Skip to content

Month: October 2012

West Coast Memorial celebrating the life and work of Alexander Cockburn

Published October 20, 2012

 

Alexander Cockburn

June 06, 1941 – July 21, 2012

Master of Ceremonies – Jeffrey St. Clair

Speakers

Joseph Paff
Conn Hallinan
Alison Weir
Scott Handleman
David Yearsley
Fred Gardner, with guitar
Becky Grant
Jack Heyman
Justin Raimondo
Zach Blue
Sheryl Chard
Frank Bardacke
Bruce Anderson
Daisy Cockburn

*

COUNTERPUNCH, Weekend Edition September 14-16, 2012

Cockburn, the Israel Lobby and the Palestinians

Ripping Open the Curtain on the Forbidden

by ALISON WEIR

Alexander Cockburn  was a brilliant, witty, and courageous opponent of falsehoods and injustice. He stood on the side of the oppressed, the weak, and the victimized – even those victims that many writers and human rights defenders chose to ignore.

With his scathing intellect, engaging talent, far ranging knowledge, and quick humor, the Oxford-educated Cockburn could have become a celebrated, wealthy journalist – the kind whose lucrative articles are consistently published in top journals, whose best-selling books are reviewed widely throughout the media, and whose commentary is in demand by the top television and radio news programs.

Instead, he used his extraordinary abilities to skewer dishonesty, expose cruelty and hypocrisy, and spread facts that many wished to remain hidden.

Although he was not known as an activist on Israel-Palestine, I believe that history will show Alexander Cockburn to have been one of the most important figures in the quest for justice in Palestine. While most others on the left were largely ignoring, obscuring, or misrepresenting the facts on this issue, Cockburn was exposing them.In fact, he lost his first major position in the U.S., as a writer for the Village Voice, because of his articles discussing Israel-Palestine and Israel’s ruthless invasion of Lebanon. His pieces earned the enmity of both Zionists and those who claimed they weren’t, but who had what former Voice writer James Wolcott describes as a “gravitational pull to Israel.”

When Cockburn received a $10,000 research grant from the Massachusetts-based Institute for Arab Studies to investigate Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Israel partisans saw this as a way to get rid of him. (He had been recommended for the grant by Columbia professor Edward Said.)

An article published by the Boston Phoenix after Cockburn’s death, “How the Boston Phoenix Got Alexander Cockburn Fired from the Village Voice,” gives some of the details.

The Phoenix, which was then published by Israel partisan Stephen Mindich (and now by his son), reported on the grant in an article written by Alan Lupo, a writer with a record of consistent pro-Israel bias in his articles. The piece was headlined “Alexander Cockburn’s $10,000 Arab connection” and subtitled “A question of propriety.” For his story Lupo phoned Village Voice Editor David Schneiderman, who eventually suspended Cockburn because of an alleged “conflict of interest.”

Other pro-Israel journalists gleefully took up the refrain, suggesting that Cockburn had acted improperly in accepting money from “the Arabs.” Recent obituaries mentioned the incident and continued this spin.

The validity of this charge, however, is significantly diminished by the fact that receiving a grant from an American foundation is normal, acceptable, and standard practice, as evidenced by the multitude of books in which author acknowledgements thank the various foundations that have funded their research.

As James Wolcott pointed out in his Vanity Fair blog: “Much handwringing to-do was made at the time of the incident about the need for journalistic transparency and accountability and such but let’s be honest — if it had been a Jewish-American organization or Israel front forking off the relative piddling sum of $10 thou, there hardly would have been this gummy uproar.”

Wolcott went on to note, “Imagine how many Beltway pundits, commentators, consultants and the like are on the take today via speaking fees, serving on panels, free fact-finding trips to the Mideast, etc. Alex’s sin was in aligning with the wrong team.”

The articles in 1984 and since that focused on Cockburn’s alleged “impropriety” failed to mention the fact that, according to prominent pro-Israel journalist Michael Kinsley, numerous journalists have gone to Israel on trips financed by the Israeli government – a far sketchier proposition. *

Governmental funding of journalism, in fact, is considered so problematic that a number of Israel Lobby organizations such as Act for Israel and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy have now stepped in to finance such journalistic junkets to Israel, removing the need for the Israeli government to be directly involved.

The fact that many journalists go on these Lobby-financed junkets also went unmentioned in the articles that brought up Cockburn’s allegedly improper grant and supposed conflict of interest. Also unmentioned was the fact that many journalists reporting on Israel-Palestine have close family – and sometimes personal – ties to the Israel military.

And there is still more to the story – which also is not referenced in recent obituaries. According to a 1992 article by former AIPAC insider Gregory Slabodkin, “AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] was the source of the original Phoenix story.”  AIPAC is a leading institution in the Israel Lobby.

In his article,  “The Secret Section in Israel’s U.S. Lobby That Stifles American Debate” published by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Slabodkin described how AIPAC secretly monitors individuals critical of Israel and feeds negative information about them to the media.

Slabodkin, who used to work for the section within AIPAC responsible for this surreptitious activity, reported that Lupo  “said AIPAC had told him the Institute for Arab Studies was ‘linked to a $100 million campaign to sway U.S. policy against Israel.’” In reality, Slabodkin reported, “the Institute had U.S. tax-exempt status and listed individual contributors within the United States until it closed down in 1983 due to a lack of funds.”

Slabodkin discussed AIPAC’S promulgation of anti-Arab bigotry as a tactic to protect Israel: “AIPAC attempted to discredit critics of Israel not by refuting their arguments, but by trying to tie them to Arab money. Making an Arab connection can damage the victim’s reputation, the pro-Israel lobby believes, so long as it can encourage a mindset in the United States that anything Arab-related is tainted.”

While Voice Editor Schneiderman at first defended Cockburn, he eventually went along with the charges, suspending him for what he claimed was a conflict of interest, and Cockburn left.

Schneiderman, who had originally been hired to edit the Voice by Rupert Murdoch, went into increasingly lucrative directions, eventually making tens of millions of dollars by turning the Village Voice and its offspring into advertising money machines, largely through classified ads, some of which eventually got the paper sued for the grotesque sex trafficking they enabled. He is currently employed at a PR firm advising global corporations on corporate communications, crises, antitrust and other regulatory matters, labor relations, and environmental issues.

Cockburn, on the other hand, continued to skewer the powerful, mendacious, hypocritical, and cruel. His biting and occasionally very funny essays were published in periodicals from the Nation to the Wall Street Journal, both of which employed him as a columnist, and collected in his book Corruptions of Empire and others.

A scan of these reveals that in the 1980s he was already exposing the neocons and their appaling agenda. In “The Gospel According to Ali Agca,” originally published in the Nation in 1985, he described the CBS documentary “Terrorism: War in the Shadows,” and reported the implied challenge by alleged “terrorism expert” Robert Kupperman not to let TV images of  “charred babies” and our guilt over Vietnam interfere with our commitment to fighting “terrorists.”

CounterPunch

Most important, in 1998 Cockburn and co-editor Jeffrey St. Clair brought CounterPunch online. In subsequent years they created an extraordinarily non-doctrinaire muckraking website where independent writers could cover a wide variety of topics fully, accurately, and without being constrained by positions decreed by political orthodoxy.

CounterPunch has covered Israel-Palestine with a thoroughness and honesty that few if any other non-specialty publications have approached. Moreover, it has been uniquely open to pieces by writers from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives.

I am personally indebted to CounterPunch, which was the first general interest publication to publish my pieces on the topic. Without CounterPunch, I think it is quite likely that my articles on Israel-Palestine would never have made it into the small, fairly closed world of highly regarded progressive general interest publications.

While most other media were covering Israel-Palestine very little, if at all – and were frequently obscuring such central issues as the Palestinian right of return, the systemic discrimination within Israel itself, the power of the Israel Lobby in the U.S., and Israel partisans’ direct connections to the invasion of Iraq – CounterPunch contributors were exposing all in meticulous, principled detail.

When former Zionists worked on a campaign to blackball some writers, including two Israeli anti-Zionist authors, for allegedly going too far in their subject matter, CounterPunch refused to bow to the attempted party line and continued to publish their thought provoking, often highly informative pieces.

The importance of what Cockburn and co-editor St. Clair have achieved in CounterPunch cannot be overstated. Without CounterPunch, it is quite likely that essential information on Israel-Palestine would have remained largely hidden from progressive American readers. CounterPunch not only published critical facts itself; by carrying thoroughly cited articles on information that had previously been buried, it also pushed other American publications and individuals into discussing Palestine with greater depth, frequency, and honesty.

The censorship on Israel-Palestine has been far more serious and profound than most people realize. It has pervaded both the left and the right and has long worked to minimize informed discussion on the subject and prevent effective work for justice and peace.

CounterPunch ripped open the curtain.

#

* Kinsley’s revelation about this came in his essay “Cockburn the Barbarian: Lessons in journalistic ethics from a veteran of an infamous Israeli junket,” Washington Monthly, April 1984. Online at http://www.unz.org/Pub/WashingtonMonthly-1984apr-00035

** Robert Kupperman was in on the ground floor of building the war against certain types of terror. He created the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism under President Richard Nixon. This was in response to Palestinian fighters who had taken eleven Israeli athletes hostage to use in an exchange to free Palestinian men and women held (and tortured) in Israeli prisons. When Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to consider such an exchange, a bungled rescue attempt resulted in the hostages being killed. The next day Israel launched air attacks against Lebanon and Syria, killing between 200 and 500 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, mostly civilians.”

When the UN Security Council tried to pass a resolution condemning these raids, the U.S. vetoed it, only the second time that the U.S. had vetoed a Security Council resolution in its history. This was the beginning of a long string of vetoes perpetrated to shield Israel from international condemnation of various massacres and other human rights abuses, creating extreme hostility toward the U.S. and escalating Americans’ risk from retaliatory “terror.” For more information see “The U.S. Cast the First of 29 Security Council Vetoes to Shield Israel” by Donald Neff, Washington Report on Middlel East Affairs Sept-Oct, 1993, p. 82. Also in Fifty Years of Israel, by Donald Neff, published by the American Educational Trust. Online at http://www.wrmea.org/archives/150-washington-report-archives-1988-1993/september-october-1993/7306-the-us-cast-the-first-of-29-security-council-vetoes-to-shield-israel.html

For information on American journalists’ ties to the Israeli military see Alison Weir’s article “US Media and Israeli Military: All in the Family”.


 

AP again skews the story, this time about Israeli attacks on Palestinian farmers

Published October 14, 2012

…It’s interesting to examine how the Associated Press reported on a recent statement by the UN envoy to Israel-Palestine demanding that Israel protect Palestinian farmers from daily attacks by Israeli settlers.

The situation is dire for Palestinian farmers. In the first weeks of the olive harvest, a critical period for sustaining their families, Palestinian farmers have suffered daily attacks by Israelis (often armed) living in nearby settlements…

Settlements are illegal colonies on confiscated Palestinian land that not only bar the Palestinians from whom the land has been confiscated, they also bar citizens of Israel who are Christian and Muslim from living in them.

In its lead paragraph AP reported, “The U.N. Middle East envoy says he’s alarmed by attacks blamed on Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and their olive trees.”

The AP headline said: “UN envoy alarmed by attacks on Palestinian trees.”

Somehow the word “farmers” didn’t make the cut, implying that the UN envoy was alarmed about what could seem a minimal concern and playing into Israeli claims that the UN is unduly picking on Israel.

While the headline might sound like the UN envoy is quibbling over Palestinian trees while people (Israelis) are suffering, the true situation is lost entirely: that these trees are the livelihood for entire village communities whose subsistence is at stake.

Also, AP’s paraphrase of the envoy’s statement is far milder than his actual words: “I am alarmed at recent reports that Israeli settlers in the West Bank have repeatedly attacked Palestinian farmers and destroyed hundreds of their olive trees at the height of the harvest season.”

The envoy, Robert Serry, also said:

“These acts are reprehensible and I call on the Government of Israel to bring those responsible to justice.”

AP left that out.

Serry also said:

“Israel must live up to its commitments under international law to protect Palestinians and their property in the occupied territory so that the olive harvest – a crucial component of Palestinian livelihoods and the Palestinian economy – can proceed unhindered and in peace.”

AP also left that out.

Two Israeli human rights groups had released reports on the Israeli attacks a few days earlier.

One, B’Tselem, said that it had documented five such settler attacks on Palestinian farmers in the previous four days, and called on the Israeli army and police “to investigate each incident,” as well as complaints that Israeli soldiers, who are legally required to protect the civilian population under their control, “did not intervene to prevent attacks.”

AP also left that out.

The report by the other Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din, stated that of 162 attacks on Palestinian trees since 2005, only one case had led to charges.

AP also left that out.

The Yesh Din report also stated that the Israeli failure to investigate the attacks is “only one aspect of its continuous and broad failure to enforce the law against ideological crimes by Israeli citizens against Palestinians in the occupied territories.”

AP also left that out.

A recent story in Ma’an News reports that over 7,500 Palestinian olive trees were destroyed by Israelis throughout 2011, according to The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs.

AP also left that out.

Below is the AP story found on US newspaper websites in its entirety. Below that is the AP story in an Israeli newspaper.

Note that there are two significant paragraphs in the middle of the Israeli story that are not in the US version. I am placing them in boldface.

AP sends different versions of its articles to its different wires and in my experience generally sends milder articles on this topic to its US wire than to other wires.

Whether AP omitted those significant paragraphs from its US version of the story or the Israeli editors added them, we know that AP had easy access to that important context – and chose not to include it in its report to American audiences.

AP story for US news media:

UN envoy alarmed by attacks on Palestinian trees

The U.N. Middle East envoy says he’s alarmed by attacks blamed on Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and their olive trees.

Robert Serry says Israel must do more to protect Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, in a statement sent to reporters Sunday. Israel’s military had no immediate comment. The West Bank, claimed by the Palestinians for a state, is under Israeli military rule.

An Israeli rights organization, B’Tselem, counts 450 Palestinian-owned trees either damaged or uprooted since the harvest season began on October 10.

Every year a small number of extremist Jewish settlers carry out attacks during harvest season. Most attacks occur close to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Olive groves provide crucial income for Palestinian farmers.

AP story in Israeli newspaper:

UN envoy alarmed by attacks on Palestinian trees

The UN’s Middle East envoy said on Sunday that he’s alarmed by attacks blamed on Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and their olive trees.

Robert Serry, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said that Israel must do more to protect Palestinians and their property in the West Bank in a statement sent to reporters.

Israel’s military had no immediate comment. The West Bank, claimed by the Palestinians for a state, is under Israeli military rule.

“I am alarmed at recent reports that Israeli settlers in the West Bank have repeatedly attacked Palestinian farmers and destroyed hundreds of their olive trees at the height of the harvest season,” Serry wrote. “These acts are reprehensible and I call on the Government of Israel to bring those responsible to justice.”

He continued: “Israel must live up to its commitments under international law to protect Palestinians and their property in the occupied territory so that the olive harvest – a crucial component of Palestinian livelihoods and the Palestinian economy – can proceed unhindered and in peace.”

An Israeli rights organization, B’Tselem, counts 450 Palestinian-owned trees either damaged or uprooted since the harvest season began on October 10.

Every year a small number of extremist Jewish settlers carry out attacks during harvest season. Most attacks occur close to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Olive groves provide crucial income for Palestinian farmers.

A 2006 study of AP’s coverage of Israel-Palestine found that AP covered Israeli children’s deaths at a rate over seven times greater than it reported on Palestinian children’s deaths.

* * *

B’Tselem report

Yesh Din report

Hoax or true? Blog: ‘I was a paid Internet shill for Israel’

Published October 14, 2012

The following blog posting seems plausible. A number of articles in recent years have come out desribing projects by Israel and by Israeli partisans to assume false identities on the Internet.

However, despite its plausibility, the piece below is unconfirmed and may be a hoax. I’m posting it here so that people can investigate it for themselves:

I Was a Paid Internet Shill,  

Topic started on 3-4-2012 @ 10:30 PM by ExShill

I am writing here to come out of the closet as a paid shill. For a little over six months, I was paid to spread disinformation and argue political points on the Internet. This site, ATS, was NOT one that I was assigned to post on, although other people in the same organization were paid to be here, and I assume they still walk among you. But more on this later.

I quit this job in the latter part of 2011, because I became disgusted with it, and with myself. I realized I couldn’t look myself in the mirror anymore. If this confession triggers some kind of retribution against me, so be it. Part of being a real man in this world is having real values that you stand up for, no matter what the consequences.

My story begins in early 2011. I had been out of work for almost a year after losing my last job in tech support. Increasingly desperate and despondent, I jumped at the chance when a former co-worker called me up and said she had a possible lead for me. “It is an unusual job, and one that requires secrecy. But the pay is good. And I know you are a good writer, so its something you are suited for.” (Writing has always been a hobby for me). She gave me only a phone-number and an address, in one of the seedier parts of San Francisco, where I live. intrigued, I asked her for the company’s URL and some more info. She laughed. “They don’t have a website. Or even a name. You’ll see. Just tell them I referred you.” Yes, it sounded suspicious, but long-term joblessness breeds desperation, and desperation has a funny way of overlooking the suspicious when it comes to putting food on the table.

The next day, I arrived at the address – the third floor in a crumbling building. The appearance of the place did not inspire confidence. After walking down a long, filthy linoleum-covered corridor lit by dimly-flickering halogen, I came to the entrance of the office itself: a crudely battered metal door with a sign that said “United Amalgamated Industries, Inc.” I later learned that this “company” changed its name almost monthly, always using bland names like that which gave no strong impression of what the company actually does. Not too hopeful, I went inside. The interior was equally shabby. There were a few long tables with folding chairs, at which about a dozen people were tapping away on old, beat-up computers. There were no decorations or ornaments of any type: not even the standard-issue office fica trees or plastic ferns. What a dump. Well, beggars can’t be choosers.

The manager, a balding man in his late forties, rose from the only stand-alone desk in the room and came forward with an easy smile. “You must be Chris. Yvette [my ex-co-worker] told me you’d be coming.” [Not our real names]. “Welcome. Let me tell you a little about what we do.” No interview, nothing. I later learned they took people based solely on referral, and that the people making the referrals, like my ex-colleague Yvette, were trained to pick out candidates based on several factors including ability to keep one’s mouth shut, basic writing skills, and desperation for work.

We sat down at his desk and he began by asking me a few questions about myself and my background, including my political views (which were basically non-existent). Then he began to explain the job. “We work on influencing people’s opinions here,” is how he described it. The company’s clients paid them to post on Internet message boards and popular chartrooms, as well as in gaming forums and social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Who were these clients? “Oh, various people,” he said vaguely. “Sometimes private companies, sometimes political groups.” Satisfied that my political views were not strong, he said I would be assigned to political work. “The best people for this type of job are people like you, without strong views,” he said with a laugh. “It might seem counterintuitive, but actually we’ve found that to be the case.” Well, OK. Fine. As long as it comes with a steady paycheck, I’d believe whatever they wanted me to believe, as the guy in Ghostbusters said.

After discussing pay (which was much better than I’d hoped) and a few other details, he then went over the need for absolute privacy and secrecy. “You can’t tell anyone what we do here. Not your wife, not your dog.” (I have neither, as it happens.) “We’ll give you a cover story and even a phone number and a fake website you can use. You will have to tell people you are a consultant. Since your background is in tech support, that will be your cover job. Is this going to be a problem for you?” I assured him it would not. “Well, OK. Shall we get started?”

“Right now?” I asked, a bit taken aback.

“No time like the present!” he said with a hearty laugh.

 

The rest of the day was taken up with training. Another staff member, a no-nonsense woman in her thirties, was to be my trainer, and training would only last two days. “You seem like a bright guy, you’ll get the hang of it pretty fast, I think,” she said. And indeed, the job was easier than I’d imagined. My task was simple: I would be assigned to four different websites, with the goal of entering certain discussions and promoting a certain view. I learned later that some of the personnel were assigned to internet message boards (like me), while others worked on Facebook or chatrooms. It seems these three types of media each have different strategy for shilling, and each shill concentrates on one of the three in particular.

My task? “To support Israel and counter anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic posters.” Fine with me. I had no opinions one way or another about Israel, and who likes anti-Semites and Nazis? Not me, anyway. But I didn’t know too much about the topic. “That’s OK,” she said. “You’ll pick it up as you go along. For the most part, at first, you will be doing what we call “meme-patrol.” This is pretty easy. Later if you show promise, we’ll train you for more complex arguments, where more in-depth knowledge is necessary.”

She handed me two binders with sheets enclosed in limp plastic. The first was labeled simply “Israel” in magic-marker on the cover, and it had two sections .The first section contained basic background info on the topic. I would have to read and memorize some of this, as time went on. It had internet links for further reading, essays and talking points, and excerpts from some history books. The second, and larger, section was called “Strat” (short for “strategy”) with long lists of “dialogue pairs.” These were specific responses to specific postings. If a poster wrote something close to “X,” we were supposed to respond with something close to “Y.” “You have to mix it up a bit, though,” said my trainer. “Otherwise it gets too obvious. Learn to use a thesaurus.” This section also contained a number of hints for de-railing conversations that went too far away from what we were attempting. These strategies included various forms of personal attacks, complaining to the forum moderators, smearing the characters of our opponents, using images and icons effectively, and even dragging the tone of the conversation down with sexual innuendo, links to pornography, or other such things. “Sometimes we have to fight dirty,” or trainer told us. “Our opponents don’t hesitate to, so we can’t either.”

The second binder was smaller, and it contained information specific to the web sites I would be assigned to. The sites I would work were: Godlike Productions, Lunatic Outpost, CNN news, Yahoo News, and a handful of smaller sites that rotated depending on need. As stated, I was NOT assigned to work ATS (although others in my group were), which is part of the reason I am posting this here, rather than elsewhere. I wanted to post this on Godlike Productions at first, but they have banned me from even viewing that site for some reason (perhaps they are onto me?). But if somebody connected with this site can get the message to them, I think they should know about it, because that was the site I spent a good 70% of my time working on.

The site-specific info in the second binder included a brief history each site, including recent flame-wars, as well as info on what to avoid on each site so as not to get banned. It also had quite detailed info on the moderators and the most popular regged posters on each site: location (if known), personality type, topics of interest, background sketch, and even some notes on how to “push the psychological buttons” of different posters. Although I didn’t work for ATS, I did see they had a lot of info on your so-called “WATS” posters here (the ones with gold borders around their edges). “Focus on the popular posters,” my trainer told me. “These are the influential ones. Each of these is worth 50 to 100 of the lesser known names.” Each popular poster was classified as “hostile,” “friendly,” or “indifferent” to my goal. We were supposed to cultivate friendship with the friendly posters as well as the mods (basically, by brownnosing and sucking up), and there were even notes on strategies for dealing with specific hostile posters. The info was pretty detailed, but not perfect in every case. “If you can convert one of the hostile posters from the enemy side to our side, you get a nice bonus. But this doesn’t happen too often, sadly. So mostly you’ll be attacking them and trying to smear them.”

Continued in the next post

 

reply posted on 3-4-2012 @ 10:33 PM by ExShill

At first, like I said, my job was “meme-patrol.” This was pretty simple and repetitive; it involved countering memes and introducing new memes, and didn’t demand much in-depth knowledge of the subject. Mostly just repetitive posting based on the dialogue pairs in the “Strat” section of the first binder. A lot of my job was de-railing and spamming threads that didn’t go our way, or making accusations of racism and anti-Semitism. Sometimes I had to simply lie and claim a poster said something or did something “in another thread” they really hadn’t said or done I felt bad about this…but in the end I felt worse about the possibility of losing the first job I’d been able to get since losing my “real” job.

The funny thing was, although I started the job with no strong opinions or political views, after a few weeks of this I became very emotionally wedded to the pro-Israel ideas I was pushing. There must be some psychological factor at work…a good salesman learns to honestly love the products he’s selling, I guess. It wasn’t long before my responses became fiery and passionate, and I began to learn more about the topic on my own. “This is a good sign,” my trainer told me. “It means you are ready for the next step: complex debate.”

The “complex debate” part of the job involved a fair amount of additional training, including memorizing more specific information about the specific posters (friendly and hostile) I’d be sparring with. Here, too, there were scripts and suggested lines of argument, but we were given more freedom. There were a lot of details to this more advanced stage of the job – everything from how to select the right avatar to how to use “demotivationals” (humorous images with black borders that one finds floating around the web). Even the proper use of images of cats was discussed. Sometimes we used faked or photo-shopped images or doctored news reports (something else that bothered me).

I was also given the job of tying to find new recruits, people “like me” who had the personality type, ability to keep a secret, basic writing/thinking skills, and desperation necessary to sign on a shill. I was less successful at this part of the job, though, and I couldn’t find another in the time I was there.

After a while of doing this, I started to feel bad. Not because of the views I was pushing (as I said, I was first apolitical, then pro-Israel), but because of the dishonesty involved. If my arguments were so correct, I wondered, why did we have to do this in the first place? Shouldn’t truth propagate itself naturally, rather than through, well…propaganda? And who was behind this whole operation, anyway? Who was signing my paychecks? The stress of lying to my parents and friends about being a “consultant” was also getting to me. Finally, I said enough was enough. I quit in September 2011. Since then I’ve been working a series of unglamorous temp office jobs for lower pay. But at least I’m not making my living lying and heckling people who come online to express their views and exercise freedom of speech.

A few days ago I happened to be in the same neighborhood and on a whim thought I’d check out the old office. It turns out the operation is gone, having moved on. This, too, I understood, is part of their strategy: Don’t stay in the same place for too long, don’t keep the same name too long, move on after half a year or so. Keeping a low profile, finding new employees through word of mouth: All this is part of the shill way of life. But it is a deceptive way of life, and no matter how noble the goals (I remain pro-Israel, by the way), these sleazy means cannot be justified by the end.

This is my confession. I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether I want to talk more about this, so if I don’t respond to this thread, don’t be angry. But I think you should know: Shills exist. They are real. They walk among you, and they pay special attention to your popular gold-bordered WATS posters. You should be aware of this. What you choose to do with this awareness is up to you.

Yours,

ExShill

April 2012

Alice Rothchild: “The Big Hats”

Published October 14, 2012

I was just forwarded the following blog posting, written by Alice Rothchild, who apparently is in Palestine with the DCI Delegation (http://www.dorothycottoninstitute.org/ ). (I hope she isn’t now “disavowed” for her subject matter!)

[When I have the url for these posts, I’ll add it so that people can go directly to the source.]

The Big Hats

I am traveling to Israel/Palestine with a group of African-American civil rights leaders, theologians, scholars, activists, feminists, and fellow travelers under the guidance and affirmation of the Dorothy Cotton Institute.  We are guided by the words and deeds of Martin Luther King and the men and women who continue to walk in his footsteps.  This is a powerful legacy to examine the world, not particularly Jewish or Christian or secular, but breathing with a love and respect for human and civil rights, expansion of democracy, and the uncompromising fight for justice.

But before we even step into the hot Mediterranean sun, the troubles start in the waiting area of the JFK Airport in New York. For me, it is something about the clusters of men with tall brimmed hats perched on top of their heads, (concealing their yarmulkes,) the long black coats, the various frizzy beards , the tsitzit dancing from their shirts. We are in this jumble of travelers and I am horrified to think I am beginning this momentous delegation with a moment of ethnic profiling.  Women with wigs or scarves (in my vernacular, schmatas,) tied at the napes of their necks, herd quantities of children (often ages one, two, three on up…) while their men bend and pray in the central waiting area, davening methodically, hands pressed to their faces, noses deep in prayer books.  For reasons I can’t quite explain, I am awash in this weird blend of embarrassment and hostility. I am filled with an urge to apologize to my non-Jewish comrades for the behavior of my landsmen.

First , I try pretending  they are Amish, or Sikh, or devoutly Muslim, but the body language does not work and I am still searching for my tolerance. Is it too much self-entitlement and too little of the humble supplicant? Is it the spatial dominance? The men do not even acknowledge a brazen hussy like I am beginning to feel. Only men pray, while their women manage the progeny; the feminist in me begins to squirm. During the three hour wait for the nonstop to Tel Aviv, we line up an hour early, bodies crushed together for the second round of security, (does any other country do this?); this time shoes off, but keep your one gallon sealed bag of liquids in the backpack, but yes you take off your jacket: keeping us off balance, conveying that sense of danger lurking, but those Israelis sure know how to protect us. 

I suspect Delta already understands this is a difficult group to get into their seats. Many of our delegation are asked to change seats, “I need to be near my husband.” “I do not sit next to women, (not actually spoken but gestured.)” (Are there racial overtones?).  The tenor is generally argumentative, though there are certainly lovely travelers to be found, but it is clear that the ultra-Orthodox are running this plane and their sense of dominance of the space is palpable. There were 150 kosher meals out of 400+, but the overriding accommodation of need went to the men in hats. I will ignore the praying in the aisles, the drawn shades so that morning would not come at an inconvenient time which would only require more praying and more tefillin and blocked aisles.  Let’s just talk hats.

After switching my seat, I watched the endless dance of the hats, each perched in the overhead compartment, demanding space of its own, rearranged countless times with each new piece of overhead luggage; a level of pushing and shoving and entitlement that I have unfortunately come to associate with the caricature of Israelis, an old joke with the punch line, “ the people who do not know how to say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

By now I am torturing myself. Would I be so critical if I was observing some African customs or conservative Muslims turning towards Mecca and praying five times a day or am I angry because these folks are part of my own tribe and I feel responsible? I keep repeating my new mantras: Practice loving kindness. Speak truth with grace. This will be my greatest challenge on this trip, to be an active member of the” beloved community,” to feel nonviolence and kindness in my heart when I much more likely to be enraged.

 Delta Airlines, on the other hand, has flown to Tel Aviv with these folks before.  There is a rule (danger lurking everywhere) that when we enter Israeli airspace, everyone must be seated. We get a 30 minute warning to finish with the rituals and the bathroom (they have just filled us with coffee).  This warning is repeated at five minute intervals building to a crescendo.  This goes on for the 30 minutes before we are confined to our seats, as if the stewardesses knew this crowd has a mind of its own. (I think of my children when they were young enough to be testing the limits of parental control: three minute warning, followed by, if you don’t sit down I am counting to ten.) In my sleep deprived state I picture the stewardesses tackling a tall bearded man lost in prayer, wrestling him to his seat, knocking his hat to the floor.

And then a moment of clarity as the caffeine hits my brain: how can I separate the entitlement in the airport, the claiming of space in the airplane, from Jewish behavior in Jerusalem/Al Quds, in the West Bank, in Israeli society.  These ultra-Orthodox Hassidim have come to symbolize for me the arrogant power of Zionism that is making Israel the militaristic, nationalistic country that has broken my heart and made my ashamed.

I look out as the Mediterranean coast sweeps into view. High rises start to sprout from the haze and palm trees come into focus and I am weeping.

—

Reports reflect the views of the individuals writing them and do not necessarily represent the Dorothy Cotton Institute, the Center for Transformative Action, Interfaith Peace Builders or other delegates or the organizations with which they are affiliated.

 

CNN seems to consider damaged motorcycle more important than injured Palestinian children

Published October 8, 2012

CNN’s choice of a photo for its latest online news story on Israel-Palestine is revealing.

In its report on the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, “Palestinians: Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 1, wound 15,” CNN features one photo. It is a picture of a charred motorcycle.

CNN reports: “Palestinian militants say they have fired 20 mortar rounds from Gaza into Israel in retaliation for airstrikes that killed one person and wounded 15 others.”

Later in the story CNN mentions that some of the “others” were children but gives no additional details. According to reports from other sources, at least five of the injured were children, including one infant.

There are a number of photographs of these children.

Yet, CNN didn’t publish any of them, and instead used a photo of a motorcycle.

Below are some of the photos CNN missed. (Click on each photo to see the source.)

 

 

In the last paragraph of its story, CNN reports: “On the Israeli side, there were no injuries and only minor property damage…”

#

Below is the CNN story:

Palestinians: Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 1, wound 15

By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 12:19 PM EDT, Mon October 8, 2012

(CNN) — Palestinian militants say they have fired 20 mortar rounds from Gaza into Israel in retaliation for airstrikes that killed one person and wounded 15 others.

The Israel Defense Force said an airstrike Sunday evening targeted two members of a Gaza-based jihad network who were suspected in a June attack that left an Israeli Arab citizen dead.

Two militants and nine civilians, including children, were injured when a rocket hit a motorcycle in Rafah, a town on the Gaza-Egypt border, said Ashraf al-Qidra, a Gaza Health Ministry spokesman. One of those victims died of his wounds Monday.

The IDF, meanwhile, said it targeted terror operations in southern Gaza on Monday following another round of mortars.

The IDF said it responded to the rockets by launching tank shells, though a Health Ministry official in Gaza said it was an airstrike.

Five more people were injured in that operation, the Health Ministry spokesman said Monday.

On the Israeli side, there were no injuries and only minor property damage reported in the barrage, Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

#

Related story: 

NY Times headline reverses chronology, story leaves out important information: Does the New York Times consider Israeli goats more important than Palestinian children?

NY Times headline reverses chronology, story leaves out important information

Published October 8, 2012

Does the New York Times consider Israeli goats more important than Palestinian children?

Today’s New York Times features a headline that reverses the sequence of events described in the story it is allegedly representing. It also omits significant information.

The headline reads: “Israel Launches Airstrikes After Attacks From Gaza” in a story bylined by Isabel Kershner. In other words, in its usual fashion, the New York Times headline tells readers that Israeli violence is defensive and came after Palestinians initiated the violence.

In reality, it was the opposite, as the lead paragraph states: “Palestinian militants from Gaza fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells into Israeli territory on Monday, causing no casualties but some property damage, AFTER an Israeli airstrike wounded at least 10 Palestinians in southern Gaza on Sunday [emphasis added].”

Farther down, the story reports, “The latest flare-up began with the [Israeli] missile strike on Sunday against two men who Israel said were members of jihadist groups…. at least eight passers-by were also injured.”

In addition to reversing the party responsible for the initiation of violence, the Times‘ story also omits information about the 8 people who were “also injured.” Were they old men? Women? Children? What is the nature of their injuries? Will any be permanent?

The Times doesn’t tell us. Yet, while reporter Isabel Kershner didn’t bother to obtain or convey this information, she does tell us, “Several goats were killed in a petting zoo in an Israeli communal farm…”

Other news media provide some of the missing information. According to the Middle East Media Center (IMEMC), an infant and four other children were among the injured. Three of the injured are in serious condition. IMEMC reports that the missiles were fired into a crowded area that included school students heading home from evening school.

The New York Times story also doesn’t disclose the fact that the reporter, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli citizen. (The Times refuses to answer questions about whether she has served in the Israeli military, or whether she has family members currently serving in the Israeli military or that served in it in the past.)

[UPDATE, Aug. 8, 2018: Two years after I wrote this blog post it came out that Kershner’s son is in the Israeli military and her husband, Hirsh Goodman, worked for an Israeli thinktank where his work was to help shape Israel’s image in news media.]

The previous New York Times bureau chief for the region, Ethan Bronner, had a son serving in the Israeli army, and many of the journalists in the area have similar personal connections to the Israeli military. The New York Times has a history of appointing bureau chiefs with ties to Israel.

A 2005 study found that the Times had reported on Israeli children’s deaths at a rate seven times greater than it reported on Palestinian children’s deaths.

While the New York Times and other US media frequently report that Palestinian violence has interrupted what the media call “a period of calm,” a 2009 study by an MIT professor revealed, “[I]t is overwhelmingly Israel that kills first after a pause in the conflict.”

The study found, “79% of all conflict pauses were interrupted when Israel killed a Palestinian, while only 8% were interrupted by Palestinian attacks (the remaining 13% were interrupted by both sides on the same day).

In addition, the researchers stated, “…of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%, and it unilaterally interrupted 100% of the 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days.”

An alternative headline, and story, could have been something like: “Israeli airstrikes injure infant and 4 other children.” This might be the kind of reporting we would get if the Times would ever stop assigning partisans to cover the conflict.

A man shows the leg of a wounded boy in a hospital following an
Israeli air strike in Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip October
7, 2012. (Reuters/Ahmed Zakot)

#

UPDATE: It appears that one of the people reported as injured has now died. The Times has now modified its lead paragraph and the story a bit from the original online version I discuss above. (I don’t yet know what is in the print version.)

Update: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at 6:11AM

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights now has more details about the attack. It turns out that among those injured in the Israeli assault were a one month old, a two year old, a three year old and a 10 year old. The New York Times has still failed to even mention that children were among those injured in the attack.

Below is the IMEMC report:

1 Palestinian Man Assassinated, Another Wounded

Wednesday October 10, 2012 01:02 by PCHR

8 civilians, including 4 children and 1 woman, Injured In The Attack

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the assassination, on Sunday, 07 October 2012, of 1 Palestinian man and the severe injury of another. 8 civilian bystanders, including 4 children and 1 woman, were also wounded in the attack.

PCHR calls upon the international community to immediately act to stop these actions by Israel’s forces and renews its call for the Higher Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1 of the Convention to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 17:10 on Sunday, an Israeli warplane fired two missiles at two men in civilian clothing who were riding a motorcycle, as they were passing by Taha Hussain Elementary School in the Al-Brazil neighborhood, south of Rafah.

It should be noted that the attack was carried out at the end of the school day, moments before the students began to leave the school.

The targeted persons, Abd-Allah Hassan Mikawy (24) and Tal’at Khalil Al-Darbi (23), both from Rafah, sustained burns and shrapnel wounds throughout their bodies. Their condition was described as critical.

Abd-Allah Hassan Mikawy was transported to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. His leg was amputated but he died of his wounds on Monday evening. Tal’at Khalil Al-Darbi was transported to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where his leg was amputated, according to medical sources.

8 civilian bystanders were wounded in the attack, including 4 children and 1 woman, the mother of 2 of the wounded children.

They were visiting the woman’s family home at the time of the attack. The wounded were transported to Abu-Yousif Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, and their wounds were described as moderate. The victims were identified as:

1- Sabrin Hussain Al-Qatrous (Al-Maqousi) (23), from Jabalia Camp, who was wounded inside her parents’ house;

2- Bisan Muhammad Al-Maqousi, (1 month), from Jabalia Camp, who was wounded inside her grandparents’ house;

3- Nassim Muhammad Al-Maqousi (2), from Jabalia Camp, who was wounded inside his grandparents’ house;

4- Malak Hisham Abu-Jazar (3), from Al-Brazil neighborhood in Rafah, who was wounded in front of her family home;

5- Bashir Mustafa Keshta (10), from Al-Brazil neighborhood in Rafah, who was wounded while walking in the street;

6- ‘Awad Muhammad Abu-‘Armana (30), from Al-Brazil neighborhood in Rafah, who was wounded in front of his house;

7- Juhad Housni Al-Qatrous (27), from Al-Brazil neighborhood in Rafah, who was wounded in front of his house; and

8- Abdul-Hadi Mahmoud Abu-Mor (56), from Al-Salam neighborhood in Rafah, who was wounded while on his way to the mosque attend Al-Maghreb (Sunset) prayer.

Israeli radio quoted military sources, reporting that the raid had targeted two alleged members of the Global Jihad organization. The report alleged that the men were planning a complex military attack in Sinai that was scheduled to be carried out in the coming period.

PCHR reiterates condemnation of these crimes, expresses utmost concern over such escalation, and:

1- Stresses that these crimes form part of systematic violations perpetrated in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly the Gaza Strip, which reflect Israeli forces’ disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians; and

2- Calls upon the international community to immediately take an action to put an end to such crimes and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1 which stipulates “the High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances,” and their obligation under Article 146 which requires that the Contracting Parties prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and under Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.

Public Document

**************************************

For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza , Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 – 2825893
PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org, Webpage

category gaza strip | human rights | news report author email saed at imemc dot org
Related Link(s): http://www.pchrgaza.org