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Censoring Israeli Violence: Western Media Outlets Capitulate
The cathedral of censorship is a vast, airy one. In its embrace, texts are abridged, images removed, ideas scrubbed. Historical inconveniences are filed and rendered inaccessible. The only sermons tolerated will be those satisfying and serving the dictates of power. The power Israel disproportionately wields here, notably across a number of Western democratic states, is…
The post Censoring Israeli Violence: Western Media Outlets Capitulate appeared first on The AIM Network.
Video: Jewish Elders chain themselves to White House fence demanding ceasefire
At the same time, US Capitol police arrest dozens of Jewish peace protesters in Washington
Image: Jewish Voice for Peace Twitter account
A group of elderly Jewish people who want to see an end to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians have chained themselves to the fence of the White House, demanding immediate action from US president Joe Biden to secure a ceasefire and chanting, “Biden, Biden, pick a side, Ceasefire not genocide”:
On Twitter, the group said:
We are Jewish elders, bubbies, tetas, and grandmothers chaining ourselves to the White House, demanding the US stop funding and arming genocide against Palestinians. This is not complicated. Never again means never again for anyone.
As the elders chanted outside Biden’s residence, US police arrested dozens of Jewish and Palestinian peace protesters, who had mounted a sit-in at the Senate to call for a ceasefire and the abandonment of a Biden plan to send billions more in military aid to Israel.
A spokeswoman for one of the groups involved in the protest said:
Funding more death and destruction of human life.. makes no one secure and instead fuels hatred and continued war.
The Senate must heed our urgent demand to stop funding militarism and instead invest in life.
The action by Jewish protesters to condemn Israel’s actions and demand a ceasefire undermines the false narrative pushed by the UK media and Establishment that all Jewish people intrinsically support Israel and its aims and that anti-zionist Jewish groups are somehow ‘fringe’ elements who should not be allowed a voice. In the US, despite moves by Congress to equate anti-zionism automatically with antisemitism, very many Jews are non- or anti-zionist and are fully supportive of Palestinian freedom, self-determination and right of return. Jewish groups have also been prominent in pro-Palestinian marches here, though the UK media often tries to avoid showing them.
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Israeli government ‘ordered assassination’ of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer
Netanyahu cabinet approved murder of Palestinian poet who mocked discredited atrocity propaganda, says Tikkun Olam security site
The Netanyahu government officially approved the murder of Palestinian poet, academic and activist Refaat Alareer, according to a website known for its sources inside the Israeli security apparatus.
Tikkun Olam, a news site run by writer Richard Silverstein, whose title refers to a concept in Judaism of healing the world, has broken a string of firsts since its creation in 2003 – and it has this to say about the assassination of Prof Alareer, who had mocked Israel’s now thoroughly-discredited atrocity propaganda about the murder and dismemberment of babies during the 7 October Hamas kibbutz raid:
Israel ordered Refaat Alareer’s assassination after derided Israeli claim of babies burned in an oven as hoax. He was right, but died for it.
Refaat was a Palestinian poet and professor. It’s rare that countries assassinate poets. Not just murder them in wartime, but intentionally assassinate them…
But Refaat was an unusual combination of teacher and activist. He not only taught his students Palestinian poetry. He also taught them Hebrew poetry. For this, he was profiled in the New York Times: In Gaza, a Contentious Palestinian Professor Calmly Teaches Israeli Poetry. And the Times published an op-ed by him as well: My Child Asks, ‘Can Israel Destroy Our Building if the Power Is Out?’
Unlike Israel’s educational system, which promotes a triumphalist ideological indoctrination, Alareer’s teaching of Hebrew poetry analyzed and appreciated the beauty of the language, but critiqued that ideology underpinning it. This clearly unnerved the Times editors, presumably pressured by one of alphabet soup of pro-Israel media watchdog groups (CAMERA, MEMRI, Honest Reporting, etc), and published a “correction” to the profile.
He responded to them (unfortunately they did not offer a full quotation of what he wrote):
…He denied that there was a “substantial change” in his teaching and said that showing parallels between Palestinians and Jews was his “ultimate goal.” But he said that Israel used literature as “a tool of colonialism and oppression” and that this raised “legitimate questions” about Mr. Amichai’s poem.
Apparently, this sort of social-political-ideological analysis of literature, a method taught at almost all educational institutions, troubled these editors. Instead, their correction implied he was a propagandist, rather than an academic professor…
I broke the story here about Israel’s security cabinet issuing the Amalek Directive to assassinate six senior Hamas leaders and their families. It also similarly targeted specific journalists and their families. The IDF has murdered 80 journalists suggesting that it is deliberately targeting them for execution. This is a war crime.
An Israeli security source confirms my suspicion that the cabinet ordered Refaat’s execution, because his joke marked him as being a member of the tribe of Amalek. An eternal enemy of the Jewish people. He was no such thing of course.
He was a poet, a teacher who loved literature. He was also a champion of his people. He was an implacable enemy of injustice. For that he died. Along with him, Israel killed his brother, sister and their four children. It knew it would them along with the intended target. But killing entire families is now the Israeli modus operandi...
Refaat was displaced multiple times during this war and ended up at his sister’s home along with his parents, wife and children. A few days ago, Refaat moved with his wife and children to an UNRWA school in al-Tufah neighborhood in Gaza according to his family.
However, a close friend of Refaat’s told Euro-Med Monitor that he had received an anonymous phone call from someone who identified himself as an Israeli officer and threatened Refaat that they knew precisely the school where he was located and were about to get to his location with the advancement of Israeli ground troops.
While the credibility of the threat itself is unclear, it contributed to prompting Refaat to move back to his sister’s apartment, believing it was more concealed than an open and overcrowded school where it would have been difficult to hide.
For weeks since the start of this war, Refaat has been receiving numerous death threats and hateful messages from Israeli accounts on social media after prominent public figures [Bari Weiss, among others] singled him out for harassment and incitement.
In 2014, Israel bombed Refaat’s home in Shejaiya and killed over 30 of his and his wife’s families.
Read the full story, including details of how Refaat Alareer was stalked, threatened and ultimately murdered, and details of how Silverstein’s attempts to spread the news on social media were censored, here.
Many if not most of the Israeli victims of the Hamas raid are now known to have been killed by Israeli forces as part of the so-called ‘Hannibal doctrine’. Despite the abundance of evidence, the UK and other western media continue to ignore it.
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Images/video: Thousands gather in Liverpool for biggest Gaza march yet
Corbyn, McCluskey and others speak to packed crowd that grew still bigger as it marched
The people of Liverpool gathered in their thousands today in solidarity with the people of Palestine and to demand a permanent ceasefire in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, in what appeared to be the biggest rally and march yet.
Former Unite head Len McCluskey and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn were among the speakers – and received a huge welcome, as well as praise for their clear solidarity with the oppressed compared with the dire performance of their replacements:
And as the march processed down Hope Street and then Leece Street toward its Derby Square rally point, it grew larger and larger:
Solidarity from Liverpool to Gaza and all Palestinians. Palestine will be free. Ceasefire now!
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US Congress passes resolution declaring anti-zionism is antisemitism
Anti-zionist Jews among millions declared antisemitic by anti-humanity US lawmakers
The US Congress – of which many members are heavily funded by pro-Israel lobby groups – has passed House Resolution 894 ‘firmly’ stating ‘that anti-Zionism is antisemitism’. The House used as its excuse a supposed ‘drastic rise in antisemitism’ since the 7 October Hamas kibbutz raise – despite the fact that race-based violence since the raid has consisted of attacks on Muslims, including the shooting of three Palestinian-American friends that left one of them permanently paralysed.
The resolution was led by Republican members, but the Democrats were also guilty: the vote passed by 311 votes to just 14 – with 95 Democrats voting for the resolution and 92 ‘abstaining by voting present’. Only thirteen Democrats voted against it.
The motion had been promoted by a number of US pro-Israel pressure and funding groups.
Antizionist Jewish group Jewish Voice for Peace Action described the anti-democratic resolution as dangerous:
Falsely stating that anti-Zionism is antisemitism conflates all Jews with the Israeli state and endangers our communities. It fuels deadly violence and censorship campaigns against Palestinians,
The resolution’s conflation of Jewishness and Zionism – which is a political ideology – has also rightly been condemned as deeply dangerous.
The vote came as Israel continued its slaughter of Palestinian civilians, with bombing of southern Gaza – where the apartheid occupation regime ordered residents of northern Gaza to flee – perpetrated daily.
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Video: Amnesty shows Israel killed journalist, maimed another, in Lebanon
Warning: distressing footage – forensic examination of footage from 13 October attack, on Lebanese territory, on clearly marked journalists, shows Israeli tank fired once, then again less than a minute later; Amnesty calls for war crime investigation
Detailed analysis by Amnesty International of footage surrounding a 13 October attack on a group of clearly marked journalists shows Israeli tank crew knowingly fired two shells, less than a minute apart, at the group as they filmed in southern Lebanon. One journalist was killed and the other lost her leg in the needless and deliberate assault.
Amnesty has now published its findings under the title “Deadly Israeli Attack on Journalists In Lebanon Must be Investigated as a War Crime”:
Israel has relentlessly bombed schools, hospitals, news offices and homes in Gaza, killing thousands of civilians, mostly women and children – and at least sixty-eight journalists, more than were killed in any other conflict since 1990. Now it has been shown to have committed another wanton Lebanon attack on journalists doing their job, taking another life and wrecking more. The far-right Israeli regime is out of control and flouting international law, while lying wildly and incompetently to try to salvage its public image.
The same story has been seen time and again, including the murder of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, targeted last year as she covered an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in West Bank.
Despite this, western politicians continue to cover for Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals – and UK journalists appear to be ignoring the murder of their colleagues.
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Video: Starmer’s car hits Gaza peace protesters in Glasgow
Keir Starmer’s car and his security convoy have barged through a crowd of Gaza peace protesters in Glasgow, appearing to strike or push at least two of them:
It is not Starmer’s first experience with hitting someone with a vehicle. In 2020, he was let off by police after hitting a cyclist in London hard enough to damage his car – a fact pointed out by numerous respondents on Twitter.
According to close sources, it is not exactly his first experience of getting a free pass from police, either, a reality he repeatedly failed to deny while letting others spin for him.
Nor is it his first experience of having police attempt to intimidate protesters.
Starmer and the police state are never far apart.
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Video: SNP’s Flynn uses PMQs to rip Thatcherite Sunak and Starmer
SNP’s Westminster leader has fun at the expense of red and blue Tories
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn caused merriment on his own back benches – and parts of the Labour ones – this week when he asked Tory PM Rishi Sunak whether he was worried that he might make history as the first Tory PM to lose an election to lose an election to a fellow Thatcherite, in reference to Keir Starmer’s nauseating praise for the late and unlamented Tory PM, Starmer’s hard-right austerity politics and his enthusiasm for starving poor children:
Flynn is funny. The lack of real political choice – pick blue Tory or red Tory – that the rest of the UK is stuck with by Establishment design is not.
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Video: Corbyn challenges Cleverly over refusal to deny UK troops are operating in Gaza
Former Labour leader demands answers over dodging of Commons question
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has written to Foreign Secretary James Cleverly over the refusal of his underling to say that UK troops are not operating on the ground in Gaza in support of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. In his letter, Corbyn notes the hideous death toll of Palestinian civilians and Israel’s blatant war crimes in Gaza – and demands an answer from Cleverly to his question about the involvement of UK military personnel:
Any UK troops in Gaza are likely to be using Israel-made equipment to help Israel carry out its bombing: in 2021, the UK government awarded a £103m contract to Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems to provide laser-marking systems.
Tory PM Rishi Sunak has already sent UK ships to the seas off Gaza to provide logistical support to Israeli bombers and troops, but the direct involvement of UK forces in the targeting and killing of civilians would be a major scandal. UK special forces have often operated to provide laser guidance for bombs and Israel’s mass bombing has killed well over 15,000 civilians, around half of them children.
Cleverly is likely to copy his minion and dodge the question.
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Video: Israel’s ‘minister for Hamas rape propaganda is ‘proud to be a racist’
May Golan was withdrawn by Israel in May as proposed new New York consul after outrage over racist rally – now she’s pushing wild claims about Hamas atrocities
Israel’s ‘Minister for the advancement of women’, May Golan, has been at the forefront of the apartheid regime’s latest attempt to dig itself out of the pit of its PR and propaganda disaster over the 7 October Hamas raid.
Among a long list of failed propaganda attempts, the Israeli regime has been caught out trying to fake a ‘Hamas ambush’, faking a ‘recording’ of Hamas operatives, faking ‘evidence’ that Israel did not bomb a hospital and kill five hundred or more refugees – and seeing the news that Israel forces killed many of the Israelis who died during the raid, including the child it used for its atrocity-propaganda push, spread rapidly despite the silence of so-called ‘mainstream media.
So the regime’s latest tactic is to push claims that Hamas committed ‘widespread’ rapes during the raid – and, as so often, its ‘evidence’ is a single ‘eyewitness’. Israel has even been caught using an old image of a killed Kurdish woman soldier that it claimed was an Israeli rape victim. The ‘commissioner’ appointed to ‘investigate’ the rapes is an Israeli lawyer who has previously written a position to justify Israel circumventing the human rights of Palestinian captives and who runs an agency closely linked to Israel’s far-right government – and the commission did not even take any testimony from witnesses.
And one of the main faces of the latest propaganda push is May Golan – a woman who has told a far-right Israeli rally that she is ‘proud to be a racist’ and that ‘it’s our right to be racist’:
So great was outrage at her racism earlier this year that Israel withdrew its proposal to make her its consul in New York – yet despite this very recent history, her claims have been transmitted without scrutiny by the BBC and other UK and international ‘mainstream’ media, and with no mention of her record. Some media have even claimed ‘witnesses upon witnesses’ have testified to the commission about sexual assault by Hamas, even though it heard none.
Israel’s propaganda disaster continues – but so-called ‘mainstream’ media and commentators are slavishly, even enthusiastically, pushing the latest unevidenced narrative.
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