Max Blumenthal has a great piece up on Huffington pointing out that even as the cable networks and MSM endlessly reprise the video killing of Neda Agha-Soltan in Tehran, they have ignored similar cold-blooded killings during protests in the West Bank. Those videos are also available. It is, Blumenthal says, hypocrisy; and more important, it stymies the global idea of nonviolent protest.
These videos are no less outrageous than the video of Neda's death.
However, to my knowledge, no outlet from the mainstream American media
has ever broadcast them. And as far as I know, no cable news program,
including liberal-leaning shows like Olbermann and Maddow, have never
even mentioned the non-violent protests in Bi'lin and Ni'ilin, or
Israel's brutal response. The videos remain unseen by America eyes. The
struggles of Bi'lin and Ni'lin do not even play in Peoria.
Direct action protest tactics only work if the brutal responses they
provoke are recorded by influential media sources and projected to
sympathetic audiences across the world. MLK's tactics in Selma would
not have succeeded had he not been accompanied by camera crews ready to
broadcast images of racist savagery to outraged Northern white
liberals. The outpouring of American public sympathy for Iranian
demonstrators might never have occurred had cable news outlets not made
the courageous decision to broadcast Neda's killing vividly and
repeatedly.
Yet when Palestinians employ direct action tactics to protest
Israeli oppression, and when Israeli forces respond with wanton
brutality, they are ignored by the US media, even when footage is
already available through online sources.
