Really? CNN has had Palestinians on all day? Reporting their arguments and perspectives?

Really? Saeeb Erekat has been able to be interviewed with such caring awe as David Gregory did for Tzipi Livny, or as the media-beloved Netanyahu?

Or does that modifier "Mouthpieces" mean that anyone at all who is giving some viewpoint momentarily less militarist than some pro-militarist desire are "Palestinian Mouthpieces"?

I'll wait for that list of Palestinians playing a major role in CNN coverage, otherwise I'm going to file this with the yahoos who claim the BBC is "anti-Israel" because its on-air interviewers don't kiss government representatives' behinds.

The links get striped out here so go read the original!

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/01/04/they-lob-chutzpah-bombs-too/

or click sig

A funny little essay in a local newspaper came to my attention this morning. During an email discussion over the events and motives in the Gaza crisis, a friend of mine forwarded part of an op-ed piece that appeared in this week’s Sun Sentinel, a daily newspaper in Fort Lauderdale. I immediately thought it sounded a little too familiar. Sure, Israeli officials and other apologists are serving the same talking points across all the television networks and in print media, but this sounded like more than just simple rehash, so I plugged the quote into a search engine. Jackpot!

There was the piece, but it was on a shared website for a pair of central New Jersey papers that I normally don’t read either. It was longer, and, oh, the author was different too. With my curiosity now piqued, I could not help but search some more. I found a nearly identical one written by David A. Harris, executive director of American Jewish Committee, over at The Dallas Morning News. Hmm, the other two “authors” also identified themselves as AJC directors. Eventually, I located Harris over at the Jerusalem Post where he had contributed not only this same piece but many others as well. My guess is that I probably read the piece there a few days back.

Clearly, this is just a press release created by the American Jewish Committee and being passed off by its members as their heartfelt and original opinions. Another local newspaper, The Palm Beach Post, even published the same piece a day after its competitor ran it. Thankfully in this case though, it was “authored” by the same South Floridian. I wonder how many other newspapers fell for it.

I’m sure the members all do genuinely feel that way, but did they really need to fake homegrown gravitas to ensure publication in as many local opinion pages as possible? Probably. You don’t engage in large-scale propaganda – excuse me, “a public relations campaign” – unless you feel like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar. From the look of the essay, it seems that the pro-Israel crowd is going for the “but they did it first” tactic favored by young children for time immemorial. Occasionally, that might work with one’s peers, but it’s a piss poor way to convince the rest of the world that they have the moral high ground – or maybe they are really just trying to convince themselves.

All day MSNBC and CNN has had nothing but Palestinian mouthpieces with an open to mike anything they like for as long as they like, unchallenged, without even the pretense of questions being asked.

Goddamit, Mr. Hollywood, that's what I've been trying to tell you! The Hasbara isn't working the way it used to. Instead of coming here with such a long handle, why not do something about it?

The onlt thing to do is give journalists access to Gaza, so they can tell the world the truth!

You need to get some more oomph into the Hasbara baby!

The same question for you:

I should have said that large factions within [The United States] celebrate the death of innocent civilians, rather than assigning it to their entire culture. Is that something you would agree with, or is it also racist to merely mention this fact?

They are called neoconservatives.

And someone earlier said that neoconservativism is strictly American. What a load of bull.

http://www.amazon.com/They-Knew-Were-Right-Neocons/dp/0385511817

Rene, what I like about you is that you have got to be one of the most brutally typical commenters I've ever read.

"If one looks hard at the historical and political record, one can see there are two peoples, each trying to establish their own state. The difference is, with few exceptions, the Palestinians seem unwilling to accept a state of their own unless Israel is destroyed as part of the deal."

This is nonsense. The Palestinians accepted 22% of their historical homeland back in 1988, when the PLO Declared Independence from the state of Israel. Israel turned that offer down, so it seems to me that is tendentious and factually incorrect to take the position that the Palestinians only want Israel's destruction. Especially since Israel has yet to accept an independent Palestinian state on Israel's 1967 borders. It is not difficult to argue that Israel's colonies in the West Bank and its withdrawing colonists from Gaza but then refusing to leave Gaza's borders, airspace or what lies underneath the ground, constitutes a refusal on the part of Israel to accept anything like a Palestinian state, unless that state is not sovereign.

We can see how well that has worked. Israel cannot keep trying to grab land that is supposed to be subjected to negotiations and expect security and peace. Unless you believe that all of historical Palestine is by birthright the Jewish state, in which case, then there will be bloodshed for years to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaO4XeHhwo8

or click sig.

Thanks, Mona!

I don't agree with everything you write, but I'm damn glad you are writing about these issues. Each of your posts is more thorough than the previous one.

My opinion: I've given up hope that any sane resolution to this situation will ever be found. I've come to accept the Israeli-Palestinian conflict like a force of nature. In the same way that violent weather and diseases will always claim lives, people will always kill each other in the Middle East. It's been happening since before I was born, and it will happen long after I die, perhaps going on forever.

Palestinians win by surviving, and Israel loses by killing innocents. If Israel sees violence as the only solution, then they should be prepared to take it to the logical conclusion and kill everyone in the Gaza strip. As long as one person survives, there will be resistance which Israel will interpret as terrorism.