by Philip Girardi
The Israeli propaganda machine has called up its allies in the media and Congress to make sure that no one will condemn the invasion of Gaza, which has killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians, most of them civilians and many of them children. The pictures of small bodies lined up to be buried are convincing evidence that something is very wrong in Gaza, but leaders in Congress from both parties have nonetheless rallied to the cause of Israeli victimhood, putting all the blame for the conflict on the Palestinians.
Folks outside the United States who do not have the benefit of the Israel lobby to guide their thinking are seeing the carnage in a different way, noting the disproportionate nature of the Israeli attack and also the unlikelihood that Tel Aviv's stated objectives are obtainable without utterly destroying Gaza's infrastructure and turning the strip of land into a military-occupied moonscape. Many are also wondering what Israel's actual goals might be, since the invasion will only empower Hamas politically, not destroy it. Is it to tie the incoming Obama administration irrevocably to Israel's security agenda or to strengthen the Kadima Party in the lead-up to national elections next month? Only time will tell, but, as always, the Palestinians will bear the brunt of the suffering, and the United States will surely pay some price for green-lighting the Israeli offensive.
The Washington Post, as always, has not been shy in its support of Israel. It has featured editorials and a preponderance of letters to the editor strongly supporting the Israeli position. No less than 11 opinion pieces by Israeli politicians Tzipi Livni and Ephraim Sneh, American professor Robert Lieber, Israeli academic Yossi Klein Halevi, Jim Hoagland, John Bolton, Michael Gerson, and Charles Krauthammer (twice) have all exonerated Tel Aviv in the current crisis and accused Hamas of being solely responsible. Referring to the invasion, Richard Cohen wrote last week that "It takes real stupidity to blame it on Israel." That shared the page with a piece by Anne Applebaum that asserted, astonishingly, that Hamas believes "the continuing firing of rockets into southern Israel will, sooner or later, somehow bring about the dissolution of the Jewish state." It is clear that complete ignorance of what one is writing about has never deterred anyone on the Post's opinion pages.
punditman says...
To paraphrase Chomsky, if all you rely upon is the mainstream media as your guide to what is happening in the world, your mind will be very impoverished.
