The media cannot look at the causes of the 9/11 attacks even 20 years later. But Al Qaeda perpetrated the bombings because the U.S. was an occupying military force in Saudi Arabia. A 1998 declaration of war by Osama bin Laden cites two other issues: the “devastation” of Iraq by U.S. sanctions including the alleged deaths of 1 million Iraqis, and the effort by the U.S. to “fragment” Arab nations and leave them as “paper statelets” so as to insure the survival of Israel.
The fifth day of the Palestinian prisoners’ escape from an Israeli prison has sparked joy, pride and resistance in Palestinians. Israelis have cracked down on the protests even as they pour troops into the West Bank to try to find the six escapees. A Palestinian doctor was killed near Al-Aqsa mosque today.
At a time when some American Jewish congregations are avoiding the Israel subject as divisive, the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York has doubled down on its support for the “Jewish state,” and that support was rewarded during its Rosh Hashanah service with a video speech from Israel’s Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, who told the congregation that Israel loves American Jews and is waiting for them to come to Israel.
William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Orgs, jumps in to the smear campaign against Ben & Jerry’s board chair Anuradha Mittal for daring not to sell ice cream in “occupied Palestinian territories” — which Daroff says is a meaningless term. The “grownups” at Unilever can override the Ben & Jerry’s decision by “just snapping their fingers,” Daroff proclaims, echoing the rightwing Israeli government position.
When Biden blamed Hamas for the Gaza war in May, he was ignoring Democratic voters who by more than 4 to 1 blamed Israel for the violence. “That tells you the story right there. Democrats were not understanding why Biden’s not at least criticizing both sides,” political scientist Shibley Telhami tells Americans for Peace Now.
Shocking images of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the restoration of Taliban government have become a “talking point of the Israeli right,” says Israeli journalist Neri Zilber, speaking on an Israel lobby event. Israel must never withdraw from Palestinian territories it has occupied for 54 years, the right says. “We can’t agree for such an arrangement with the West Bank… Withdrawal from the West Bank should never be countenanced, considered seriously.”
The two-state solution is a mantra inside the Democratic Party and the liberal Establishment but Foreign Affairs dares to ask how many experts think it’s viable and finds that only Israel supporters do so, and as a matter of hope over actual facts on the ground. So daring to ask this verboten question is itself a breakthrough, as Israel lobbyist Robert Satloff indicates. “I am very disappointed that Foreign Affairs is asking this question, which can only contribute to misinformation on an issue that is ultimately all about leadership.”
Israel withholds Palestinian tax funds from the PA so as to enforce its collective punishment of the families of militants. Now Defense Minister Benny Gantz is seeking to “loan” the P.A. that money in line with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s promise to Joe Biden to improve Palestinian conditions.
The media keeps making the case for Forever War, but the American people still want out of Afghanistan
The mainstream media have largely adopted a pro-war narrative: the U.S. should have stayed longer, Biden’s withdrawal is precipitous, the president has failed to secure all the good things that America brought to the people of Afghanistan/Kabul. Biden has gotten surprising support from the left, which has long opposed the Afghanistan occupation, and from some independent voices who have said that the 20-year war was catastrophic and violent and the chaotic scenes at the airport are merely the last chapter in a misbegotten policy.