Here we go again. The New York Times just ran a long, gee-whiz article about an Israeli war crime — the murder of an Iranian scientist inside Iran last year– penned by its Israeli security expert, Ronen Bergman, who has bragged about making appearances for the Israel lobby organization AIPAC and thanked AIPAC for having Israel’s back in the U.S.
One U.S. publication just covered the stalled Iran nuclear deal talks honestly. Another ran a distorted, fearmongering article. Guess which one was the New York Times?
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.
Journalists get fired for sharing political opinions, except when that opinion is in support for U.S. foreign policy and endless war. This is playing out vividly now as the mainstream press effectively spins its coverage on the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan into an argument for continued military occupation.
Nina Turner, running for Congress in Ohio, says a group is targeting progressive candidates of color with “dirty money”– in an apparent reference to Democratic Majority for Israel. Turner has called for conditioning U.S. aid to Israel, while her rival Shontel Brown recently visited the country at the behest of a rightwing Israel lobby group.
The New York Times slants its coverage of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal talks, leaving out the Israeli role.
Religious zealots have established an “outpost” settlement in West Bank lately and Israeli forces have killed five Palestinians protesting the landgrab. The story is getting wide coverage in Palestine but not in the United States, though these lands are the supposed basis of a “Palestinian state.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s progressive allies, in Congress and outside, rushed to her defense. Had this exchange happened just a few years ago she would have been left to twist slowly in the wind, alone. Instead, more than 50 progressive U.S. groups said clearly that “the repeated targeting of Rep. Omar is rooted in sexism, racism and anti-Muslim bigotry.”