Veteran journalist Robert Fisk on Gaza
Robert Fisk is a highly respectable journalist who has been writing about the Middle East for decades. No one is probably trusted more than him when it comes to getting to the truth on a series of contentious issues on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
In his latest article, posted in the Counterpunch.org., Fisk writes, "There was a time when our politicians and media had one principal fear when covering Middle East wars: that no one should ever call them anti-Semitic. So corrosive, so vicious was this charge against any honest critic of Israel that merely to bleat the word “disproportionate” – as in any normal wartime exchange rate of Arab-to-Israeli deaths – was to provoke charges of Nazism by Israel’s would-be supporters. Sympathy for Palestinians would earn the sobriquet “pro-Palestinian”, which, of course, means “pro-terrorist”.
Or so it was until the latest bloodbath in Gaza, which is being so graphically covered by journalists that our masters and our media are suffering a new experience: not fear of being called anti-Semitic, but fear of their own television viewers and readers – ordinary folk so outraged by the war crimes committed against the women and children of Gaza that they are demanding to know why, even now, television moguls and politicians are refusing to treat their own people like moral, decent, intelligent human beings."
Sadly, as Mr. Fisk has so beautifully articulated, the mainline media here in the USA is in the business of hushing up the crimes of their "real" master, i.e., the Israeli government. It is really sickening, pathetic to say the least.
This Sunday, Israel hit a UN school in the southern town of Rafah, which was converted into a shelter, killing ten people. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the attack a "moral outrage and a criminal act" and demanded a quick investigation, while the U.S. State Department said Washington was "appalled" by the "disgraceful" attack. But don't expect anything more from the Obama administration on such savagery of its partner in crime, the Netanyahu government.
According to witnesses, Israeli strikes hit just outside the main gates of the school. The Red Crescent, a charity, said the attack occurred while people were in line to get food from aid workers. Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said in addition to the dead, 35 people were wounded.
Robert Turner, director of operations for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said the building had been providing shelter for some 3,000 people. He said the strike killed at least one U.N. staffer.
"The locations of all these installations have been passed to the Israeli military multiple times," Turner said. "They know where these shelters are. How this continues to happen, I have no idea."
Inside the U.N. school's compound, several bodies, among them children, were strewn across the ground in puddles of blood. "Our trust and our fate are only in the hands of God!" one woman cried.
In the current round of fighting, U.N. shelters have been struck by fire seven times. UNRWA, the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees, says Israel has been the source of fire in all instances.
Israeli artillery shells slammed into two high-rise office buildings Sunday in downtown Gaza City, police and witnesses said. Al-Kidra said more than 50 Palestinians were killed, including 10 members of one family in a single strike in the southern Gaza Strip. Israel said that it attacked 63 sites on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Israeli military death toll rose to 64 after Israel announced that Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old infantry lieutenant feared captured in Gaza, was actually killed in battle. Now we are told that Goldin is related to Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. Did he take his death personally to commit war crimes in Gaza? We may never know!
As to media here in the USA, the least said the better. Even guys like Fareed Zakariya of CNN sound like emasculated robots to hide the crimes of the criminal Netanyahu government that has murdered more than 1700 Palestinian civilians in what can only be described as a genocidal campaign. The New York Times has also played a disgraceful role in covering the massacre in Gaza. CNN and other TV channels, minus Al Jazeera, are all in this revisionist yellow journalism at the altar of Zionism and its ruthless, untouchable murderers. And with shoddy polls they tell us that the uninformed US residents are supportive of the massacre by a 2 to 1 margin. Are the people in this country so ill-informed or misinformed? What is wrong with America? Unless, Americans tune in Al Jazeera, Independent and BBC of UK, I doubt if the sad situation would ever become better.
You can read veteran journalist Robert Fisk's article by clicking here.
In his latest article, posted in the Counterpunch.org., Fisk writes, "There was a time when our politicians and media had one principal fear when covering Middle East wars: that no one should ever call them anti-Semitic. So corrosive, so vicious was this charge against any honest critic of Israel that merely to bleat the word “disproportionate” – as in any normal wartime exchange rate of Arab-to-Israeli deaths – was to provoke charges of Nazism by Israel’s would-be supporters. Sympathy for Palestinians would earn the sobriquet “pro-Palestinian”, which, of course, means “pro-terrorist”.
Or so it was until the latest bloodbath in Gaza, which is being so graphically covered by journalists that our masters and our media are suffering a new experience: not fear of being called anti-Semitic, but fear of their own television viewers and readers – ordinary folk so outraged by the war crimes committed against the women and children of Gaza that they are demanding to know why, even now, television moguls and politicians are refusing to treat their own people like moral, decent, intelligent human beings."
Sadly, as Mr. Fisk has so beautifully articulated, the mainline media here in the USA is in the business of hushing up the crimes of their "real" master, i.e., the Israeli government. It is really sickening, pathetic to say the least.
This Sunday, Israel hit a UN school in the southern town of Rafah, which was converted into a shelter, killing ten people. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the attack a "moral outrage and a criminal act" and demanded a quick investigation, while the U.S. State Department said Washington was "appalled" by the "disgraceful" attack. But don't expect anything more from the Obama administration on such savagery of its partner in crime, the Netanyahu government.
According to witnesses, Israeli strikes hit just outside the main gates of the school. The Red Crescent, a charity, said the attack occurred while people were in line to get food from aid workers. Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said in addition to the dead, 35 people were wounded.
Robert Turner, director of operations for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said the building had been providing shelter for some 3,000 people. He said the strike killed at least one U.N. staffer.
"The locations of all these installations have been passed to the Israeli military multiple times," Turner said. "They know where these shelters are. How this continues to happen, I have no idea."
Inside the U.N. school's compound, several bodies, among them children, were strewn across the ground in puddles of blood. "Our trust and our fate are only in the hands of God!" one woman cried.
In the current round of fighting, U.N. shelters have been struck by fire seven times. UNRWA, the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees, says Israel has been the source of fire in all instances.
Israeli artillery shells slammed into two high-rise office buildings Sunday in downtown Gaza City, police and witnesses said. Al-Kidra said more than 50 Palestinians were killed, including 10 members of one family in a single strike in the southern Gaza Strip. Israel said that it attacked 63 sites on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Israeli military death toll rose to 64 after Israel announced that Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old infantry lieutenant feared captured in Gaza, was actually killed in battle. Now we are told that Goldin is related to Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. Did he take his death personally to commit war crimes in Gaza? We may never know!
As to media here in the USA, the least said the better. Even guys like Fareed Zakariya of CNN sound like emasculated robots to hide the crimes of the criminal Netanyahu government that has murdered more than 1700 Palestinian civilians in what can only be described as a genocidal campaign. The New York Times has also played a disgraceful role in covering the massacre in Gaza. CNN and other TV channels, minus Al Jazeera, are all in this revisionist yellow journalism at the altar of Zionism and its ruthless, untouchable murderers. And with shoddy polls they tell us that the uninformed US residents are supportive of the massacre by a 2 to 1 margin. Are the people in this country so ill-informed or misinformed? What is wrong with America? Unless, Americans tune in Al Jazeera, Independent and BBC of UK, I doubt if the sad situation would ever become better.
You can read veteran journalist Robert Fisk's article by clicking here.
Comments
Post a Comment