practices have been silencing voices in support of Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook in a wave of heightened censorship of social media amid the hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups that began on October 7, 2023. This systemic online censorship has risen against the backdrop of unprecedented violence, including an estimated 1,200 people killed in Israel, largely in the Hamas-led attack on October 7, and over 18,000 Palestinians killed as of December 14, largely as a result of intense Israeli bombardment.
Between October and November 2023, Human Rights Watch documented over 1,050 takedowns and other suppression of content Instagram and Facebook that had been posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including about human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch publicly solicited cases of any type of online censorship and of any type of viewpoints related to Israel and Palestine. Of the 1,050 cases reviewed for this report, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine that was censored or otherwise unduly suppressed, while one case involved removal of content in support of Israel. The documented cases include content originating from over 60 countries around the world, primarily in English, all of peaceful support of Palestine, expressed in diverse ways. This distribution of cases does not necessarily reflect the overall distribution of censorship. Hundreds of people continued to report censorship after Human Rights Watch completed its analysis for this report, meaning that the total number of cases Human Rights Watch received greatly exceeded 1,050.
Human Rights Watch found that the censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and Facebook is systemic and global. Meta’s inconsistent enforcement of its own policies led to the erroneous removal of content about Palestine. While this appears to be the biggest wave of suppression of content about Palestine to date, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has a well-documented record of overbroad crackdowns on content related to Palestine. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/23/metas-broken-promises/
“Putin’s Russia is closing in on a devastating victory. Europe’s foundations are trembling.”
This was the headline atop a Dec.9 commentary in The Telegraph, the farthest right of the major London dailies. The subhead elaborated the theme in yet graver terms: “Kyiv’s counteroffensive has ended in failure. This could be NATO’s Suez moment.” The piece that followed included all sorts of goodies in this line.
It is not official, not yet, that Ukraine’s grand counteroffensive, the great Russophobic hope of the Zelensky and Biden regimes earlier this year, has proven a bust and that defeat is in the offing. The closest we have to such an admission came from Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this month, when the Ukrainian president declared that the counteroffensive “did not achieve the desired results.” I loved that moment, to be honest. It reminded me of Emperor Hirohito’s famous declaration on August 15, 1945, when he announced the surrender on Japanese radio. “The war,” he told his desperate subjects, “has not necessarily progressed to our advantage.”
O.K., let’s leave Zelensky to Zelensky, Joe Biden to Joe Biden, and Antony Blinken to Antony Blinken. We can count news of failure unofficially official when mainstream media start dropping such news on their readers and viewers. The Telegraph, so far as I know, was the first big daily on either side of the Atlantic to make such blunt admissions. Others have already followed, if in gentler, more oblique language—in Zelensky-speak, this is to say.
A significant moment may be upon us. What will follow once it is acknowledged that the Nazi-infested crooks in Kyiv have failed? President Biden, as is his consistently unwise wont, radically overinvested in the proxy war he chose to start with the Russian Federation as soon as he took office three years ago next month. Having defined the Ukraine conflict as a war in the name of democracy and freedom —“values” rather than interests, this is to say—he has left the U.S. and its European clients no room for compromise and nearly none even for negotiation. What is the next move when defeat is too obvious any longer to deny?
If we are about to enter uncharted territory, will it prove dangerous ground? It may, but this is not yet clear. It will be uncertain and probably unstable: This we know. Of the many things I do not like about this circumstance, I will mention a few straightaway. Biden may be the stupidest president of the postwar era on the foreign policy side: He exhibits no capacity whatsoever for nimble or imaginative thought. He is a warmonger of long standing, an election year is upon us, and he is by now in obvious danger of being impeached. His mental incompetence, atop all this, is plain for all to see. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………
‘“People Snatchers:’ Ukraine’s Recruiters Use Harsh Tactics to Fill Ranks,” appeared Dec. 15. In it, Thomas Gibbons–Neff describes how plainclothes goons have taken to kidnapping draft-age Ukrainian men, some with mental or physical disabilities, and forcing them into the military induction process. This is sometimes done at gunpoint. People are taken off the streets, at factory gates, from inside shop:
Recruiters have confiscated passports, taken people from their jobs and, in at least one case, tried to send a mentally disabled person to military training, according to lawyers, activists and Ukrainian men who have been subject to coercive tactics. Videos of soldiers shoving people into cars and holding men against their will in recruiting centers are surfacing with increasing frequency on social media and in local news reports.
The harsh tactics are being aimed not just at draft dodgers but at men who would ordinarily be exempt from service — a sign of the steep challenges Ukraine’s military faces maintaining troop levels in a war with high casualties, and against a much larger enemy.
Lawyers and activists say the aggressive methods go well beyond the scope of recruiters’ authority and in some cases are illegal. They point out that recruiters, unlike law enforcement officers, are not empowered to detain civilians, let alone force them into conscription. Men who receive draft notices are supposed to report to recruitment offices.
We are reading here about a desperate regime that has sent too many of its able-bodied to their deaths and is now running out of bodies.
A day later, Carlotta Gall, with several colleagues sharing the byline, published “Ukrainian Marines on ‘Suicide Mission’ in Crossing Dnipro River.” Here we read about incensed grunts at the front condemning the Kyiv regime’s incessant propaganda as to the military’s progress against Russian forces. Again this is very effective reporting:
Soldiers and marines who have taken part in the river crossings described the offensive as brutalizing and futile, as waves of Ukrainian troops have been struck down on the river banks or in the water, even before they reach the other side …
In the case of the Dnipro, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other officials have suggested recently that the marines have gained a foothold on the eastern bank. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a statement last month claiming they had established several strongholds.
But marines and soldiers who have been there say these accounts overstate the case.
“There are no positions. There is no such thing as an observation post or position,” said Oleksiy, who withheld his last name. “It is impossible to gain a foothold there. It’s impossible to move equipment there.”
“It’s not even a fight for survival,” he added. “It’s a suicide mission.”
…… The Times is not yet prepared to state plainly that Kyiv is not far from defeat. But, in that way, The Times thinks American readers must be gently prepared for bad news, as if we are a nation of kindergartners—well, let’s not “go there”—we are being so prepared.
…………………………………………………………..In plain English, the kind you and I speak: The Biden regime has no idea what to do in the face of failure, but, as failure cannot be admitted, it must be dressed up as a new strategy.
I recently became the recipient of the Women and Media Award from the Women’s Institute of the Freedom of the Press. While it’s truly an honor to receive this recognition for the journalism that I direct at MintPress News, it’s nearly impossible for me to revel in this accolade when my heart is weighed down heavily by the ongoing turmoil in Gaza.
As a Palestinian-American journalist who has lived under the oppressive shadow of Israeli occupation and witnessed firsthand the relentless brutality of the apartheid regime, I cannot remain silent as my people face relentless oppression and violence.
I want to dedicate this award to the fearless journalists in Gaza who are risking their lives to show us the raw reality of life under Israeli bombs.
Since October 7th, the death toll stands stark and horrific – Israel is systematically taking out journalists, one by one, and killing their families. The Israeli military has already claimed the lives of at least 82 Palestinian journalists in Gaza. These courageous individuals, committed to unveiling the truth, have become direct targets of a regime desperate to cloak its genocidal actions from the world’s scrutiny.
Israel doesn’t want the world to see the reality of its genocidal onslaught in Gaza, so it’s assassinating the messengers.
In most parts of the world, wearing a flack jacket marked “press” gives you protection. But right now in Palestine, it may as well be a target, as Israel has turned Gaza into what the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has called a “cemetery for journalists.”
And you’d think mainstream corporate journalists would talk about the targeting of journalists in Gaza, but they’re not. If legacy media outlets like the New York Times or CNN cover Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza, they don’t have the basic journalistic integrity to say who killed them and fail to point out that Israel is systematically targeting them.
Corporate media are whitewashing Israeli crimes and playing the fool, pretending not to understand where the missiles come from. They pretend not to hear the genocidal rhetoric emanating from Tel Aviv. And even as Israel makes Gaza the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist, they ignore what is in front of their eyes, manufacturing consent for ethnic cleansing.
Brave women have lost their lives trying to document the Israeli onslaught. Women like Alaa Taher Al-Hassanat, a presenter for the AlMajedat Media Network, whose house was bombarded by Israeli missiles on November 20.
Or Salma Mkhaimer, killed alongside her child in an Israeli air strike on her house in Rafah, Gaza.
And Freelance journalist Ayat Khadoura was also killed in her home by an Israeli air strike. In her “last message to the world” posted on Instagram, she said: “We used to have big dreams, but now our dream is to be killed in one piece so they know who we are.”
This only continues a long history of Israel systematically targeting journalists since its founding in 1948.
Just last year, Israel went so far as to murder our beloved Shireen Abu-Akleh, an American citizen and recipient of the same Women and Media Award that I’m receiving today. And in 2021, it blew up the Associated Press building in Gaza. Yet throughout all this, Israel continues to get a free pass in corporate media.
Despite the hardships, many journalists are risking their lives working around the clock to document the genocide in Gaza. Journalists like Motaz Azaiza, Younis Tirawi, Muhammad Smiry, Motasem Mortaja, Wael Dahdouh, and Hind Khoudary, to name a few, speak truth to power, chronicling the horrors in Gaza.
These people show us in real-time the courage it often takes to be a journalist. And because of that, dozens pay the ultimate price for their bravery.
This award I humbly dedicate to them—the fallen journalists who were mercilessly taken by Israel and those who, against all odds, continue to broadcast to the world the unimaginable horrors of life under incessant bombings.
As for journalists like myself, we vow to carry on their legacy and amplify their voices in the West. We will repeat their message of hope and truth while we challenge and confront the very system perpetuating my people’s destruction, supported directly by our governments and their lapdog media.
If wars can be ignited by deceit, then let us rally for peace through unwavering truth.
because Zionism requires a Jewish state, the people who lived in those occupied territories could not be treated as citizens. Maintaining Israel’s veneer of democracy requires the political fiction that these undesirables are not part of the country that rules them, but instead belong to non-sovereign entities—like the Palestinian National Authority and the Gaza Strip—whose raison d’etre is to provide a rationale for why the bulk of the Palestinian population isn’t allowed to vote in Israeli elections.
“Is Anti-Zionism Always Antisemitic?” a New York Times article (12/10/23) by Jonathan Weisman asked. Trying to pinpoint the moment when “anti-Zionism crosses from political belief to bigotry,” Weisman suggested there were different kinds of anti-Zionism based on different visions of what Zionism means. But his effort to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable critics of Israel painted principled supporters of equal rights as antisemitic bigots.
Weisman offered one definition of Zionism—the way it was “once clearly understood”—as “the belief that Jews, who have endured persecution for millenniums, needed refuge and self-determination in the land of their ancestors.” To oppose this kind of Zionism “suggests the elimination of Israel as the sovereign homeland of the Jews”—which he said to many Jews “is indistinguishable from hatred of Jews generally, or antisemitism.” Their argument is:
Around half the world’s Jews live in Israel, and destroying it, or ending its status as a refuge where they are assured of governing themselves, would imperil a people who have faced annihilation time and again.
On the other hand, wrote Weisman, “some critics of Israel say they equate Zionism with a continuing project of expanding the Jewish state.” This kind of anti-Zionism merely opposes “an Israeli government bent on settling ever more parts of the West Bank,” land that could serve as “a separate state for the Palestinian people.”
These two views of Zionism seemed to represent the poles of acceptable and unacceptable anti-Zionism. The piece quoted Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) explaining that “some anti-Zionism” isn’t “used to cloak hatred of Jews”; Nadler stressed, though, that “MOST anti-Zionism—the type that calls for Israel’s destruction, denying its right to exist—is antisemitic.”
The Nexus Task Force, a group associated with the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, has a definition of antisemitism that is more tolerant of criticism of Israel than that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, also cited by the Times. But it still insists, Weisman wrote, “that it is antisemitic to reject the right of Jews alone to define themselves as a people and exercise self-determination.”
Not ‘self-determination’
The phrase “self-determination” is doing a lot of work here. In international relations, it is generally used to mean that the residents of a geographical area inhabited by a distinct group have a right to decide whether or not they want that area to remain part of a larger entity. It’s a right that seems to come and go depending on political allegiances: When Albanians in Kosovo wanted to secede from Serbia, their right to do so was enforced with NATO bombs. If ethnic Russians who wanted to split off from Ukraine got help from Moscow, though, that wasn’t self-determination but a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.
To call Zionism a belief in Jewish “self-determination,” however, perverts the concept to include moving to a geographic region and forcibly expelling many of the people who already live there, in order to create a situation where members of your group can have a “sovereign homeland” where they “are assured of governing themselves.”
Ensuring the dominance of a particular ethnic group through forced migration is not usually called “self-determination,” but rather “ethnic cleansing.” This is the older version of Zionism that Weisman seems to suggest can only be opposed by antisemites.
It’s true that there is another vision of Zionism, unsatisfied with expelling the indigenous residents to the fringes of Israel/Palestine, that insists on incorporating those fringes. Ever since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel has occupied the remaining parts of what was the League of Nations’ Palestine Mandate, where many refugees from the establishment of Israel were forced to live.
But because Zionism requires a Jewish state, the people who lived in those occupied territories could not be treated as citizens. Maintaining Israel’s veneer of democracy requires the political fiction that these undesirables are not part of the country that rules them, but instead belong to non-sovereign entities—like the Palestinian National Authority and the Gaza Strip—whose raison d’etre is to provide a rationale for why the bulk of the Palestinian population isn’t allowed to vote in Israeli elections.
As it happens, this is precisely the strategy that white-ruled South Africa employed to pretend that white supremacy was compatible with democracy; it called the fictitious countries that the nation’s Black majority supposedly belonged to “bantustans.” This and other resemblances to white South Africa are why leading human rights groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s B’Tselem call Israel an apartheid state.
But both versions of Zionism involve the dismissal of one group’s rights in order to create a polity dominated by another group—a project that can certainly be opposed in either iteration without signifying animosity or prejudice toward anyone. (To be sure, there are antisemites who use “Zionists” as a transparent codeword for Jews. These are generally pretty easy to spot.)
A smear that needs correction
There is much to take issue with in Weisman’s article, but there is one point he makes that really warrants a correction. As an example of straightforward “Jew hatred,” he cites “holding Jews around the world responsible for Israeli government actions”—and offers as an example that this is what “pro-Palestinian protesters did last week outside an Israeli restaurant in Philadelphia.”
But the protesters at Goldie, a vegan falafel restaurant, weren’t blaming “Jews around the world” for Israel’s assault on Gaza; they were holding Goldie’s owner, Israeli-born Michael Solomonov, responsible, because his restaurants had raised $100,000 for United Hatzalah, a medical organization that supports the Israeli Defense Forces.
According to the Guardian (12/8/23), which interviewed “protesters and current and former employees at Solomonov’s restaurants,” critics both inside and outside the staff were concerned that Solomonov hosted a fundraiser for prominent pro-Israel politicians, and had “booked and paid for multiple, lavish private dinners…for IDF members preparing to deploy to fight for Israel.” (The New York Times article—12/4/23—that Weisman linked to did not appear to be based on interviews with any protesters, but instead quoted numerous politicians condemning their demonstration.)
Obviously Solomonov and his critics have different views of his actions. But there is no evidence that protesters were targeting his restaurant simply because he was Jewish, and it’s an irresponsible smear for Weisman to assert that they were
ACTION: Please tell the New York Times to correct its false claim that people protesting at a Philadelphia restaurant owned by a prominent supporter of the Israeli Defense Forces were “holding Jews around the world responsible for Israeli government actions.”
CONTACT: You can send a message about factual errors to the New York Times at nytnews@nytimes.com.
As a journalist based in Cumbria, I appreciate your investigations into Sellafield (Sellafield nuclear site workers claim ‘toxic culture’ of bullying, sexual harassment and drugs could put safety at risk, 6 December). The exposés are long overdue. The reaction of many, however, has been distinctly muted and is directly linked to how Sellafield has been getting away with it for many years: geography. The fact that Sellafield lies on the west coast of Cumbria makes it easily forgettable to large swathes of the media and the public.
Were Sellafield based within a hundred miles of London there would have been a national uproar, but its “out of sight, out of mind” location means it can be ignored easily. It is indicative of the public’s attitude towards Cumbria being just the lakes and nothing more. Isaac Cooper Cumberland News,Carlisle
A climate of fear is gripping U.S. newsrooms as a growing list of journalists have been fired, suspended, or otherwise sidelined after refusing to abide by the pro-Israel bias across the U.S. news media.
The New York Times, Associated Press, BBC, and Los Angeles Times are just a handful of the more prominent news outlets where journalists say they were sidelined after criticizing Israel or expressing sympathy for Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the death toll in the Gaza Strip now exceeds 18,000, and more than 80 percent of Palestinians there have been displaced by the war.
Since October 7, there have been numerous incidents reported in which journalists were fired, demoted, suspended, or otherwise silenced after voicing criticism of Israel, including:
The German media giant Axel Springer fired Kasem Raad, a 20-year-old apprentice at the company, after he questioned the company’s Israel policy through internal channels.
Thirty-eight Los Angeles Times journalists have been barred from covering Gaza for a minimum of three months after signing an open letter criticizing media coverage of the war and Israel’s targeting of journalists.
The BBC took six Arab journalists off the air after they allegedly showed “anti-Israel bias” by liking and publishing pro-Palestinian posts on social media.
Mona Chalabi, the data journalist and illustrator who won the Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times earlier this year, said she’s been unable to get commissioned for additional work from the paper since the war started.
Artforum editor-in-chief David Velasco was fired after wealthy art collectors objected to an open letter by artists expressing solidarity with Palestinians was posted on the magazine’s website.
The Harvard Law Review killed an article on the Gaza war and Nakba after it was commissioned, edited, fact-checked, and prepared for publication.
Two weeks ago, MSNBC canceled the Sunday night show hosted by Mehdi Hasan, one of the only cable news hosts willing to openly challenge Israel and a valued former Intercept colleague.
While the reasons for some of these moves against journalists have been disputed, there’s been an undeniable chilling effect across the U.S. media landscape as a result of incidents like these.
In the words of Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Abdallah Fayyad, a “culture of fear in many newsrooms” is leading many journalists “to take the easier route and continue the mainstream media’s pro-Israel slant.”
In the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing backlash on Palestine, Meta has engaged in unjustified content and account takedowns on its social media platforms. This has suppressed the voices of journalists, human rights defenders, and many others concerned or directly affected by the war.
This is not the first instance of biased moderation of content related to Palestine and the broader MENA region. EFF has documented numerous instances over the past decade in which platforms have seemingly turned their backs on critical voices in the region. In 2021, when Israel was forcibly evicting Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem, international digital and human rights groups including EFF partnered in a campaign to hold Meta to account. These demands were backed by prominent signatories, and later echoed by Meta’s Oversight Board.
The campaign—along with other advocacy efforts—led to Meta agreeing to an independent review of its content moderation activities in Israel and Palestine, published in October 2022 by BSR. The BSR audit was a welcome development in response to our original demands; however, we are yet to see its recommendations fully implemented in Meta’s policies and practices.
The rest of our demands went unmet. Therefore, in the context of the current crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, EFF and 17 other digital and human rights organizations are issuing an updated set of demands to ensure that Meta considers the impact of its policies and content moderation practices on Palestinians, and takes serious action to ensure that its content interventions are fair, balanced, and consistent with the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation.
Why it matters
The campaign is crucial for many reasons ranging from respect for free speech and equality to prevention of violence.
Free public discourse plays an important role in global conflicts in that it has the ability to affect the decision making of those occupying decisive positions. Dissemination of information and public opinion can reflect the majority opinion and can build the necessary pressure on individuals in positions of power to make democratic and humane decisions. Borderless platforms like Meta, therefore, have colossal power to shape narratives across the globe. In order to reflect a true picture of the majority public opinion, it is essential that these platforms allow for a level playing field for all sides of a conflict.
These leviathan platforms have the power and responsibility to refuse to succumb to unjustifiable government demands intended to skew the discourse in favor of the latter’s geopolitical and economic interests. There is already a significant imbalance between the government of Israel and the Palestinian people, particularly in theireconomic and geopolitical influence. Adding to that, suppression of information coming out of or about the weaker party has the potential to aid and abet further suffering.
Effective governance of Britain’s nuclear industry is critical to saving a hazardous industry from itself
There will be many reasons why Britain’s energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, went public with her unease about “serious and concerning” allegations raised by the Guardian this week over cybersecurity, site safety and a “toxic” workplace culture in Sellafield. There was the “longstanding nature” of the matters in question, raising questions over the site’s management. Neighbouring governments have had serious concerns. The plant holds enough plutonium to potentially make thousands of atomic bombs of the size that obliterated Japan’s Nagasaki in 1945. By asking for assurances from its state-controlled owner and its regulator, Ms Coutinho emphasises that effective governance of Britain’s nuclear industry is a critical issue.
This is a sensible response to these scandals. The cabinet minister is right to publicise her concerns about a hazardous industry that can inflict catastrophic environmental damage and deaths. She has sent a helpful signal about valuing public safety over secrecy. Sellafield in Cumbria, and about 20 smaller sites, need to be monitored and protected, as the waste stored can remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Yet the nuclear establishment is at best opaque. Britain’s postwar development of nuclear weapons grew alongside the construction of nuclear energy reactors. The industry’s military connections have influenced its approaches to corporate governance for the worse.
There is an urgent problem of nuclear waste disposal. Britain was one of the first economies to generate nuclear energy. But that meant radioactive waste has been left for decades without a permanent storage solution. This has seen the cost of temporary storage soar and the risk of catastrophe increase. Sellafield is one of the most dangerous places in the world, a notoriety bolstered by crumbling buildings and tanks leaking irradiated sludge. It is no stranger to trouble, going as far as changing its name to distance itself from being the site of one of history’s worst nuclear accidents in 1957.
The consensus today for an enduring answer is to bury nuclear waste deep underground in “geological disposal facilities”. Finland will open one next year. Its spent nuclear fuel will be packed in copper canisters, and these entombed in the bedrock on the Gulf of Bothnia at a depth of 400m. France and Sweden are pursuing similar schemes. Britain has homed in on three sites, but finding an area willing to host a £53bn underground dump is not easy, given public safety concerns.
It would be better to have cheap, green energy that doesn’t create toxic waste. But demand for electricity is growing, and – without the battery technology to effectively store energy – this will have to be met at times when there is no sun or wind. Hence countries aim to use nuclear energy to try to cut fossil fuel dependence. But, say experts, ambitious government targets for more nuclear power stations could see Britain run out of room to store the radioactive waste produced. Opportunities arise too. Half of the world’s 420 nuclear reactors will need dismantling by 2050. Sellafield is at the heart of a billion-pound UK decommissioning industry. Its expertise could be sold worldwide. But that relies on a reputation for safety and competence, something that Ms Coutinho’s intervention doubtless seeks to salvage.
ABC’s 1983 film ‘The Day After’ — the subject of a new documentary as well as a book —not only blew America’s (and Ronald Reagan’s) mind, but it may also have changed the course of human history.
“………………………………… Next to the moon landing, it’s hard to think of a TV moment that had a bigger impact on the collective psyche than The Day After, ABC’s white-knuckle drama depicting the aftermath of a nuclear strike on the United States. Its airing 40 years ago — which is being commemorated on Dec. 4 with a new PBS documentary, Television Event, as well as a just-published book about the film, Apocalypse Television — didn’t just terrify the nation. It may have also altered the course of human destiny, which at that time, the red-hot height of the Cold War, seemed to be barreling towards an inevitable atomic showdown……………
“I’ve come to believe that’s true,” says Nicholas Meyer, 77, who directed the three-hour film. “The movie may have indeed helped prevent a nuclear war. It certainly changed one person’s mind on the subject, and that person just happened to be the President of the United States. Ronald Reagan wrote about watching the movie in his memoir. His biographer, who spent three years in the White House, said the only time he ever saw Reagan flip out was after seeing the movie. Ultimately, it sent Reagan into such a tailspin, he signed the Intermediate Missile Range Treaty, the only treaty that ever resulted in the physical dismantling of nuclear weapons.”
The brains behind The Day After, the one who deserves most of the credit not only for conceiving the concept but also strong-arming a reluctant ABC into putting it on the air, was the late Brandon Stoddard, then the network exec in charge of ABC’s made-for-TV movies.
“Brandon was stunned by Three Mile Island,” recalls Meyer. “And that’s how he came up with The Day After. ‘What if we showed a nuclear exchange and what would happen to regular people if they got nuked?’”
Unsurprisingly, ABC’s top executives were not entirely onboard with Stoddard’s vision…………………………………
For one thing, there was considerable political pushback. Conservative groups went on the warpath against the network, claiming the movie was Soviet propaganda designed to undermine America’s nuclear deterrent (even though Hume’s script never identified who launched the strike against the U.S. or why). For another, the subject matter of atomic war was, predictably, radioactive to advertisers. They began pulling out in droves………………………………………………………… https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/how-the-day-after-saved-the-world-12357
A cover image of the New York Post (11/16/23) depicted a supposedly shocking find. The headline “Guns Behind the MRI Machine” accompanied a photo of what Israeli troops had allegedly uncovered: Hamas guns at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
On the Post cover were fewer than a dozen AK-47s and matching magazines, as well as a few tactical vests. In its subhead, the Post called this “proof Hamas used hospital as military base in stunning war crime.”
Many other media outlets reported Israel’s claims—and accompanying photos and videos the IDF offered as evidence—with little pushback other than Hamas’s denials and an acknowledgment that the outlet could not independently verify the claims. “IDF ‘Found Clear Evidence’ of Hamas Operation out of Al-Shifa Hospital, Says Spokesperson,” was an NBC News headline (11/15/23); Fox News (11/15/23) had “Watch: Israel Finds Weapons, Military Equipment Used by Hamas in Key Gaza Hospital After Raid, IDF Says.”
Israel’s assault on Al Shifa hospital provoked widespread international outrage, so a great deal hinged on its claim that the hospital was being used as a military base. But there are many reasons to question this display of weaponry, questions that imply that not only did the Israeli military make a weak case, but that some media outlets and pundits were too quick to take this presentation at face value.
The laws of war
While civilian infrastructure, and in particular medical infrastructure, are protected under the laws of war, the Israeli government claimed that the hospital’s protection was nullified because Hamas was using it as a military base, using the medical staff and patients as human shields.
The IDF released a 3D animation (YouTube, 10/27/23) depicting Al Shifa as “the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity,” with a warren of underground chambers hiding crates of weapons, missiles, barrels and meeting rooms bedecked with Islamic flags.
The US government supported this line of thinking (ABC News, 11/16/23). The Wall Street Journal editorial board (11/14/23) spelled out the argument:
The law of war in this case is clear: Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Hamas’s use of Al Shifa for military purposes vitiates the protected status granted to hospitals. Israel is still required to give warning and use means proportionate to the anticipated military advantage, and it has.
But the law of war is not, in fact, clear in the way the Journal claims. “Even if there is a military facility operating under the hospital, this does not allow Israel to bomb the site,” the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem (11/7/23) said in a statement before the hospital raid.
Even if a hospital were used for “acts harmful to the enemy,” that does not give that enemy “the right to bombard it for two days and completely destroy it,” Mathilde Philip-Gay, an expert in international humanitarian law at France’s Lyon 3 University, told the Guardian (11/17/23).
“Even if the building loses its special protection, all the people inside retain theirs,” Rutgers Law School international law expert Adil Haque told the Washington Post (11/15/23). “Anything that the attacking force can do to allow the humanitarian functions of that hospital to continue, they’re obligated to do.” The director of the hospital, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said that 179 patients died while the facility was surrounded by Israeli forces and had to be buried in a mass grave (Al Jazeera, 11/14/23). (Abu Salmiya was later arrested by Israeli forces along with other Palestinian medical personnel—Al Jazeera, 11/11/23.)
After the raid, viewing the evidence, Human Rights Watch was not at all persuaded. “Hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law,” said Human Rights Watch UN director Louis Charbonneau (Reuters, 11/16/23):
Doctors, nurses, ambulances and other hospital staff must be permitted to do their work and patients must be protected. Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises. The Israeli government hasn’t provided any evidence of that.
DECEMBER 1, 2023
Press Relayed Israeli Claims of Secret Hospital Base With Insufficient Skepticism
A cover image of the New York Post (11/16/23) depicted a supposedly shocking find. The headline “Guns Behind the MRI Machine” accompanied a photo of what Israeli troops had allegedly uncovered: Hamas guns at Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
On the Post cover were fewer than a dozen AK-47s and matching magazines, as well as a few tactical vests. In its subhead, the Post called this “proof Hamas used hospital as military base in stunning war crime.”
Many other media outlets reported Israel’s claims—and accompanying photos and videos the IDF offered as evidence—with little pushback other than Hamas’s denials and an acknowledgment that the outlet could not independently verify the claims. “IDF ‘Found Clear Evidence’ of Hamas Operation out of Al-Shifa Hospital, Says Spokesperson,” was an NBC News headline (11/15/23); Fox News (11/15/23) had “Watch: Israel Finds Weapons, Military Equipment Used by Hamas in Key Gaza Hospital After Raid, IDF Says.”
Israel’s assault on Al Shifa hospital provoked widespread international outrage, so a great deal hinged on its claim that the hospital was being used as a military base. But there are many reasons to question this display of weaponry, questions that imply that not only did the Israeli military make a weak case, but that some media outlets and pundits were too quick to take this presentation at face value.
The laws of war
Israeli computer animation (YouTube, 10/27/23) depicting what was claimed to be “the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity” beneath Al Shifa Hospital.
While civilian infrastructure, and in particular medical infrastructure, are protected under the laws of war, the Israeli government claimed that the hospital’s protection was nullified because Hamas was using it as a military base, using the medical staff and patients as human shields.
The IDF released a 3D animation (YouTube, 10/27/23) depicting Al Shifa as “the main headquarters for Hamas’ terrorist activity,” with a warren of underground chambers hiding crates of weapons, missiles, barrels and meeting rooms bedecked with Islamic flags.
The US government supported this line of thinking (ABC News, 11/16/23). The Wall Street Journal editorial board (11/14/23) spelled out the argument:
The law of war in this case is clear: Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Hamas’s use of Al Shifa for military purposes vitiates the protected status granted to hospitals. Israel is still required to give warning and use means proportionate to the anticipated military advantage, and it has.
But the law of war is not, in fact, clear in the way the Journal claims. “Even if there is a military facility operating under the hospital, this does not allow Israel to bomb the site,” the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem (11/7/23) said in a statement before the hospital raid.
Even if a hospital were used for “acts harmful to the enemy,” that does not give that enemy “the right to bombard it for two days and completely destroy it,” Mathilde Philip-Gay, an expert in international humanitarian law at France’s Lyon 3 University, told the Guardian (11/17/23).
“Even if the building loses its special protection, all the people inside retain theirs,” Rutgers Law School international law expert Adil Haque told the Washington Post (11/15/23). “Anything that the attacking force can do to allow the humanitarian functions of that hospital to continue, they’re obligated to do.” The director of the hospital, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said that 179 patients died while the facility was surrounded by Israeli forces and had to be buried in a mass grave (Al Jazeera, 11/14/23). (Abu Salmiya was later arrested by Israeli forces along with other Palestinian medical personnel—Al Jazeera, 11/11/23.)
After the raid, viewing the evidence, Human Rights Watch was not at all persuaded. “Hospitals have special protections under international humanitarian law,” said Human Rights Watch UN director Louis Charbonneau (Reuters, 11/16/23):
Doctors, nurses, ambulances and other hospital staff must be permitted to do their work and patients must be protected. Hospitals only lose those protections if it can be shown that harmful acts have been carried out from the premises. The Israeli government hasn’t provided any evidence of that.
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