When Monopolization of the Media Fails, Then Squash Freedom of Speech

Canadian Zionists Wage War against Independent Media

“Knowledge is power.” So goes the often heard, and generally accepted, aphorism. Consequently, powerful people who would like to maintain and consolidate their power will endeavor to control and manipulate information. One step in achieving control of information is through the media. When complete media control is not possible, then silencing rival media is also effective. In Canada, this silencing of dissident voices can be attempted, strange as it seems, through the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

Control need only be exerted in a society where those wielding power do not wield it on the behalf of the masses. Despots rely on information manipulation, propaganda, and lies. Since neoliberalism and Zionism benefit only a tiny segment of society, neoliberals and Zionists are compelled to control the information sources to hide the crimes of their ideology from the masses.

The corporate media reflects a worldview acceptable to the media owners. That the news and opinions present a distorted, biased, and selective view has been richly documented. Yet, neoliberals, who manage to dominate the governments in many western countries through lesser-evilism politics, have abetted and acquiesced to a consolidation of the monopoly media.Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983). This has allowed systematization of a manufactured consent on vital issues. Views not amenable to corporate media ownership are either marginalized or buried.Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 2002).

It is not surprising, therefore that, out of this morass of corporatist propaganda and disinformation (that is collaborative in ethnic cleansing, racism, classism, and genocide), an independent media would be welcomed and garner a growing segment of public readership and viewership.Internet study shows Canadians are heavy users,” CBC News, 2 November 2005. John B. Horrigan, “For many home broadband users, the internet is the primary news source: News audiences increasingly politicized,” Pew Internet & American Life Project, 22 March 2006. “Online Audience Larger, More Diverse,” The Pew Research Center, 8 June 2004.

The progressivist media provide an independent voice in a world where victims of neoliberalism, imperialism, and classism can be heard. This voice must not be silenced by Zionist or corporate thuggery.

Stifling Free Speech

In Canada, the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith has been at the forefront of staving off any criticism of Israel, deserved or not. Thus, B’nai Brith has backed a Camosack (colonial designation: Victoria) businessman, Harry Abrams, who lodged a complaint with the CHRC against the Canada-based Peace Earth and Justice News website.

B’nai Brith Canada calls itself “the action arm of the Jewish community.” It claims to believe in fighting anti-Semitism and “promoting human rights and peace throughout the world.” One wonders about B’nai Brith’s promotion of human rights when it comes to Palestinians. For instance, it opposes the right-of-return for Palestinian refugees saying this would lead to the destruction of the Jewish state. This contradicts B’nai Brith’s statement: “We applaud Israel as a vibrant society that respects the civil, religious and cultural rights of all its citizens.”Manifesto Denouncing CUPE-Ontario’s Boycott of Israel and Reaffirming Support for the Jewish State,” B’nai Brith Canada. Given that Arabs are a fifth of Israel’s population, it is disingenuous to declare a respect for all citizens, especially those victims of ethnic cleansing who still live as refugees.

Clearly, B’nai Brith is not interested in human rights for all. It is openly segregationist and only advocating on behalf of Jews. Hence, it attempts to censure facts and views, whether truthful or not, that it considers inflammatory toward public perceptions of Israel.

The CHRC says it has received a complaint against the Prometheus Institute, which runs PEJ News, that alleges it “is discriminating against person or groups of persons by communicating messages on the Internet that are likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt on the basis of national or ethnic origin, contrary to section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act.”

An investigation is now ongoing into the complaint.

The complaint is based on 18 articles. PEJ News has since withdrawn the articles from its website.The 18 articles are still viewable as cache on the PEJ News website.

Ingmar Lee, a former editor at PEJ News and a contributing writer to Dissident Voice, says, “I have reviewed all of the articles and I stand by all of the excellent articles … which were posted to PEJ by me, and I also stand by all of the excellent articles posted by my fellow editor, Chris Cook.”

It is insufficient to merely point to articles and condemn them as anti-Semitic or hate-filled. Rationality demands that the offending passages be identified and be considered in context.

A perusal of the 18 articles is required to ascertain whether they are, in fact, “discriminating against person or groups of persons by communicating messages on the Internet that are likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt on the basis of national or ethnic origin.”

The 18

1) William A. Cook, “Like Taking Candy from a Baby: Hating Palestine Made Easy,” 8 April 2006.

Cook decries “the erosion of knowledge by controlled truth, by omission, by deceit, by bigotry, by racism, by intentional, calculated and absolute monopoly of the primary modes of communication to foster the goals of a dominant elite, resident predominantly in the United States and Israel, has metastasized like a cancer.”

He writes about “the conditions [of corrosive evil] existing in Israel as it occupies and oppresses the Palestinian people.”

Despite this, Cook finds that “the Palestinian people have taken the boldest initiative to date against their nemesis by peacefully, without violence or terrorism, electing a government that will demand that the legitimate rights of the Palestinians be granted and that the illegal occupation be ended.”

While acknowledging Israeli crimes, Cook is stressing peace and not hatred.

2) Chris Hedges, “Worse than Apartheid,” 23 December 2006.

Hedges reports, “Israel has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians, destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, including its electrical power system and key roads and bridges, carried out huge land confiscations, demolished homes and plunged families into a crisis that has caused widespread poverty and malnutrition.”

“Civil society itself — and this appears to be part of the Israeli plan — is unraveling,” comments Hedges.

Hedges, though, is no ideologue of the elected Palestinian party Hamas, calling its politics “repugnant.” He asks, though, how Israeli terrorism can “curb suicide attacks and foster peace? Do [Israeli Jews] not see that the rest of the Middle East watches the slaughter in horror and rage?”

Promoting hatred? Hedges notes that Israel’s own acts of terrorism are promoting acts of hatred against it.

3) Kurt Nimmo, “Sacking Livingstone: The Mayor, the Reporter, the Nazi Concentration Camp Guard, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews,” 28 February 2006.

Nimmo does not hold back in attacking Zionism. He writes “Nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of the Holocaust Orthodoxy, in effect an immensely profitable shake down operation for Israel … and the Zionist master plan to decimate Muslim society and culture.”

He claims Zionist attacks are “ad hominem and predictably childish” while himself writing in the same article about “the pit bull attack organization calling itself the Board of Deputies of British Jews.”

Is name calling promoting hatred? Arguably. If so, then it could also be argued that many children in playgrounds are promoting hatred.

4) Kurt Nimmo, “Cleansing South Lebanon,” 9 August 2006.

Nimmo accuses Israel of scheming to “deliberately deny[] vital humanitarian aid to Lebanese babies and grandmothers.”

5) James Petras, “Condemnation’s Necessity,” 25 December 2006.

Petras writes, “Jewish agencies … see defense of Israel as their number-one goal, trumping all other items on the agenda.”

He acknowledges, “Many Jewish writers, including those who are somewhat critical of Israel, have raised pointed questions about our critique of the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) in the United States and what they wrongly claim are our singular harsh critique of the state of Israel.”

Hate-promoting? Sounds more like dialogue.

6) Virginia Tilley, “Apartheid Israel,” 6 December 2006.

Tilley describes the hate as emanating from Jews: “The Palestinians’ original sin — the ‘failing’ has consigned them collectively to expulsion, dispossession, exile, and a cruel and humiliating occupation — is … that they are not Jewish.”

7) Kathleen and Bill Christison, “Genocide or Erasure of Palestinians,” 27 November 2006.

The intrepid Christisons state, “[W]e should have had the courage and the insight to call what we have observed Israel doing to the Palestinians by its rightful name: genocide.” They also note the “Nazi-like features of Israel’s policies.”

If using the epithet “Nazi” is hate-promoting against Zionists, then logically, it must also hold true when used against Germans. Is using the term “jihadist,” then, hate-promotion against Muslims? How about calling someone a “terrorist”? Where does the charge of hate-promotion end?

8) Kurt Nimmo, “Formalizing Genocide: Disappearing Palestine,” 6 April 2006.

Then editor Chris Cook laments, “To Canada’s great shame, we have, under the freshman leadership of new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, become the first country to support Israel’s determination to starve the Palestinians out of existence.”

The concern is expressed for the victims of acts of hate: the Palestinians.

9) Jason Miller, “Holocaustista: Lamentations to the Sacrificial Pawns,” 30 July 2006.

Miller considers “innocent Israeli, British, Spanish, American and other Western non-combatant victims of this miserable conflict are equally worthy of our grief …”

Sounds reasonably balanced.

10) Virginia Tilley, “Boycott Now!” 5 August 2006.

Tilley points to “specific crimes: Israel’s continual attacks on Palestinian civilians; its casual disdain for the Palestinian civilian lives “accidentally” destroyed in its assassinations and bombings; its deliberate ruin of the Palestinians’ economic and social conditions; its continuing annexation and dismemberment of Palestinian land; its torture of prisoners; its contempt for UN resolutions and international law; and especially, its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland.”

She adds, “[O]pen official racism and its attendant violence casts Israel into the ranks of pariah states.”

Israel is portrayed as a hateful, racist entity. Can a state, however, be hateful and racist?

11) Kurt Nimmo, “Auschwitz Coming Home: Israel’s Concentration Camp Building Boom,” 23 July 2006.

Nimmo accuses Israel of torture in prisons.

12) C.L. Cook, “Warsaw on the Mediterranean: Israel’s Palestine Solution,” 7 April 2006.

More on Israel’s crimes.

13) Jostein Gaarder, “God’s Chosen People,” 11 August 2006.

Gaarder declares, “We do no longer recognize the state of Israel.”

“Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hizballah, or the state of Israel!”

One-sided? Does one-sidedness imply factual inaccuracy? In a situation with two poles, must one abandon the correct pole and straddle the middle? If so, then how does this augur for our attempts to get at the truth?

14) Kathleen Christison, “Atrocities in the Promised Land,” 17 July 2006.

Christison laments “60 years of atrocity perpetrated in the name of Judaism.”

“But it needs to be said now, loudly: those who devise and carry out Israeli policies have made Israel into a monster, and it has come time for all of us — all Israelis, all Jews who allow Israel to speak for them, all Americans who do nothing to end U.S. support for Israel and its murderous policies — to recognize that we stain ourselves morally by continuing to sit by while Israel carries out its atrocities against the Palestinians.”

“A nation that mandates the primacy of one ethnicity or religion over all others will eventually become psychologically dysfunctional. Narcissistically obsessed with its own image, it must strive to maintain its racial superiority at all costs and will inevitably come to view any resistance to this imagined superiority as an existential threat.”

Christison argues that the non-dissenting people in a state have responsibility for the crimes carried out by the state. But, have Zionists not pressed Germans up until today to bear responsibility for crimes judged committed by Germany? Professor Norman Finkelstein terms the Holocaust “an outright extortion racket.”Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (Verso, 2000), 89. Finkelstein is backed by historian Raul Hilberg, “‘It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One Else is Out There’ — World-Renowned Holocaust, Israel Scholars Defend DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein as He Fights for Tenure,” Democracy Now! 9 May 2007. In a leap of chutzpah, the next generation of Jews is also claiming victimhood and reparations. See Reuven Weiss, “Lawsuit: Recognize 2nd generation as Shoah victims,” ynet news, 13 April 2007.

15) Paul de Rooij, “The Offensive Logic of Israel’s ‘Right to Self-Defence,'” 15 August 2006.

According to de Rooij, “It is important to note that aggressors don’t have a right to ‘self-defense.’ … Any violence used to perpetuate Israeli conquests is at best illegitimate, but most likely a serious crime.”

16) Israel Shamir, “Friends True and False,” 31 July 2006.

This essay ends with a warning to Jews: “Fear The Wrath of God.”

Shamir is imprecise in use of some terms, notably “Jews” and “we.” His essay “Zeno’s Arrow,” however, explains this disregard for accuracy in language, noting that people commonly refer to groups monolithically without implying homogeneity.Israel Shamir, “Zeno’s Arrow,” The Writings of Israel Shamir.

17) C.L. Cook, “Does Evil Have the Right to Exist?” 30 June 2006.

Cook depicts evil as emanating from the Jewish state of Israel.

18) Michael Coren, “We should nuke Israel,” 3 September 2006.

This article’s title and text sounds extremely contentious but it is a redaction of another article, substituting the word “Iran” for “Israel.” It is a wonder that Abrams and B’nai Brith did not file a hate-promoting complaint against the Toronto Sun.

The article comes with an editorial remark: “This amazingly ignorant, hateful, and frankly criminal article has been redacted. … Canadian media is expected to live up to certain standards. Promoting hatred and proposing the destruction of human life fail miserably to live up to the expected, and legislated, mandates for publishers.”

People over Entities

Most of these articles are critical of the actions of a state and do not target a people. States do not have human rights. States are geopolitical entities created by humans, often through the most violent of crimes against humans: genocide. The nations of the western hemisphere are a result of genocide. Israel was spawned through ethnic cleansing and slow motion genocide. Can genocide be denied as a hate crime? It is absurd to be arguing for the human rights of a non-human entity, especially when that entity is engaged in the denial of the humanity of another people (i.e., hate).

Some people might dispute that Israel is guilty of genocide. While Zionist Israeli history is revisionist, serious academic scholars of historiography, both Israeli and Palestinian, acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications, 2006). The act of ethnic cleansing epitomizes “hate.” So how do the “haters” of Palestinians manage to pervert the terminology against the people who accurately and courageously point out the hateful acts of Zionists?

Facts:
• Palestinians were the overwhelming indigenous population of Palestine pre-1920 and constituted two-thirds of the population at the time of the UN partition plan.
• Palestine was partitioned by the United Nations irrespective of the views of the majority population residing there.
• Following the UN-mandated partition, Zionist Jews wiped over 500 Palestinian villages off the map and expelled 800,000 Palestinians from their country.Ibid.
• Zionist Jews have continued to undermine Palestinians’ national aspirations.

Jews are not a marginalized group in the world. They are not living as refugees, being ghettoized, starved, humiliated, and terrorized by state machinery, as are the Palestinians. While some Jews may, deplorably, be exposed to racist slurs and stereotypes, as are many ethnic and racial groups in the world, as a group they are not suffering economically and by most comparisons are thriving. Hence, to focus victimhood exclusively on one’s own comparatively well off group while a segment of it is victimizing other identifiable groups, trivializes crimes against humanity. That some progressives would shy away from denouncing crimes that violate core progressivist principles tarnishes a swath of by-standing progressivism and caves in to the malevolence of Zionism.

Commitment to Social Justice

One source says the PEJ editors are trying to hang low, feeling that any publicity will embolden their detractors through repetition. From this vantage point, though, it appears that PEJ’s editorial board has meekly and cowardly capitulated to Zionist-imposed censorship. Media independence must not to be based on pretense, and the commitment to social justice must be steadfast.

“I don’t know how confident I should be in the impartiality of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, nor do I have any concept of the ability of B’nai Brith to influence a decision by the CHRC,” says Lee. “I am however adamant that these are all excellent, proper, honest and objective articles which should be unassailable.”

Yet, the unassailability, honesty, and objectivity of the articles may be inconsequential to the CHRC. Even the truth may be irrelevant. In one case,Kim Petersen, “Progressivism and Free Speech for All,” Dissident Voice, 5 March 2005. the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which is responsible for investigating “hate crimes,” held:

…consistent with a focus on effect rather than intent, it is the effect of the message on the recipient, and ultimately on the person or group vilified, that is the focus of the analysis. The truth in some absolute sense really plays no role. Rather, it is the social context in which the message is delivered and heard which will determine the effect that the communication will have on the listener. It is not the truth or falsity per se that will evoke the emotion but rather how it is understood by the recipient. The objective truth of the statement is ultimately of no consequence if the subjective interpretation, by virtue of tone, social context and medium is one which ‘arouses unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification’. Therefore, in our view, whether the message is true or not is immaterial. Whether it is perceived to be true or credible may very well add to its impact, but its actual basis in truth is outside the scope of this inquiry.Carol A. Valentine, “Letter to the Electronic Frontier Foundation,” 29 October 1998.

B’nai Brith: Running Cover for Hate

The famous British philosopher Thomas Hobbes declared “it was and ever will be reputed a very evil act for any man to speak against his conscience; or to corrupt or force another to do so.”Leviathan, 30. This must apply equally to the silencing of conscience. Hatred, and the promotion of hate, must always be opposed by people of conscience. But even more insidious than the promotion of hate is the practice of hate. Ethnic cleansing, murder, racism, systematized humiliation, and torture are among the “very evil acts” of the Zionist regime. B’nai Brith, by inverting people’s good acts of conscience is, in fact, guilty of far worse than it fraudulently alleges of PEJ News. It is fully complicit in the perpetuation of the vilest acts of hate. If the CHRC is truly concerned about fighting hate, then it must unambiguously denounce this abuse of the human rights system in the strongest language and by the severest possible measures.

The CHRC must also expose the hatred that undergirds B’nai Brith. B’nai Brith is an organization predicated on deliberately running cover for the perpetuation of hate against Palestinians. This is malevolent, and it must be stopped.

Defending Independent Media and Free Speech

PEJ News may be a small progressivist website in sparsely populated Canada, but in cyberspace national boundaries vanish. Moreover, should silencing of dissenting views occur among smaller independent media that leaves bigger independent media more vulnerable. Therefore, it is imperative that anti-free speech measures, be they abuse of hate laws in Canada or elsewhere, must always be resolutely defeated.

If anti-free speech measures are not defeated, the consequence is that the truth and humanity’s access to it will be further imperiled. It is in these dark circumstances that hate flourishes. Without the spotlight of media scrutiny, hate is more easily perpetrated and perpetuated. If the concern is to defeat hate, then free speech is a most valuable weapon.

Free speech must be encouraged — not stifled.

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Read other articles by Kim.

15 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Lila Rajiva said on May 28th, 2007 at 7:42am #

    Nice work, Kim
    Lila

  2. atheo said on May 28th, 2007 at 8:47am #

    Excellent work Kim! Thanks.

  3. Eric Gilbert said on May 28th, 2007 at 10:37am #

    What a kick ass article Kim… You sure know how to make ennemy though 😛 keep on fighting Dude, yer doing a great job!

  4. Angie Tibbs said on May 28th, 2007 at 11:49am #

    An excellent, informed, and meticulously researched article as we have come to expect from Kim Petersen!.

    We must fight vigourously any attempts to curtail our individual and collective right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and, yes, freedom of thought because when courageous, honest, and caring voices are silenced, evil will flourish. It is Peace Earth and Justice News today. Who will it be tomorrow?

  5. Jewish Voice for Peace said on May 28th, 2007 at 3:12pm #

    this is not free speech; every single article written by PEJ on the subject has the same bias. every one holds israel to an appalling double standard. israel gets blamed for last summer in lebanon, but today those same authors are silent about what lebanon itself is doing to palestinian refugee camps. those camps existing, by the way, because lebanon refuses to allow those people the right to travel and hold jobs and live in the country.
    you are now thinking that those refugees should be allowed back into israel, but that is another example of your double standard. just as many jews were expelled from arab countries in the years 45-48, but those jews were welcomed into israel. you call for a one-sided right of return. palestinians should be allowed to return but the jews should not? and why is that, because the arab countries refused to let their arab brothers and sisters into their countries, to use them as pawns in their war against israel. in 1966 the inhabitants of the west bank were jordanian citizens, but in 1968 they were refugees without citizenship? that is ridiculous.

    now let’s look at some of your so-called facts:
    and i quote:
    • Palestinians were the overwhelming indigenous population of Palestine pre-1920 and constituted two-thirds of the population at the time of the UN partition plan.

    pre-1920, the region of palestine included present day israel, the west bank and gaza, and jordan. when you include jordan today, the same numbers are still true. so what? and whoever is the majority, does that mean the minority have no rights?
    in israel both jews and arabs have full civil and political rights. in arab controlled regions, they do not.
    so let’s define our terms. is “palestine” gaza and the west bank? do you want all of israel? are you going back to post-ottoman palestine and include jordan? i’d like to know.

    • Palestine was partitioned by the United Nations irrespective of the views of the majority population residing there.

    i’d love to see a reference for that. did someone do a poll? was there an election? how can you possibly know? and i repeat, the majority does not have the right to trample the minority. if the majority arabs wanted to ethnically cleanse all jews should they be allowed to? oh, yes, they do, and they have, everywhere but in israel. did israel do that? no, almost a million arabs live in the country of israel, and they vote and publish newspapers and serve in the israeli army. minority rights are cool.

    • Following the UN-mandated partition, Zionist Jews wiped over 500 Palestinian villages off the map and expelled 800,000 Palestinians from their country.9

    some were expelled, some fled, some left because they thought the arab armies would destroy israel and they expected to be back soon. many stayed, and now many arab israelis live with full civil rights.
    it is also a fact that the same number of jews were expelled from the surrounding arab countries during the same period. their villages were also destroyed. the difference is that those jews were welcomed into israel, and the arabs were forced into refugee camps by their arab brothers.

    • Zionist Jews have continued to undermine Palestinians’ national aspirations.

    first of all, what is a zionist jew? that phrase makes my skin crawl. you mean a jewish israeli? whatever.
    because israel is a diverse country with free speech and press, there is always a healthy debate. some israeli certainly on the far right. obviously there are also palestinians that have continued to undermine israel’s national aspirations by refusing to recognize the country and attacking it. in the last weeks, hundred of rockets have been launched from gaza into israel. synagogues have been destroyed and people have been killed. israel left gaza last summer and this is the consequence. and you want israel to leave the west bank??

    i’m not saying israel is perfect, …

  6. Calm said on May 28th, 2007 at 4:39pm #

    David Ben-Gurion, once said to his General Staff ….

    “We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”

    That is exactly what Hitler said when speaking about the Jewish Folks!

    At the same time that we were being bombarded with images of Jewish folks leaving the German concentration camps, this kind of thinking was at the very heart of the Israeli government. This plan was being discussed within the Israeli cabinet while the holocaust victims were being paraded across our media waves.

    At the same time that the Jewish folks we’re giving the world a “Guilt-Trip” about the holocaust, they, themselves were contemplating and planning a holocaust against the Palestinian Peoples.

    B’nai Brith is the same group who protested the word “Christian” at Christmas while at the same time financing and supporting the forumulation of a Jewish State. This is the same group of folks who insist on a secular society here in Canada, but support and encourage a Jewish-Only state of Israel.

    Enough is enough!

    If Taiwan put our relationship with billions of Chinese in jeporady, we would soon step in and calm the seas of dissent and plainly tell Taiwan to back off. Yet, we continue to allow 8 million Israeli citizens (or 20 million Jewish folks worldwide) to put our relationship with the billions of Arabs at risk.

    Israel stole every nuclear secret that the West had and now they hold the world hostage with 200 nuclear warheads and threaten nuclear war against any country which they see as a threat.

    In the big picture, Israeli’s are a bunch of nobodies! They deserve no better treatment within this universe then the rest of us.

    Here we are 60 years after the Hitler-Trip and Jewish Folks are still entering courthouses across this universe and insisting on justice and the “Right-Of-Return” of stolen artifacts, property and jewels confiscated by Hitler and The Clowns. I think that the Palestinian people deserve the same “Right-Of-Return” and the same sense of justice that the Jewish Folks insisted upon in every courthouse in the land. Never once did I hear any Jewish Person suggest that the “Facts Had Changed On The Ground” and thus the Jews we’re not entitled to compensation for losses incurred under Hitler … but this is the claim that the Jewish Folks make with the Palestinian People and their RightOf-Return”.

    I’m so tired of watching re-runs of Hogan’s Hero’s, Shindler’s List, Anne Frank and The Boys on the History Channel. I’m so tired of this “Guilt-Trip” that the Jewish folks heap upon us all …. day after day!

    Calm

  7. Kim Petersen said on May 28th, 2007 at 5:38pm #

    I am all for Jewish voices for peace, but, with all due respect, this is a thoroughly uncompelling spiel.

    1. as pointed out in the article, what purpose does it serve to call truth-telling a bias when the options are to be untruthful or straddle the middle?
    2. Lebanon is doing nothing to its refugee camps. As is noted by many analysts, the present Sinoria-led [sic] government is a tool of US imperialists and Israeli Zionists
    3. you are condemning the Palestinians refugees for their victimhood — strange and telling
    4. as for expulsion of Jews from Arab countries, this is deplorable, but a number of the expulsions were Zionist orchestrated to boost the Jewish population of Palestine.
    5. One sided right of return? Sounds like nonsense to me. I do not know of any Palestinian Jews who are refugees; at any rate Jews as an entirety are accorded the right to Israeli citizenship while indigenous Palestinians are refused the right of return. This is clear racism and must be condemned by all people of conscience
    6. That Jordanian despots posing as monarchs granted Jordanian citizenship to West Bank inhabitants was merely a bid for a greater Jordan … West Bank Palestinians were innocent of such geo-political scheming and cannot be blamed
    7. The facts I cite come from Jewish Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. You are obviously engaging in more Zionist historical revisionism
    8. You make my point about the partition of Palestine for me. A plebiscite was refused on the matter.
    9. Arab Israelis have full civil rights!? Surely you jest. You mean like the right to have a Palestinian spouse from the West Bank reside with reside as a citizen in Israel?
    10. A Zionist Jew is a Jew who believes that his/her group has a right to the territory of the indigenous Palestinian people. Many Jews denounce such racist nonsense and are not Zionists. Some Zionists are Christians. It is important not to tar an entire group for the malevolence of a few.
    11. What I want for the people of Palestine-Israel is the wrong question. I have no right to impose a solution. What I can, and must, do is speak out against injustices perpetrated against any segment of humanity. This is what is clear in the case of Palestine-Israel.
    12. It is not a case of Israel being perfect, it is a case of the state observing basic human rights, like respect for the lives of indigenous Palestinians, respecting the right of return, and returning all land stolen through ethnic cleansing … to talk of perfection in the face of such crimes against humanity is, with all due respect, absurd.

  8. B. J . Sabri said on May 28th, 2007 at 6:15pm #

    Kim, yours is an outstanding article!

    I have a remark though. You state, “Yet, neo-liberals, who manage to dominate the governments in many western countries through lesser-evilism politics, have abetted and acquiesced to a consolidation of the monopoly media”.

    That maybe so, but only to a certain extent, and only as far as it concerns the prevalent definition of neo-liberal, which, at any case, is void of any tangible semantic validity except that it gives an impression of politicians who are not right-wingers in the guise of Berlusconi and Azanr. In addition, attributing to those neo-liberals the power to select “lesser-evilism politics” as a general praxis cannot be true, simply because, such praxis does not figure, in my opinion, as an imperative method of governance or contribution to the same.

    I can argue, that so-called forces of neo-liberalism have become a pivotal force in the much larger and dominate force, which is, Neocon imperialism. Neo-liberalism is, therefore, is now a regressive force in western societies whose only function is to mitigate the sense of historical defeat at the hands of right-wingers and Zionists. The” neo” prefix would not alter that fact that in the past as in the present the liberal left never represented or projected itself externally unless through association with the imperialist policies of the United States. An example of this is current Italian foreign minister, Massim D’alema, who metamorphed from a communist, to a leftist liberal, and finally to a stolid pro-American imperialist, all while he continues to retain his Euro-centric “progressive” designation as a member of the Left.

    In the end, when you state that those neo-liberals “have abetted and acquiesced to a consolidation of the monopoly media”, I believe it is not a matter of acquiescence and consolidation; rather, because the lure and benefits of cohabitation and option, neo-liberals are not abetting: They are the direct co-actors in consolidation of the monopoly media.

  9. tentmaker.org » Good Bye to Free Speech in Canada, You’re next USA said on May 29th, 2007 at 8:40am #

    […] Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (Verso, 2000), 89. Finkelstein is backed by historian Raul Hilberg, “‘It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One Else is Out There’ — World-Renowned Holocaust, Israel Scholars Defend DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein as He Fights for Tenure,” Democracy Now! 9 May 2007. In a leap of chutzpah, the next generation of Jews is also claiming victimhood and reparations. See Reuven Weiss, “Lawsuit: Recognize 2nd generation as Shoah victims,” ynet news, 13 April 2007. ? […]

  10. Kim Petersen said on May 29th, 2007 at 9:03pm #

    Appreciate your comments B.J.
    But you aren’t saying that Aznar and Berlusconi are not neoliberals, are you? The term neoliberalism has nothing of the meaning of liberalism in the usual American understanding of the word.
    Originally I considered writing “neoliberals, neoconservatives, Zionists, and imperialists, etc.,” but they all share the adherence to the Washington Consensus. Therefore, I saw no need in hitting the keyboard more times than was necessary.
    Also I stated that neoliberalism was practiced by many western countries where lesser-evilist politics predominate. I mentioned nothing about a general praxis.
    In fact, with all due respect, this is a major digression away from the thrust of the article.

  11. John Zavesky said on May 30th, 2007 at 2:53pm #

    Peterson’s article serves as an excellent arguement that Zionists are the very monster they continually rail about. this is easily understandable. Zionism predates fascism, communism and the National Socialist Party. Zionism promotes the concept of one group being superior to all others. It co-opts Machiavelli. It is very easy to see where the Facists Communists and National Socialists got their start. Knowledge is indeed power, that is why AIPAC, B’nai Brith and their ilk have done evrything in their power to keep Americans ignorant of all things in Palestine, except those that show a people successfully taking action against it’s occupiers. when it comes to Israel’s countless crimes against humanity and violations of international law, Americans are undoubtedly the most ill-informed group of people living in an industrialized nation, and that is exactly how the Zionists want it. As far as Canada goes they will do the same as they’ve done to the E.U. demand that laws be made that do away with the freedom of speech. After all Zionism was born out of a totalitarian philosophy by its orignal founders.

  12. Alex S. said on June 10th, 2007 at 10:30pm #

    “Palestine” is a straw man for Islamofascism.

    If Israel were the problem, then “Palestinians” would be living in peace with their neighbors. Are they?

    After the first Gulf War, Kuwiat kicked out its “Palestinians”.
    King Hussein of Jordan drove out the PLO and Arafat due to their attempt to hijack Jordan.

    Hindu India almost had a nuclear war with Muslim Pakistan, over land. Sound familar?

    Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia were victims in Islamo supremecist riots because the Chinese were see as too successful.

    We read of the almost daily bloodbaths were Muslims are murdering fellow Muslims in Iraq.

    Sadly the “left” is cutting off its nose to spite its face. Siding with Islamofascists against “Joooz”. Reminds one of the 1939 hitler / Stalin non-aggression pact.

  13. T. Stijn said on January 25th, 2008 at 4:20am #

    It’s time this was brought up again.

    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2008/01/24/tremaine-charged.html

  14. Corey said on August 3rd, 2008 at 11:48pm #

    I believe that while at times severe Mr Waxman is doing his duty as a human being. Although propaganda has always existed it has, up until the internet, been quite hard for the average person, or small group – without connections to large industry or state organs to deliver it to the masses.

    As I said above all of that changed with the internet and to a lesser extent affordable home printing, as such it makes sense that certain things found on the internet should be nipped in the bud before they have time to proliferate.

    Freedom of speech means you can say what you want – it does not mean that anyone has to agree with you or that somebody will not try to bring you to court etc etc.

    The U.S constitution guarantees a freedom of speech that shall not be abdriged. — Note it does not say that you cannot be punished for certain speech (Which obviously you can be “Fire” in a theater etc.)

    And if your Canadian you technically do not have a Freedom of speech you have ‘Freedom of expression’ – which in legal speak is much more restrictive and has become more permissive in recent times.

  15. Fredo said on January 21st, 2009 at 6:02pm #

    Reply @:
    Jewish Voice for Peace said on May 28th, 2007 at 3:12pm #

    this is not free speech; every single article written by PEJ on the subject has the same bias. every one holds israel to an appalling double standard. israel gets blamed for last summer in lebanon, but today those same authors are silent about what lebanon itself is doing to palestinian refugee camps. those camps existing, by the way, because lebanon refuses to allow those people the right to travel and hold jobs and live in the country.

    >>>
    I quoted this because it shows you don’t understand the concept of refugees…
    The Palestinians in Lebanon are refugees in self sufficient camps, they already have their jobs (while in their camps) and walk about Lebanon. They are armed and barricaded, harbor known terrorists and leech off the Lebanese people. Here’s an example, when employees from Lebanon’s government owned electricity company go to collect the unpaid bills (stealing electric lines is VERY common!) they get beat up, shot and in some cases… killed! I did not know that this came with the “refugee” status… or …. oh I see, you want to give them citizenship…
    but of course! They were paid for so it’s only a matter of time before they get brand spanking new Lebanese passports and tip the religious faction scale… most likely rocket lebanon in an another “orchestrated” civil war…
    In what country in the world has there been a refugee flux in which the refugees actually STAYED!
    Let me put it this way, would you, in Canada, accept that (for the sake of the example) Americans were allowed to live in camps here. And you would because Canada thinks highly of this and for the better part of the last 40 yrs I’d say, Canada has been the cuddly care bear, welcoming, friendly, pacifist, caring … . Now as their (Americans – still the example) stay excruciatingly stretches, they become more aggressive, more demanding, more threatening, sucking us dry from within. To top things off, they attack civilian personal and commercial property (theft, looting etc) and you have to call in the army… who suffers casualties… remember, you took the Americans as refugees, because the conditions were bad… the conditions are still bad but now u got one of your own.
    Is the solution to make them Canadian? Let’s say, yes. OK, and what if, the combination of American refugees and some sectarian group now form majority? the “bad” majority, the “We have only one God” (Money) majority, I need not spell it, it’s plastered all over this page… You know you’re in even worse shape… you got an internal conflict, an external one and you don’t know what to do.
    It’s too bad this example won’t come through to most people because they can’t see how it can happen. Simple, Lebanon is 10450km2, give or take a couple, some 90 times smaller than Ontario (just to show a country size Vs a state size). It’s got ~4 million inhabitants (God knows who’s included in there), 13 million live abroad, all over the world and you don’t need a PhD to understand why but that’s irrelevant here. And there are half a million Palestinians on “refugee” status, of which about 30k are armed and trained.

    I don’t know where you get your information… don’t anymore, it’s clearly BS.