7/13/2006 - Political - Article Ref: IV0607-3040
By: Ramzy Baroud


Racism is "the belief that one 'racial group' is inferior to another and the practices of the dominant group to maintain the inferior position of the dominated group. Often defined as a combination of power, prejudice and discrimination."

This is how the British Library defines racism on its Web site. The above definition hardly deviates from the essence of almost all definitions of the ominous concept. And, indeed, the concept is being fully utilized with Israel's onslaught against the Palestinians, and the international community and media's mild, if not accommodating response to the onslaught.

The capture of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit is an act of self-defense.

According to international law and the Geneva Conventions, he can be considered a prisoner of war, but not according to CNN, Fox News and the increasingly spineless BBC, which presents the soldier as a victim, who was "kidnapped" by Palestinian "militants" who are "affiliated" with the Hamas government.

By not challenging the Israeli narrative in any meaningful way, the uncritical media has become a tool in the hands of Israel's war strategists and their eternal concoctions.

Consider this example. An Israeli military commander tells a BBC correspondent dispatched to the border area between Israel and Gaza, that Israel intends on opening the border for "as long as it takes" to offset the humanitarian crisis developing in Gaza. The Israeli Army representative in a barefaced lie declares that the border has always been open, despite the perpetual Palestinian threat on the state of Israel. The BBC correspondent thanks him and signs off.

Is it possible that the BBC is unaware of the fact that Gaza has been under a strict military siege since Hamas' democratic advent to power through the January 2006 elections? Could it be that the Western media has missed the dozens of shocking reports that have warned that the Israeli siege -- which began months before the capture of Shalit -- was soon to create chaos and panic among the already malnourished Palestinians in Gaza? Did they all miss statements by top Israeli officials vowing to carry on with the siege until the outset of Hamas?

Some reporters misrepresent facts out of ignorance, not by design. But if that indeed was the case, then how can one excuse the fact that the same media that coined the term "kidnapping" to describe the action of the Palestinian fighters who captured Shalit refused to use the same association to describe the kidnapping of most of the elected Palestinian Cabinet, mostly academics with no connection to any militant wing?

Israel's military spokesman insisted that they are "all terrorists" and Israel, "like any democratic" country has the right to protect itself against terrorists. If that was true, why did Israel refrain from kidnapping them until Palestinian fighters embarrassed the Israeli Army and captured their first prisoner of war in a long time? Is "rounding up" Palestinian ministers and scores of legislators the same as having a soldier captured in what has been for long a one-sided Israeli war?

If you are an avid viewer of Fox News or a reader of the New York Times, then Israel is yet to exceed its legitimate legal boundaries: that of a democracy opting to defend its citizens. But only racism can lead to such rationale. Only a racist media portrays the capture of a soldier whose army units have besieged Gazans for years, denying them food and medicine, as a violation of all that is holy. Only a racist media presents the kidnapping of 9,000 Palestinians, now in Israeli jails, as a just outcome of Israel's routine arrests of Palestinian terrorists or potential terrorists. Only racism can play down the Israeli destruction of Gaza's infrastructure, which is justified without question, for such actions are necessary to impede the militants' efforts.

And yet, Israel is praised for its "generous" act of allowing some food to be transferred to Gazans, who ironically have gone hungry because of the Israeli-spearheaded international campaign to punish Palestinians for electing Hamas.

Only racism can completely remove from the current discourse the murder of dozens of Palestinian civilians at the hands of the Israeli Army (90 civilians in seven weeks) as the reason that led to the Palestinian raid on the Israeli Army post and the capture of Shalit, and instead depict the current escalation as if it was entirely the work of the Palestinians, with Israel's slate still clean.

Indeed, Israel's slate will continue to be clean as long as racism and inequality are the concepts according to which this conflict is explained.
Israel has the right to do all the above actions without hesitation because Israel is not Palestine, and the lives and well being of the residents of Israel, at least some of them, cannot be equated with Palestinians. Turn the tables for a moment and you'll understand how repellent such racism is.

Inequality has always been at the heart of this conflict, the late professor Edward Said used to say. Racism is at the heart of inequality, I must add. The media can be ignorant, biased and self-serving, indeed, but it can also be utterly racist.



American-Arab journalist Ramzy Baroud is the author of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

I'm not sure if I'd say racism is responsible for the slant but definately see the double standard and worry about what kind of mindset this will cause the young children to grow up with. Often the negative is displayed conveniently to steer public opinion, in my mind we are lied to in effort to gain support. There I said it, we get lied to alot, I watch all the news coverage and read between the lines. It's also not what they are saying alot, it's what they aren't saying. The better they spin it the better their careers. Fox is a joke and CNN is getting just as laughable. I gotta watch public access non commercial coverage just to get any clear understanding.

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I'm not well versed enough in this situation to comment. I would be interested, Rakshanda, in hearing your opinion about this article and the current situation with Palestine and Israel.

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I would come down on the side of the Palestinians on this one. There government was democratically elected. Another Government doesnt have to like it, but that government was elected fairly and the election was internationally supervised and found to be run correctly.

Isreal then stopped legitimate funding to Hammas preventing them paying their doctors and other civil servants. How long can they expect to go on under their promise of civil order if all things are not being kept equal

The Jewish States right to exist cannot be at the expense of the Arab populace, and while no one doubts for a moment it needs land space, its the how and the wherefore that is causing the problem.

The fact that the Arab Nations are fractured and not a cohesive unit gives the West and Isreal room to manover where they should not take advantage of.

Even pro Isreali countries in Europe are noticing more sympathy going to the Palliestinians that there were before.

and Rakshanda is right it a racist presentation of the facts

JMVHO

Anne

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I always enjoy reading your POV, Anne.

I don't know how I feel about that. Indeed all news is a bias interpretation of the facts, but nonetheless it is rather presuming to say that the general media (which, in turn, represents public opinion) is racist for presenting the facts this way. However, I'm not informed on the situation enough to know all the facts in their entirety.

Is it too much of a conspiracy theory to perhaps wonder if they are setting us up for the start of a bigger war? Food for thought.

Im not presuming all general media I was refering specifically to Europe which since WW2 would natually understand the Israeli stance now cannot justify blanket approval just because of a historical debt to the undeniable mistreatment of the Arab People. The groundswell of this is coming from various people driven organizations and not government led.

Its a given that meda presents information according to the lights of either its propriators or Government in power but discerning people can read through the line of what we call "political spin" over here and make their own judgements.

There is a lot of European and American historically percieved guilt (and rightly so) in the kid glove treatment of Israel but they are dishing out similiar treatement to what they historically have recieved and two wrongs dont make a right. that a simplictic analagy (sp) and I rightly recognize Isreals right to exist, but at whos expense and I dont mean financially??

Anne

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"When we know better we do better" Maya Angelou

Found this and saw some paralells and some oposition to the original article posted. Thought I would post it. Again, It's not my words, but its an "interesting spin" on the situation. Rather bias, but a different read.


The old adage, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" does not apply to Americans, who have shown that they can be endlessly fooled.

Neoconservatives deceived Americans into an illegal attack and debilitating war in Iraq. American neoconservatives are closely allied with Israel's Likud Party. In the past, some neocons lost their security clearances because of "mishandling" of classified information. According to Insight magazine, "the Pentagon has banned security clearance to Americans with relatives in Israel. Government sources and attorneys said the Pentagon has sought and succeeded in removing security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked, or have relatives in Israel."

Despite questions of dual loyalties, neocons hold high positions in the Bush regime. Ten years ago these architects of American foreign and military policy spelled out how they would use deception to achieve "important Israeli strategic objectives" in the Middle East. First, they would focus "on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." This would open the door for Israel to provoke attacks from Hezbollah. The attacks would let Israel gain American sympathy and permit Israel to seize the strategic initiative by "engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon."

Today, this neoconservative plan is unfolding before our eyes. Israel has used the capture of two of its soldiers in Lebanon as an excuse for an all-out air and naval bombardment against Lebanese civilian targets. However, a number of commentators have pointed out that such a massive attack requires weeks if not months of preparation that could not be done overnight in response to the capture of the soldiers.

Regardless, in the first two days of the Israeli military attack on Lebanon more than a hundred civilians, including Canadians, have been killed by Israeli bombs (gifts from U.S. taxpayers). The Beirut International Airport has been repeatedly bombed, as have residential neighborhoods, roads, bridges, ports, and power stations.

Soldiers are a legitimate military target. Civilians, civilian neighborhoods, tourists, and international airports are not. Under the Nuremberg standard used to sentence Nazi war criminals to death, the Israeli government is clearly guilty of war crimes.

Meanwhile, the Israelis are committing identical war crimes in Gaza. Again Israel's excuse is the capture of an Israeli soldier. However, the distinguished Israeli professor Ran HaCohen said that the Israeli army "had been demanding a massive attack on Gaza long before the Israeli soldier was kidnapped."

By blocking UN Security Council action against Israel for its massacre of civilians in Gaza, the Bush regime has made itself complicit in these monstrous war crimes. Just as Germans who supported Hitler were deemed to be complicit in his war crimes, Americans who support Bush are complicit in Bush's war crimes.

Hezbollah is not the Lebanese government. It does not rule Lebanon. Hezbollah is the militia organization founded in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah defeated the Israeli army and drove out the Israeli invaders six years ago.

According to the BBC, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that the two Israeli soldiers "were captured to pressure Israel to release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails," especially the women and children.

The BBC also notes that although Hezbollah operates "from Lebanese territory and the militant group has two ministers in the Lebanese government, the central government is almost powerless to influence the militant group." (Note that the BBC applies the loaded word "militant" to Hezbollah but not to Israel.) Hezbollah, reports the BBC, "is also very popular in Lebanon and highly respected for its political activities, social services, and its military record against Israel."

The prime minister of Lebanon, who was installed with President Bush's approval when Syria, under Bush's pressure, recently withdrew its troops from Lebanon, has twice appealed to Bush to pressure Israel to stop its criminal attacks. Our great moral, democratic, Christian leader has twice rebuffed the appeal from the legal representative of the Lebanese people. Instead, Bush is willingly going along with the 1996 neocon script. Bush is laying the blame on Syria and Iran, exactly as the neocon script calls for him to do.

When Bush demands that Syria "stop Hezbollah attacks," he forgets that he was the one who forced Syria out of Lebanon (to enable Israel to attack Lebanon). If Americans were attentive, they would be ashamed to witness "their" president acting as an Israeli propagandist.

Fox "News," CNN, and the rest of the Bush propaganda ministry are echoing the lie that innocent Israel is under attack from the "terrorist states" of Syria and Iran through their surrogate, Hezbollah. Americans, who are sick of the Iraq occupation and want the troops home, are being fooled again and set up for wider war in the Middle East.

Evangelical "Christians" are part of the propaganda show. Three thousand of them, under the lead of the Rev. John C. Hagee, are heading to Washington for a "Washington/Israel summit" to demand, needlessly, that the neocon Bush regime show "stronger support for Israel."

It is difficult to see how Bush could show any stronger support without using the U.S. military to assist Israel in its attacks, which is, of course, what the "Christian" Rev. Hagee intends when he declares: "There's a new Hitler in the Middle East [he doesn't mean Bush or Olmert]. The only way he will be stopped will be by a preemptive military strike in Iran."

Present at Rev. Hagee's "Washington/Israel Summit" will be Israel's former Minister of Defense, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, Republican Senators Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, and Gary Bauer.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful lobby in Washington, expressed its thanks to Rev. Hagee for demonstrating "the depth and breadth of American support" for Israel. Recently, AIPAC has been under investigation as a suspected nest for Israeli spies.

David Brog, former chief of staff for Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, has gone to work for Rev. Hagee. Brog, who is Jewish, says he works for Hagee's evangelical enterprise because "we're bringing into a pro-Israel camp millions of Christians who love Israel and giving them a political voice. Israel's enemies are our enemies, and this group instinctively understands that." Brog goes on to say that Hagee's evangelicals understand that they are not supposed to talk about Jesus, only about saving Israel: "Christians who work with Jews in supporting Israel realize how sensitive we are in talking about Jesus. They realize it will interfere with what they are trying to do."

Gentle reader, is this an admission that evangelicals have set aside Jesus for war? Do these bloody-minded evangelicals really believe they will be wafted to Heaven for helping Israel involve the U.S. in more war? Have evangelicals forgotten that "an eye for an eye" is Old Testament? "Turn the other cheek" is New Testament.

On July 14, Reuters reported that alone among Christians, the "Vatican condemns Israel for attacks on Lebanon."

Whose delusion is the greatest the evangelical "rapture" delusion, the neocon delusion about American power, or the Zionist delusion? The three together mean disaster for America, Israel, and the world.

One of the great evangelical/Zionist/neocon myths is that "tiny Israel" armed with 200 nuclear weapons is threatened by Muslim Middle Eastern countries. In actual fact, Egypt and Pakistan, which have the bulk of the Middle Eastern Muslim population, are ruled by American puppets. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the oil emirates are totally dependent on U.S. protection and, thereby, are also under the American thumb. Iran is Persian, not Arab, and has no common borders with Israel. Hezbollah was created when Israel tried to seize Lebanon in 1982. Hamas is a Palestinian response to the atrocities Palestinians have suffered for a half century at Israel's hands.

Israel's land-stealing policy is the source of Middle Eastern instability. America is hated because American money and weapons are what enable Israel to steal Palestine from Palestinians.

As numerous Middle East experts have pointed out, what is decried as "Arab terrorism against Israel" is, in fact, the only tactic Muslims have for calling the world's attention to the plight of the Palestinians, about which Americans are generally ignorant.

It is absurd for Bush to condemn Syria for not behaving as an American puppet and for not fighting Israel's battles by taking on Hezbollah. Syria and Iran (and Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion) are the only Middle Eastern countries independent of American control. It is far beyond the boundaries of reason and morality to expect these two remaining independent countries to give up their independence in order to enable Israel to steal Palestine and southern Lebanon.

It is the refusal of Syria and Iran (and Saddam Hussein's Iraq) to stand with Israel against Palestine that has made them targets for American attack. Neocons have total control of U.S. foreign policy in the Bush regime, and they have morphed our strategic interests into Israel's.

As the neoconservative architects of Bush's wars revealed in 1996, their concern lies with Israeli strategic objectives.

I think, quite honestly, that the writers of both pieces have a chip on their shoulders, and are missing a LOT of facts. But such is opinion.

The troubles in the region go a lot deeper than either author cares to remember. And the reasons are a lot different than as represented.

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The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-- H. L. Mencken

I agree with the article bennis_mama posted.

I agree with the article I posted.

I believe what Isreal is doing is wrong, I hate the way the media has to portray Arabs and Islam as wrong and all are terrorists. These people are fighting for their land, which even the UN has said they have a righ to do and that Isreal should give them the land back. This is the only way the palastinians can do this.
The palestinians are treated like a second class citizen they are monitored where they go, they are given second class rights to even go to work, school, health care ect.
In the muslim community in any part of the world it is known fact that the USA supports Isreal, both financially and politically. The US is basically run by Jewish politicians and other members of the community they have a LOT of power in the US and they flex their power. It seems that nothing can be said about the jewish community, if you say the jews are bad, then you are antisemetic and you are a bad, bad person, but if anybody says all arabs are bad and palastenians are bad it is okay.
Why is the jewish community wrapped in cotton wool and nobody can say anything to them and the arab community is a free for all.

I know all muslims are not great, there are the bin ladens and the saddam hussains, but I beleive the palestinians are just fighting for the land that is their right to. They are not trying to blow Isreal off the map, they are not trying to kill all Isrealis, they want their land back that was taken from them.

I cant write as eloquently as most people, so I hope this make sense. I dont mean to offend anybody I am just voicing my opinion.

Rakshanda, you do make sense, and as to offending people - does that really matter? You are not offending me - phooey on the people you do offend.

There are two statements, however, that cause me some concern. The first
is simply not true. If anything, the US is run by the Christian right at the moment. Jewish people have always been treated with a certain "regard" in the US - it is almost as if they are separate but equal. They certainly don't run politics in this country. The good old WASP (white anglo saxon protestant) culture does.

The second item:
I find hard to believe - not from a personal standpoint, but from a political one. Hezbulah has repeatedly stated they they want nothing more than Isreal destroyed and wiped off the map. So has the Iranian president. So while you harbor no ill will against Isreal nor do you want to see them destroyed, there are those whose sole goal is to see that happen.

I understand that Palestinians have lived on that land for over 2000 years before the Isreal was created. However, didn't the jews live there at one point as well? Why don't they also have a right to that land?

And why do Muslims and Jews hate each other so? It is an honest question, one that no one has ever been able to answer for me.

I certainly hope I haven't offended - that was not my intention. I do hope that we can continue this dialog, because this is a long standing (to say the least) and complex set of issues and I would like to increase my understanding of it.

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