The Hijacked Democracy and the Zionist Media
By Anait Brutian
Rediscover911.com, 24-06-2010
On June 2, 1010, immediately after the massacre on Mavi Marmara, in an emergency IAC meeting in NYC, Sara Flounders briefly described the events of the past few days: "While world opinion has been galvanized over the massacre that took place in an ‘Israeli' raid on ships bringing humanitarian supplies ... ‘Israel' has carried a whole number of bombings in Gaza ... resulting in at least 16 deaths. Has anyone here heard about that?" As expected, the overwhelming response from the audience was negative - indeed, no one had heard of the recent bombing raids on Gaza. Sara Flounders charged "the U.S. and the entire Western media" with "absolute corruption" for framing the questions relating to Palestine in a way that Palestinian lives didn't matter - "16 dead Palestinians in Gaza, lost in bombing raids are completely off the news here." Comparing the total "silence" on the 16 deaths to the world-wide attention given to the massacre on Mavi Marmara, Sara Flounders observed that the "silence" had been going on for too long and that the world was unaware of the conditions in Gaza - "An absolute concentration camp, which is what Gaza is, an open-air concentration camp."
According to former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, keeping ‘Israeli' atrocities off the news is achieved through the " Zionist Media." Even after the killing of U.S. citizens by ‘Israel', the U.S. has not held ‘Israel' accountable. The killing of the American activist Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by an ‘Israeli' bulldozer, did not stir an outcry in the American media. The same is true for the 34 seamen killed and 170 crew members wounded on USS Liberty exactly 43 years ago, on June 8, 1967. During the Six-Day War, ‘Israeli' Air Force and Navy attacked U.S. Navy technical research ship USS Liberty in international waters, killing, wounding and severely damaging the ship. Yet, "to this day 99.9% of the Americans know nothing about the 34 seamen killed on the Liberty and 170 wounded because our Zionist media have kept that out of the public domain." McGovern's assessment is accurate: not only ‘Israel's' attack on the USS Liberty was deliberately kept off the news, but also, according to Charles K. Ebinger, "the attack on the Liberty is the only maritime incident in U.S. history where ... [U.S.] military forces were killed that was never investigated by the Congress."
Ray McGovern is not the only one to openly criticize the "Zionist Media." Saeed Shabazz of The Final Call, describing the Zionist influence on the Western press, claimed that "most of the press core at the U.N.," "if not Zionist sympathizers," "are Zionist." "The reporting that you're getting" from the New York Times, AP, Reuters, CNN is controlled by the Zionists. Relating his experience from two years ago, during the horrific attack on Gaza, Shabazz said that he had "silent battles" with Zionist reporters because "they were in complicity with what went on in Gaza." "Right now it's the same attitude; so you're not going to get anything called balanced reporting." "Don't expect the New York Times, don't expect any of them to give you the truth. They cannot give you the truth; they are not allowed to give you the truth."
The fact that the Western Media is controlled by Zionists is adamantly dismissed by Zionist sympathizers. In a debate with Noam Chomsky, Alan Dershowitz, a staunch supporter of the Zionist State, argued that since certain news items were not reported by the U.S. media under both Democrat and Republican administrations, "they just never happened." "To hide the truth from the American public just doesn't bear reality." Dershowitz blamed Chomsky of unjustifiably accusing the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, or the New York Times for not telling the truth. Typical to the Zionist manner of diverting attention from the reality by discrediting the messenger of truth, he engaged in personal insults and name calling, tagging Chomsky's claims as "figments of Chomsky's imagination" and mockingly suggesting that "in order to get the true meaning of the world you have to move to planet Chomsky, where the news reflects his perspective on reality." Dershowitz' overt anger betrays the Zionist attitude towards the critics of Western media. The control of the media, painstakingly achieved through money and manipulation, would not serve its objective, if critics like Ray McGovern, Saeed Shabazz and Noam Chomsky were to question its truthfulness. Discrediting the critics of the mainstream media allows the Zionists to continue manipulating public opinion. And this is what Dershowitz' plea to his young university audience - "I urge you to move to the real world, read the real news, don't read the selective Israeli journalists that he [Chomsky] talks about" - stands for.
Zionists' manipulation of the media doesn't stop at controlling the news items that make to the front pages of the newspapers. It is also actively engaged in deliberately misrepresenting reality, distorting facts and fabricating news. Israel's preposterous accusation relating to the Freedom Flotilla is a case in point. Calling the members of the Freedom Flotilla terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, ‘Israel' completely ignored the very important fact that the passengers onboard the ships included people, whose age ranged from 0 to 88. A child barely a year old and an old man of 88 are unlikely candidates for "ties to global Jihad, Al-Qaeda and Hamas" as ‘Israel's' deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon claimed. Similarly, an exiled archbishop of Eastern Catholic Church of Jerusalem, MPs, doctors, paramedics, humanitarian aid workers don't seem to fit the profile of a global Jihadist.
‘Israel's' outrageous accusation that there were terrorists on board the ships, designed to fool the public into believing that the massacre on Mavi Marmara took place in Self-Defence, is clearly denied by Viva Palestina coordinator Kevin Ovenden who explained that the attack took place in "indisputably international waters." "We were 70-80 miles off the coast of ‘Israel'. The internationally recognized limit is 22 miles, within which a country can claim that they have territorial sovereignty." Confiscating "every single camera, computer, mobile phone belonging to people aboard the ships," ‘Israeli' authorities produced pictures of their own, claiming that "knives were used as weapons." According to Kevin Ovenden, "the knives that they show were quite simply taken from the kitchen by the ‘Israelis' to claim that knives were used as weapons." Ovenden's evaluation that the story "won't wash anywhere in the world" as Self-Defence is accurate, but one should not underestimate the power of propaganda that has been going on for years both in the United States and ‘Israel'.
‘Israel's' strong influence on its national media means that ‘Israeli' citizens will not see the world's outrage against the ‘IDF's' killing of nine civilians onboard Mavi Marmara. Ehud Shem Tov of ‘Israeli' Social TV explains that "all ‘Israeli' military correspondents worked in the army and there is a deep connection between them because they rely on the army for contacts and access to information." According to Mr. Shem Tov, "the ‘IDF' controlled the way the Flotilla videos were represented in the media. They chose to release it one by one, so they could make their message clear. They also seized all the footage from the Flotilla, so they could control it. Definitely, there are videos the ‘IDF' is not releasing."
But the videos the ‘IDF' did release are all too familiar to the world. They show passengers beating up ‘IDF' soldiers - by all means an impossible feat because those heavily armed soldiers belonged to an elite group of commandos trained to withstand military opposition, let alone the resistance of unarmed civilians. These days, LT. Aliza Landes, the New Media Head of ‘IDF's' Foreign Press Branch, faces heavy criticism because one of the images posted by ‘IDF' showed military equipment ‘Israel' claimed belonged to the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara. To offset the angry reaction of the world, ‘Israel' came up with an "explanation." LT. Landes said that the camera used by one of the photographers had a technical problem which resulted in an old picture from 1998, appearing as a recent one. But the "explanation," a cover-up of sorts, would not have been necessary if the world had been less vigilant in noticing the "mistake." Similar to other preposterous ‘Israeli' claims, this one would have passed as unalterable truth.
Looking at the images of an ‘Israeli' newspaper, Prof. Tamar Liebes of Department of Communication at Hebrew University calls the media "a very bad trap," "a terrible trap." Blogger and Film-maker Danny Schechter explains: " ‘Israel' is in the business of manipulating public opinion. It's been in that business for ... forty or fifty years. They're very smart about how to create a media narrative, how to present themselves as the victims in almost every ... instance, and how to ... portray anyone else as the aggressor, even perhaps, anti-Semitic."
Confiscating the existing footage from the passengers of Freedom Flotilla, doctoring the audio of the raid, controlling the images it put on the ‘IDF' website, ‘Israel' attempted to manipulate public opinion as it had done in the past. Indeed, victimhood helped to create the necessary support for this "Illegal Settler State imposed on the Arab world, implanted at the crossroads of Asia and Africa." But ‘Israel's' show of victimhood will not silence international community. Legal authorities around the world dismiss ‘Israel's' claims of Self-Defence arguing that at the time of the attack, the humanitarian ships were in international waters. The director of Justice International S. Mohyeddeen Wahed explains that since international waters are used by all nations, ‘Israel' has violated Turkey's right to navigate in international waters, when boarding Mavi Marmara. Moreover, by killing Turkish civilians on board a Turkish ship, ‘Israel' has technically declared war on Turkey. Unlike the doctored audio and video footage, these facts won't wash away easily. ‘Israel's' 62 years of premeditated slow genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians has suddenly dawned at the world. But, it doesn't seem to have affected ‘Israel's' relationship with its main supporter, the United States.
According to Jeremy M. Sharp, a Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, ‘Israel' has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. "From 1976 to 2004, ‘Israel' was the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance" and "since 1985 the United States has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel." "In August 2007, the Bush Administration announced that it would increase U.S. military assistance to ‘Israel' by $6 billion over the next decade." The Obama Administration requested $2.775 billion in FMF ( Foreign Military Financing). At present, most of the U.S. bilateral aid to ‘Israel' takes the form of military assistance. But ‘Israel' also received "significant economic assistance" from the U.S., in the past. Mr. Sharp observes that "strong congressional support for ‘Israel'" has resulted in "benefits not available to other counties." This statement explains ‘Israel's' insistence on continuing the manipulation of the U.S. media with more ferocity than the media of any other country in the world.
The "strong congressional support," enjoyed by ‘Israel' at the moment, largely depends on two factors: the commitment of the politicians to the Zionist cause of conquest disguised as Self-Defence, and the perpetual manipulation of public opinion. Brenda Stokely of the Million Worker March Movement explains: "We have to find popular ways to counteract the lies." The way to "break the silence is by arming people with information." Information is what ‘Israel' and its supporters do not tolerate. The Freedom Flotilla raid, resulting in the confiscation of almost all photographic and video equipment, first and foremost was aimed at suppressing the flow of information, especially truthful information ‘Israel' considers hostile to its grand manipulative designs. The "Illegal Settler State," visibly imposed on the Arab world, invisibly imposed itself on the United States, the largest democracy in the world.
Reporting the recent bombing raids in Gaza and the death of the 16 Palestinians would hurt the victimhood make-believe. Instead, the victimhood farce was successfully presented at the United Nations in New York by the ‘Israeli' Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Monday June 21, 2010. "For ‘Israel', the Gaza Strip today is an Iranian military base three kilometres from the closest ‘Israeli' city, and 60 kilometres from Tel Aviv." Calling the Freedom Flotilla a "pure provocation," Barak bluntly denied the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, let alone admitting that Gaza is "an open-air concentration camp": "The ships that were organized throughout the last few weeks to ‘break the blockade', are actually pure provocation, since there is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip." Playing the role of a benefactor, Barak claimed that "Every day ‘Israel' provides, in addition to electricity and water, approximately 150 trucks loaded with equipment, and not only humanitarian aid products. Therefore, any international group or organization interested in sending additional aid, is welcome to do so through the Ashdod port, which in accordance with an agreement between ‘Israel' and the Palestinians, is also used for the needs of the Gaza Strip."
Barak's blunt lies are not difficult to dismiss. But breaking the silence takes more than that. ‘Israel's' premeditated atrocities against the Palestinians and its manipulation of the media must be brought to light. The Zionists' cumulative catalogue of crimes, openly exposed to the world will serve as a wakeup call if not for the politicians but at least for the people that have been held "ignorant, blind, deaf, dumb and stupid," to keep them silent. Armed with information, people will hold their elected representatives accountable for supporting the "Illegal Settler State" with taxpayers' money. Armed with information, people will hold ‘Israel' accountable for "the murder of a nation." Armed with information, people will fight for American Democracy long hijacked by the Zionist media.
Note about the author: Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music.
