Countering US-Israel Propaganda Regarding Gaza
Posted by Trey Smith on January 10, 2009

by Maryrose Asher, GT Columnist

Before I begin, I would like to give you some personal background.

I first went to Israel in the fall of 1986 just before the first 
Intifada. My husband worked at the time as the Associate Endowment 
Director for the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco and we 
were invited to go on a mission with one of the groups. Newly married, 
and having converted to Judaism so we could be married by my husband?s 
father who was the rabbi of the largest reform congregation in San 
Francisco, I went with the usual expectations of any average American.

My ignorance regarding Israel was lost during that trip. I saw the 
racism, the apartheid, and the mistreatment of the Palestinians. As 
part of the trip we went to Hebron where I heard racist comments from 
the mouth of a Jewish settler that matched any I heard in the south 
while vacationing with my grandmother in the late 1950s. We also 
visited an Arab school in East Jerusalem where the libraries were empty 
and the classrooms dismal. I secretly exchanged addresses with two of 
the Palestinian teachers and had to lie at the airport when Israeli 
security asked me if I had taken any contact names home with me. If you 
have ever gone through Israeli security, you know how intimidating the 
experience 

We came back and started working with New Jewish Agenda. I was elected 
Northwest Regional Representative, representing chapters in California, 
Oregon, and Washington (although the active chapters were primarily in 
California). Living closest to Stanford University and University of 
California - Berkeley, our members voted for cutting aid to Israel. 
Quarterly, I had to travel to New York to meet with the national folks 
and did my best to argue for the national organization to take this 
position. As expected, our chapters were viewed as too radical. The 
decision eventually split the organization and New Jewish Agenda folded 
soon after we moved to Seattle in 1990. Jewish Voice for Peace 
headquartered in San Francisco now has many of the same members but is 
continuing to have the same internal debates.

Now that you know a little about me, I hope you will understand if what 
I write shows a little less patience, and balance, when writing about 
US-Israel propaganda. The mainstream media and mainstream Jewish 
organizations provide you with enough information regarding Israel?s 
position so I will try to really provide ?balance.?

I feel this is important for me to try to do. Joe Mowrey, a Palestinian 
rights and human rights activist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, wrote, 
?I am finding that even many very antiwar progressives are being lured 
into a belief that what Israel is doing is a surgical strike against 
militants in Gaza.?

As for the Democrats, President-elect Obama, as we all know, has been 
silent on the subject except to repeat the now too common refrain, ?we 
can only have one president at a time,? although he freely addresses 
the economy or the terrorist actions in Mumbai with no such qualms.

Now, congress has passed legislation that puts the blame on Hamas. The 
bill, introduced by Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader 
Mitch McConnell offers unconditional support to Israel, tacitly 
endorsing the war crimes being committed by Israel. It does not call 
for an immediate ceasefire, nor an end to the blockade Israel has 
imposed on Gaza. This bill has passed the Senate with a unanimous vote 
and also the House, with only five ?no? votes: Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), 
Maxine Waters (D-CA), Nick Rahall (D-WV), Gwen Moore (D-WI), and Ron 
Paul (R-TX).

1. Hamas broke the peace treaty and started attacking southern Israel

CNN?s Rick Sanchez first broke the story that it was not Hamas but, in 
fact, Israel that first broke the ceasefire. Below is from a transcript 
of the show:

Sanchez then cites U.S. News and World Report, ?The six-month ceasefire 
started coming apart at the beginning of November after Israeli 
commandos killed a team of Hamas fighters during a raid on a tunnel 
they suspected was being dug for kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. That 
raid set off more Palestinian rocketing.? He goes on to read from The 
Guardian, ?A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian 
militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six 
gunmen in a raid in the territory.? And, finally, he quotes from the 
Economist.com, ?The last straw came in November, when Israelis killed 
six gunmen it said were digging tunnels to launch a raid onto Israel, 
spurring Hamas to respond with a barrage of rockets.?

Sanchez concludes, ?So the question as to who started this ? and we?ve 
been hearing that the Israelis say they had to do this because, 
suddenly, the ceasefire had been broken in Gaza by the Hamas and the 
Palestinians. Is this now a little more in question? And you know what 
we did? I?ve checked with some of the folks here at our international 
desk, and I went to them and asked, What was he talking about, and do 
we have any information on that? Which they confirmed, two months ago ? 
this is back in November ? there was an attack. It was an Israeli raid 
that took out six people.?

(MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, PALESTINIAN LEGISLATOR: The world press community 
or media community is overwhelmed with the Israeli narrative, which is 
incorrect. The Israeli spokesperson have been spreading lies all over. 
The reality and the truth is that the side that broke this truce and 
this ceasefire was Israel. Two months before it ended, Israel started 
attacking Rafah, started attacking Hanunis (ph), and never lifted the 
blockade on Gaza. Gaza remains without fuel, without electricity, with 
bread, without medications, without any medical equipment for people 
who are dying in Gaza ? 262 people died, 6 people because of no access 
to medical care. So Israel broke the ceasefire.)

2. Hamas has continued to attack Israel so Israel had to respond

In August 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza but, as Avi Shlaim, states in 
The Guardian:

Israel?s settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to 
control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was 
converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the 
Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make 
sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to 
terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison.

Despite these harsh conditions imposed by Israel, during the 6-month 
ceasefire, the number of rockets fired from Gaza went down from the 
hundreds in May and June to less than 20 for the subsequent four 
months, according to Israeli government figures.

However, since Israel has broken the ceasefire and has now attacked 
Gaza, there is no disputing the fact that Hamas has increased its 
rocket attacks against Israel. However, let?s compare the weaponry 
being used on both sides.

Below is a description Qassam rockets used by Hamas against Israel.

They [Qassam rockets] are typically referred to as artillery rockets 
and are designed for barrage attacks over a distance of a few miles or 
tens of miles. Most of these rockets are not that much different from 
large model rockets sold in stores in the west except they are packed 
with explosives. The weapons are fired randomly into Israeli areas and 
typically do little damage. Their value lies more in spreading fear and 
chaos among civilians rather than attacking specific buildings or 
military targets.

The Katyusha is used by Hezbollah and launched from Lebanon into 
northern Israel. Qassam rockets are instead used by Hamas in the Gaza 
Strip and fired upon Israeli communities. Though media reports often 
refer to these weapons as missiles, they are actually rockets. A 
missile has a guidance system while a rocket does not.

Hamas militants preparing to launch deceptively festive looking Qassam 
rockets

As to the ?deadly force? of these weapons, let?s also compare Israeli 
deaths to Palestinian deaths from June 2006 to the recent conflict.

From June 2006 until this most recent attack by Israel, 1,300 
Palestinians had been killed in Gaza by the Israeli army. In 
comparison, during this same period 12 Israelis died as a result of 
rockets fired from Gaza.

During the past 13-day conflict, the Israeli army has killed 810 
Palestinians, with 3,400 wounded, bringing the total killed since June 
2006 to 2,110.  In comparison, Qassam rockets have killed 11 Israelis 
for a total of 23 Israeli deaths during this same period of time.

Bottom line: 2,110 Palestinians vs. 23 Israelis deaths since June 2006. 
Although I personally value all life, as one blogger wrote, we have 
more Israelis dying from slipping on banana peels than at the hands of 
Hamas.

This carnage of this latest Gaza Massacre by Israel corresponds to a 
Them/Us reprisal ?death ratio? of 810/23 = 35, this being 3.5 times 
that of 10 ordered by Adolph Hitler in March 1944 in response to deaths 
of 33 German soldiers and subsequently effected in the Ardeatine Caves 
Massacre (335 Italian men and boys executed by the Nazis) (see 
?Ardeatine Massacre? ).

In addition, Israel is the fourth largest military power in the world, 
using state-of-the-art military equipment such as American-made F16s 
and drone aircraft, along with illegal weapons such as cluster bombs 
and white phosphorus.

In contrast, Palestinians are a rag-tag militia responding to Israel?s 
60-years of ethnic cleansing.

Just as the Native Americans were labeled ?savages,? the Israelis have 
labeled people fighting for their homeland as ?terrorists.? It seems 
Israelis have forgotten that the British labeled the Jewish Irgun and 
Stern Gang as terrorist organizations for their bombings and murders in 
British-controlled Palestine.

3. Addressing media bias

The graphs below reveal that The Oregonian under-reported Palestinian 
deaths compared to Israeli deaths and, even more disproportionately, 
under-reported the deaths of Palestinian children compared to deaths of 
Israeli children. The figures used were provided by the Israeli Center 
for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

Although not the statistics for the recent conflict but for the period 
of conflict between May 1, 2004, to October 30, 2004, for purposes of 
showing media bias, it is still valid.

The graphs show that that 502 Palestinians and 54 Israelis were killed 
during the study period. Of these, 120% of all Israeli deaths and 66% 
of all Palestinian deaths were headlined in The Oregonian.

The graphs show that that 116 Palestinian children and 7 Israeli 
children were killed during the study period, according to B?Tselem. Of 
these, 88% of all Israeli deaths and only 2% of all Palestinian deaths 
were headlined in The Oregonian.

Use this link to view  the full report.

4. This is a problem between Israelis and Palestinians. We don?t live 
there.

A November 2008 Washington Report article ?A Conservative Estimate of 
Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: $118 Billion,? by Shirl McArthur, puts 
the cumulative total even higher. In addition, Israel uses U.S. 
supplied military equipment. Like it or not, our tax dollars are being 
used by Israel, making U.S. citizens complicit in war crimes.

Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection 
of Civilian Persons in Time of War and International Humanitarian 
Conventions, prohibit the deliberate targeting of civilians by aerial 
bombing. Please recall that this is one of the most densely populated 
areas of the world. Also, the Geneva Convention also prohibits passive 
killing through the non-supply of life-sustaining food and medical 
requisites.

We must also raise the question of the Arms Export Control Act and the 
Foreign Assistance Act.  Using U.S. supplied weapon systems to commit 
civilian atrocities on homes and fleeing vehicles with children, and to 
inflict collective punishment on mass civilian populations, are not 
using these weapons for legitimate defense and internal policing as our 
federal law requires!

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian 
areas issued a statement that ?The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip 
represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian 
law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the 
obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws 
of war.?

It is not taking sides to support international law and human rights. 
If nothing else was learned from the horrors of the Nazi concentration 
camps, we know we cannot remain silent. To do so would be complicit in 
the genocide and ethnic cleansing now taking place in Gaza. Please help 
to speak out on these matters of global justice. In the upcoming 
edition of Greener Times, you will find 26 specific things you can do.

This entry was posted on January 10, 2009 at 11:29 pm and is filed 
under Uncategorized. Tagged: Gaza, Israel, Media Bias, Palestinians, 
Violence, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the 
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One Response to ?Countering US-Israel Propaganda Regarding Gaza?
GT for January 12 - 18 « Greener Times said
January 11, 2009 at 11:56 am 
[...] Countering US-Israel Propaganda Regarding Gaza [...]

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