Sunday, November 18, 2012

Tell Me About Palestine

“Due to extensive travel the past few days, I've been subjected to far more television news coverage than is probably healthy, and it's just been staggering to see how tilted US media discourse is: Israeli officials and pro-Israel "experts" are endlessly paraded across the screen while Palestinian voices are exceedingly rare; the fact of the 45-year-old brutal occupation and ongoing Israeli dominion over Gaza is barely mentioned; meanwhile, every primitive rocket that falls harmlessly near Israeli soil is trumpeted with screaming headlines while the carnage and terror in Gaza is mentioned, if at all, as an afterthought. Two cartoons perfectly summarize this coverage: here and here.”

Glenn Greenwald is a columnist on civil liberties and US national security issues for the Guardian. A former constitutional lawyer, he was until 2012 a contributing writer at Salon. His most recent book is, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. His other books include: Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, and How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok. He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism.
 

 

In what dimension does one have to reside in order to get a view, or even a glimpse, of the Palestinian side of the equation? Mr. Glenn Greenwald has gone out on a limb. He has expressed dismay at the Western Media in their utter disregard for a People the United States and Western Europe have given “lip service” to over the past half a century.

It is time for People in America to stand up to the hypocrisy of their Government, and be heard on this unjust treatment of  Palestinian’s, who only want their own Homeland. Is that too much to ask for an ancient civilization whose land was stolen from them and turned over to unwanted emigrants from foreign shores?

The United States is eager to have the People of the World believe that only on the North American continent can true democracy reside. Couple that belief with the one that has the United States Government forcing this “democracy” on Nations and Cultures to whom democracy simply doesn’t make any sense. There is an ugly, elitist quality to America’s attempt to make the World in their mold.

Where are the cries of injustice and hypocrisy? How on Earth do the United States, the U.N., and Western Europe (sans France) get a pass on criticism when it involves the invented State of Israel? If no one in the Free World holds Israel accountable for their atrocities against Palestine and the Palestinian People, we have failed in our definition as free citizens. We all become that which we have so virulently fought against for decades. We become the despots and tyrants of religious colonialism and oppression that was the very essence of the founding of the United States of America.

People from across the globe still flock to the shores of America. They are searching for the kind of justice and freedom they have only heard, or read, about. Once on those shores they fast become disillusioned with the dream. They witness first hand that the dream is just that, a dream.

There is an urgent need for more Journalists the likes of Mr. Greenwald. I know they are out there. Please stand up and make your voices heard. Please make the case for justice and freedom that only a free press


 

 

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