Ethan Bronner got the scoop today on Israel's investigation of the flotilla raid concluding that the 9 killings were justified. The piece included one line at odds with the Israeli narrative, the last line: "Passengers aboard the flotilla have mostly told a very different story, with some witnesses accusing the commandos of shooting randomly as they came aboard." Funny; it's like a parody of propaganda.
But here's the news. Read the comments section. No one's fooled. The readers are going after Israel. What hath the internet wrought? A few examples, I'm leaving the handles out:
So Israel gets to be the judge and jury for crimes it commits? Is this how the world works now? Can we all have the same luxury?
No one can deny that Israeli has a right to exist....but this kind of terrorist behavior is so FACIST..
Good news for Facism! Sad news for middle-east!
This is not the time for niceties and fine points. Israel is a thug outlaw country and we must all, every day, in every possible way boycott everything they sell. Everything. Tell your friends, Spread the word.
BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT, BOTCOTT. NOW.[I think this one is brilliantly ironic] Its not as if a real american was killed.Deir Yassin, the USS Liberty attack, Sabra and Shatila massacres, numerous Israeli attacks on UN compounds, and now the attack on the Freedom Flotilla.
When will the US stop paying for the whitewash to cover up Israeli crimes?
Comments on blogs.
What was published? Did you read it?
“What was published? Did you read it?”
I read the first 50 or so. The bottom line is “Israel’s investigation of itself is a mockery of justice”
comments from a facist gov’t.. who cares if it was published? who would bother to read it?
Doesn’t that much irony hurt to come out the hole you’re talking out of? Seriously?
“Did you read it?”
No Witty, no one’s going to read it for you.
Stop being such a lazy SOB.
Is it so hard to click on an article once in a while?
Oh yes, I forgot, you have that weird compulsion that you must be the first to comment, thus you don’t read any links and possibly not even Phil’s article.
In the SECOND paragraph of the NYT piece (and the first is short):
“Giora Eiland, a retired major general who led the inquiry, presented his classified findings to the military chief of staff; they were not released to the public.”
Go and read them Richard. You will really like the one from Abbie Hoffman. He says you inspired him to get a life.
Well, after doing a spot of Naval gazing & exoneration, the NYT may turn to navel gazing & wondering where they’ve gone wrong in how they told the story, in their failure to put across the Israeli pov in an appealing way. I can’t imagine they’d go for a bit of fearless truth telling about I/P.
Well, the product they had to promote this time (commandos good/humanitarians bad) was a bit of a turd. Of course, they didn’t know it until Frank Luntz told them so:
“A summary of the findings:
1. 56% of Americans agree with the claim that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza;
2. 43% of Americans agree with the claim that people in Gaza are starving;
3. 34% of Americans support the Israeli operation against the Flotilla;
4. 20% of Americans “felt support” for Israel following announcement of easing of Gaza closure. And now that he has, this story of Israeli vindication will not be trumpeted across all media platforms. ”
link to thinkprogress.org
And now that Luntz has informed zionists of what people with functioning moral compasses think, this story of Israeli vindication will be left to wither on the vine, rather than being trumpeted across all media. You watch.
Well – Israeli writer, Yossi Sarid, quoted an Israeli Jew in Ha’aretz (Feb. 2009) as saying: “If I were a young Palestinian, I’d fight the Jews fiercely, even by means of terror. Anyone who says anything different is telling you lies.”
Ehud Barack told Gideon Levi ten years ago: “If I had been a born-Palestinian, I would join a terror organization“.
Just imagine the reaction of AIPAC – had those statement come from Iranian or their President Dr. Ahmadinejad.
link to rehmat2.wordpress.com
Calling Israelis “fascists” on the NYT is nothing new. We all remember the Albert Einstein et al letter to the editors of the NYT calling Menachim Begin a terrorist a fascist and Nazi-like and calling on the US to stop him from entering the US. In it, he also condemns what these terrorists did at Deir Yassin:
link to physics.harvard.edu
Phil, the comments on WAPO’s Middle East articles are similarly encouraging.
You can’t fool all the people all the time, but the MSM, PBS, NPR, Hollywood et al are sure as hell gonna try.
The rabble are aroused. Enter Joe Lieberman with the internet kill switch.
link to news.cnet.com
What they are hoping to stop is this (below), and they have a snowballs chance in hell of accomplishing it –
HYPERPOLITICS – TOOLS OF ANARCHISM AND THE PEOPLE
Bellum omnia contra omnes, has been bought on, and who started it?
I’m more inclined to agree with Jerry Mander:
The fantasies of utopian existence promoted by proponents of the technological, industrial mode of life for the last one hundred years are now demonstrably false. That’s not what we got. What we got was alienation, disorientation, destruction of the planet, destruction of natural systems, destruction of diversity, homogenization of cultures and regions, crime, homelessness, disease, environmental breakdown, and tremendous inequality. We have a mess on our hands. This system has not lived up to its advertising; in developing a strategy for telling people what to do next, we first have to make that point. Life really is better when you get off the technological/industrial wheel and conceive of some other way. It makes people happier. It may not make them more money, but getting more money hasn’t worked out. Filling life with commodities doesn’t turn out to be satisfying, and most people know that.
link to ratical.org
link to ratical.org
That’s the second time I’ve had occasion to mention Jerry Mander on this thread.
Wow, I havn’t read anything from Ratville in years. Is it defunct?
“I’m more inclined to agree with Jerry Mander”
It is a nasty habit not to read a post and make a disconnected comment, you are becoming proficient at doing that
lol. You’re a real hoot VR. You keep tabs on me?
The Mander passage was in response to the video in the link you posted, and is certainly a “connected” response.
Hey, we know all about your views of the world and all that good stuff you like to preach about. How about telling us a little bit about yourself.
You know, lighten up a bit, relax. You’re very preachy.
Of course, they say that what one accuses another of, one is unaware of in oneself.
So perhaps, in addition to my proficiency at not reading posts and making disconnected comments, I’m also preachy.
What do you think?
Wow, I havn’t read anything from Ratville in years. Is it defunct?
It looks like it hasn’t been updated since the early 2000′s.
What video is that Mr. Kelly? There are a number of videos on the link.
What are my views of the world, elaborate?
I find when people use the term “preach,” or they do not like the “way” someone says something they usually have no answers. Reminds me of a professor I once had who said there was nothing he could contradict in what I said but did not like the “manner” of my delivery.
The times afford no relaxation, I am dead serious about what I am posting – than again, as it has been said before, if there is no dancing in the revolution I do not want to participate –
REALITY
Or, perhaps this better communicates my sentiments –
LOST VIRGINITY
What do you think?
However, if you really want to get down to my attitude you could reduce it to rage. Not mindless rage, but highly concentrated, factually endowed, and directed at the correct target – want to know more about me? Here I am (in kind) -
RAGE OF THE PEOPLE
“Ok, we’ve got the rage, and I’m not talking about rabies.
Ask Fab, life is clicking like our heels on the cobbles.
The rage to see our goals being blocked, the rage to live across.
The rage that is ingrained since long ago.
The rage for having grown too fast,
when adults have stolen your childhood.
BAM! Imagine a racing car and a wall…
The rage, for impossible is this so much desired peace.
The rage, to see all those armed MDP’s in our streets.
The rage, to see this fucking world in self-destruction,
With innocent people always at the center of fires.
The rage, for it’s MAN who built each wall,
who has locked himself in concrete, is he afraid of nature?
The rage, for he’s forgotten that he belongs to nature.
And it’s a deep disharmony, to which world did the dove fly?
The rage, to be lashed at by society’s norms.
At the rage, the rage for having the rage since we were a child.
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll neither shut up, nor sit down, for now we’ll be ready.
Because we’ve got the rage, the heart and faith.
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
Nothing could stop us,
insubordinate, wise dissident, humanist, or rebel.
The Rage
For we choose nothing and always submit
And as their choices are shaky,
the whole balance sods off.
The rage,
for the irreparable has been piling up for a long time.
The Rage because:
what do we wait for standing up and kicking up a fuss?
The rage,
it is all that is left to us anyway, all that is left.
The rage,
how many of us will end up betraying?
The will to live, and to live the present moment, to choose our future,
free and free of their oppression plans.
The rage,
for its a bloody mess that everyone sticks to,
and for their GMO fields sterilize the earth.
The rage, for one day we break up the chain.
The rage, for too many people think that TV tells the truth.
The rage, for this world does not suit us.
but does feed us with false dreams and true ramparts
The rage, for this world does not fit us.
And Babylon grows fat and starves us to death.
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll neither shut up, nor sit down, for now we’ll be ready.
Because we’ve got the rage, the heart and faith.
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
Nothing could stop us,
insubordinate, wise dissident, humanist, or rebel.
The Rage,
to keep the faith and try to move
The rage, in front of a Chirac, a Sharon, a Blair or a Bush
The rage, because the world looks at life through red-tinted glasses,
but takes a black view of things,
and because they hear the cries when it bleeds.
The Rage, for it’s worst that we skim.
The rage, for the western world still wears it’s colonial dress.
The rage, because the evil strikes too much.
And the ancestral knowledge is not updated anymore.
The rage, too much lies and hidden secrets,
the elites of our rich of truths states could change mankind.
The rage, for they do not want it to change, hey?
The prefer handling the power and handling us as their tools.
The rage, for we believe in angles and decided to march with them.
The rage, for my remarks are disturbing.
Watch at the peoples’ rage, seething with unrest from every corner of the world.
The rage, yeah the rage, or the revolution’s essence?
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll neither shut up, nor sit down, for now we’ll be ready.
Because we’ve got the rage, the heart and faith.
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
Nothing could stop us.
insubordinate, wise dissident, humanist, or rebel.
The Rage,
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll neither shut up, nor sit down, for now we’ll be ready.
Because we’ve got the rage, the heart and faith.
Because we’ve got the rage.
We’ll stand up, no matter what happens.
The rage.
To go through, to the end where life drives us
Because we’ve got the rage.
Nothing could stop us.
insubordinate, wise dissident, humanist, or rebel.
Anti-Capitalist, alter-mondialist,
or you who searches truth about this world,
Tomorrow’s resistance, inch’allah
on the eve of worldwide and spiritual revolution,
The rage of the people, the rage of the people
La rabia del pueblo
Because we’ve got the rage, the one that will make your norms tremble
Because we’ve got the rage, the rage has over-come the rabble, and the rage is huge.”
“It is a nasty habit not to read a post and make a disconnected comment, you are becoming proficient at doing that”
Maybe, but he will never best me at it! Let him try!
See, I did it again! I take it back, when I dashed off the above comment I hadn’t yet read the song lyric transcription.
I know when I’m beat.
What’s the deal with the NYT comments section? They seem to only allow comments on some articles. Any regular NYT readers want to enlighten me as to their comments policy? I did a cursory check but I couldn’t come up with anything.
I don’t know. There does not seem to be rhyme or reason.
To add two points to Phil’s article: first, this is not the committee appointed by Netanyahu, including the international observers that has been discussed previously. This is the military commission, which I believe will be giving testimony to the committee, or some such incestuous nonsense.
Second, while Phil is encouraged by the comments, it’s even more encouraging if you read them in order of readers’ recommendations. By my count, the first 12, and 16 of the first 17 comments most recommended by readers take a very skeptical view of the Israeli military conclusions. Many of the ones quoted by Phil are among the most popular. I have noticed this trend with increasing frequency in the articles and op-eds on I/P, that the readership seems to be way ahead of the paper.
one can’t expect an old school propaganda outlet like the ho hum times to influence anyone with a shred of intelligence let alone a window onto the internet…
The notable thing is the growing gap between the opinion of the US people and their elected representatives. The more the Obama administration continues to ignore this, continues to enable Israeli crimes, the more disgusted people becomes.
Alex Kane had a piece on Salon, It’s Official, Israel has Gotten Away With it Again. link to salon.com
But this is only within official Washington. People know better, and they don’t like it when someone gets away with murder. And it’s official Washington that will take the blame.
Now it seems that the Republicans have started up a new ultracon lobbying group, the Emergency Committee for Israel. The purpose is to harrass Obama for his “anti-Israel” position. link to haaretz.com
This is clearly an act of desperation. Israel’s reputation stinks out loud, and no amount of cash can wallpaper it over.
I needed to post this hypocrisy! : 27 thumbs up under the highlights section (highlights section used to be called editor’s selection!!!)
“Find me a single nation in the history of the world that is more committed to honest self-examination than Israel before you judge her so harshly. There is no country with a stronger record of and DOMESTIC DEMAND for self-scrutiyn than Israel. Who is harder on the Jews than the Jews? Seriously, have you read the books of our prophets? We practically invented collective self-examination, and now the world treats us as though our nation is somehow morally-handicapped. With all due thanks, Israel does need the help of any bumbling international organization to hold herself accountable to decent standards. Israelis themselves demand it, and they have the freedom and the capacity to realize those demands. Show me a nation with as vibrant, as open a civil society, with as diverse array of NGOs, media outlets, and civic associations. “
sorry dave, not meant as a reply…
Oh dear, the NYT needs to add another category to it’s reader comments section: “high on Ziocaine.”
Help me out here, why does Phil put so much focus on the NYT when other media outlets in the US are equally biased? CNN does it with impunity, so does the Associated Press, the Washington Post to a lesser degree, the Boston Globe, and the Chicago Tribune.
Regarding the “Most Liked” comments — as pointed out by David Samel — consider the following comments in response to another flotilla as published by CNN. Note that CNN’s reportage is no better that the NYT.
link to cnn.com
because he lives in new york where an influencial jewish community also resides? i agree most of the mainstream old school media outlets are a complete bore when it comes to real information… they ceased having integrity before the war in iraq, and they have continued on downhill since… meanwhile the internet has been gaining momentum and freaking out the likes of murdoch and others of like ilk for good reason… it can’t happen soon enough for my likes…
i agree most of the mainstream old school media outlets are a complete bore when it comes to real information… they ceased having integrity before the war in iraq, and they have continued on downhill since…
True, but like it or not that’s still where a lot of people – including a lot of people with money and influence, who can effect change – get their news.
we all effect change in our own way… as for those who still get their news in this manner – they’re a dying breed and there days are numbered… same goes for the ho hum times and all the rest of them..
Avi, I think he was trying to point out the positive in that the majority of NYT commenters are aware of the hasbara. Ditto WAPO.
As for the CNN piece you posted, it seems the commenters there are falling for the hasbara. Perhaps it’s because they’re primarily CNN viewers, so when online they just go to CNN’s site to get their news?
I think people who are on to the Israeli/Zionist charade are going to the NYT and WAPO to counter the hasbara at those outlets because, as Noam Chomsky has said, those outlets set the tone for the rest of the media. Also, according to the Chomsky model, those are the readers who most need to be propagandized (and thus, de-propagandized), because they are the ones who can most effect change (the investors, upper management types, etc). Chomsky’s model, or the Chomsky-Herman model of manufacturing consent, to be more precise, is of course given in relation to “U.S. imperialism,” but it would apply here as well.
Anyway, just a thought on why readers/commenters may be flocking to those sites to correct the propaganda. I think it’s a good sign, and I expect we’ll see a trickle-down effect to the comments on other outlets as more and more people become aware of Israeli/Zionist deceit.
Manufacturing Consent was the first Chomsky book I had read when it came out. So, now that you mention it, I see where Phil is coming from. My theory in explaining the difference between NYT’s readers and CNN’s viewers is that newspaper readers tend to be more educated and more discerning whereas watching TV, and CNN in particular, requires far less…….ummmm
whereas watching TV, and CNN in particular, requires far less…….ummmm
lol. yep.
I still go through an internal struggle whenever I sit in front of a TV, putting my mind into a “passive receptive” state, to quote Jerry Mander. I had read Postman previous to Mander, and my first introduction to the absurdity of television was a comparative philosopher named Alan Watts, who said that in a society as wealthy as ours you would think that people would, upon returning home from a hard day’s work, have huge feasts and wild orgies, but instead people come home and watch an electronic reproduction of life – you can’t taste it, you can’t smell it – and eat a TV dinner which is like warmed over airline food, and then just sort of zone out until it’s time to go sleep!
Oh well, I went off on a tangent…
as gil scott heron mentioned a long time ago – the revolution will not be televised…. i stopped watching tv sometime after moving out of my parents place, which goes back to the mid 70′s… i keep on thinking folks will eventually catch on… what happened in between is the internut came along to alter the focus… now the tv has had some serious competition for some time now, but the older generation, which would have to include people my age too – in their 50′s – seem to be stuck with a foot in both worlds.. i see the younger generation that i hang with who are completely removed from tv… tv’s daze are numbered… they don’t have the same leverage with an internut site either..
Great dan. Never heard such a great analogy of tv vegetating.
so true, and yet soo sad…ah television,the opiate of the masses.
I don’t mind a little TV, but with two inflexible rules:
1. I’ll be damned if I pay for it! I pay to have crap hauled away from my house, not piped in. No cable.
2. I have the largest head, biggest mouth, and loudest voice in Moosehall! No TV over about 21″, and no extra speakers on it.
And one of these days, I’ll actually hook up the antenna and see if we can get anything.
there’s an organization in Israel that tracks education conflicts and outcomes among Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and Sephardic Jews. In the overview/history of the project, they group notes a shock to the education system when television became more readily accessible in Israel — about the time of 1967 occupation, ironically.
This is a good one from the commenters:
“It doesn’t take much imagination to know how Israel would have dealt with Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi and the Reverend Martin Luther King, does it?”
Has anyone here noticed that Bronner stripped Furkan Dogan of the latter’s American citizenship?
BTW, we’re watching the course of the MV Amalthea over at The Sentinel.
Speed 8.2 knots, course 104 degrees, 165 miles from the Gaza coast and 17 from interception by the IDF.
17 hours, not miles.
That American citizenship is irrelevant, just ask any American Jew who’s either moving permanently to Israel, or one who goes there in the summer so that the kids can absorb some real Zionism.
Ethan has his son’s back, eh?
Probably literally, too, for all I know — two matching shirts.
If American citizenship is irrelevant, why has there such a big black market in places like Puerto Rico for stolen birth certificates? OTH, I don’t imagine any Jews are buying those certificates:
link to forward.com
American citizenship is one of the best things you can buy – ask any number of Filipinos or Mexicans.
The American Dream is still alive in their hearts. They still, very honestly, think they can do better in Amreeka, than they can at home.
One very telling excerpt from Citizen’s link: which is well worth reading :link to forward.com
“Jewish day schools, which together cost the family upward of $50,000 per year in tuition”
$50,000 per year is 4 times the amount I budget for everything for 1 year to live here in the Philippines. I couldn’t afford to have a kid as well.
The disconnect between the ‘Third World’ and America is huge. No matter what sort of bad recession America is going through, it’s still a lot better than opportunities elsewhere.
So American Jews may be making Aliyah to Israel, to save money, but they are going to find themselves in the same game that they left.
Avi,
I understand the blurring of the lines with Birthright, right of return, etc., but it really is important to ID the guy. The IDF doesn’t want to put it out there that they killed an American.
I guess if they did, we’d have folks in congress that will posthumously strip him of his citizenship.
For $50,000 a year, I will wear a silly hat, coat and knickers, nod over my Torah and Talmud studies, and educate this fellow’s children in whatever he wants.
Furkan who?
who’s she?
An American?? Did she score in the World Cup soccer games?
US professor Ian Buruma (Bard College, N.Y.) comes up with an interesting comparison to defend ‘the poor little Israel’.
In this article, Ian Buruma, in order to cover the over sixty years of European Jew occupation of an Arab country, the on-going genocide of the natives and the neigboring Arab people since 1948, Israel’s wars on all its neighboring countries and occupation for the creation of the Eretz Israel (Greater Israel), a demographic Jewish entity – he calls Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s, reaction to Israeli commandos attack on the unarmed Gaza Freedom Flotilla, killing nine Turkish aid workers, on May 31 – as “hysterical”……..
link to rehmat2.wordpress.com
Buruma:
That kind of racism is also the reason why the Holocaust is taken so much more seriously than the genocides of colonized black and brown people, like the people in the Congo, or the Herreros in German Southwest Africa that Göring’s father played such a big role in the genocide of: in the Holocaust, the victims were white and European.
NYT can highlight comments that represent a range of views. Curiously, currently (at 170 comments), about half of their chosen highlights are Israel-apologists (‘PM Benjamin Netanyahu [said], “This was not the love boat. It was the hate boat.”‘ – see, that’s what we call an argument). But overall the apologists (‘you Israel-haters’) don’t make 1-in-10. They weren’t expecting so much damage-control was needed.
NYT can highlight comments that represent a range of views.
Another attempt to control the narrative.