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What You'd Know About Israel If You Watched Al Jazeera TV

By Shane Bauer, New America Media. Posted January 9, 2009.


Live coverage of the war hasn't made it into most American living rooms.
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DAMASCUS, Syria -- Throughout the 11 days of Israel's pummeling of Gaza, live coverage of the war hasn't made it into most American living rooms.

That's because Israel, America's staunch ally, isn't allowing journalists to enter Gaza while Al Jazeera, called anti-American and pro-terrorist by many in Washington, is the only network broadcasting live images from Gaza to the world.

The 350 reporters who descended on Israel when the conflict began are stuck at the border between Israel and Gaza. Israel says that opening border crossings to journalists would put their soldiers in danger, but many have accused them of trying to control the story. Instead of giving their viewers up-close pictorial evidence of what is occurring in Gaza, television networks have been restricted to showing their viewers plumes of smoke as they rise in the distance.

But Al Jazeera, the Qatari network that has previously undergone attacks and had its reporters arrested by the U.S. military, remains typically defiant. While other networks are increasingly severed from Gaza as phone lines are cut and 75 percent of the territory is without electricity, Al Jazeera is bringing its approximately 140 million English- and Arabic-speaking viewers live images of bombings, tanks rolling through Gaza's farmland, and interviews with civilians and aid workers inside Gaza city.

Like all of the networks, Al Jazeera gives constant hard-hitting interviews with politicians and analysts from Israel, the West Bank, and the rest of the Arab world. But while others can only balance pundits with more pundits, Al Jazeera has been taking the viewer to the scene to weigh the words of politicians against the reality on the ground.

Take Israel's claim that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. After showing an Israeli politician writing off the assertion of the existence of a humanitarian disaster, Al Jazeera cut to the Al Shifa hospital, the largest in all of Gaza. There, we saw that there were not enough medical supplies and civilians lying on bloody hospital beds told us that their lives were not only being crippled by bombs falling on their houses, but by the extreme lack of water and food for the people cowering inside them.

One man, as he held his dead, pale faced 7-month-old son in his arms, said, "We were in our house for three days before the bombs fell on us. We called for the Red Cross and humanitarian groups, but no one was able to reach us…We have no one but God."

Israeli officials continue to assert that they are allowing in humanitarian aid by opening the border, but as Al Jazeera's Ayman Moheyaldin reported from the inside, "The point is not that you open the crossings to allow in 30 to 40 trucks, but that you keep them open and allow a continuous amount of goods to enter for a sustainable amount of time."

The problem isn't only that supplies can't get in. People still can't get out. Most are left searching hopelessly for safety while their stories remain trapped within Gaza's walls.


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Shooting the Messenger
Posted by: AlexLawyer on Jan 9, 2009 12:48 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Israel hasn't, to my knowledge, killed any journalists yet, but the incessant al Jazeera bashing goes on. Bush once proposed bombing the station to his partner in crime, Tony Blair, who rejected the idea in a rare flash of good judgment.

The IDF, has, however, slaughtered hundreds of children, women, elderly people, aid workers and paramedics. And it's these brutal actions it wants to hide from the world, including the Israeli and American people. Most are decent, compassionate folks who wouldn't condone war crimes if confronted with irrefutable evidence to counteract the lies from government and advocacy groups.

I've watched al Jazeera while traveling abroad and been impressed with the quality and fairness of its reportage. The network deserves praise for its courage in bringing the truth to the world.

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» RE: Shooting the Messenger Posted by: speakingout
» RE: Shooting the Messenger Posted by: Scarabus
Holocaust Denied
Posted by: higginslads on Jan 9, 2009 1:40 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, "Israel's right to exist." The opposite is true: Palestine's right to exist was canceled 61 years ago and the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. The infamous "Plan D" resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Jewish army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as "ethnic cleansing." Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon, "What shall we do with the Arabs?" Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, "made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them'. The order to expel an entire population "without attention to age" was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world's most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapan Party co-leader Meir Ya'ari noted "how easily" Israel's leaders spoke of how it was "possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy … who remembers who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war … we are appalled."

Every subsequent "war" Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land. The lie of David and Goliath, of perennial victim, reached its apogee in 1967 when the propaganda became a righteous fury that claimed the Arab states had struck first. Since then, mostly Jewish truth-tellers such as Avi Schlaim, Noam Chomsky, the late Tanya Reinhart, Neve Gordon, Tom Segev, Yuri Avnery, Ilan Pappe and Norman Finklestein have dispatched this and other myths and revealed a state shorn of the humane traditions of Judaism, whose unrelenting militarism is the sum of an expansionist, lawless and racist ideology called zionism. "It seems," wrote the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe on 2 January, "that even the most horrendous crimes, such as the genocide in Gaza, are treated as desperate events, unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system … Very much as the apartheid ideology explained the oppressive policies of the South African government, this ideology – in its most consensual and simplistic variety – has allowed all the Israeli governments in the past and the present to dehumanize the Palestinians wherever they are and strive to destroy them. The means altered from period to period, from location to location, as did the narrative covering up these atrocities. But there is a clear pattern of genocide."

Holocaust Denied

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» Exactly Posted by: True2Blue
» RE: Holocaust Denied Posted by: sparlow
The left has to accept the Israel lobby idea or we'll get nowhere
Posted by: higginslads on Jan 9, 2009 1:44 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Glenn Greenwald has another great piece in Salon attacking the lockstep support for Israel in Congress in the face of massacres. The problem is that the astute Greenwald still has no explanation of why we are experiencing this meltdown in democracy. If the religious/political issue were abortion or gay rights, there would be no confusion on the left: we would blame a social faction, a religious lobby. But in this case we do not finger that lobby, because Jews tend to be so liberal, and the Israel lobby is our sisters and our cousins and our aunts (as Gilbert and Sullivan observed).

The left would always prefer to blame Bush and Cheney and John Hagee.

I dwell on this issue all the time because you can't fight something without knowing its true identity. Also, because in my own media experience, I constantly ran up against precisely this factor: pro-Israel feelings among powerful editors and publishers, coupled with fear of retaliation by readers, advertisers, the well-connected.

Here on Counterpunch is a fabulous piece (sent to me by Jeff Blankfort) by two writers in Paris, Diane Johnstone and Jean Bricmont, making my point: saying that the left must get past its belief that Israel is blindly supported for imperialist/structural reasons.

Bricmont/Johnstone:

Many people, especially on the left, persist in thinking that Israel is only a pawn in an American capitalist or imperialist strategy to control the Middle East. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Israel is of no use to anybody or anything but its own fantasies of domination. There is no petroleum in Israel, or Lebanon, or Golan, or Gaza. The so-called wars for oil, in 1991 and 2003, were waged by the United States, with no help from Israel, and in 1991 with the explicit demand from the United States that Israel stay out (because Israel’s participation would have undermined Washington’s Arab coalition). For the pro-Western petro-monarchies and the "moderate" Arab regimes, Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands is a nightmare, which radicalizes much of their populations and threatens their rule. It is Israel, by its absurd policies, that provoked the creation of both Hezbollah and Hamas and that is indirectly responsible for much of the recent growth of "radical Islam".
Moreover, the plain fact is that capitalists as a whole make more money in peace than in war...

However, the main reason for the silence [of Israel's critics] is surely not guilt precisely because it is so artificial, but rather fear. Fear of "what will they think", fear of slander and even of being taken to court for "anti-Semitism". If you are not convinced, take a journalist, a politician or a publisher to some spot where nobody is listening and there is no hidden camera or microphone, and ask whether he or she says in public all he or she thinks of Israel in private. And if not, why? Fear of hurting the interests of capitalism? Fear of weakening American imperialism? Fear of interrupting oil deliveries? Or, on the contrary, fear of Zionist organizations and their relentless campaigns?

Phil Weiss' Blog (best on the net, hands down)

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dipconsult
Posted by: dipconsult on Jan 9, 2009 2:22 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I worked with Al Jazeera/English for a year. And far from finding them "pro Al Qaeda" and "anti-American", I had great difficulty in persuading them of the ten or so reasons the G W Bush administration invaded Iraq! (Reasons, incidentally, that are now generally accepted by many pundits).

They take great care to be accurate - their credibility outside the Arab world depends on that. Their output has been heavily critical of the Bush administration - but that, I'm afraid, is the inevitable result of accurate independent reporting.

Their positive reporting and commenting on the change all hope for from the next US administration shows that the station is far from anti-American.

It is a great pity that the US which stands for freedom of information, because of repression of its output, has not had the benefit of Al Qaeda/English and its remarkably fair reporting, and indeed commenting, since it came into operation during the worst of the G W Bush period.

The American inspired propaganda effort, before the station even came on air, to denigrate all of us who worked for or were associated with Al Jazeera/English was grossly biassed and unfair.

I would add that, due to their non-acceptance of my more dire assessment of the worldwide damage done by G.W. Bush, my association with Al Jazeera/English ended in 2007.

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Please see yesterdays NY Times
Posted by: weathered on Jan 9, 2009 2:25 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There on the front page a fine color shot of Israeli soliders taking a 'breather', in the background verdant farmland.

How sick and subtle is this? A photo-op that screams volumes about the entrenched lies Israel requires to keep itself detached from their reality.

When you look at political Israel, you see AIPAC, weapons of mass deception and destruction, vineyards and Teva's ....but that's on the outside. See political Israel for exactly how it is on the inside; sick from its secrets, in a wheelchair, wrapped in bandages.

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Between Al Jazeera and Faux Noise,
Posted by: maxpayne on Jan 9, 2009 4:56 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't see any real difference but then again, like most folks in this country, I haven't watched Al Jazaeera long enough so maybe I'm wrong.

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Mainesongwriter
Posted by: mainesongwriter on Jan 9, 2009 6:16 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In song: "LULLABY FOR A CHILD IN WAR"

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6086636

(free download)

Mike Nobel, Maine

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Put Blame Where It Belongs!
Posted by: iris89 on Jan 9, 2009 6:25 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Yes, what is occurring in Palestine is terrible, but who is responsible is NOT being considered by this article. All that is occurring is the responsibility of Hamas, NOT Israel. How can anyone expect Israel not to react to years of rocket attacks? Any civilized country would so let’s stop trying to criticize Israel and start criticizing Hamas who lit the proverbial fuse and it and its people deserve all they get in response.

To blame Israel, the victim of unrelenting rocket attacks, is just plain wrong and evil and clearly shows a lack of appreciation of what this struggle is all about, one must understand Hamas' goals, largely derived from its ideological paternity to the Egyptian Muslim Brothehood. As a Sunni extremist offshoot of the Brotherhood, Hamas' raison d'etre is Israel's destruction -- nothing less will do. Despite my instinctive belief that one should try to negotiate a way out of this dilemma no matter the odds, I have concluded that the only way out of this mess is to separate Hamas' entire military and political leadership from the oppressed citizenry of Gaza (and yes, it is absolutely a mischaracterization of fact to assert that Hamas is the legitimate ruler of Gaza). Easier said than done you say. But as long as Hamas rules Gaza, no amount of cajoling is going to end the vicious cycle of terror that Hamas is inflicting first and foremost on its own beaten-down Palestinian victims as well as on Israel.

Hamas Is Responsible for the Civilian Casualties in Gaza, NOT Israel. It has been firing rockets at Israel for years and Israel has exercised extreme restraint for too long. It is just plain stupid and wrong for anyone to feel that Israel should not react to such extreme provocation.

To learn more, check out the following:

[1] http://religioustruths.proboards59.com/ An Educational Referral Forum

[2] http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209 A Forum Devoted to Exposing The False Religion of Islam

Iris89

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» RE: Put Blame Where It Belongs! Posted by: spratling
» RE: iris89 Posted by: Quannah
» RE: Put Blame Where It Belongs! Posted by: 2thepoint
Syd
Posted by: sparlow on Jan 9, 2009 6:27 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
By Charles Krauthammer


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Israel's leaders have purposely obscured their war aims in Gaza. But there are only two possible endgames: (A) a Lebanon-like cessation of hostilities to be supervised by international observers, or (B) the disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza.


Under tremendous international pressure — including from an increasingly wobbly U.S. State Department — the government of Ehud Olmert has begun hinting that it is receptive to a French-Egyptian cease-fire plan, essentially acquiescing to Endgame A.


That would be a terrible mistake.


It would fail on its own terms. It would have the same elements as the phony peace in Lebanon: an international force that abjures any meaningful use of force, an arms embargo under which arms will most assuredly flood in, and a cessation of hostilities until the terrorist side is rearmed and ready to initiate the next round of hostilities.


The U.N.-mandated disarmament of Hezbollah in Lebanon is a well-known farce. Not only have foreign forces not stopped Hezbollah's massive rearmament, their very presence makes it impossible for Israel to take any preventive military action, lest it accidentally hit a blue-helmeted Belgian crossing guard.


The "international community" is now pushing very hard for a Gaza replay of that charade. Does anyone imagine that international monitors will risk their lives to prevent weapons smuggling? To arrest terrorists? To engage in shootouts with rocket-launching teams attacking Israeli civilians across the Gaza border?


Of course not. Weapons will continue to be smuggled. Deeper and more secure fortifications will be built for the next round. Mosques, schools and hospitals will again be used for weapons storage and terrorist safe havens. Do you think French "peacekeepers" are going to raid them?


Such a deal would buy Israel maybe a couple of years. After which, Round Two — with Hamas rockets by then killing civilians in Tel Aviv, making Ben-Gurion airport unusable and reaching Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona.


Which is why the only acceptable outcome of this war, both for Israel and for the civilized world, is Endgame B: the disintegration of Hamas rule. It is already underway.


This is not about killing every last Hamas gunman. Not possible, not necessary. Regimes rule not by physically overpowering every person in their domain but by getting the majority to accept their authority. That is what sustains Hamas, and that is what is now under massive assault.


Hamas's leadership is not only seriously degraded but openly humiliated. The great warriors urging others to martyrdom are cowering underground, almost entirely incommunicado. Demonstrably unable to protect their own people, they beg for outside help, receiving in return nothing but words from their Arab and Iranian brothers. And who in fact is providing the corridors for humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians? Israel.


In the first four minutes of this war, the Israeli Air Force destroyed 50 targets, taking down practically every instrument and symbol of Hamas rule. Gaza's Potemkin leaders were marginalized and rendered helpless, leaving their people to fend for themselves. At such moments, regimes are extremely vulnerable to forfeiting what the


The fall of Hamas rule in Gaza is within reach, but only if Israel does not cave in to pressure to stop now. Overthrowing Hamas would not require a permanent Israeli reoccupation. A transitional international force would be brought in to immediately make way for the return of the Palestinian Authority, the legitimate government whose forces would be far less squeamish than the Europeans in establishing order in Gaza.

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» RE: Syd Posted by: Quannah
» RE: Syd Posted by: darter22
» RE: Syd Posted by: Quannah
Lies of the U.S. makes aljezeera out to be evil
Posted by: AMERICAN VETERAN on Jan 9, 2009 6:55 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It made me LOL when I saw a headline on their front page about the Eagles/Giants game.
Now, just how bad can A.J. be when they write about mundane, everyday stuff?lol

It is the jews with the armbands who do NOT want anyone to know about their new holocaust.

They are acting out their anger and resenments at the WORLD by making Palestine into a middle east Auschwitz of their own.

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American media has become the 4th branch of government
Posted by: sonofloud on Jan 9, 2009 7:30 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
they slandered Hillary and annointed Obama president.
Not to mention peddling Bush's lies about his war and the false need for over $700 billion in corporate welfare.
I believe the opposite of what American media "reports".

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al Jazeera and Israel
Posted by: BlueSun on Jan 9, 2009 9:22 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Isn't this a bit like "What You'd Know About Democrats If You Watched FOX News TV?"

Disclaimer: I do not agree at all with Israel's tactics and policies with the Palestinians. I believe that Israel is doing far more damage to itself (and the U.S. who almost everybody sees as Israel's master puppeteer) than it realizes, and bringing greater misery to the very Palestinian population they will eventually have to come to terms with (if the Palestinians themselves ever acknowledge that this is the only reasonable recourse for both sides). That said, however:

I have more than a passing familiarity with al Jazeera. I was actually in its Doha headquarters installing some digital video software systems when Bush invaded Iraq. I watched Shock & Awe with several al Jazeera reporters and executives on their own satellite monitors.

Al Jazeera is actually about as unbiased as any news source in the Arab world and many of its reporters and executives have a modern, western slant. I saw women in high executive positions and saw very few wearing Arab dress or head scarves. Most al Jazeera employees dressed completely western, were familiar with and often sympathetic with western democratic ideals, and a surprising number spoke English and were well-informed on the Bush Administration and its policies.

One Egyptian reporter who was reasonably sympathetic to the west (at least before Bush's war) explained to me a basic truth, though. He said that, no matter how far al Jazeera goes to not be a totally biased news source, its market is the 40 million Arabs and other Muslims who watch it by satellite, and that means that it MUST frame its stories in terms of what the "Arab Street" wants and will accept if it is to keep its audience, advertisers, and credibility in the Islamic world. He acknowledged that this routinely leads to one-sided coverage of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. He said further that there is no surer way to commit journalistic suicide in the Arab world than to show any even-handed view of Israel, or, for that matter, any news that does not at least implicitly demonize Israel as the evil strawman for the US and lionize the Palestinians as victims of western aggression.

Al Jazeera can show endless clips of dead and wounded Palestinian civilians and ruined homes that enflame the Arab world (and, incidentally, greatly boost their ratings), but they will not point out that Hamas invites such tragedy when it intentionally locates its military sites, armories, even rocket launching sites within or next to civilian neighborhoods, mosques, schools, and hospitals.

The Geneva Accords say that civilian areas, religious buildings, even hospitals lose their civilian protection and become legitimate military targets if they are in proximity to military installations or are used for military purposes. The military of a country is PROHIBITED from placing its forces in these areas in an attempt to thwart return fire.

The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War states this clearly:

Article 18

"In view of the dangers to which hospitals may be exposed by being close to military objectives, it is recommended that such hospitals be situated as far as possible from such objectives."

Article 19

"The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy."

The same is true of all other normally non-military buildings and civilian neighborhoods.

Article 28

"The presence of a protected person [civilian, in this context] may NOT be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."

[my emphasis]

cont...

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» RE: al Jazeera and Israel Posted by: Quannah
Continued...
Posted by: BlueSun on Jan 9, 2009 9:23 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Where Israel attempts to protect its civilians from Hamas's indiscriminate missile attacks by building elaborate underground shelters (even entire schools and synagogues are underground in the target areas), and using an extensive network of alarm sirens to warn their people of incoming missiles, Hamas routinely uses mosques, schools, and hospitals to store military equipment and their stocks of missiles. They fire missiles from fixed launchers in these areas. They also use truck-mounted launchers that drive into an open area in a heavily populated civilian neighborhood, fire their Qassam and Katyusha missiles, and then flee - leaving the civilians still in the target zone of Israeli return fire.

In 2006, the first year AFTER Israel left Gaza and the year the Gazan Palestinians elected Hamas to leadership positions, over 1000 Qassam missiles were fired across their border into Israel. By 2008, that figure had climbed to somewhere around 2000. On Christmas Day alone - 2 days BEFORE the Israelis began aerial bombardments, over 80 missiles were fired into Israel.

Finally, while I passionately disagree with Israel's blockading Gaza's northern and eastern borders, people should also recognize that Gaza's southern border is also walled off and blockaded - by Egyptian troops and police. No Israeli blockade could have any effect if Egypt were not shutting off the southern access as well. Egypt tolerates numerous tunnels under their wall that are used in the very profitable smuggling of weapons into Gaza, but why has nobody been using these same tunnels to supply the beseiged Gaza civilians with food, water, and medical supplies? Hmmmmmm?

Also, Gaza's western border is the Mediterranean coast, and any Arab or other country that really wanted to help the civilians of Gaza could do it with a "Berlin Airlift" type of operation centered in Egypt or any of a dozen other coastal nations.

During years before and during the creation of the State of Israel, even the formidable British navy blockade was unable to prevent the mass smuggling of both military and humanitarian supplies into the new Jewish state via the sea.

Why is no Arab country (no country in the world, for that matter) organizing an aerial or sea-going supply route into Gaza to aid its civilian population?

Its all well and good to criticize Israel for its actions (though many in Israel believe that, by now, they have NO path to peace, only the choices of enduring unending terrorism or fighting futile and self-destructive wars). I do so criticize them. But we must also recognize that there is enough blame to be spread far and wide in the 60-year making of the current no-win situation for both the Palestinians and the Israelis, and not just demonize the Israelis and swallow whole the Palestinian victimization template.

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» RE: Continued... Posted by: Quannah
» Uh, no. Posted by: True2Blue
» RE: Uh, no. Posted by: jdavis
» RE: Continued... Posted by: speakingout
UN SANITIZED
Posted by: sirios on Jan 9, 2009 9:44 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While living in europe i watched Al Jezeera frequently. It was refreshing to" see "war being reported as war, shocking, bloody and pointless. The sanitized version of war reporting that we receive here in America, keeps the viewer in a video game like trance, where the soldiers can do no wrong because they are protecting our god given right to aggressive altruism. Sanitizing war coverage is like watching a violent action thriller,all the adrenaline fun with NO consequences. Al Jezeera is in many cases more "Fair and balanced" than most USA news agencies, and certainly more truthful about the Middle East, Iraq,Iran, etc.

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Let's Get Real And End Most World Strife - The Solution
Posted by: iris89 on Jan 9, 2009 10:29 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wars should be eliminated and at present one religion is responsible for over 90% of the violence on earth as pointed out by an Australian newspaper as follows:

"Did you know that 90-95% of the conflicts in the world today are Muslims fighting non-muslims or each other? " [source - The Weekend Australian, November 26-27, 2005 AD]"

I am getting very tired of hearing Palestinians and other Ishmaelite crying crocodile tears and always trying to put the blame for what they do on others such as their conspiracy weavers tried to do about who did 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center, etc. Screaming against what they call wrongful occupations when they are guilty of occupying Byzantine territory, Palestine which belongs to the Israelites [see Numbers the 34 th. Chapter in any Bible for proof of this, and their outright greed as they have over 98% of the Middle East, but still greedly want the less than 2% belonging to their sister tribe Israel] – its time we get real and put an end to this so the world can stop experiencing continuous Ishmaelite induced strife such as shooting rockets at Israel.

Solution, dissolve this false religion and rid the earth of at least 90% of the violence. To read detailed information, go to the following article:

[go to] When Should A Religion Be Dissolved In The Interest Of World Peace?

Which can be found at,

http://religioustruths.proboards59.com/

An Educational Referral Forum under the sub-heading, ' ISLAM THE SOURCE OF MOST VIOLENCE

Along with many other useful articles.

Iris89

PS: I am an Ishmaelite, but I am for what is right.

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Silencing the truth
Posted by: big-v on Jan 9, 2009 11:18 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Al Jazeera is a fantastic news and information source and I highly respect them, but they aren’t the only media on the ground in Gaza broadcasting live TV from the scene of Israeli war crimes. Iranian satellite broadcaster Press TV [http://www.presstv.ir/default.aspx] have been doing a great deal of fact finding revealing the other side of the story and dispelling much of the disinformation from western media sources and those sympathetic to Israel...

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» RE: Silencing the truth Posted by: big-v
our News is only told as a history, not a concern
Posted by: common intelligence on Jan 9, 2009 12:04 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Such as this weeks presentation of "Tortured Democracy" on Front line, which was run at 10pm should insight obvious and immediate attention to prosecute the Bush Administration for torture allowed. But there web site
Torturing Democracy displayed from George Washington University displays it a only subjective information to be "Studied" in schools.

Where as the truth that is presented as to the blatant premeditated intention to commit torture and the cover up of the illegality of it are being virtually ignored in all media, even Alternet.
Such a profound bit of documentation should not be relocated only to a history lesson but used to prosecute the guilty bastards responsible from the top down.

So is true of the same disqualifying by negating the coverage of the atrocities happening in the Palestine/Israeli regions as bought and paid for by the American military Industrial complex!

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Al Jazeera, calls against and Twitter
Posted by: Hechicera on Jan 9, 2009 1:35 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First, back when Rumsfeld was hysterically screaming at Al Jazeera enabling terrorism, I was curious. I had read they got a lot of their staff initially from Arabic BBC staff, it didn't seem right. But they had no English feed in those days, and my Arabic is non-existent.

So, I pulled a sampling of stories that by their pictures were political and social commentary (including one story about treatment of women in Morocco). I then convinced the father of someone in my daughter's class who could read Arabic to translate them all for me word for word, and further indicate if any of the words were the more biased or emotional ones. I was not surprised to learn that the writing (in Arabic) was quite level and journalistic and professional (from what I knew of where they got their staff). I was surprised that he felt that when they did show bias, it was more pro-left and pro-western that anything else in Arabic media. He felt they were clearly to the left and west of most Arabic language media.

So, there is AJs bias. I added AJs website list of foreign media sources years ago and visit it (and many other international sources) daily. It is good to know the bias of what you are reading.

Al Jazeera isn't quite Ha'aretz (the far left Israeli paper), but its over on that end. So, when you read a story in AJ, be aware more Arabic language media will cover the same event more like FOX or WSJ.

Also, I have been following Al Jazeera's twitter feed - AJGaza on Twitter. Not everything on the twitter feed (its English) is on thier website in English.

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Deeper Into The Abyss!!!
Posted by: rtbd on Jan 9, 2009 1:57 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thank goodness for Al Jazeera. Without them, the world would have very limited access to news from Gaza. The western media, like CNN and others who have reduced news to some twisted version of reality TV, have no interest in telling the truth. They're too afraid of Israel and Bush and right-wing Jewish voices in the United States. They will never tell the truth!

I'm really ashamed of the degree to which my government, the government of the United States (which, by the way, has fast-tracked its way into becoming THE most despised government on earth) gives Israel a free hand in launching genocidal attacks on the increasingly desperate Palestineans. Anyone with a basic level of common sense would understand that people who have so little to lose will do things that appear quite radical, like elect members of Hammas to political office, shoot rockets into Israel, and send suicide bombers (young men with NO viable future) into Israel. Does Israel REALLY believe it is breaking the will of the Palestinean people by destroying Gaza and killing scores of civilians?! Does it really believe the Hammas insurgents will pack up their bags and go away?! Could the Israelis be so naive to think that Palestinean civilians will become so disenchanted with Hammas (resulting from this current bombing and land incursion assault) that they'll rebel against the Hammas movement?

All Israel is doing is strengthening the hand of Hammas, not only in Gaza, but also in Iran and much of the middle east (not to mention much of the rest of the world, where it is viewed with increasing sympathy). Someday the United States and Israel will pay a big price for the ugly blotch on history that is the Palestinean genocide. I fear that price will come in the form of rebellions in surrounding Arab countries, where Muslim fundamentalist radicals will overthrow governments that have traditionally been patsies of the USA, and replace them with militant governments intent on destroying Israel and the US at any price. We have only ourselves to blame for such an outcome. We unfortunately have learned all the wrong lessons from 9/11!!!!

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» RE: Deeper Into The Abyss!!! Posted by: speakingout
Calebvision
Posted by: Calebvision7 on Jan 9, 2009 2:53 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
War is awful and governments/"movements" are in love with power and their leaders wrestle with the same "childhood issues" as the rest of us, so "stupid stuff" happens! This theory of mine, in my opinion, applies to US, Israel, Hamas, Vanezuela, Cuba, et.c, etc......but.....Yahweh says that Israel will be there until the end of civilization as we've know it......and I believe it ( yeah...I know that the "enlightened" on here think that it's superstition, which is ok with me! )so, don't expect it to be "driven into the sea"!!

I would not want to have my house have a "primitve rocket" sent at it, nor "high tech bombs"!

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International Neturei Karta Orthodox Rabbis For A Single State Solution
Posted by: jayjanson on Jan 9, 2009 3:30 PM   
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International Neturei Karta Orthodox Rabbis For A Single State Solution
Posted by: jayjanson on Jan 9, 2009 3:26 PM   
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Regarding the many gentle anti-Zionist Rabbis purposefully ignored in conglomerate owned media.

Neturei Karta rabbis sound so straight-forwardly honest, clear and humanist by comparison with all the twisting and turning by apologists for a Zionist murderous brutality that has a history that predates the unfair partition forced upon the entire colonial population of Palestine by the colonial powers.

A history, blacked out currently in conglomerate media, that can be read, however, in the Encyclopedia Britannica and Noam Chomsky's "The Fateful Triangle" And Neturei Karta has steadfastly continued the warning against partition of Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, Erich Fromm and so many Jewish intellectuals of yesteryear and today.

From the Neturei Karta web site: http://www.nkusa.org/

"The true Jews are against dispossessing the Arabs of their land and homes. According to the Torah, the land should be returned to them."

"The world must know that the Zionists have illegitimately seized the name Israel and have no right to speak in the name of the Jewish people!"

Neturei Karta statement, "Zionist Massacre in Gaza, January 2008"

'We implore you to convey the message to the people in Gaza and
Palestine, that there are untold thousands of Jews worldwide and in
Palestine who stand with you and who entirely oppose Zionism and the state of "Israel" and bear no responsibility for the actions of the
Zionists. ... May we merit to see soon in our days, the total, speedy and peaceful dismantlement of the state of "Israel".

Assalam Alaikum
Very truly yours,
Rabbi Moshe Dov Beck, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, USA, Canada
Rabbi Meir Hirsh, Palestine
Rabbi Ahron Cohen, United Kingdom

Americans are unaware of orthodox rabbis against the existence of the present state of Israel?

Their idea is Jews could have their homeland in a single Palestine state - could bless it with their wealth, influence and expertise without having to kill or take anyone's land.

Though nearly everyone, even dissidents, regard Neturei Karta's one-state solution as impossible, candid observation reveals no plan for a fair and viable two state solution from the Israel government. At least Neturei Karta is truthfully visionary.

That the strong shall show their strength by protecting the weak.

Neturei Karta cautions, "Don't think you are helping Jews by supporting the state of Israel."

Israel's prowess in progress has the aspect of a continuing sequel to, or at least an aftermath of, or some kind of aberrantly permissible constant payback for, the European Holocaust, but in a land holy to three religions and the ancient history of many peoples, not just one, thousands of miles in distance and nearing to a century in time from Nazi Germany?

None of these dead children of the Seventh Day Hanukkah campaign was destined to ever be a grown man or woman. Rather, the impersonal destiny of each child was to be a tiny percentage of the pre-calculated and acceptable minimum loss of human life in an appropriate retaliatory response in which no individual was c onsidered to have any human rights at all.

In an appropriate retaliatory response, each child's death becomes appropriate.

If super power Israel is not strong enough to respect individual human right to life, what shall we expect from those who are so much weaker?

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Right but not wise?
Posted by: darter22 on Jan 9, 2009 5:17 PM   
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I think there is a Hebrew word for the concept of being morally right in your position but unwise in your action. Is that right and would it apply here?

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Tom Miller
Posted by: milltom on Jan 17, 2009 5:37 PM   
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It's easy to access Al Jazeera's excellent reporting (not only on Gaza, but the rest of the world) through the free download:

www.livestation.com.

Al Jazeera also posts its stories on You Tube at

www.youtube.com/profile?user=AlJazeeraEnglish&view=videos

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