Do you think that you’re getting a neutral perspective of the Israeli occupation of Gaza when you rely on the U.S. media? Think again. Ask yourself this simple question: Where can you get a carefully-documented viewpoint that you would have if you were a resident of Gaza?
The Media Education Foundation [1] is making its 2003 film Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: U.S. Media and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict available online for free. MEF is making its work freely available to demonstrate how the U.S. news media are covering the crisis. I contacted MEF and learned that it is now in the process of updating this 2003 video to include current events. In the meantime, you can view the 2003 video, which is excellent and still highly relevant. To view this excellent video, go here [2].
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land documents that Israel is waging two simultaneous battles. One of them involves bullets and bombs. The second involves a usurpation of the U.S. Media, through the use of a phalanx of PR firms, such as AIPAC (the most powerful foreign lobby in Washington), designed to dominate the U.S. with news from the Israeli perspective. This Israeli propaganda machine is stunningly effective, convincing Americans and their Leaders that there is nothing wrong with the decades-long foreign (and according to the U.N., illegal) occupation of Gaza.
What’s being kept from Americans is that the conflict arises from an illegal occupation. There is almost no media recognition that this violence is taking place in occupied territory. IN fact, only 4% of American news reports indicate that the Gaza territory is occupied territory. Consider how much difference would it make to your understanding to be informed that the Israeli occupation amounts to a foreign military dictatorship of Gaza?
Wouldn’t it also make a difference to Americans to learn that the Israeli-promoted “settlements” in the occupied territories are for the purpose of permanently annexing (= taking without permission) occupied land? Would it matter to hear that the Israelis have demolished more than 1,000 Palestinian homes to make way for Israeli “settlements”? The American media has whole-heartedly bought into the Israeli view that the illegal colonies in Gaza are merely “neighborhoods.” The legality of these “settlements” is rarely questioned by the U.S. media.
If this information provided by Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land were freely available, U.S. support for Israel’s Gaza’s policies would plummet. In Gaza, as everywhere, sunshine is a strong disinfectant. [3]
This MEF video covers these issues and offers a perspective you won’t often see if you get your information only from the U.S. media. Again, to view this excellent video, go here [2].
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