Pressure Groups and Censorship

 Shop Talk: The Sacramento Bee 
Alison Weir, Editor & Publisher - Editors at McClatchy’s Sacramento Bee recently made a series of questionable decisions in their coverage of a local event. They ran news stories about opposition to an upcoming event beforehand and accusations against it afterward, but didn’t cover the event itself. More

 Media omissions on Itamar: Murdering babies is “permissible” when they’re Palestinian 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - US media widely and repeatedly reported on the horrific March 11th murder of three small Israeli children and their parents. While no one yet knows who committed this grotesque act, reports presume that the murderers were Palestinian, and for this reason the incident is receiving major attention. Various heads of state, including President Obama, have condemned it. More | Download Booklet

 Denying Nazi-Zionist collusion: The Sacramento Bee, Darrell Steinberg, and Islamophobia 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - In an inversion of journalistic ethics, the Sacramento Bee reported on opposition to an event before and after it took place, but didn’t cover the event itself. It featured an entire report on accusations against a flier, but didn’t include a response from the flier’s authors. More | Download Booklet

 As Israel kills and maims, Outrage is directed at Helen Thomas 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Whenever Israel commits yet another atrocity, its defenders are quick to redirect public attention away from the grisly crime scene. Currently, there are headlines about allegedly anti-Semitic comments made by senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas. Pundits across the land evince outrage at her off-the-cuff 25-second statement made to a man who appears to be holding a camera right in her face. more

 Beware of the BBC 
Stuart Littlewood, Redress - Stuart Littlewood highlights the BBC’s chronic pro-Israel bias, from allowing untruths about Israel’s onslaught on Gaza in 2008-09 to go unchallenged, to its failure to provide accurate context about the Israeli township of Sderot, to its routine willingness to give disproportionate airtime to Israeli spokesmen and lobbyists. more

 Michigan Public Radio Censoring Announcement on Palestine event 
If Americans Knew - Michigan Radio (WUOM 91.7), an affiliate of National Public Radio (NPR), is censoring a program announcement. The local chapter of the nonprofit organization If Americans Knew, whose mission is to inform Americans on topics of importance that are under reported or misreported in the American media, is attempting to place a paid announcement on the radio station. more

 Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism: Cheney Breaks the Taboo 
Ray McGovern, CounterPunch - If we hear in the coming days that former Vice President Dick Cheney has fired one of his speechwriters – or perhaps grounded Lynne or Liz – it will be clear why. Oozing out of the sleazy speech he gave Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was an inadvertent truth regarding the Israeli albatross hanging around the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East. more

 Statement of Joel Kovel Regarding his Termination by Bard College 
Joel Kovel - In January, 1988, I was appointed to the Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies at Bard College. As this was a Presidential appointment outside the tenure system, I have served under a series of contracts. The last of these was half-time (one semester on, one off, with half salary and full benefits year-round), effective from July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2009. On February 7 I received a letter from Michèle Dominy, Dean of the College, informing me that my contract would not be renewed this July 1 and that I would be moved to emeritus status as of that day. She wrote that this decision was made by President Botstein, Executive Vice-President Papadimitriou and herself, in consultation with members of the Faculty Senate. more

 Human Rights Watch Goes to War 
Mouin Rabbani, Middle East Report - The Middle East has always been a difficult challenge for Western human rights organizations, particularly those seeking influence or funding in the United States. The pressure to go soft on US allies is in some respects reminiscent of Washington’s special pleading for Latin American terror regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. In the case of Israel such organizations also face a powerful and influential domestic constituency, which often extends to senior echelons of such organizations, for whom forthright condemnation of Israel is anathema. more

 Killing Palestinians doesn't count: Is a ceasefire breached only when an Israeli is killed? 
Alison Weir, Poynter.org - On January 27th media headlines trumpeted that Palestinians had broken the latest cease-fire: a bomb had killed one Israeli soldier and injured two or three. Virtually every media outlet reported this action as a major breach in the ceasefire that had begun on January 18th: Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, CBS, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the McClatchy Newspapers, etc, all pinned the resumption of violence on Palestinians. There's just one problem. Israeli forces had already violated the ceasefire at least seven times. more

 Israel Violated Cease-fire 7 Times: US Media Misreport Latest Gaza Violence 
If Americans Knew - American media are reporting violence that took place along the Gaza-Israel border on January 27th as, in the words of CNN, "the first incidents of violence since last week's Mideast cease-fire," telling the public that Palestinians broke the ceasefire. The reality, however, is that Israel had already violated the cease-fire at least 7 times, the Israeli military killing 2 Palestinian civilians and injuring at least 5, at least one of them a child. more

 How Israel's Propaganda Machine Works 
James Zogby - As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel's talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel's early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield. more

 A pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia 
Electronic Intifada - A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged. more

 AP Reveals Israeli Censorship, Says It Will Abide By Rules 
Associated Press, Editor & Publisher - Here's some news you may never hear about Israel's war against Hezbollah: a missile falls into the sea, a strategic military installation is hit, a Cabinet minister plans to visit the front lines. more

 Letting AP in on the Secret: Israeli Strip Searches 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Alison Weir details an Associated Press cover-up of Israel's long-standing practice of strip searching civilians of all ages and both sexes, in response to AP's report on the attack on Mohammed Omer. more

 From triumph to torture 
John Pilger, The Guardian - Israel's treatment of an award-winning young Palestinian journalist is part of a terrible pattern more

 What Christians Don’t Know About Israel 
Grace Halsell, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere—among those who support Israel but don’t really know why. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel—and Zionism—often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood. more

 Mike Malloy Fired from Air America Radio 
Stephen Pearcy, Indymedia - Mike Malloy, one of the most popular talk radio hosts in the country, especially as a voice for the left, has been fired by Air America Radio ("AAR"). Malloy's termination comes at a time when he's been highly critical of Israel for its aggressive military attacks upon civilians both in Lebanon and Palestine. Many people are now asking whether Malloy's termination is related to such criticism. more

 American Media Miss the Boat: For USA Today, Freedom of the Press Means the Right to Report It Wrong 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - Capitol Hill, October 2003. It is a historic occasion. An independent, blue-ribbon commission is to release its findings from an investigation into an internationally significant 36-year-old attack on a US Navy ship that left more than 200 American sailors killed or wounded. more

 Mondoweiss, Chapter One 
Philip Weiss in The American Conservative - Blogging about Israel and Jewish identity raises Observer hackles. more

 Media courtesans take a bow, give themselves a standing ovation... 
Trish Schuh - On the 14th Anniversary of World Press Freedom Day celebrated in May, UNESCO hosted an event for journalists called "Press Freedom, Safety of Journalists and Impunity." Under Article 1 of its Constitution, UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom. United Nations Correspondent Association President Tuyet J. Nguyen spoke about the life-threatening danger faced by journalists covering such war zones as Rwanda and Iraq where the media is controlled by special interests or armed political parties. more

 Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Shot By Israeli Troops at Non-Violent Protest – Why Isn’t This News? 
Robert Naiman in Common Dreams - If you listened to Democracy Now on Monday, you already know the following: Irish Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire was among a number of people shot Friday by Israeli troops at a nonviolent protest of the “apartheid wall” in the Palestinian village of Bil’in, near Ramallah. But if you didn’t listen to Democracy Now Monday, you probably didn’t know that. more

 Some Muslims Are Not Bad: The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - I attended an extremely disturbing event Thursday night. It was hosted by WETA, the PBS station in Washington DC, and was part of the national launch of an 11-part PBS series, "America at a Crossroads," to begin airing April 15. It featured clips from the series followed by a panel discussion with some of those involved in the films, moderated by Robert MacNeil. The panel discussion represented a "wide" spectrum of opinions: all the way from, at one end, suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists to, at the other end, suggesting that some Muslims are not terrorists. more

 Placing the Fox in Charge of the Hen House: Washington Post Book Reviews on Israel 
Brian Hennessey - To review Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, the Washington Post chose a Jewish Israeli citizen who willingly moved from his American birthplace to volunteer to become a soldier in Israel, working as a prison guard at one of Israel's worst prisons, where International and Israeli human rights organizations have documented a lack of process, inhumane conditions and torture for the hundreds of Palestinians (many women and children) who are held there indefinitely and without charge. more

 Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine 
Jimmy Carter in the Los Angeles Times - I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists. We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high – except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots. more

 The New York Times Marginalizes Palestinian Women and Palestinian Rights 
Patrick O'Connor and Rachel Roberts in The Electronic Intifada - A November 7, 2006 New York Times news article about a Human Rights Watch report on domestic violence against Palestinian women brings welcome attention to human rights issues. Unfortunately, the same article, viewed in the context of The New York Times' reporting on Israel/Palestine over the last six years, provides a powerful example of typical US mainstream media bias against Palestinians. Research shows clearly that The New York Times pays little attention to human rights in Israel/Palestine, downplays the larger context in which violence against Palestinian women occurs and generally silences Palestinian women's voices. more

 Al Jazeera and the Truth 
Charley Reese on AntiWar.com - Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network that the Bush administration hates so passionately, has launched its English-language service but is, of course, having trouble finding an American cable or satellite system willing to carry it. more

 CNN's Lebanon Problem 
Eric Boehlert in The Huffington Post - I was surprised yesterday afternoon when a Reuters article popped onto my computer screen reporting that 53 Lebanese civilians had been killed by Israeli forces, part of the suddenly chaotic two-front battle Israel's military is fighting in the Middle East. Surprised, because I had been monitoring the day's events on CNN and hadn't heard much about that kind of swelling Lebanese death toll. more

 Just Another Mother Murdered 
Alison Weir in Counter Punch - Almost no one bothered to report it. A search of the nation’s largest newspapers turned up nothing in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Houston Chronicle, Tampa Tribune, etc. more

 BBC's coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict 'misleading' 
Owen Gibson in The UK Guardian - The BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "incomplete" and "misleading", including failing to adequately report the hardships of Palestinians living under occupation, an independent review commissioned by the corporation's board of governors has found. more

 AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy 
Alison Weir - In the midst of journalism’s “Sunshine Week” – during which the Associated Press and other news organizations are valiantly proclaiming the public’s “right to know” – AP insists on conducting its own activities in the dark, and refuses to answer even the simplest questions about its system of international news reporting. more

 SHORT MOVIE 
Watch a 5-minute video about aPalestinian boy being shot and AP erasing footage of the incident. more

 Response to AP Statement About Erasing Video; Foundation for Claims 
For over a year AP refused to respond to questions about this incident. Now, only a few days after the publication of my article, public outcry has forced AP to issue a statement. Not surprsingly this statement attempts to absolve them of any wrongdoing. More unexpected is their description of the shooting of a child in ways that minimize Israel’s culpability. more

 Craig Corrie on the Silencing of his Daughter’s Words 
Craig Corrie - Please forgive an old actuary, so new to the world of theater and activism, for weighing in where I have so little knowledge or experience, but I would like to express my feelings on two related subjects. First, I thank you all for the wisdom of focusing on the larger questions surrounding the fiasco of the New York Theater Workshop's cancellation of the New York debut of My Name is Rachel Corrie. The silencing of this play is alarmingly similar to the silencing of almost any voice that speaks out for equal rights for Palestinians, and the silence we have all faced so often when demanding justice from Washington or Jerusalem. more

 The Erosion of Free Speech 
Robert Fisk in the UK Independent - You've got to fight. It's the only conclusion I can draw as I see the renewed erosion of our freedom to discuss the Middle East. The most recent example – and the most shameful – is the cowardly decision of the New York Theatre Workshop to cancel the Royal Court's splendid production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie. more

 Anatomy of a Cover-Up: When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound? 
Alison Weir in CounterPunch - Why don’t Americans Know what’s going on in Israel/Palestine? The answer is unclear at this point, but some disturbing patterns are beginning to emerge. They implicate some of our major news media, and, perhaps most of all, the Associated Press, the oldest and largest wire service in the world. Most American editors and journalists have no idea what is occurring under their watch. To date, there is little indication that they care. more

 Giving Chutzpah New Meaning 
Jon Wiener in The Nation - What do you do when somebody wants to publish a book that says you’re completely wrong? If you’re Alan Dershowitz, the prominent Harvard law professor, and the book is Norman Finkelstein&rsqup;s Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, you write the governor of California and suggest that he intervene with the publisher—because the publisher is the University of California Press, which conceivably might be subject to the power of the governor. more

 The Coverage—and Non-Coverage—of Israel-Palestine 
Alison Weir in AMEU’s The Link - In the fall of 2004, we visited the Palestinian Territories. Such a simple statement, and such a complicated reality. Let me try again... In the fall of 2004, we visited a large, open-air prison. A prison whose guards keep people out, when they choose to, as well as in, humiliating and violating those they dislike; a prison into which the jailers periodically shoot and send regiments of destruction; a prison full of mini-prisons and convoluted rules that change with the wind. A complicated, teeming prison in which there are wedding festivals and dancing; where babies laugh and the tea is flavored with mint and sage; and where desperation silently waits. more

 The Story TV News Won’t Tell 
Tim Llewellyn in The Guardian of London - For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC’s Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of Jerusalem while disregarding the roots of the crisis. more

 Censored 
Colin D. Edwards in The Link - While the Iron Curtain has disappeared, what I would call the Zion Curtain lives on, heavily damping and distorting news concerning the Middle East as it appears in the world’ss news media, very particularly the print and broadcasting media in the western world. Since my work has been mostly in the field of news reporting and documentary production, I will concentrate in this article on what I have experienced of Zionist censorship in these fields. more

 Epiphany at Beit Jala 
Former Time Bureau Chief Donald Neff in The Link - It was two decades ago when I first arrived in Israel. Like many Westerners, and I suppose like most Americans at the time, I was something of an unwitting Zionist in my sympathies. If I did not embrace Israel’s history of expansionism, I did not necessarily reject it either. I believed that the Jews deserved a secure state of their own, as the Nazi holocaust had proved, and it followed that Israelis had a right to look out for their own safety. more

 New year, old story 
Gideon Levy in Haaretz - Eldar had already brought his cameraman, Majdi al-Arbid, to the hospital in serious condition. An IDF sniper shot him from a range of 300 meters in Jabalya, despite the fact that he held a television camera in his hand – or perhaps because of this. more

 Censored 2005: Israel and Palestine, Choosing Sides 
The most monumental cover-up in media history may be the one I’m about to describe. In my entire experience with American journalism, I have never found anything as extreme, sustained, and omnipresent. more

 New Book Breaks Censorship on Palestinian Issue 
In a groundbreaking departure, a recently released book by a major progressive institution dedicated to exposing “censorship” in the American media reveals that the organization itself also omitted information on the Israeli-Palestinian issue over its 20-plus years of operations. more

 Bad News from Israel 
Greg Philo and Mike Berry - University of Glasgow’s Media Group conducted a detailed two-year study of UK television coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict and how it impacts viewers’ understanding of the conflict. The study suggests that television news confuses viewers and substantially features Israeli government views. more

 Israeli Army Embarassed by Video Broadcast 
CBC News, March 19, 2002 - Canadian broadcasting reports on the rare move by an Israeli television agency to show footage of an Israeli incursion. The army, government and many Israeli citizens didn’t like what they saw. Watch Video – You will need RealPlayer | Read Transcript

 Israel Strikes to Silence Palestinian Media
Human Rights Watch - The Israeli military’s destruction of a Palestinian media office in Gaza City June 28th had no justification under international law, Human Rights Watch said today. The helicopter gunship attack was the third air strike against Palestinian media in the past two months. more

 Attacks on the Press 2003 – Israel and the Occupied Territories
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) - The Israeli army continued to imperil reporters and restrict their work in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, making the area one of the most complicated and dangerous assignments for journalists in the Middle East. During 2003, two journalists were shot and killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fire. Others encountered harsh treatment at checkpoints or had to contend with army-imposed limits on their movements. more

 Israel Muzzles Palestinian Journalists
Khalid Amayreh in Al Jazeera - The international press organisation “Reporters Sans Frontiers” (RSF) recently lambasted Israel for abusing and harassing Palestinian and foreign journalists covering the Intifada against Israeli occupation. more

 Palestinian Journalist Shot Dead
The Australian - A Palestinian journalist was shot dead by Israeli troops in a refugee camp on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Nablus while covering protests against the killing of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, medical sources said. more

 Agence France Presse Photographer Shot by Israeli Military
New York, March 9, 2004 - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned by today’s shooting by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of Palestinian photographer Saif Dahla in the West Bank city of Jenin. Two witnesses—Dahla’s brother, Reuters photographer Said Dahla and Reuters cameraman Ali Samoudi—told CPJ that there were about half a dozen journalists standing together on the sidewalk of a residential neighborhood in Jenin, covering an Israeli incursion into the city in the early afternoon when the shooting occurred. more

 Israel Bars Rabin From Relating ’48 Eviction of Arabs
David K. Shipler in the New York Times - A censorship board composed of five Cabinet members prohibited former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from including in his memoirs a first-person account of the expulsion of 50,000 Palestinian civilians from their homes near Tel Aviv during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. In it, Mr. Rabin attributes the final decision on expulsion to David Ben-Gurion, one of Israel’s founders and its first Prime Minister, who died in 1973. Mr. Rabin says that some Israeli soldiers refused to participate in driving out the Arabs and that afterward, propaganda sessions were required to soothe the consciences of embittered troops. more

 The Information Blockade 
Filmmaker Tom Hayes describes the censorship, or information blockade, that he faced in every step of the process of creating and distributing of his award-winning documentary ‘Palestine is Still the Issue.’ more

 Why is my film under fire? 
An unforeseen threat to freedom of speech in British broadcasting emerged last week. It was triggered by the showing of my documentary, Palestine is Still the Issue, on ITV. The film told a basic truth that is routinely relegated, even suppressed—that a historic injustice has been done to the Palestinian people, and until Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation ends, there will be no peace for anyone, Israelis included. Most of the film allowed people to tell their eyewitness stories, both Palestinians and Israelis. What was unusual was that it disclosed in detail the daily humiliation and cultural denigration of the Palestinians, including a sequence showing excrement smeared by Israeli soldiers in a room of children’s paintings. The film was accurate, restrained and fair; the longest interview was with an Israeli government spokesman. Every word and frame was subjected to a legal examination for accuracy and to ensure it complied with the fairness regulations in the Broadcasting Act. more

 Influencing Middle East News 
Brigadier General James J. David - If you haven’t noticed it by now, I’m sure you will within a very short time. I’m talking about US news coverage of the Middle East. It seems that Israel has poured millions of dollars in recruiting some of the top PR firms in the United States to make sure that the news coverage is tilted towards Israel’s behalf. In addition to these public relation firms the Israelis are using several pro-Israel groups to influence American news coverage using tactics to include boycotts of several top media outlets and massive phone, e-mail, and letter-writing campaigns. They are being directed at both large and small news operations with direct communication to the editors of our major newspapers, broadcast outlets, and cable news channels across the United States. more

 A Strange Kind of Freedom 
Robert Fisk in the London Independent - Inside the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, the Californian audience had been struck silent. Dennis Bernstein, the Jewish host of KPFA Radio’s Flashpoint current affairs programme, was reading some recent e-mails that he had received from Israel’s supporters in America. Each one left the people in the church &mdash Muslims, Jews, Christians &mdash in a state of shock. “You mother-fucking-asshole-self-hating Jewish piece of shit. Hitler killed the wrong Jews. He should have killed your parents, so a piece of Jewish shit like you would not have been born. God willing, Arab terrorists will cut you to pieces Daniel Pearl-style, AMEN!!!” more