more on newseum's bigotry
This adds a lot more depth to the sad story of a News Museum that is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Read and rethink all that you think you know about what defines 'journalists'. Who controls that definition.
Just two days before Palestinians commemorate the 65th anniversary of theNakba, the names of two Palestinian cameramen targeted and killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza last November were dropped from a dedication ceremony held tohonor "reporters, photographers and broadcasters who have died reporting the news" over the past year. The move followed an Israel lobby pressure campaignled by anti-Palestinian organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, theFoundation for the Defense of Democracies and the American Jewish Committee, efforts that were openly supported by the Israeli government.
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For the Newseum to be bullied into omitting Salama and al-Kumi from its rededication ceremony by avowedly Zionist groups and right-wing media outlets demonstrates that the institution itself is no less a propaganda outfit than Al-Aqsa TV. This shameful last minute decision effectively grants the U.S. and Israeli governments the ability to decide who is and who is not a journalist and who should and who should not be honored for their work.
But the decision also reeks of hypocrisy and Manichean double standards.
The Newseum is essentially suggesting that sycophantic journalists parroting government propaganda may be legitimate targets in military operations and should be labeled combatants, rather than civilians who enjoy press freedoms and are subject to protection.
Yet this only extends as far as the U.S. State Department says it does.
The ADL's Abe Foxman called Salama and al-Kumi "members of a terrorist organization advancing their agenda through murderous violence" and "terrorist operatives" who "were working for a propaganda outlet, not a legitimate news organization." The AJC's David Harris echoed these sentiments, labeling Salama and al-Kumi as "brazen terrorists" and "two individuals who were integral to the propaganda machine of the Hamas terrorist organization," that could not be considered "a legitimate media operation."
Such terms as "terrorism" and "terrorist" are perhaps the most loaded, politicized,exploited and, consequently, meaningless words in our current lexicon, employed as a bludgeon against critical thinking in order to reinforce "us vs. them"narratives.
Apparently, the Newseum has determined that our propaganda deserves respect and admiration, while their propaganda (in this case, documenting on camera the effects Israeli bombs and missiles have on the human flesh of Palestinian people at Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital) should be condemned, targeted and investigated.
By this measure, plenty of alleged propagandists grace the memorial wall of the Newseum already, with more added during Monday's ceremony.
Mohamed Al-Massalma, a freelance reporter for Al Jazeera, was killed by a sniper while covering the Syrian civil war in Busra Al-Harir in late January 2013. The Syrian journalist, working under the pseudonym Mohamed Al-Horani, was "an activist in the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad," before joining Al Jazeera.
In January 2012, Mukarram Khan Aatif was gunned down in the Pakistani town of Shabqadar by members of the Pakistani Taliban. Aatif was a journalist working for Deewa Radio, the U.S. government's Voice of America Pasto-language service. He was among those honored by the Newseum this year.
The taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) and its affiliated services have beenlegally banned from broadcasting or distribution here in the United States for the past 65 years because of a Congressional act prohibiting the government frompropagandizing to its own citizens. Only last year was this law reversed; the ban will be officially lifted this coming July 2013. VOA is literally U.S. governmentpropaganda, yet its reporters are accorded due protection from violence, as they should be.
Another VOA journalist, Mohammed Ali Nuxurkey, was killed in an al-Shabab bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, this past March There is no doubt he will be added the Newseum's wall next year.
If any distinctions are to be made among different categories of journalists caught in the line of fire or deliberately targeted for murder, international law does not, in fact, favor the Foxman's and Harris' of the world.
While war journalists who are not embedded with troops or themselves soldiers taking direct part in hostilities are legally protected by the law of armed conflict, embedded reporters are not necessarily similarly protected.
According to international law professor Sandesh Sivakumaran, writing for theOxford University Press, embedded journalists, while civilians, may be "casualties of lawful attacks" as "[t]he law allows for the targeting of troops and that targeting may result in bystanders or embedded reporters becoming casualties."
Still, embedded journalists who were killed while accompanying American occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan - a policy promoted by the U.S. military in order to ensure positive reporting on American actions (some might call that propaganda) - have also rightly been accorded a place in the Newseum's memorial. Journalists like Spanish reporter Julio Anguita Parrado and German correspondent Christian Liebig, killed by Iraqi missiles in an April 7, 2003 attack on the U.S. Army's 3rd Division headquarters in Baghdad, are honored by the Newseum as is NBC News soundman Jeremy Little, killed in Fallujah in July 2003 while embedded with the Army's 3rd Infantry.
Sivakumaran also explains that "[j]ournalists who work for media outlets or information services of the armed forces" are legally considered "members of the armed forces," and therefore "don’t benefit from the protections afforded to civilians and their deaths don’t constitute a violation of the law."
As such, the Newseum's glaring duplicity is all the more evident when considering the case of James P. Hunter. A staff sergeant, reporter and photographer with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Hunter was killed on June 18, 2010 by an IED while covering the massive U.S. offensive taking place in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for The Fort Campbell Courier, an Army newspaper in Kentucky. He was an active duty soldier and the first Army journalist to die in combat since 9/11. Still, the Newseum saw fit to honor Hunter on its memorial wall.
Yet in the case of Salama and al-Kumi, "Israeli officials sought to justify attacks on Palestinian media by saying the military had targeted individuals or facilities that 'had relevance to' or were 'linked with' a Palestinian armed group, or had 'encouraged and lauded acts of terror against Israeli civilians,'" according toHuman Rights Watch. "These justifications, suggesting that it is permissible to attack media because of their associations or opinions, however repugnant, rather than their direct participation in hostilities, violate the laws of war and place journalists at grave risk."
If repellent statements, including the justification of and praise for acts of violence against civilians, are the benchmark of propaganda and thereby constitute legitimate targeting for death by those opposed to such statements, then countless American journalists and commentators from across the political spectrum would be subject to the same fate as Salama and al-Kumi.
Warmongering and incitement abound in the editorial pages of The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Liberal commentators like Joe Klein and former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs exalt the extrajudicial executions by flying robot of countless civilians, including a 16-year-old American citizen in Yemen and hundreds of children in Pakistan. Right-wing pundits like Jennifer Rubin and her friends at Commentary and The Weekly Standard openly advocate for the murder of Iranian and Palestinian civilians, endlessly call for permanent war and occupation, support torture and indefinite detention, advocate for the assassination of whistleblowers, scientists and foreign officials, and justify the war crimes of their preferred military forces and governments.
Just days before the car in which Salama and al-Kumi were traveling, marked clearly as a press vehicle, was blown up by an Israeli bomb, Rubin published a post praising the IDF assault on Gaza. Hardly able to contain her glee, Rubin anonymously quoted "an old Middle East hand" declaring that, after weeks of sporadic Israeli air strikes ("a form of messaging to Hamas"), "the Israelis escalated. But still they are avoiding infrastructure, hitting pinpoint high-level Hamas target."
A recent B'Tselem report on Israel's actions last November, however, "challenges the common perception in the Israeli public and media that the operation was 'surgical' and caused practically no fatalities among uninvolved Palestinian civilians," noting that, "in some cases at least, the [Israeli] military violated IHL [international humanitarian law] and in other cases there are substantial reasons to believe IHL was violated." Israeli air strikes killed 167 Palestinians in Gaza, at least 87 of whom were noncombatants, including 31 minors.
Two days after cheering Israeli war crimes, Rubin set her sights on a bigger target. "Israel can keep swatting down Hamas, using air power or, if need be, going into Gaza on land," she wrote. "It has a solemn obligation to defend itself against what was a deliberate escalation by Hamas in the number and quality of weapons launched against Israel's civilian population. But even with the most robust U.S. support this is not a long-term solution. That will only come when Iran is dealt with, either militarily or via regime change."
Anyone arguing that Rubin could be targeted with violence for writing her opinions would be labeled sociopathic and lambasted for incitement, and for good reason. And there is no doubt that if correspondents from Israeli Army Radio or employees of the state-run Israel Broadcasting Authority were killed, they would be honored by the Newseum, without so much as a whiff of dissent, let alone outrage.
It is evident that, as always, Palestinians are subject to unparalleled scrutiny and suspicion due to the tireless defamation and lobbying efforts of big-moneyed Zionist organizations and ideological zealots.
But is it surprising that the Newseum should jump on this bias bandwagon?
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2013/05/buckling-to-bigotry-newseum-dishonors-palestinian-journalists.html
Journalists Memorial Wall, Newseum, Washington D.C.
(Photo Credit: Fallen Soldier/Wikimedia Commons)
Just two days before Palestinians commemorate the 65th anniversary of theNakba, the names of two Palestinian cameramen targeted and killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza last November were dropped from a dedication ceremony held tohonor "reporters, photographers and broadcasters who have died reporting the news" over the past year. The move followed an Israel lobby pressure campaignled by anti-Palestinian organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, theFoundation for the Defense of Democracies and the American Jewish Committee, efforts that were openly supported by the Israeli government.
-------
For the Newseum to be bullied into omitting Salama and al-Kumi from its rededication ceremony by avowedly Zionist groups and right-wing media outlets demonstrates that the institution itself is no less a propaganda outfit than Al-Aqsa TV. This shameful last minute decision effectively grants the U.S. and Israeli governments the ability to decide who is and who is not a journalist and who should and who should not be honored for their work.
But the decision also reeks of hypocrisy and Manichean double standards.
The Newseum is essentially suggesting that sycophantic journalists parroting government propaganda may be legitimate targets in military operations and should be labeled combatants, rather than civilians who enjoy press freedoms and are subject to protection.
Yet this only extends as far as the U.S. State Department says it does.
The ADL's Abe Foxman called Salama and al-Kumi "members of a terrorist organization advancing their agenda through murderous violence" and "terrorist operatives" who "were working for a propaganda outlet, not a legitimate news organization." The AJC's David Harris echoed these sentiments, labeling Salama and al-Kumi as "brazen terrorists" and "two individuals who were integral to the propaganda machine of the Hamas terrorist organization," that could not be considered "a legitimate media operation."
Such terms as "terrorism" and "terrorist" are perhaps the most loaded, politicized,exploited and, consequently, meaningless words in our current lexicon, employed as a bludgeon against critical thinking in order to reinforce "us vs. them"narratives.
Apparently, the Newseum has determined that our propaganda deserves respect and admiration, while their propaganda (in this case, documenting on camera the effects Israeli bombs and missiles have on the human flesh of Palestinian people at Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital) should be condemned, targeted and investigated.
By this measure, plenty of alleged propagandists grace the memorial wall of the Newseum already, with more added during Monday's ceremony.
Mohamed Al-Massalma, a freelance reporter for Al Jazeera, was killed by a sniper while covering the Syrian civil war in Busra Al-Harir in late January 2013. The Syrian journalist, working under the pseudonym Mohamed Al-Horani, was "an activist in the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad," before joining Al Jazeera.
In January 2012, Mukarram Khan Aatif was gunned down in the Pakistani town of Shabqadar by members of the Pakistani Taliban. Aatif was a journalist working for Deewa Radio, the U.S. government's Voice of America Pasto-language service. He was among those honored by the Newseum this year.
The taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) and its affiliated services have beenlegally banned from broadcasting or distribution here in the United States for the past 65 years because of a Congressional act prohibiting the government frompropagandizing to its own citizens. Only last year was this law reversed; the ban will be officially lifted this coming July 2013. VOA is literally U.S. governmentpropaganda, yet its reporters are accorded due protection from violence, as they should be.
Another VOA journalist, Mohammed Ali Nuxurkey, was killed in an al-Shabab bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, this past March There is no doubt he will be added the Newseum's wall next year.
If any distinctions are to be made among different categories of journalists caught in the line of fire or deliberately targeted for murder, international law does not, in fact, favor the Foxman's and Harris' of the world.
While war journalists who are not embedded with troops or themselves soldiers taking direct part in hostilities are legally protected by the law of armed conflict, embedded reporters are not necessarily similarly protected.
According to international law professor Sandesh Sivakumaran, writing for theOxford University Press, embedded journalists, while civilians, may be "casualties of lawful attacks" as "[t]he law allows for the targeting of troops and that targeting may result in bystanders or embedded reporters becoming casualties."
Still, embedded journalists who were killed while accompanying American occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan - a policy promoted by the U.S. military in order to ensure positive reporting on American actions (some might call that propaganda) - have also rightly been accorded a place in the Newseum's memorial. Journalists like Spanish reporter Julio Anguita Parrado and German correspondent Christian Liebig, killed by Iraqi missiles in an April 7, 2003 attack on the U.S. Army's 3rd Division headquarters in Baghdad, are honored by the Newseum as is NBC News soundman Jeremy Little, killed in Fallujah in July 2003 while embedded with the Army's 3rd Infantry.
Sivakumaran also explains that "[j]ournalists who work for media outlets or information services of the armed forces" are legally considered "members of the armed forces," and therefore "don’t benefit from the protections afforded to civilians and their deaths don’t constitute a violation of the law."
As such, the Newseum's glaring duplicity is all the more evident when considering the case of James P. Hunter. A staff sergeant, reporter and photographer with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Hunter was killed on June 18, 2010 by an IED while covering the massive U.S. offensive taking place in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for The Fort Campbell Courier, an Army newspaper in Kentucky. He was an active duty soldier and the first Army journalist to die in combat since 9/11. Still, the Newseum saw fit to honor Hunter on its memorial wall.
Yet in the case of Salama and al-Kumi, "Israeli officials sought to justify attacks on Palestinian media by saying the military had targeted individuals or facilities that 'had relevance to' or were 'linked with' a Palestinian armed group, or had 'encouraged and lauded acts of terror against Israeli civilians,'" according toHuman Rights Watch. "These justifications, suggesting that it is permissible to attack media because of their associations or opinions, however repugnant, rather than their direct participation in hostilities, violate the laws of war and place journalists at grave risk."
If repellent statements, including the justification of and praise for acts of violence against civilians, are the benchmark of propaganda and thereby constitute legitimate targeting for death by those opposed to such statements, then countless American journalists and commentators from across the political spectrum would be subject to the same fate as Salama and al-Kumi.
Warmongering and incitement abound in the editorial pages of The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Liberal commentators like Joe Klein and former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs exalt the extrajudicial executions by flying robot of countless civilians, including a 16-year-old American citizen in Yemen and hundreds of children in Pakistan. Right-wing pundits like Jennifer Rubin and her friends at Commentary and The Weekly Standard openly advocate for the murder of Iranian and Palestinian civilians, endlessly call for permanent war and occupation, support torture and indefinite detention, advocate for the assassination of whistleblowers, scientists and foreign officials, and justify the war crimes of their preferred military forces and governments.
Just days before the car in which Salama and al-Kumi were traveling, marked clearly as a press vehicle, was blown up by an Israeli bomb, Rubin published a post praising the IDF assault on Gaza. Hardly able to contain her glee, Rubin anonymously quoted "an old Middle East hand" declaring that, after weeks of sporadic Israeli air strikes ("a form of messaging to Hamas"), "the Israelis escalated. But still they are avoiding infrastructure, hitting pinpoint high-level Hamas target."
A recent B'Tselem report on Israel's actions last November, however, "challenges the common perception in the Israeli public and media that the operation was 'surgical' and caused practically no fatalities among uninvolved Palestinian civilians," noting that, "in some cases at least, the [Israeli] military violated IHL [international humanitarian law] and in other cases there are substantial reasons to believe IHL was violated." Israeli air strikes killed 167 Palestinians in Gaza, at least 87 of whom were noncombatants, including 31 minors.
Two days after cheering Israeli war crimes, Rubin set her sights on a bigger target. "Israel can keep swatting down Hamas, using air power or, if need be, going into Gaza on land," she wrote. "It has a solemn obligation to defend itself against what was a deliberate escalation by Hamas in the number and quality of weapons launched against Israel's civilian population. But even with the most robust U.S. support this is not a long-term solution. That will only come when Iran is dealt with, either militarily or via regime change."
Anyone arguing that Rubin could be targeted with violence for writing her opinions would be labeled sociopathic and lambasted for incitement, and for good reason. And there is no doubt that if correspondents from Israeli Army Radio or employees of the state-run Israel Broadcasting Authority were killed, they would be honored by the Newseum, without so much as a whiff of dissent, let alone outrage.
It is evident that, as always, Palestinians are subject to unparalleled scrutiny and suspicion due to the tireless defamation and lobbying efforts of big-moneyed Zionist organizations and ideological zealots.
But is it surprising that the Newseum should jump on this bias bandwagon?
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2013/05/buckling-to-bigotry-newseum-dishonors-palestinian-journalists.html
posted by Satish Sharma at
01:23
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