Fear and War

From LGF, I saw this article on the NYT. Since LGF has a hard time believing that the NYT is pro-Israeli, I thought I would just take a look at it and see what the article is all about. Take a look at picture twelve in the gallery. That’s the kind of place and home Charles Johnson think is just a “deluge of propaganda from pro-Palestinian sources”. Also, let’s look at the author of the article, Ethan Bronner. Bronner is the Jerusalem chief for the NYT. Oh, and he also has a son serving in the Israeli Army. Now, those of us in the “anti-Israel” world might question how he can maintain any semblance of objectivity when his own son is fighting for one side. But, that doesn’t fly with the narrative of the NYT being an “anti-Israel” rag, so he gets to keep his job, determining coverage of the conflict at the most influential paper in the country, which sets the tone for most of the coverage throughout the country. EI, FAIR, and Angry Arab covered these issues back when it first cropped up. It’s also notable that Bronner has a history of being pro-Israel in his coverage that predates his son’s service in the IDF.

I’ve been holding off blogging about the Colbert/Michael Oren (Israeli Ambassador to the US) thing because the interview pissed me off too much to write about it without just using expletives the whole time. Everyone has been focusing on Colbert telling Oren that Palestinians should go back where they came from, which was admittedly a good line. However, the entire interview before could stand as one of the greatest lessons in propaganda ever. Oren defends the blockade on the rationale that Hamas is a terrorist organization (neglecting that it was created by Israeli as a counterbalance to the PLO), brings up that Hamas’s charter does call to destroy Israel (even though the leading party in Israel, holding the office of Prime Minister also, explicitly denies the right of a Palestinian state and the seizure of lands that the international community has long demanded be returned to Palestinians in its charter), mentions the rocket attacks on Israel (which Hamas stopped in the 2008 ceasefire, even arresting those firing the rockets. However, Israel broke the agreement almost immediately with no major international outcry), and brings out Gilad Shalit (who should be immediately released. However, as Chomsky pointed out, it is a bit hypocritical to complain about the kidnapping of a soldier in a war zone when the day before Shalit was kidnapped, Israel kidnapped two civilians. I do disagree with Chomsky here, though. Shalit should be released immediately without any conditions. It is the humanitarian thing to do). Next, Oren makes some ridiculous link between letting in lettuce and letting in weapons. Even Colbert didn’t believe that. If, as one of the most powerful militaries in the world, your soldiers can’t distinguish between lettuce and material for making weapons, maybe your problems aren’t with Gaza but lie within. He also neglects to mention that Hamas was democratically elected in an election sponsored by the US, and the reason it won was that it was seen as a non-corrupt group, as opposed to Fatah. Also, Fatah pleaded with the US not to have an election, as the party was split in many factions and in some cases, had multiple members running against each other in the election. When the US force the issue, Hamas won, stunning everyone. In response, the US backed a coup by Fatah. It is not Hamas that violently seized power. It is Fatah, with US money and weapons, that tried to overthrow Hamas and lost in the fighting. That’s why Hamas has control of Gaza.

This next part was what pissed me off the most the in the entire interview. “We let in a hundred truckloads of food and medicine every day”. Congrats, you give 100 trucks for 1.5 million people. “We don’t feel particularly obliged to provide them with snack food. We did today…” Congrats, you treat Gazans just like a dog. You give them treats every now and then but they’re not real people, so they should just be happy that they get even this. Before anyone brings up that Hamas rejected the snack food, read this article which gives Hamas’s rationale. Of course they rejected the food. Their economy is destroyed, kids are malnourished, people are unemployed and Israel wants to give them some cookies? Stop the blockade and let them make their own goddamn snacks.

His rejection of an independent inquiry into the incident shows just how warped the thinking is in Israel about the rest of the world. If Israel lets an international commission happen, it will be just like the North Koreans and Libyans judging them. What the hell? The members of the UNHRC are

Angola
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Egypt
India
Indonesia
Italy
Madagascar
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Philippines
Qatar
Slovenia
South Africa

I imagine this group could come up with a fair commission, much better than the joke of a commission Israel announced today. Also, it is more likely the Security Council would determine a commission. Oren also floats the lie about the people on Mavi Marmara being ” 70 hired thugs from a radical Islamic organization”. They were not hired and IHH is not a radical organization. Turkey is one of the most secular governments in the world and if IHH was truly a radical Islamic group, they would have shut it down by now. He also floats the lie about the activists having guns (Where are the pictures of them?) and that “our boys” went onboard and were attacked (How about the footage showing passengers injured before any soldiers got on board? Where are the full unreleased tapes? And how do you expect to be greeted illegally boarding a ship in international waters? With hugs and kisses?)

All of the arguments he gave were lies. Pure and simple. Yet, because the media in America has not ever covered the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with anything but a pro-Israel spin, most people watched that without the knowledge to even begin to comprehend where he was lying and why. It was a great propaganda score for Israel, as they got to throw out their side to young 20 year-olds who have probably never really researched the issue and will now walk away thinking “Well, Israel does have a right to defend itself from those crazy Muslims”.

Chuck Schumer said some pretty awful things a week ago. Yet, in contrast to Helen Thomas, there’s been no outcry. The progressive blogs were on it, but it quickly died out. Glenn Greenwald had good analysis of it and what it meant for Democrats, along with lots of good links to other comments on it. It’s amazing what’s considered appropriate in the debate about Israel and Palestine. Israelis are all heroes fighting off the hordes of Muslims, while Gazans are barely human religious nuts who hate the Jews.

All of these stories are connected by a common theme: the denial of the crisis in Gaza due to the blockade. There’s no way any rational person could deny there is an ongoing crisis. I’ve blogged before about the crisis in Gaza and Greenwald has lots of good links to what’s actually happening in to kids and people in Gaza. Yet, continually, you hear Democrats and Republicans deny there is any crisis and you have Israeli government officials deny it too. It’s just like the lead-up to the Iraq war. There is a narrative they want to sell and damn the facts! Anyone who points out that there are facts disputing their view is an anti-Semite, terrorist sympathizer, commie lefty, and pure evil. It’s just like when you were called anti-patriotic, terrorist coddler, coward for opposing the Iraq war. The denial of reality for their own fantasy is increasingly being seen as a legitimate world view. What will it finally take to make people realize what is actually going on?

This article on Haaretz right now is a prime example of how to spread talking points and manufacture false concerns. It’s based on a Weekly Standard post by William Kristol, which insinuates, with no sourcing of course, that the Obama administration is going to support a UN led panel investigating the flotilla attack. It lists 3 “problems” with this panel, all designed to inject the usual Israel-apologists defenses into the discourse. Let’s dissect these one by one to show these false concerns are really just the usual lies put out by Israel-defenders to excuse the breaking of international law by Israel.

1)”this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations;” Really? What are these horrible crimes that are going uninvestigated by the UN? The fact of the matter is that Israel attacked a flotilla in international waters carrying humanitarian supplies. Some kind of investigation needs to be done to see who was in the wrong and why it went so poorly. Yet this is a typical defense thrown up by Israel apologists. The claim that other people do bad things and they should be investigated is a poor defense. First, these other bad actions are never specified. Second, two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because some other country does something bad doesn’t excuse the crimes of Israel. Third, stop shifting the argument. We’re debating the actions of Israel, not all of the human rights offenders in the world.

2)”that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas;” There’s not a single shred of evidence given to support this proposition. None. It’s also a pathetic attempt again to shift the attention away from Israel and onto some bad “other”.

3)”that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror” Rank tribalism. The idea that US troops who commit illegal acts could be investigated by the UN because the possibility that we’ll whitewash our own tribes scares the hell out of neoconservatives. It plays both on their tribalistic defense of any action the US military undertakes and their recognition that a lot of those crimes are crimes under international law. To avoid this crisis, they have spent years belittling the UN and accusing it of being inimical to “our national” interests. The idea that international law is against our interests should probably cause one to wonder what the hell we are doing, but that’s never been the case with the rabid anti-UNers. Instead, because they identify with their tribal group of the US and believe we can do no wrong, it must be a problem with the international community. It’s amazing how deep self-delusion can go.

Anyways, the Haaretz article repeated the claims of the Weekly Standard without noting that there is really no proof for these claims and even gave it the credibility of a “report”. Let’s look at what it really is: it’s a blog post by William Kristol with no sources and no proof. I could, with as much credibility, say that Obama intends to fight Godzilla tomorrow, due to my “sources”. However, Haaretz takes him at his word and gets to repeat these claims in order to get talking points out there.

With all of the hoopla around the Israeli strike last week, another important story did not get the attention it deserved in the media. On June 1, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings delivered a report highly critical of US (among other countries) actions in regards to targeted killings, with an emphasis on drones. The report raised the issue of how these drones are often used secretly, with no external reporting system of who was killed and why, along with any collateral deaths. I highly suggest reading the report for a clearer understanding of why these actions are so clearly illegal. For instance, I did not know that the CIA does not have to identify a target by name, instead only “surveillance and pattern-of-life”.(page 8) This quote alone should help indicate why this drone war is probably highly illegal:

The Legal Adviser to the Department of State recently outlined the Government’s legal justifications for targeted killings. They were said to be based on its asserted right to self-defence, as well as on IHL, on the basis that the US is “in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, as well as the Taliban and associated forces.”41 While this statement is an important starting point, it does not address some of the most central legal issues including: the scope of the armed conflict in which the US asserts it is engaged, the criteria for individuals who may be targeted and killed, the existence of any substantive or procedural safeguards to ensure the legality and accuracy of killings, and the existence of accountability mechanisms.

One of the other issues brought up in the report is how the US and other countries use drones and targeted killings in other States. For instance, the US is currently waging a covert war in Yemen and Pakistan. These wars are rarely reported in the US media, as they raise questions about US actions that are inconvenient for the government. For instance, of the last three terror attacks in the US (car bomb in NYC, attempting blowing-up of an airplane, and shooting of army base), all three listed as one of their primary reasons for attacking was the drone war in Pakistan and Yemen killing innocent civilians. Al-Jazeera  wrote an excellent report on how accurate drone attacks are and how they are causing significant anger in Pakistan. We wonder why the Muslim world hates us, yet we refuse to acknowledge that our own actions in the area cause significant anger. Whenever these attacks are pointed out to politicians, they are always justified as brining freedom and protecting ourselves. Yet, as the UN report on targeted killings proves, these drone attacks are done under a cover of secrecy that violates international law and causes a lack of respect for international law. I’ll have more words on this tomorrow as I try to collect my thoughts on the disconnect between American ideals and our actual actions.

Just checked again and saw this post on LGF. The commentary on Ron Paul I’ll ignore. I’d just like to address the absurdity of saying that the Washington Post is not an Israeli propaganda machine. Let’s take a look at just today’s opinion writers: Charles Krauthammer, David Ignatius, Robert Kagan, Michael Gerson, William Burck, and David Rivkin. That’s 6 out of the 9 opinion columnists (I couldn’t find much on the other three, so I have no real idea what their backgrounds are). So, 66% of the Washington Post’s opinion writers TODAY are right-wing nuts. Krauthammer’s article is especially galling for its attempt to link anti-Semitism to protesting the slaughter of 9 peace activists. Seriously, how can anyone not believe the Washington Post is an extraordinarily right-wing paper?

One of my favorite blogs for the past few years has been Little Green Footballs. In many ways, the way Charles Johnson grew disillusioned with the right mirrored the way I grew to also reject the right. In fact, I would say that his posts showing the growing influence of racists and homophobes played a large part of the reason I left the right. However, unlike Johnson, I became a liberal. Still, for the most part, his blog has been good, exposing AGW and anti-evolution scams. However, I have always disagreed with him on Israel. His posts since the Gaza flotilla incident have especially egregious, as they are completely different from the normal rational Johnson, who evaluates evidence and the sources. Let’s go through these posts.

The first post was on May 31 (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36455) In it, he puts the words peace activists in scare quotes to indicate these are probably radicals who hate Israel. He also links to an IDF video of the soldiers being attacked to bolster the claim that these were not peaceful protesters, but instead radicals looking for a fight. He later updated it with another video from the IDF that shows closeups and narration of the attack. At first glance, it’s a pretty persuasive argument against the peace activists. However, it falls apart when one begins to actually think. First, the videos are from the IDF, heavily edited, and 2:27 minutes of actual footage, most of it overlapping. So, in an engagement that lasted 30 minutes, we’ve seen 2:27 minutes of heavily edited footage from one side. That’s hardly reason to jump fully on the Israeli side. Second, the ships were boarded in international waters, which is a declaration of war against Turkey (see here for legal analysis). The activists by all any normal standard of morality had every right to fight back. If this had happened off the coast of Iran to an American vessel, the reaction of every American would be to defend passengers’ rights to resist an illegal boarding. Also, accounts are coming out now from people who were actually on the boat and they, not too surprisingly, contradict the Israeli version. The survivors are unanimous in that they did not have weapons, and only resisted when they were fired upon first by the Israelis. (This blog is trying to collect all of the stories of the survivors in one place. See also this.) Also, as Ambassador Edward Peck, who was on a different vessel in the flotilla, pointed out, blaming the passengers on the ship for attacking Israeli commandos reverses the entire situation. Israel attacked the flotilla, not the other way around. The passengers were defending themselves from an illegal raid.

The next post simply covered that the US was standing with Israel. Of course, this came as a surprise to no one, so what is the point of even posting it?

The next post was almost ridiculous in its credulous acceptance of Israeli claims with absolutely no evidence. It was a link to a JPost article (hardly a neutral source) where an Israeli official categorically declared that none of the material on the ship was in short supply in Israel. Of course, if one actually reads the article, a contradiction immediately pops out. ““We have been working non-stop for the last twenty-four hours examining the cargo holds of the three large cargo ships and I can say with great assurance, that none of the equipment on board is needed in Gaza.” Several paragraphs later, “According to Levi, the soldiers also found construction equipment, including sacks of concrete and metal rods. He said that Israel did not allow those products to enter into the Gaza strip for fear that they would be used to construct fortifications for terrorists and for weapons manufacture.
” Using simple logic, it would imply that construction materials are actually in need in Gaza and thus there were materials actually needed, which would render Israel’s statements to the contrary a lie. Also, this was hardly some objective analysis of what was actually on board. As the reporter unwittingly admits “Among the equipment that the IDF agreed to show reporters were medical supplies, including electric vehicles for handicapped people, wheelchairs, stretchers, hospital beds and boxes of medicine. They also showed crates full of dry food products and children’s toys”, this was nothing more than a military PR meeting designed to spin a lie into media for propagation. The media uncritically swallowed the story, along with Charles Johnson. Instead of actually doing research to see if those supplies were needed in Gaza, they believed a military official with no evidence, just his “great assurance”.

The next post contained video from the Mavi Marmara alleging to show the activists (again in the scare quotes) organizing before the soldiers boarded the boat. Again, the same errors in judgement and analysis of sources permeates this post. First, the video is from the Mavi Marmara’s cameras. However, as Johnson fails to note, it is an IDF edited video of about 2 and a half minutes. By looking at the time stamps on the videos, it appears to go from about 4:02 AM to 5:15 AM. That’s an hour of footage and we get 2 and a half highly prejudicial minutes. That’s propaganda in the truest sense of the word. What’s missing from the videos is context. According to the activists, Israel had fired first. Nobody is sure when or what happened because no full tapes from either side has been released. That rests entirely on Israel, as they have seized the footage of the journalists and activists on board and have so far refused to release them. And they wonder why nobody in the world trusts them to do an honest investigation. It’s been clear from day one that Israel’s first objective in this has been to spin the media hard. Second, and I can’t believe I have to keep pointing this out, the activists had every right to fight an illegal boarding of their ship. This fact is obvious to everyone. Also, in the first video, the weapons they have are puny compared to the guns, helicopters, and attack ships the Israelis had. At one point, about 1:40 into the video, the video highlights slingshots that the activists are carrying. It’s almost comical that Israel think these are legitimate weapons. They’re about the size of the toys you could buy as a kid to knock over cans (back in 1950).

I’m combining two of his posts into this next analysis, as they both cover the blockade in Gaza and the alleged aid Israel sends. In it, he quotes Israeli sources for how much aid they deliver. The first post is almost useless, as it just says how many people were let out for medical reasons (giving no context of how many requested or how many needed to), how much tonnage was delivered to Gaza by Israel (tonnage of what? Food, clothes, building materials, hope?), and amount of gas shipped to Gaza (how much is needed? I honestly have no idea how to estimate gas usage, so I can’t really argue for or against this number). His second post links to a Canada-Israel Committee (I wonder who they will support here) post about “Facts Beyond the Spin“. However, any sensible analysis of it will show it to be complete bullshit. I say bullshit because it is pure propaganda designed to trick the mind’s ready acceptance of big numbers as meaning good. Yes, it appears at first glance that Israel is delivering a lot of aid to Gaza. Hell, look at the numbers:

• 40,000 tons of wheat – which is equal to 53 million loaves of bread;
• 2,760 tons of rice – which equals 69 million servings;
• 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear – the equivalent weight of 3.6 million pairs of jeans; and
• 553 tons of milk powder and baby food – equivalent to over 3.1 million days of formula for an average six-month-old baby

That appears to be a lot. However, let’s look at the actual situation. 1.5 million people live in Gaza (closer to 1.6, but we’ll go with 1.5 for easier numbers). According to the CIC, these numbers are for January – March 2010, which is 90 days. So let’s crunch the numbers and see what we get.

53 Million Loaves of Bread / (1,500,000 * 90) = .39 loaves of bread a day per person. Keep in mind the CIC and Israel do not say what a loaf of bread constitutes. So this could be anything from a small loaf you might bake yourself or something like what you get at United. Either way, that’s pretty skimpy for one person.

69 Million Servings of Rice / (1,500,000 * 90) = .51 servings of rice a day per person. Nothing really needs to be said except anyone who thinks that is generous is either deluded or has never been hungry in their life.

1,987 tons of clothes and footwear – the equivalent weight of 3.6 million pairs of jeans; This is almost entirely a joke. First, it is not the equivalent of 3.6 million pairs of jeans, as there are shoes and shirts in there, along with undergarments. That’s like me giving you parts from three cars and saying “Hey, it’s the equivalent of one car”. No, it’s just a random collection of stuff that obviously cannot go towards fully clothing Gaza. There’s no meaningful way to judge clothes and footwear by tonnage, so it’s only added to seem good.

553 tons of milk powder and baby food – equivalent to over 3.1 million days of formula for an average six-month-old baby – Again, this is impossible to judge without knowing how much of each is needed for a baby, how many babies are in Gaza, and more importantly, what the hell a day of formula means.

So, taking this propaganda at face value shows a complete lack of judgement by Johnson. The numbers themselves are only good at impressing people with their bigness. They fall apart upon any closer inspection. Had Johnson actually done some legitimate research, he might have found this article (granted, not for his first post, which was published before the FP article. However, he could have found this article, which nicely summarizes recent UN reports.) They show clearly there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis. There is a reason why the UN has been calling this collective punishment and possibly a crime against humanity. Go read the Goldstone report to get more information on how bad the blockade is. But no, he instead repeated propaganda without any critical thought.

The final article I’m going to address is his post about the weapons. Watch the video. The first thing you’ll notice is that there are no real weapons. They are all things you would find on a ship. The knives laid out one after another are comical in how small most are and how no one could mistake them as anything but normal tools for work on a boat. That Israel has to resort to these measures to try to convince the world that the ship was dangerous and full of evil Muslims reveals how weak their entire case is. Yet, again, Johnson passes it along without any sort of comment about how these are just normal ship tools.

So, why have I done this? First, I respect Johnson and I’m saddened that he falls for such obvious propaganda. However,  he’s not the only one. These same arguments are being made by Israeli apologists all over television and in papers right now. So, when you hear these arguments, fight back. The only way we can change the US’s unconditional backing of Israel is by actually showing people how this “special relationship” is based off of a flawed understanding of Israel and what it actually does. It’s hurting our national interests to continue to back it in all of its crimes. We can’t stand by idly anymore and just let them continue to perpetuate crimes again the Palestinian people.

Since it is traditional in blogging to make your first post about your goals with the blog, I’ll outline why I started this blog and what I want to accomplish with it.

First, most of my posts are going to be about politics, specifically American politics with an emphasis on foreign policy. Why? Chomsky, in a recent interview with an Israeli reporter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCtYecGbQz8) was asked why he focused so much on Israel. He gave a great response, stating that Israel was not his main focus, but, instead, the US. As a US citizen, it is his responsibility to criticize his own country first, instead of looking for boogeymen around the world to criticize. I agree with this view entirely. I am US citizen, and throughout the world right now, the US is holding thousands of people without charge in legal black holes, waging two public wars and a secret war in Pakistan, and giving aid to repressive regimes. Yet, everyday on TV and in newspapers, it’s ignored. And then people wonder why the rest of the world hates us. So I plan on writing about these issues so that hopefully I gain better understanding of them and can debate them with their defenders.

I’m also going to write about languages, as I’m getting ready to start applying to graduate schools for historical linguistics. So, I’ll probably post reviews of linguistics books as I read them for my Honors thesis and also comment on other language news, such as the endless fascination the media has with “collapsing” grammatical standards.

So, there. I’m done outlining my goals and now I need to start actually writing real content.

P.S. A note on the title. It’s a reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard, and a book title I saw in another book I was reading, Fear, War, and The Bomb by PMS Blackett. I haven’t read the last one, but I just liked the title a lot.