topic by
Anne
1/17/2002 (8:36) |
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Intifada Al-Aqsa and American Propaganda
By: Ruth Anderson
Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French political writer and statesman, observed that there was no country in which there was 'so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America.'
Evidence of this lack of independence of mind and freedom of discussion is found in the American media which is almost totally pro-Israeli. There are few free thinkers who question the propaganda that the American media dishes out and that the gullible American populace is continually exposed to. Take the October 23 issue of Time magazine for example. It begins its article entitled 'Breaking Point' with the news about the two Israeli reserve soldiers that had 'wandered by mistake' into the West Bank city of Ramallah and had been lynched by an 'ecstatic Palestinian mob.'
The article does not mention the number of Palestinian civilians including children who have been killed by heavily armed Israeli soldiers nor does it mention the youth whose arms were broken and his skull crushed before he was murdered by again, Israeli soldiers.
And the tragic scene of little Rami Mohammed al-Durra that was captured on French television and shown all over the world has now disappeared from American minds of those horrified enough to pay attention to his pre-mediated murder as he cried in terror just before he was so mercilessly shot down by again, an Israeli soldier.
Thanks to America, Israel has the most heavily armed military in the world. The Palestinians do not have tanks, artillery, jet planes, combat helicopters or any kind of weapons of mass destruction. What they do have is a lot of courage and a few stones that they recycle in thrusts of arm throws or sling shots against an impossible and vicious enemy that has no mercy.
Unfortunately, in American media, it is made to look as if the Palestinian police have now become an army. And though the death toll is so lopsided that even though the casualties for the Palestinians is portrayed as less than they actually are, it is still obvious that it is the Palestinians who are dying and getting wounded and that it is their blood that flows rivers of red in the land that is Palestinian in the first place.
Many Jewish columnists in the US make Palestine look as if it has always been Israeli instead of Palestinian and to further confuse the already mind-boggled, befuddled and misinformed American reader, the West Bank is described as formerly Jordanian as though it too, was never Palestinian. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is portrayed as some saintly person who was shocked by the anger of the Palestinian people when warmonger Ariel Sharon intruded upon Haram al-Sherif with the sole intent of making trouble and provoking the Muslim faithful. Naturally, saintly Barak knew how to 'put them in their place' by not only having heavily armed Israeli soldiers fire live ammunition at civilian crowds but by also bombarding civilian targets by air, land and sea in retaliation for the two Israeli reserve soldiers who were killed.
The way the Israeli soldiers were killed was not right. Given that the Palestinians were so angry for all the wrongs they have suffered over the years and for the present rising death toll, there still is no excuse for how the Israeli soldiers were done away with. Wrong is wrong, no matter who commits it. It is understandable that there is a constant urge to revenge the deaths of Palestinian children who die every day and it was this thirst for vindication that wrongly got out of control and led to the killing of the Israeli soldiers. But, this played right into the hands of the Israelis who used the deaths as an excuse to kill more Palestinians and it played right into the hands of those who spread Zionist propaganda which shows Intifada Al-Aqsa not as unarmed civilians fighting for their freedom, for their religion and for the protection of their holy places, but as armed Palestinian soldiers who are doing their best to kill innocent and harmless Israeli citizens. Intifada al-Aqsa is an uprising against the tyranny, brutality and oppression that the Palestinian people have endured for so long.
American media does not mention the Palestinian child whose arms were amputated and who also suffered the loss of his eye. No one mentions the newly married young man who went off to demonstrate only to die a martyr leaving his young bride a widow. No one mentions the Palestinian youth whose head was crushed by Israelis and whose arms were broken before he was so brutally slaughtered. No one mentions the little 8 year-old boy who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers. No one says how Jewish settlers armed with all sorts of weapons and encouraged by Barak's government, storm Palestinian villages and uproot olive trees and murder Palestinian civilians. No one mentions the Palestinian babies who have died when their homes were bombed by air raids or who were caught in a hail of Israeli bullets while being transported to an envisioned safety. Everyone knows that babies cannot throw stones. Everyone knows but Israelis and Americans.
Israelis and Zionists, be they American or otherwise, implement a propaganda campaign where the truth is twisted. The Holocaust is used as an excuse to take away more Palestinian land as if the Palestinians must be punished for crimes of others. Also such propaganda makes the Arabs look anti-Semite. Arabs might be anti-Israeli, or anti-oppression, but to call them anti-Semite only demonstrates how misinformed those who spread lies are. In the first place, both the Arabs and Jews came from the seed of Abraham. However, the Jews are no longer a race of people, but are followers of the religion Judaism. There are Jews from all over the world and they have different racial backgrounds. Some Jews are even of Arab descent.
There will never be a true peace regardless of how many Arab leaders sign treaties that sell off yet more Palestinian rights and land unless there is justice for one and for all. Palestinians are not against peace. No sane person is. They are against the mythical and unjust peace endorsed by Israelis and American officials. Those Arab leaders that sign peace treaties with Israel do so in order that their own governments will not be destabilized and to preserve their thrones.
History, instead of being written with conscience and in honesty by those who witness it, is written by those who hang heroes. Enough hanging of Palestinian heroes. Enough slaying the countless Rami Mohammed al-Durras.
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