Last night’s moving, silent protest outside the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan as Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi gave the keynote speech at the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces gala was powerful and inspiring.
I asked Dorothy Zellner, a founding member of Jews Say No!, whether the hundreds of people who showed up to march and the two dozen or so organizations who co-sponsored the action was indicative of a larger shift in public opinion regarding Israel.
“Something about Gaza, so horrible, so horrific, has pushed a lot of people who were sitting on the fence over,” the long-time civil rights activist replied. But, she said, “Last year, even though it was after Gaza, it hadn’t penetrated. And mostly it hadn’t penetrated because Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, those weren’t in the news. But the Goldstone report,” changed things.
But Americans who solely read and watch corporate, mainstream media don’t know—about Goldstone, about the crimes of Israel, about why it is that there is a fundraiser on behalf of a foreign army in New York City, or that hundreds of people, including many Jews, were outraged enough to demonstrate against it. We have here—exemplified in last night’s demonstration—the makings of a global, diverse, and loud movement against Israeli apartheid and the occupation, and of a growing rift between Jews and the mainstream Jewish establishment on the question of Israel. Yet, there’s not a peep from the mainstream media.
The local papers in New York didn’t touch it. The Daily News, which is owned by ultra Zionist Mort Zuckerman, or the Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, didn’t feel the need to send a reporter to the Waldorf. The New York Times didn’t either. Nor did any other corporate publication, or MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann. The list goes on and on. Instead, we’re stuck with Chris Matthews smiling with Joe Biden and Ethan Bronner in Israel, engaging in vapid conversation about a dead-end “peace process.”
Many outlets in Israel covered it, for god’s sake, another indication (as many others have said) of how constrained the American mainstream media conversation about Israel is.
It’s what I expect. Corporate media’s profit-model has no interest in social justice, nor do the advertisers behind their profit, nor do powerful media moguls who cozy up to those in power and who share their interests. And, particularly on this issue, we have the Israel lobby, and big journalists who march in lockstep with Israel.
Thankfully, we also have the Internet, where progressive, independent voices are being heard. Democracy Now!, Grit TV, and the Indypendent covered the protest in-depth, as did this site. Through the web, the Palestine solidarity movement, and the independent media who cover it, are circumventing mainstream media.
Photo above by Andrew.
Yet, there’s not a peep from the mainstream media.
Its funny because every Zionist I talk to says that the whole world focus’s on Israel when there are bigger crimes taking place. I find this funny because the US mainstream media and even European media rarely ever talk about whats going on in Palestine. In fact US media rarely ever mentions that the Israelis physically and brutally occupy the Palestinians.
Thankfully, we also have the Internet, where progressive, independent voices are being heard. Democracy Now!, Grit TV, and the Indypendent covered the protest in-depth, as did this site. Through the web, the Palestine solidarity movement, and the independent media who cover it, are circumventing mainstream media.
Thank you for the optimism. As dim as it looks right now, I honestly believe that within 5 years things will be very different.
I wish I could be optimistic. Or at least that my optimism wasn’t something other than fatal. I believe in five years things will be very different — there won’t be any United States, as we know it today. By then, the mortal wounds will have bled out. But hey, we won’t be busy torturing Muslims or bombing wedding parties if we’re wrapped up in a financial meltdown, a civil war and/or a generation of children lost to health problems that aren’t problems in most of the rest of the world.
I agree with you in that if our country continues to go down this ridiculous path there will be horrible consequences.
But to be fair, I believe this country will find itself in a weakened state similar to that of Great Britain when its empire collapsed in the wake of world war 2.
Our country will still be relatively strong (particularly in the coastal regions) but won’t be a super power, and large swaths of the country will endure incredible poverty.
We can all thank the nutjobs (neocons, zionuts, corporate whores, capitalist shills, corporate media, and ignorance mongerers) for this.
Um, Mr. Bradley? I live in one of those large swaths.
Do you really think we’re going to sit and wait patiently for you guys on the coastal regions?
No photos of the Zionist counterdemonstrators?
Phh. I’ve been to protests with Zionist counter-protestors. Comparing our side to their meager, yet rabid numbers? It’s really quite pitiful to see. Let’s at least give them what little dignity they can salvage.
Not their numbers, their hate speech. Photos of these fanatics discredit their cause, which is why we never see them.
I have said for years that New York is just a glorified hick town. And getting more so every day. It will be in the “unimportant” small towns and cities across America where the Israel Lobby and BDS will be confronted – which is no disrespect to the brave people out last night. And what is the New York Times really? Just a large Arts & Leisure rag.
To be fair, a lot of newspapers across the country reprint articles from the NYT in their A Section.
Of course, those same papers are going belly up at a prodigious rate, so.
I’d have to agree with you if this continues. Midtown is the core of corporate America and ABC, NBC and CBS will not touch this story. But I would think that the studio ceo’s must hear the distant sound of thunder.
Yeah? Remember this: Fox News had to poach Glenn Beck from CNN.
What sort of deafening roar was there in Midtown Manhattan that the corporate elites paid attention to, shortly before the Great Depression?
Nobody forsaw the Great Depression, as you know Chaos; Greenspan’s easy credit policy set us up for our current situation–nobody listened to Ron Paul who forecast in no uncertain terms what has come down. The MSM never touched Paul’s warning; Paulson and Bernanke said we were coming in for a soft landing, a little correction. What does Obama do? Pats the pernicious Bernanke on the back; even as the Banksters and Federal Reserve revolving doors go around, everytime
Obama’s financial people entertain a few new consumer protection laws, the Banksters have already found a way to get around those laws, e.g., those involving credit cards. Hear anyone pushing for reinstatement of the chinese
wall between commerical and investment banking that was erected after the Great Depression? Our leaders cannot even learn from the Great Depression–and Bernanke’s claim to fame is as the great scholar of the Great Depression…
The US is buying its own debt; not trying to bite the bullet, but rather creating more debot atop debt while fudging the numbers in the hope that China and Japan for example will buy; China is not buying, and the US is threatening to take Toyota offline here in the USA, to coherce Japan to buy USA debt. The picture fudging numbers is also the working tool for the IMF these days.
link to article.wn.com
You know… I knew things were bad, I could see the peripheral signs, but I never guessed that something this might actually absurd was actually going on. Every time one digs deeper, one finds a fresh hell.
Thanks for sharing the information. As depressing as it is. I think I will have to follow up on it.
It was on BBC, along with Joe Biden getting snubbed.
I thought it was a good day. Rachel Corrie’s parent were also covered.
the surface is cracking…
Do you mean BBC International, or BBC America? I assume the former.
BBC world with Mike Embly
Media spokespeople for the event said that they gave a lot of interviews for cameras, both English and Arabic-language. Keep in mind that a 30-second spot on the local news (which is great!) is going to be harder to find on an internet search.
Here is a good analysis of corporate “journalism” in England and the USA, inter alia–it shows what is clearly wrong with any Dick Witty POV:
link to newleftproject.org
I hear that Ashkenazi, having raised $20 million in NYC, is going for a repeat in Miami.
Ha! Anyone live in the area? For kicks, someone should distribute this article among the thriving Cuban refugee community there and see what impact it has on their apathy toward Zionist masterminds like Ashkenazi.
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