Current Events: What should the world think when a majority of the people in a country support a Genocidal regime?

Current Events: What should the world think when a majority of the people in a country support a Genocidal regime?

    Saturday, May 04, 2024   No comments

How should a nation whose majority support extremists be treated?

It depends.

If such a country is a non-Western nation-state, then that will make the entire country a terrorist country and genociding them by a “civilized” state will be acceptable.

If such a country is a “Western” nation-state, the will of the majority is sacred. That is what seems to be the implication of the extraordinary admission by head of the US State Department, Anthony Blinken.

US State Secretary Anthony Blinken said on 4 May that the genocidal actions undertaken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza are "a reflection of where a large majority of Israelis are in this moment.”

“This is a complicated government. It’s a balancing act when you have a coalition. And if you’re just looking at the politics of it, that’s something that he has to factor in,” Blinken said at an event in Arizona.

"What’s important to understand is that much of what [Netanyahu is] doing is not simply a reflection of his politics or his policies; it’s actually a reflection of where a large majority of Israelis are in this moment,” the top US diplomat said.

Last month, a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute revealed that three-quarters of Jewish Israelis support Netanyahu's much-anticipated ground invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, where about 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering after being violently displaced from their homes.

Surveys conducted over recent months have shown a similar trend despite growing pressure to see Netanyahu removed from office.

In January, opinion polls showed that Israelis overwhelmingly agreed that “the best way” to obtain the release of captives held inside Gaza was “military pressure” against Hamas, falling in line with the same rhetoric Netanyahu and his war chief have been repeating daily since 7 October.

Polls have also shown a stern objection to delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, even if the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is “replaced.”

The problem of seeing a majority electing demonstrably authoritarian, supremacist bigots is the true test of the limits and flaws of democracy. In the past, when such processes happened in non-Western  nation-states, it is often blamed on corruption and processes being flawed. Turkey, for example, over 4 decades voted for a conservative party and a conservative leader. The West dismissed these elections, because they simply thought of all Turkish people as backward, incapable of embracing "true democracy". 

However, with rise of extremist politicians through democratic processes, the West is now facing a moment of truth about democracy. In the past, when democracy did not represent any problems at home, Western leaders used it abroad as a political instrument to intimidate and subjugate other nations.

Media Matters: Elon Musk, owner of "X", suspends the account of Mandela's grandson

Media Matters: Elon Musk, owner of "X", suspends the account of Mandela's grandson

    Saturday, April 27, 2024   No comments

 In a total tone-deafness, and lack of awareness of the symbolism and reality, the former white settler in South Africa and self-declared free speech absolutist, Elon Musk, suspended the account of the nephew of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s freedom icon, without even burdening himself with an explanation—although the reasons are obvious.

Social Communication Platform X (formerly Twitter), Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela account, grandson of the late President of South Africa Nelson Mandela، After his statements in support of the "International Fleet of Freedom", which is to be sailed from Turkey within days, to break the siege on Gaza Strip.

Mandela had arrived in Istanbul at the beginning of the week to attend the fifth conference of the Jerusalem International Parliamentary Forum, and to support preparations for the International Freedom Fleet in Istanbul.

 Mandela attended the press conference of the International Freedom Fleet, which is made up of NGOs from 12 countries last week, before expressing his support for the fleet and breaking the siege on Gaza, through several publications on the platform "X".

US Government: Infants were placed in the oven and cooked alive

US Government: Infants were placed in the oven and cooked alive

    Friday, April 26, 2024   No comments

When the president of the United States, Biden,  amplified the fake story of 40 babies beheaded by Hamas, some excused his actions by claiming that he was duped by Israel intelligence to ascertain his unwavering support for the war Israel intended to unleash. 

With another US government official making a similar and even more shocking allegation, amplifying another fake story, that excuse becomes untenable.  

The third in line in the order of succession in the US government, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Johnson, on the same "trusted" news outlet that propagated the beheadings, CNN, repeated a story that was first made by some Israel person, Eli Beer, speaking at the Republican group’s summit in Las Vegas on October 28, that were later debunked by more than one investigative reports. Johnson, on that basis, claimed that Hamas "placed infants in the oven and cooked them alive". 

  

USA, alone, again, voting against a resolution that would have recognized Palestine as full member of the UN

USA, alone, again, voting against a resolution that would have recognized Palestine as full member of the UN

    Friday, April 19, 2024   No comments

The representative of Palestine was giving his moving speech, before voting on a resolution that opens the door to granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations. During his speech, Mansour said, “Our Palestinian people have not lost their humanity yet. Our people in Gaza are searching for the remains of life. Gaza is pride, Gaza is dignity,” and here he was overcome with tears, so he remained silent for a while.

Then he continued, saying, “The Palestinian people, in all centers of their existence, want life and cling to it like all other peoples on earth.” Here, the session chairwoman began wiping her tears with her hand and nodded her head to confirm her support for Riyad Mansour’s words and her support for the demands of the Palestinian people.

Mansour concluded his intervention by saying, “Our Palestinian people yearn for freedom and a decent life. They will not disappear and will not disappear. They have never been redundant, so either do justice to them or blow them up.” [inSifuh aw-ansifuh]. Reacting to the speech, the president of the UNSC was shown clearing tearing and shaking her head.

Meanwhile, after the speech, the US representative voted to deny Palestine its wish to join the community of nations, with full membership in the UN.

Washington used its veto power to prevent the issuance of the resolution, and the session chairperson said that 12 countries voted to adopt the draft resolution, while two countries abstained from voting, and one country opposed. She added, “The draft resolution was not adopted due to the presence of a negative vote issued by a permanent member of the Security Council,” referring to the United States.

Palestinian Presidency: Washington’s policy encourages a war of extermination against us

For its part, the Palestinian presidency condemned the United States' use of its veto power to prevent Palestine from obtaining full membership in the United Nations, describing the behavior as "an assault that pushes the Middle East toward the abyss."

Reacting to the US veto, Palestinian, and some other countries, expressed anger, disappointment.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that the American policy “represents a blatant assault on international law and an encouragement to continue the genocidal war against the Palestinian people, which pushes the region more than ever before to the brink of abyss.”

The statement added that the “veto” in the Security Council “reveals the contradictions of American policy,” noting that it claims to “support the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” but at the same time it “prevents the implementation of this solution.”

The Palestinian presidency's statement stressed that "the world is united behind the values of truth, justice, freedom and peace that the Palestinian cause represents."

Russia: A desperate attempt to change the course of history

In his speech, after voting on the resolution, Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, said that the United States used its veto power against the proposed resolution regarding full membership of Palestine in the organization, "in a desperate attempt to change the inevitable course of history."

Nebenzia stressed that the results of the vote in the Council “speak for themselves, as Washington was practically in complete isolation,” saying that history “will not forgive the United States for its actions,” stressing that “it is shameful for the United States to face this challenge to the international will.”

China's permanent representative to the Security Council, Fu Song, said, “The failure of this measure represents a sad day,” and he also described the American “veto” as “extremely disappointing.”

Among the positions supporting Palestine, Ireland's Foreign Minister, Michael Martin, expressed his feeling of "disappointment with the result of the vote," affirming his country's support for Palestine's membership in the United Nations, and saying that "the time has come for it to take its rightful place among the countries of the world."

Deputy Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, Nathalie Broadhurst, said that her country supported the draft resolution, thanking Algeria for proposing the resolution, and explaining that her country supports raising Palestine’s status in the United Nations and accepting it as a full member.

New York Times tells its journalists which words to use when covering the war on Gaza

New York Times tells its journalists which words to use when covering the war on Gaza

    Tuesday, April 16, 2024   No comments

According to a leaked memo, The New York Times restricts its journalists from covering the war on Gaza. The New York Times has instructed journalists covering the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing,” and to avoid using the phrase “occupied territories” when describing the Palestinian territories, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept. American.

According to the site, the New York Times memo also directs journalists not to use the word Palestine except in very rare cases, and to stay away from the term “refugee camps” to describe the places to which Palestinians have historically been displaced within the Gaza Strip, who fled from other parts of Palestine during the Arab-Israeli wars. Previous.

It is noteworthy that the United Nations recognizes the areas to which Palestinians were displaced as camps housing hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.

The memo, written by New York Times Standards Editor Susan Wesling, international editor Philip Ban, and others, provides guidance on some of the terms and other issues that have imposed themselves on the scene since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip last October.

While the document is presented as a blueprint for maintaining journalistic principles of objectivity when dealing with the war on Gaza, several New York Times journalists told The Intercept that some of its contents provide evidence of the newspaper adopting the Israeli narrative.

The website quoted a source in the New York Times newsroom - who requested anonymity for fear of being held accountable - saying that the matter “seems professional and logical if you do not have knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but if you do know, it will be clear how much it identifies with the Israeli narrative.” ".

The Intercept noted that the guidelines were first distributed to New York Times journalists last November, and were updated regularly over the following months.

On March 14, demonstrators supporting the Palestinian cause stormed the building of the New York Times newspaper in protest against its bias towards Israel in the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip. This is the second storming, as pro-Palestinian demonstrators had previously occupied the newspaper’s lobby on November 11, demanding an immediate cessation. Because of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, they accused the newspaper of bias towards Israel in its coverage of the war on the Gaza Strip.

The deliberate use of key words and adjectives by Western media, and all media outlets for that matter, is and established fact. 

The language used by the media became a reflexive way of describing the events. CNN consistently describes the Oct. 7 attack as "brutal" and "terrorist, but uses no adjectives to describe Israel's retaliation, for example.

Western media will add the adjective “brutal” when talking about Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, but will use “war in Gaza” without attributing who is waging the war and what kind of war it is, which is brutal, destructive, and genocidal according to NGOs, many governments’ officials, and the International Court of Justice.

During the same time period, Western media used the phrase "Hamas' brutal" at least 554,000 times; whereas the "war in Gaza" was mentioned 33,900,000 times without any adjectives or qualifications despite the heavy loss of life and structures--a war that was described by independent observers, including the same media outlets who use this biased language, as unprecedented in the number and size of weapons dropped in the densely populated area just in in the first three weeks.

...

News media platforms’ use of guidelines, algorithms of sort, to create an acceptable narrative for their audience, financiers, shareholders, or governments is no secret nor is it practiced by limited, marginal media platforms. Journalism is a profession that teaches people who work in the field how to use words the same way a soldier is trained to use weapons.

Many people who believe in the need for free press to inform the public thought that the best model is the creation of media platforms that are not beholden to anyone. They thought a structure where a media outlet is guaranteed funding from the government with full and complete editorial independence is the way to go. This is the model of the British BBC and the American NPR. However, a close examination of the editorial policies and practices would reveal that even this model is still controlled by politics, ideology, or leadership still. The recent revelation about NPR is a good lesson in understanding the synergy between politics and journalism. Here is some reporting about the struggles inthe NPR organization.

 

In the letter published on Free Press, NPR’s senior business editor Uri Berliner claimed Americans no longer trust NPR – which is partly publicly funded – because of its lack of “viewpoint diversity” and its embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Berliner wrote that “an open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don’t have an audience that reflects America”. He acknowledged that NPR’s audience had always tilted left, but was now no longer able to make any claim to ideological neutrality.

In the piece on Free Press, a site run by Bari Weiss, a former opinion editor at the New York Times, Berliner noted that in 2011 the public broadcaster’s audience identified as 26% conservative, 23% as middle of the road and 37% liberal. Last year it identified as 11% very or somewhat conservative, 21% as middle of the road, and 67% very or somewhat liberal.

 

What is the value of the life of a Muslim person compared to the life of a Westerner?

What is the value of the life of a Muslim person compared to the life of a Westerner?

    Monday, February 12, 2024   No comments

1/25, that is the value.

At the peak of the "war on terror" and the during the course of Israel’s assassination campaigns in the last two decades, a media commentator and former US military official was asked about what would be an acceptable collateral damage. He said: if killing a "high-value" terrorist or conducting an important security operation results in the deaths of 25 civilians or less, then, such collateral damage is acceptable. That is 25-to-1 ratio.

According to a study by Brown University, the US-led global war on terror, that took place mainly in Muslim-majority countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, “nearly 1 million people” have been killed. Adding all persons of all Western countries killed by acts that could be categorized as “foreign terrorism” (a category coined to designate acts carried out by persons who might Muslim) as well as troops killed in battle fields (including US and NATO troops), the 25/1 ratio becomes a very aspirational figure. The data shows that for every one Western person killed in any incident involving Muslim actors, 100 Muslims--mostly civilians--were killed. 

This formula for revange establishes that the life of non-Westerners as being worth less compared to Western lives. The dehumanizing formula was crudely, yet illustratively articulated by Trump last year. Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Conference on Oct. 28, 2023, the former US president declared: “If you spill a drop of American blood, we will spill a gallon of yours.”

To add to the body of evidence of dehumanizing people from non-Western nations, Israel just acted on that equation, killing 100 civilians to rescue just two Israelis. During this conflict alone, comparing the reported total of 1,139 Israelis killed since Oct. 7 (695 Israeli civilians and 373 security forces and 71 foreigners), and comparing it to the 29,000 Palestinians killed thus far, produces a ration of exactly 25 Palestinians killed for every 1 Israeli--the formular still holds--though the killing is still ongoing and likely to reach the 50-for-1 ratio should the war on Gaza lasts for another five months.

In the light of the above data and the comments by US officials that the civilian toll in Gaza “remains too high”, one must ask Israeli officials: How many Palestinian civilians must die for every Israeli death before this revenge war comes to an end? And one must ask US officials: what is an acceptable “toll of civilian deaths”?

The lack of awareness of how bigoted the view that there is an acceptable “toll of civilian deaths” that can be excused and justified when every single Western life is avenged by unimaged level of destruction and death is confounding. When one adds the number of children killed thus far in Gaza, such callousness becomes cruelly mind-bending.

 Acceptance of some level of civilian toll destroys Western rhetoric about their commitment to universal rights. It clearly shows that there is no universal right to life; that some lives are superior and worth saving at any cost and some lives can be destroyed to avenge the loss of the superior lives. The troubling part is that, now, US officials acknowledge that the military operation is "over the top" and that too many civilians have been killed and displaced, yet the US administration blocked every UN intervention that could have stopped the war.

Biden’s phone call with Netanyahu comes a few days after the president offered one of his sharpest rebukes to date of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, saying the operation to go after Hamas had been “over the top.”

 “I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza – in the Gaza Strip – has been over the top,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Thursday, describing his own efforts to open up Gaza so more humanitarian aid could flow in.

 Last week, Blinken told Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials that the civilian toll in Gaza “remains too high” as violence continues in the region.

“Nearly 2 million people have been displaced from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are experiencing acute hunger. Most have lost someone that they love. And day after day, more people are killed,” Blinken said at a news conference after meeting with top Israeli officials.