The Washington Post is covering the house arrest of former IDF soldier Anat Kam, for allegedly passing classified documents to Haaretz regarding assassinations of Palestinian militants in the West Bank.
The Independent relates Kam’s arrest to the flight of Uri Blau, a Haaretz reporter, to London. He broke the story in 2008. Richard Silverstein has been all over this story, by the way; when will it break in the US mainstream? Independent:
In an unusual move, Israel has placed a gagging order on national media, preventing them from reporting any aspect of the Kam case. Israel’s Channel Ten and Haaretz are expected to challenge this order on 12 April.
…The move to gag Israel-based media has sparked fevered debate on Jewish blogs, which have freely reported the story. Bloggers have railed against the blackout, saying it represents a critical challenge to the freedom of the press.
"I do not believe that a citizen can be arrested and tried for suspected security offences right under our noses without anyone knowing anything about it," wrote former Haaretz editor Hanoch Marmari in an eloquent cri de coeur on the Seventh Eye website.
"Trials do not take place here in darkened dungeons, nor do we have show trials behind glass or chicken wire. I have no doubt that such a strange, terrible and baseless scenario cannot take place in such a sophisticated democracy as our own."
Didi Remez says that Ron Kampeas has gotten on the story for JTA; presumably the US MSM, which defers always to conventional conservative pro-Israel opinion whenever a story reflects badly on the poodle-wags-the-dog state, will now accept that it is a story.
What’s a poodle-wags-the-dog state? Perhaps I’m really dense, but I just don’t get it. To be honest, there’s probably no ‘perhaps’ about it.
It’s all part of the growing trend toward Israeli fascism.
Dog’s are not known to wag other dogs. Jeez, Phil couldn’t you come up with something better, you’re a journalist. How about:
“Presumably the US MSM, which defers always to conventional conservative pro-Israel opinion whenever a story reflects badly on the dog-pats-the-owner state, will now accept that it is a story.”
RE: “Dog’s are not known to wag other dogs…” – ihsan
MY COMMENT: And tails are not known to wag dogs, or are they? Wag the Dog (1997) – link to imdb.com
FROM WIKIPEDIA: When an unnamed President of the United States is caught in a closed room with a young girl scout less than two weeks before re-election, a hired political gun (played by Robert DeNiro) is brought in to try to take the public attention away from the scandal. He decides to construct a fake war with Albania, hoping the media will concentrate on this instead. In order to come up with his ‘war’, he contacts a Hollywood producer (Hoffman), who brings in a series of specialists who help construct a theme song, build up interest and fake some footage of an orphan in Albania.
The plan’s continual setbacks (including having to use an Army prison convict to be their ‘hero’ who was “shot down behind enemy lines”) don’t disturb the producer, who continues to declare “This is nothing” while comparing the situation to a past movie-making catastrophe he averted. In the end, with the election done and the President re-elected, everything seems fine – until the producer finds out from the news outlets that the media are crediting the President’s tired “Don’t change horses in mid stream” campaign slogan with his win, rather than his elaborate plans. The producer is about to call the media to ‘set them straight’, when the President’s aide warns him that he is “toying with his life” and, eventually, has him killed and makes it look like he had a heart-attack while tanning next to his pool….Hoffman’s character is said to have been based directly upon famed producer Robert Evans….
P.S. So Phil is taking the concept of the tail/tale wagging the dog and combining it with the concept of Blair as Bush’s poodle and chango presto you have either “poodle-wag-the-dog” or god-only-knows-what.
Freedom of the press in the US is the right of NPR’s “reporters” to read Israel military press releases and call it news.
I’m still rather upset that Israel’s blockade on international journalists gets no coverage in the US. Kind of shows you that US media outlets are less about actual journalism, and more about “public relations” for favored clients.
Well, no coverage in the so-called mainstream, I should amend.
Any journalists who did that kind of reporting would be fired faster than Ethan Bronner if and when his son joined Hamas. It’s not really the lowly reporters who are the problem, it is their bosses whether they be editors, publishers, or owners.
I dare say reporters are not doing their jobs, then, if they are sacrificing their objectivity. Like I said, then, they’re nothing more than glorified public relations reps.
Chaos ~ pls go back a few days and read my post on some of your old pals at Huff Post. I’m wondering if you knew about their blog.
link to mondoweiss.net
Did Israel just create a Ms. Vanunu?
Oy Gevalt!!
Yesterday, my wife went to court and obtained a restraining order against our neighbors, who had choosen to deal with a non-existent problem by threats and property damage. This morning, we missed our cat, one of three, my little guy. My wife immediately put things together, and although she was very, very distraught, went up to the Humane Society to see if Mackie ended up there. She caught the guy red-handed, with Mackie in a bag in his car, as he was going to dump him at the pound! I have a feeling he (not Mackie, the neighbor) will see the inside of a cell, as the restraining order was in effect, and there’s the added question of animal cruelty, confining him in a bag.
What a girl! Yesterday, in a powder-pink power suit and spiked heels, wowing the court , and obtaining the order. This morning, a sack suit and fedora, she slips a .32 in one pocket and a flask of booze in the other, and cracks the case!
And kept up with work over the phone while she did this! What a woman! She’s in the process of effecting the arrest right now.
What does she need a schlump like me for? I guess that’s what it adds up to.
Mooser,
You got the knack of turning a horrible story into something pink and fun!
But seriously, your story reminds me of them nice settler folks in Hebron who punish the Palestinians by targeting their farm animals. Except the Palestinians would never be able to get a restraining order against the illegal settlers.
When Palestinians call the police to report settlers throwing stones, the police raid the Palestinian house and arrest the kids – for throwing stones.
link to imemc.org
[a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2007/11/the-evil-of-the.html"] poison barley [/a]
(why does that coding not work?)
Poison Barley in Hebron:
link to mondoweiss.net
The coding will not work if you use brackets( [ ] ). Use the ” less than” () signs in the same spots and it will work.
Use the “less than” and “more than” signs. I included examples of each, but they were absorbed as code!
What does she need a schlump like me for?
-someone’s gotta tell the jokes.
Ans somebody’s got to play all those organs, too.
Anyway, no arrest, cat is home, restraining order will be permanent.
My neighbor, who is (and this may be at the base of all this) is wearing heavy gravity boots, mortgage-wise, he’s real, real upside down. And has, as the web very easily shows, a long history. He seems to be completely unaware that it’s not between him and us, it’s between him and the court and police now. They will end up leaving the state, like they have eight times before. Too bad, very sad. But it’s gonna take a little time, and we will have to pay. I don’t mind. That’s the USA.
It was OT, so thanks for responding.
Anyway, I come home and look at Yahoo news, and the Pope’s spokesman has compared the furor over the sex acandal to “the worst aspects of anti-semitism”
Thousands of Zionists all over the world (a nasty thought in itself, of course) are muttering: “Hey, listen buster, we work that side of the street! Scram, Gentile!!”
Oh gosh, I hope he doesn’t read Mondoweiss, I gave away the plan!
sorry for your neighbor problems, Mooser, but I gotta call you on the Pope story: the spokesman was quoting a Rabbi ..
read from a letter from a Jewish friend
Ed Koch and What Jews Really Think
By MJ Rosenberg, Media Matters
Edward Koch was mayor of New York (elected in 1977) and, although long retired, he still has a following in some circles.
That is why when he likens US pressure on Israel to the Holocaust – as absurd and obscene as his analogy is – Koch needs to be forcefully rebuked.
Mackie in a bag, huh. You can always bury your cat in a shoe box on whatever pittance of land you conrol, neu?
In a column written for Realclearpolitics.com and The Huffington Post, and excerpted in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, Koch accuses the American Jewish community and members of Congress of unspeakable evil for not speaking out against President Obama’s stance on Israeli settlements. Koch considers Obama’s criticism of the Israeli government as indicative of disrespect and hostility to the State of Israel and to Jews. (No matter that Obama’s highest ranking aides are Jews. Koch, like Prime Minister Netanyahu, sees them as “self-hating,” the all purpose label for Jews who deviate from the line.)
“President Obama’s abysmal attitude toward the State of Israel and his humiliating treatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is shocking….
“In the 1930s, the Jewish community and its leadership, with few exceptions, were silent when their coreligionists were being attacked, hunted down, incarcerated and slaughtered. Ultimately 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust….
“Where are our Senators, Schumer and Gillibrand? And, where are the voices, not only of the 31 members of the House and 14 Senators who are Jewish, but the Christian members of the House and Senate who support the State of Israel? Where are the peoples’ voices? Remember the words of Pastor Niemoller, so familiar that I will not recite them, except for the last line: ‘Then they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak up.’”
Not too subtle. While most of those who defend any and all Israeli policies only hint at Holocaust analogies to smear their critics, Koch drops the H-bomb with shameless abandon.
And, of course, Koch is no foreign policy expert. His experience in global issues is limited to marching in the St. Patrick’s Day (and Pulaski Day, and Columbus day, etc) parades.
Nor does he know anything about Jewish history. Proudly uninterested in any aspect of Jewish history except its worst moment, he compares everything negative that happens to mass murder.
But, in his time and even now, he is one of those who has an audience when he screams “anti-Semitism” because he is a self-styled Jewish spokesman, who once held the position called “the second hardest job in America.”
But Koch, a Democrat, is first and foremost a neocon. He believes George W. Bush was a great President. In fact, he bolted the Democratic party in 2004 to support Bush over John Kerry because he was grateful that Bush and company took us into Iraq. Koch thought that the war would be good for Israel. It was, in fact, disastrous, eliminating Iraq as the counterweight to Iran.
But being wrong never deters the neocons. If it did, they would have gone out of business long ago. Instead, they hang out in their bunkers hoping for some disaster that will enable them one more “I told you so. Dialogue never works. ”
Koch, of course, gets his 20th century history wrong too. The American Jewish community was not silent about the Holocaust. But there was not much they could do other than enlist in the US effort to defeat Nazi Germany (and Imperial Japan), which they did in numbers out of proportion to their percentage in the population. What would Koch have had them do? Demonstrate in New York and Washington against Hitler? (Actually, they did that but Hitler was not impressed.)
But then there is the contemporary issue. Are Jews silent in the face of Obama’s opposition to Netanyahu’s settlement policies?
Yes, I think they are. But I think that the silence of the community – in contrast to the mindless hollering by conservative Jewish organizations – is telling.
Most American Jews – no, make that most friends of Israel – are not protesting because they understand that President Obama’s strong stand against expanded settlements testifies to his concern for Israel.
After all, the number one threat to Israel today is the occupation itself and the settlements, which are designed for the purpose of perpetuating the occupation. If Israel retains the occupied lands (and people), Palestinians will constitute a majority of historic Palestine within the next few years. Either Israel ends the occupation or the occupation will end the Jewish State of Israel.
That simple fact is the reason racist Israelis like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have advocated “transfer” or ethnic cleansing. It is why more sophisticated racists like Prof. Martin Kramer advocate suppressing the Palestinian birth rate.
They recognize that the occupation will be the death of Israel unless extreme measures are taken.
They, of course, do not consider the “unextreme” method that will preserve Israel’s security and its future: exchanging.
In the words of David Remnick, the very pro-Israel editor of the New Yorker, “Without the creation of a viable contiguous Palestinian state, comprising a land area equivalent to all of the West Bank and Gaza (allowing for land swaps), and with East Jerusalem as its capital, it is impossible to imagine a Jewish and democratic future for Israel. There is nothing the Israeli leadership could do to make the current fantasy of an indifferent American leadership become a reality faster than to get lost in the stubborn fantasy of sustaining the status quo.”
And the community understands that.
That comes out loud and clear in a Gerstein-Agne poll of American Jewish attitudes conducted during the current crisis:
American Jews by a four-to-one margin, 82-18 percent, support the United States playing an active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, with 73 percent of American Jews supporting this active role even if it means that the United States were to publicly state its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs.
And by a 71-29 percent margin, American Jews support the United States “exerting pressure” on both the Israelis and the Arabs to make the necessary compromises to achieve peace. An earlier J Street poll last March found a similar level of support.
A majority of all American Jews, 52-48 percent, still support an active role even if the United States were to publicly state its disagreements with only Israel.
The bottom line: Jews are not taking to the streets to defend Netanyahu and bash Obama. And their representatives are, with few exceptions, not issuing statements of support for Netanyahu either.
The reason is simple. They understand that supporting Obama’s stand is what you do if you are pro-Israel. Screaming and foot-stomping is what you do if you only want to get attention or raise money by scaring potential donors to death.
Koch should be ashamed. He isn’t.
I saw Koch at the movie theater on Dec 24th last year. The man is a walking corpse and he must have had the article penned. He needed a 60 year old man to assist him throughout the show. Koch is part of the second chorus of Neocons that made me realize, this whole Iraq thing is bigger than wmd.
-Koch on NY1 news often, he looks much better there. I guess the make-up and the fact that he is seated has something to do with it.
Chu,
Never trust an old man with too much make-up on.
“Mackie in a bag, huh. You can always bury your cat in a shoe box on whatever pittance of land you conrol, neu?”
He was in a sack, but alive and fine. I’m not worried about the land, it’s been platted for seventy years, without any challenge and I own it outright. I doubt there will be any trouble over that.
I recently buried my cat in a shoebox on my pittance of land. He was my buddy for 15 years. I miss him a lot. It was a real horror to watch him try to hold on, right to the end.
“In the 1930s, the Jewish community and its leadership, with few exceptions, were silent when their coreligionists were being attacked, hunted down, incarcerated and slaughtered.”
What Koch fails to mention is that of all of the Jewish groups, none was more silent or complicit than the Zionists, whose focus on the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine came at the expense of their European brethren, who were left to deal with their fate as best they could. Now, to have this Zionist wrapping himself in the shroud of the Holocaust is yet another example of Zionist hypocrisy and duplicity.
The Zionists are unique among Jews for being the only group of Jews to collaborate with the Nazis. The Zionists knew that the money they accepted from the Nazi government to promote Zionist settlement came from money confiscated from German Jews.
Nothing like a kapo with dreams of creating his own death camp for those he doesn’t like.
FOLKS, FOLKS, FOLKS!- Normally I try to stay on topic, but this is different! Over at Norman Finkelstein’s website www.normanfinkelstein.com there is an article titled “In Memory of a Mensch” which is pure gold. It talks about Raul Hilberg and Hannah Arendt. It is long, but much too good to pass up. Essential reading. I highly recommend it.
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BDSNOW exposed
Why BDSNOW kept repeating the same sentence ( in regards to suicide bombing) over and over again? The answer is here:
link to docstoc.com
“The Israel Project 2009″ The Global Language Dictionary
Scroll down to page 7 paragraph 4.. you have the answer there..BDS is simply following a script..
Good find. I could have told you BSDNow was a trolling loser a long time ago though.
The moment he posted here it was obvious. Just look at his name. Someone else here mentioned, after clicking on the link in his name, that the directed web-page is a hodgepodge of nothing.
So yea, he’s a troll.
And yea, those arguments he makes are straight out of the plethora of hasbara manuals. These people are freaks.
Cliff
Another link for that hasbara manuel that I posted yesterday (but no one seemed to pick it up ):
link to australiansforpalestine.com
What first raised my suspicions about BDS is the “empathy”, “concern” and the excessive “politness” part ( paragraph 2 and 3 in the hasbara book) which didn’t ring true to my ear. But when he kept coming back with the same mantra about “it’s morally wrong” I was 100% sure being on the money.. He’s as genuine as a chocolate gold coin..
Another funny thing..When he realised he’s been exposed he suddenly disappeared from the thread altogether..
Good find. I could have told you BSDNow was a trolling loser a long time ago though.
Cliff you’re right on the mark.
His very first post was suspect. If you notice, his alias is a re-arrangement of BDS, to BSD, an act which seems deliberate as the site linked to his account refers to a website with links to a computer software project named BSD (or Berkeley Software Distribution). So he was in fact advocating for something entirely unrelated with a “play on words.” Too bad he couldn’t keep his loyalties a secret the minute he started expression his opinions, an effect which can no doubt be traced to his hasbara training.
Good job Keith.
They even quote John Lennon:
“First you must to learn to smile as you kill” – John Lennon “Working Class Hero”
I reckon John Lennon would have ‘declined’ to perform in Israel if he were alive, unlike that twerp Paul Mcartney.
Boy how these hasbarado sheep lie down willingly for a lobotomy.
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Yesterday, Haaretz interviewed Fayyad.
Palestinian PM to Haaretz: We will have a state next year
By Akiva Eldar
link to haaretz.com
Juxtaposed against:
Report: Hamas wants to try Fayyad over Haaretz interview
By Haaretz Service
link to haaretz.com
And
link to haaretz.com
Meshal: All options against Israel are open, including war
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
I think Fayyad is on the right track, especially his point “”The conflict of the region is not about us at all; it’s between radicals and moderates. It is clear to me that ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is an American national interest. The world should be able to do what they want to do to help – in their own interest as well but they can’t do it. ”
The radicals and the moderates.
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