Saturday, May 19, 2018

Who's Afraid of Philip Cross? Chasing the Wikipedia Phantom

The Philip Cross Affair

by Craig Murray


May 18, 2018

UPDATE “Philip Cross” has not had one single day off from editing Wikipedia in almost five years. “He” has edited every single day from 29 August 2013 to 14 May 2018. Including five Christmas Days. That’s 1,721 consecutive days of editing.
133,612 edits to Wikpedia have been made in the name of “Philip Cross” over 14 years. That’s over 30 edits per day, seven days a week. And I do not use that figuratively: Wikipedia edits are timed, and if you plot them, the timecard for “Philip Cross’s” Wikipedia activity is astonishing is astonishing if it is one individual:


The operation runs like clockwork, seven days a week, every waking hour, without significant variation. If Philip Cross genuinely is an individual, there is no denying he is morbidly obsessed. I am no psychiatrist, but to my entirely inexpert eyes this looks like the behaviour of a deranged psychotic with no regular social activities outside the home, no job (or an incredibly tolerant boss), living his life through a screen.

I run what is arguably the most widely read single person political blog in the UK, and I do not spend nearly as much time on the internet as “Philip Cross”. My “timecard” would show where I watch football on Saturdays, go drinking on Fridays, go to the supermarket and for a walk or out with the family on Sundays, and generally relax much more and read books in the evenings. Cross does not have the patterns of activity of a normal and properly rounded human being.

There are three options here. “Philip Cross” is either a very strange person indeed, or is a false persona disguising a paid operation to control wikipedia content, or is a real front person for such an operation in his name.

Why does this – to take the official explanation – sad obsessive no friends nutter, matter?

Because the purpose of the “Philip Cross” operation is systematically to attack and undermine the reputations of those who are prominent in challenging the dominant corporate and state media narrative. particularly in foreign affairs. “Philip Cross” also systematically seeks to burnish the reputations of mainstream media journalists and other figures who are particularly prominent in pushing neo-con propaganda and in promoting the interests of Israel.

This matters because, an ordinary reader who comes across an article questioning (say) the official narrative on the Skripals, is very likely to turn to Wikipedia to get information on the author of the article.

Simply put, the purpose of the “Philip Cross” operation is to make certain that if that reader looks up an anti-war person such as John Pilger, they will conclude they are thoroughly unreliable and untrustworthy, whereas if they look up a right wing MSM journalist, they will conclude they are a paragon of virtue and entirely to be trusted.

The “Philip Cross” treatment is meted out not just to left wingers, but to all sceptical of neo-conservatism and who oppose “wars of intervention”. A list of Cross’s victims includes Alex Salmond, Peter Oborne, John Pilger, Owen Jones, Jeremy Corbyn, Tim Hayward, Diane Abbott, Neil Clark, Lindsey German, Vanessa Beeley, and George Galloway. As you would expect “Philip Cross” is particularly active in making amendments to the Wikipedia articles of alternative media, and of MSM critique sites.

“Philip Cross” has made 36 edits to the Wikipedia entry of The Canary and, staggeringly, over 800 edits on Media Lens. George Galloway remains the “Philip Cross” operation’s favourite target with a quite incredible 1,800 edits.

Just as revealing are the people who “Philip Cross” seeks to protect and promote. Sarah Smith, BBC Scotland’s uber-unionist, has had “Philip Cross” kindly delete references from her Wikipedia entry to family ties that (ahem) may have helped her career. Labour Friends of Israel’s Ruth Smeeth MP has had reference to the Wikileaks released US diplomatic cable that showed she was an informer to the US Embassy on the secrets of the Labour Party, deleted by “Philip Cross”. Right wing columnist Melanie Phillips had her embarrassing climate change denial excised by Cross.

“Philip Cross” not only carefully tends and protects the Wikipedia entry of Guardian editor Katherine Viner, who has taken the paper four square into the neo-con camp, Philip Cross actually wrote the original hagiographic entry.

The Guardian’s MI6 contact, Luke Harding, is particularly looked after by Cross, as are their anti-Corbyn obsessives Nick Cohen and Jonathon Freedland. So are Murdoch hacks David Aaronovitch and Oliver Kamm.

There is no doubt that Kamm, leader wirter of Murdoch’s Times, is close the the “Philip Cross” operation. Many people believe that Kamm and Cross are the same person, or that Kamm is part of a multiple persona. Six times I have personally had hostile edits to my Wikipedia page by “Philip Cross” made in precise conjunction with attacks on me by Kamm, either on Twitter, in a Times editorial or in Prospect magazine.

Altogether “Philip Cross” has made 275 edits to my Wikipedia page. These include calling my wife a stripper, deleting my photo, removing my reply to attacks made on me by Kamm and Harding among others, and deleting my refusal of all honours while a British diplomat.

Neil Clark and Peter Oborne are among many others who have suffered attacks on them by Philip Cross on Wikipedia simultaneously with attacks by Kamm on other media. Clark is taking Kamm to court for stalking – and “Philip Cross” has deleted all reference to that fact from Kamm’s Wikipedia page.

What is plain is that Kamm and Cross have extremely similar political views, and that the dividing line of those they attack and those they defend is based squarely on the principles of the Euston Manifesto. This may be obscure, but is in fact an important Blairite declaration of support for Israel and for neo-con wars of intervention, and was linked to the foundation of the Henry Jackson Society. Who do we find editing the Wikipedia entry for the Euston Manifesto? “Philip Cross”.

What is particularly interesting is that “Philip Cross”‘s views happen to be precisely the same political views as those of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales has been on twitter the last three days being actively rude and unpleasant to anybody questioning the activities of Philip Cross. His commitment to Cross’s freedom to operate on Wikipedia would be rather more impressive if the Cross operation were not promoting Wales’ own opinions. Jimmy Wales has actively spoken against Jeremy Corbyn, supports the bombing of Syria, supports Israel, is so much of a Blairite he married Blair’s secretary, and sits on the board of Guardian Media Group Ltd alongside Katherine Viner.

The extreme defensiveness and surliness of Wales’ twitter responses on the “Philip Cross” operation is very revealing. Why do you think he reacts like this? Interestingly enough. Wikipedia’s UK begging arm, Wikimedia UK, joined in with equal hostile responses to anyone questioning Cross.




In response many people sent Jimmy Wales evidence, which he ignored, while his “charity” got very upset with those questioning the Philip Cross operation.







Wikimedia had arrived uninvited into a twitter thread discussing the “Philip Cross” operation and had immediately started attacking people questioning Cross’s legitimacy. Can anybody else see anything “insulting” in my tweet?

I repeat, the coincidence of Philip Cross’s political views with those of Jimmy Wales, allied to Wales’ and Wikimedia’s immediate hostility to anybody questioning the Cross operation – without needing to look at any evidence – raises a large number of questions.

“Philip Cross” does not attempt to hide his motive or his hatred of those whose Wikipedia entries he attacks. He openly taunts them on twitter. The obvious unbalance of his edits is plain for anybody to see.

I have in the past exchanged messages with “Philip Cross”. He says he is a person, and that he edits in conjunction with Oliver Kamm tweets because he follows Kamm and his tweets inspire him to edit. He says he has met Kamm and admits to being in electronic communication with him. That excjange I had with Cross was some years ago. More recent communication with Cross (who has now changed his twitter ID to “Julian” has been less forthcoming and he has not replied:





George Galloway has offered a reward of £1,000 for the name and address of “Cross” so he may also take legal action.

My view is that Philip Cross probably is a real person, but that he fronts for a group acting under his name. It is undeniably true, in fact the government has boasted, that both the MOD and GCHQ have “cyber-war” ops aiming to defend the “official” narrative against alternative news media, and that is precisely the purpose of the “Philip Cross” operation on Wikipedia. The extreme regularity of output argues against “Philip Cross” being either a one man or volunteer operation. I do not rule out however the possibility he genuinely is just a single extremely obsessed right wing fanatic.

Finally, it is worth noting that on Wikipedia, an operation to boost the mainstream media narrative and denigrate alternative sources has the massive advantage that only information from mainstream media sources is permitted in political articles.

In conclusion, some images from the edit pages of Wikipedia articles to give just a little flavour of what I am talking about:


















I am slightly concerned lest I am myself getting obsessed. Do you find this as fascinating as I do?

Phony Facebook-Fueled Revolution Threatens Nicaraguan Democracy

An Urgent Call for Solidarity with Nicaragua 

by Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo/ ChicagoALBASolidarity


May 19, 2018

An Urgent Call for Solidarity with Nicaragua Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo Rural Workers Association


Friends in Solidarity: We have lived a month full of tragedy in our country. The peace we achieved as a people, so fragile and at the cost of so many lives, is in imminent danger of disappearing irreparably. There are now two sizeable camps of the population with dangerously contrary positions.

On one side a combination of private university students, media outlets with rightwing owners representing the oligarchy, Catholic Church bishops close to Opus Dei, the private sector, and of course the US Embassy, working together to create chaos in the country in order to remove president Ortega.

This group of actors accuses the National Police of having killed dozens of protestors in the riots that reached all Nicaraguan cities, ostensibly against a reform—since revoked—to the system of social security. As we have described, the reality is more complex, and the violence was generalized and explosive, involving protestors with homemade firearms that often misfired, as well as counter-protestors, paid pickets, unknown gunmen and street gangs.

The National Police was really a minor actor in the violence, using tear gas and rubber bullets to clear crowds in a few points of Managua, but not involved in the vast majority of the 50 or more deaths that have been reported since April. The InterAmerican Commission of Human Rights has been invited by the government and currently is investigating the events of April.

A national dialogue began on Wednesday, May 16th, with the participation of anti-government students, civil society organizations, and the Presidency, and mediation by the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church led by Archbishop Leonaldo Brenes.

However, the coup-like violence has only grown and currently, rightwing armed groups have all of the main highways in the country closed. On the other side of the conflict, the militancy of the Sandinista Front continues to withstand phenomenal provocations, including:

  • The destruction of its Sandinista homes (party headquarters) in dozens of cities
  • The destruction or defacement of hundreds of historic monuments, murals, and
  • memorials of Sandinistas
  • The arson of dozens of public buildings
  • The interruption of work and the food shortages that have resulted from the road
  • closures and violence
  • The deaths of passersby and journalists by paid pickets and violent protestors
  • Relentless false accusations and lies circulated by corporate media.

It must be added that Facebook has been the primary means for transforming Nicaraguan society that one month ago was at peace into a toxic, hate-filled nightmare. Currently, hundreds of thousands of fake Facebook profiles amplify the hatred and pressure Nicaraguan Facebook users to begin to share and post hate messages.

Many, if not most, of these fake Facebook profiles have been created in countries other than Nicaragua, and in particular, Miami is the city where many of the Facebook and WhatsApp accounts behind the violence are managed.


Historically, the ATC has been a participant in the Sandinista struggle. In truth, we have not felt consulted or represented by the current FSLN government.

The current coup attempt makes use of these historical contradictions and is trying to co-opt the symbols, slogans, poems and songs of Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution, since of course the rightwing has none of its own.

However we may feel about Daniel Ortega, the ATC would never contribute to chaos and sowing violence in order to force the collapse of the democratically elected government in order to install a more docile, Washington-friendly neoliberal government.

There are clearly real frustrations in sectors of the population, especially youth, and if these sectors are unable to find popular organizing processes, they will end up being the cannon fodder for a war, which would be the worst possible situation for the Nicaraguan people.

In this context, the ATC has called for “all national actors to reorganize themselves based on their aspirations.” With this intention, the ATC proposes to confront the national crisis with a series of dialogues among young people, without party distinction or any ideological basis, in favor of peace and understanding.

We propose extraordinary youth assemblies in the cities of San Marcos, Jinotepe, Rivas, Granada, Masaya, Estelí, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Juigalpa, Santo Tomás and Tipitapa, as spaces for young people to discuss the national situation and find points of unity. It is important to mention that we do not have a previously defined “line” to impose upon these debates—they will be spaces for listening, forming ideas and thinking with our hearts.

We call upon your solidarity and generous support for the creation of an emergency fund for peace in Nicaragua that makes possible this round of extraordinary youth assemblies. The national coordinators of the Rural Youth Movement, Sixto Zelaya and Marlen Sanchez, will have the responsibility of organizing the assemblies and administering the fund with absolute transparency.

It is urgent to organize the Nicaraguan family and win peace!


International Secretariat of the ATC

Death or Democracy? US Looms Over Venezuela's Election

Venezuela on the Eve of Presidential Elections: The US Empire Isn’t Sitting by Idly 

by Roger Harris - CounterPunch


May 18, 2018

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” — US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, 1970 


Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is the frontrunner in the presidential elections scheduled for May 20.

If past pronouncements and practice by the US empire are any indication, every effort will be made to oust an avowed socialist from what is considered the US’ “backyard.”

With a week to go to the election, the leftist president of Bolivia Evo Morales tweeted:

“Before the elections they (US and allies) will carry out violent actions supported by the media and after the elections they will try a military invasion with Armed Forces from neighboring countries.” 


Photo by Joka Madruga | CC BY 2.0 

 All signals from the Trump White House and the Pentagon are that Evo is on target.

US antipathy towards the Venezuelan government started with the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998, followed by a brief and unsuccessful US-backed coup in 2002. Chávez made the magnanimous, but politically imprudent, gesture of pardoning the golpistas (coup perpetrators), who are still trying to achieve by extra-parliamentary means what they have been unable to realize democratically. After Chávez died in 2013, the Venezuelans elected Maduro to carry on what has become known as the Bolivarian Revolution.

The Phantom Menace


In 2015 then US President Obama declared “a national emergency” posed to the security of the US by Venezuela. Understand that the US has military bases to the west of Venezuela in Colombia and to the east in the Dutch colonial islands. The US Fourth Fleet patrols Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. Yet somehow in the twisted logic of imperialism, the phantom of Venezuela posed a menacing “extraordinary threat” to the US.

Each year Obama renewed and deepened sanctions against Venezuela under the National Emergencies Act. Taking no chances that his successor might not be sufficiently hostile to Venezuela, Obama prematurely renewed the sanctions his last year in office even though the sanctions would not have expired until two months into Trump’s tenure.

The fear was that presumptive US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson might try to normalize US-Venezuelan relations to negotiate an oil deal between Venezuela and his former employer Exxon. As it turns out, the Democrats need not have feared Trump going soft on regime change.

Last August, the new US President Trump openly raised the “military option” to overthrow Venezuela’s democratically elected government. To which David Smilde of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) counseled for regime change, not by military means, but by “deepening the current sanctions” to “save Venezuela.” The liberal-ish inside-the-beltway NGO argued against a direct military invasion because the Venezuelan military would resist, not because such an act is the gravest violation of international law.

Meanwhile the sanctions have taken a punishing toll on the Venezuelan people, even causing death. Sanctions are designed, in Henry Kissinger’s blood-curdling words, to “make the economy scream” so that the people will abandon their democratically elected government for one vetted by the US.

In January, Trump’s first State of the Union address called for regime change of leftist governments in Latin America, boasting “My government has imposed harsh sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela.” Hearing these stirring words, both Democrats and Republicans burst out in thunderous applause.

“Dictatorships,” as the term is wielded by the US government and mainstream media, should be understood as countries that try to govern in the interests of their own peoples rather than privileging the dictates of the US State Department and the prerogatives of international capital.

Attack of the Clones


In addition to summoning Venezuela’s sycophantic domestic opposition, who support sanctions against their own people, the US has gone on the offensive using the regional Lima Group to destabilize Venezuela. The group was established last August in Lima, the capital of Peru, as a block to oppose Venezuela.

The eighth Summit of the Americas was held in Lima in April under the lofty slogan of “democratic governance against corruption.” Unfortunately for the imperialists, the president of the host country was unable to greet the other US clones. A few days earlier he had been forced to resign because of corruption. Venezuelan President Maduro was barred from attending.

Along with Peru and the US’ ever faithful junior partner Canada, other members of the Lima Group are:

+ Mexico, a prime participant of the US-sponsored War on Drugs, is plagued with drug cartel violence. The frontrunner for the July presidential election is left-of-center Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who is widely believed to have won the last two elections only to have them stolen from him.

+ Panama’s government is a direct descendent of the one installed on a US warship when the US invaded Panama in 1989. Recall the triggering incidentwhich unleashed the US bombs and 26,000 troopsinto Panama against a defense force of 3,000: a GI in civilian clothes was fatally shot running a military checkpoint and another GI and his wife were assaulted. What similarly grave affront to the global hegemon might precipitate a comparable military response for Venezuela? Panama imposed sanctions against Venezuela in a spat in April, accusing Venezuela of money laundering. Panama is a regional money laundering center for the illicit drug trade (some alleged through a Trump-owned hotel).

+ Argentina elected Mauricio Macri president in 2015. He immediately sold the country out to the vulture funds and the IMF while imposing severe austerity measures on working people. The economy has tanked, reversing the gains of the previous left-leaning presidencies of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández. Military and diplomatic deference to the US has become the order of the day. Macri has negotiated installation of two US military bases in Argentina, first with Obama and now with Trump.

+ Brazil deposed its left-leaning, democratically elected President Dilma Rouseff in a 2016 parliamentary coup. Her successor, the unelected Michel Temer, has imposed austerity measures and cooperated with the US in joint military exercises along the Brazilian border with Venezuela. Temer suffers from single digit popularity ratings and is barred from running for public office due to a corruption conviction. Former left-leaning president “Lula” da Silva is the frontrunner in the upcoming 2018 Brazilian presidential election but was imprisoned in April by the current government.

+ Chile was the victim of the US-backed coup, which overthrew the elected left-leaning government of Salvador Allende in 1973. A reign of terror followed with the rightwing Pinochet government killing thousands. An economic and diplomatic destabilization campaign coordinated by Washington set the stage for the coup. The Chilean regime-change scenario is the imperialist’s model for Venezuela. Only the rightwing opposition in Venezuela is even less kind, having already torched a maternity hospital with mothers and babies inside and even poured gasoline on suspected chavistas, burning them alive.

+ Colombia is the US’ closest ally in the region, the recipient of the most US military aid, and the source of the greatest amount of illicit drugs afflicting the US. The Colombian government has flaunted its recent peace accords with the FARC and continues to be a world leader in internally displaced persons and political assassinations of trade union leaders, human rights workers, and journalists. In cooperation with the US, Colombia has been provocatively massing troops along its border with Venezuela.

+ Costa Rica is a neo-liberal state that has been a staunch silent partner of US imperialism ever since it served as a base for the Contra war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

+ Guatemala is a major source of undocumented immigrants fleeing violence into the relative safety of the US. Femicide is rampant as is criminal impunity, all legacies of the US-backed dirty war of genocide from the 1960s through the ‘80s, which claimed some 200,000 Mayan lives.

+ Honduras’ left-leaning President Zelaya was deposed in a US-backed coup in 2009. In the aftermath of rightwing repression and domestic violence, Honduras earned the title of murder capital of the world. The current rightwing president was reelected last November in an election so blatantly fraudulent that even the Organization of American States (OAS) failed to endorse the results.

+ Paraguay is the site of the first of the rightwing parliamentary coups in the region when left-leaning President Fernando Lugo was deposed in 2012.

Such is the nature of the rightwing states allied against Venezuela in contemporary Latin America. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this right tide in Latin America is the willingness of Brazil and Argentina to allow US military installations in their border areas as well as conducting joint US-led military exercises with contingents from Panama, Colombia and other countries.

Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua are Venezuela’s few remaining regional allies, all of which have been subject to US-backed regime-change schemes. Most recently, the Nicaraguan government undertook modest measures to shore up its social security system and was faced with a wave of violence, which even sources hostileto the Ortega government labelled as “made in the USA.”

The Empire Strikes Back


In early April, the US Southern Command conducted a series of military exercises, dubbed “Fused Response,” just 10 miles off the Venezuelan coast simulating an invasion.

Later that month, Juan Cruz, Special Assistant to President Trump and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, was asked whether the US government supports a military coupin Venezuela. Speaking for the White House and dripping with imperial arrogance, he responded affirmatively:

“If you look at the history of Venezuela, there’s never been a seminal movement in Venezuela’s history, politics, that did not involve the military. And so it would be naïve for us to think that a solution in Venezuela wouldn’t in some fashion include a very strong nod – at a minimum – strong nod from the military, a whisper in the ear, a coaxing or a nudging, or something a lot stronger than that.”

Across the Atlantic on May 3, the European Parliament demanded Venezuela suspend presidential elections. Four days later, US Vice President Pence called on the OAS to expel Venezuela. Adding injury to insult, the US announced yet another round of sanctions. Then the next day, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley joined the chorus calling on President Maduro to cancel the presidential election and resign.

Far more blatant and frightening is the Plan to Overthrow the Venezuelan Dictatorship – Masterstroke, dated February 23, 2018. Masterstroke was leaked on the website Voltairenet.organd picked up by Stella Calloni in the reliable and respected Resumen Latinoamericano. Although Masterstroke is unverified, the contents as reported by Calloni are entirely consistent with US policy and pronouncements:

“The document signed by the head of the US Southern Command demands making the Maduro government unsustainable by forcing him to give up, negotiate or escape. This Plan to end in very short terms the so-called “dictatorship” of Venezuela calls for, ‘Increase internal instability to critical levels, intensifying the decapitalization of the country, the escape of foreign capital and the deterioration of the national currency, through the application of new inflationary measures that increase this deterioration.’”

That is, blame the Venezuelan government for the conditions imposed upon it by its enemies.

Masterstroke calls for “Continuing to harden the condition within the (Venezuelan) Armed Forces to carry out a coup d’état, before the end of 2018, if this crisis does not cause the dictatorship to collapse or if the dictator (Maduro) does not decide to step aside.”

Failing an internal coup, Masterstroke plans an international military invasion: “Uniting Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Panama to contribute a good number of troops, make use of their geographic proximity…”

A New Hope


With the urging of the Pope and under the auspices of the government of the Dominican Republic, the Maduro government and elements of the opposition agreed to sit down to negotiate last January in the hopes of ending the cycle of violence and the deterioration of living conditions in Venezuela.

By early February they had come to a tentative agreement to hold elections. The Maduro government initially opposed a UN election observation team as a violation of national sovereignty, but then accepted it as a concession to the opposition. The opposition in turn would work to end the unilateral sanctions by the US, Canada, and the EU, which are so severely crippling the daily life of ordinary Venezuelans. Two years of adroit diplomacy by the Maduro government with the less extreme elements of the opposition were bearing fruit.

The agreement had been crafted and a meeting was called for the government and the opposition to sign on. The government came to the final meeting, but not the opposition. The opposition as good clones of Washington had gotten a call from their handlers to bail.

In a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t scenario, the US first accused Venezuela of not scheduling presidential elections. Then elections were scheduled, but too early for the US. Then the date of the elections was moved to April and then extended to May. No matter what, the US would not abide by any elections in Venezuela. Ipso factoelections are considered fraudulent by US if the people might vote for the wrong candidate.

MUD, the coalition of Venezuelan opposition groups allied with and partially funded by the US, are accordingly boycotting the May 30 election and are putting pressure on Henri Falcón to withdraw his candidacy. Falcón is Maduro’s main competition in the election. MUD has already concluded that the election is fraudulent and are doing all they can to discourage voting.

CNBC, reflecting the Washington consensus, expects the US to directly target the Venezuelan oil industry immediately after the election in what they describe as “a huge sucker punchto Maduro’s socialist administration, which is depending almost entirely on crude sales to try and decelerate a deepening economic crisis.”

Ever hopeful and always militant, Maduro launched the new Petro cryptocurrency and revaluated the country’s traditional currency, the Bolivar, in March. The Petro is collateralized on Venezuela’s vast mineral resources: the largest petroleum reserves in the world and large reserves of gold and other precious metals. The US immediately accused Venezuela of sinisterly trying to circumvent the sanctions…which is precisely the intent of the Petro and other economic reforms, some of which are promised for after the presidential election.

The Force Awakens


Latin America has been considered the US empire’s proprietary backyard since the proclamation of the Monroe Document in 1823, reaffirmed by John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress in 1961, and asserted by today’s open military posturing by President Trump.

The so-called Pink Tide of left-leaning governments spearheaded by Venezuela in the early part of this century served as a counter-hegemonic force. By any objective estimation that force has been ebbing but can awaken.

Before Chávez, all of Latin America suffered under neo-liberal regimes except Cuba. If Maduro is overthrown, a major obstacle to re-establishing this hemispheric wide neoliberalism would be gone.

The future of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution is pivotal to the future of the counter-hegemonic project, which is why it is the empire’s prime target in the Western Hemisphere. If the Venezuelan government falls, all Latin American progressive movements could suffer immensely: AMLO’s campaign in Mexico, the resistance in Honduras and Argentina, maybe the complete end of the peace accords in Colombia, a left alternative to Moreno in Ecuador, the Sandinista social programs in Nicaragua, the struggle for Lula’s presidency in Brazil, and even Evo Morales and the indigenous movements in Bolivia.

Roger D. Harris is on the State Central Committee of the Peace and Freedom Party, the only ballot-qualified socialist party in California.
More articles by:Roger Harris

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Watching 'Killing Gaza'

'Killing Gaza': A New Documentary on Palestinians Under Siege

by TRNN


May 18, 2018

In their new film “Killing Gaza,” journalists Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal capture the harrowing stories of Palestinians who survived the 2014 Israeli assault, and their struggles to recover and persist under a crippling blockade.


Watch video https://vimeo.com/ondemand/killinggaza/255266362

Denying Venezuelan Democracy: US Wants No Observers, Press Won't Watch

Writing Off Democracy in Venezuela, US Press and Politicians Dream of a Coup

by Alan MacLeod - FAIR


May 16, 2018

When are elections free and fair, according to corporate media? When the US government says they are.

The May 20 Venezuelan presidential elections pit Hugo Chavez’s successor, President Nicolas Maduro, against opposition challenger Henri Falcon. Maduro has called for the United Nations to observe and oversee the contest.

Despite calling for elections throughout 2017, many local opposition groups, together with the US government, have demanded no observers should come, arguing that it would “validate” the elections, and have preemptively decided they will not recognize the victor.

The US State Department (2/8/18) has cast doubt on the validity of the elections, claiming they represent a “dismantling” of Venezuela’s democracy, as “they do not have the agreement of all political parties.” That the country is ruled by a dictator presiding over fake elections is taken as a given by corporate media; the Miami Herald (5/2/18) declared the contest “fraudulent,” a “sham,” a “charade” and a “joke” in one column alone.

The major argument for this declaration is the barring of certain candidates from running, chiefly Leopoldo Lopez, (pictured above).

Lopez is under house arrest after being convicted of leading a violent coup attempt against the government in 2014, and was also a key member of the 2002 coup against Chavez; even the State Department has called him “arrogant, vindictive and power-hungry.”

Glossing over or simply not mentioning these key details in a 9,000-word puff piece, the New York Times Magazine (3/1/18) presented him as a Christ-like figure, “the most prominent political prisoner in Latin America, if not the world,” comparing him to Martin Luther King.

 

Miami Herald (5/2/18


This is hardly the first time media have labeled elections in Venezuela a sham. As detailed in my new book, Bad News From Venezuela: 20 Years of Fake News and Misreporting, US media overwhelmingly presented, by a 12:1 ratio, the 2013 elections as unclean. The Miami Herald (4/13/13) claimed that there was “evidence that the country’s 2.4 million public-sector workers, and hundreds of thousands of government welfare recipients, were being pressured to vote along party lines,” and that “the media disparity is one of the most visible examples of the government’s campaign advantage,” with Maduro lording over a huge state media empire and the opposition “competing” on the “cowed” private media.

As the Washington Post (4/11/13) summed up:

"Unsurprisingly, polls show that Mr. Maduro will win this grossly one-sided contest. If by some chance he does not, the regime is unlikely to accept the results."

This contradicted years of positive appraisals from independent observers like the European Union. An AGB Nielsen report on the country showed that the state accounted for less than 10 percent of the TV market.

It was even contradicted by US organizations Washington had paid to go there. The Washington-based Carter Center’s report on the 2013 election noted that Maduro’s opponent received nearly three times as much TV coverage, mostly positive, while Maduro’s coverage was mostly negative. It also reported that less than 1 percent of Venezuelans claimed to have been pressured to vote in any direction, and twice as many for the opposition as for Maduro. Indeed, its founder, Jimmy Carter (9/11/12) stated categorically: “The election process in Venezuela is the best in the world…. They have a very wonderful voting system.”


In recent months, the US government has begun to discuss an invasion, with President Trump noting,

"We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option."

 

BBC (2/2/18


It is also openly promoting a coup in the beleaguered nation, as then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (BBC, 2/2/18) stated:

"In the history of Venezuela and South American countries, it is often times that the military is the agent of change when things are so bad and the leadership can no longer serve the people."


Senator Marco Rubio (Twitter, 2/9/18) was even less cryptic, announcing:

"The world would support the armed forces in Venezuela if they decide to protect the people and restore democracy by removing a dictator."

Such direct interference is the sort that Russia can only dream of. Yet much of the media, indignant about Russian impact on the US elections, are openly supporting a coup in Venezuela. The Washington Post (11/15/17) ran with the headline “The Odds of a Military Coup in Venezuela Are Going Up. But Sometimes Coups Can Lead to Democracy,” while the New York Review of Books (3/8/18) lamented,

"The army does not at present seem to be showing signs of rebellion."

It appears the only pushback against a coup is on strategic grounds; Foreign Policy (5/4/18) noted,

“The most viable path to change involves the military in some way,” but cautioned that a failed coup might backfire, encouraging Venezuela to seek more active ties to Russia and China, giving them a foothold in our “backyard.”

Opposition on moral or legal grounds appears low to nonexistent. Previous FAIR studies found that 95 percent of op-eds expressed clear and open hostility to the elected government.

Indeed, this is hardly the first time the media have supported a coup in the country.


Washington Post (11/15)


As Bad News From Venezuela catalogs, in 2002 the US trained and backed similar opposition groups, who, after deposing Chavez, then liquidated the Supreme Court, dismissed every elected official and began rounding up and arresting political and media figures who opposed them.

The coup was met with unabashed enthusiasm by much of the US media, with many insisting that no coup had taken place, even weeks after the brief coup government had collapsed and Chavez was swept back to power by a popular revolution. And only 11 of 112 articles mentioned even the possibility of US involvement, with the New York Times (4/13/02) claiming (emphasis added):

"With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chavez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader."

While the Post (4/14/02) blamed Chavez for the whole affair:

"Mr. Chavez was a terrible leader. His senseless mix of populist and socialist decrees seriously damaged the economy and galvanized opposition."

Writing in the New York Times (3/6/18), Henri Falcon has promised to open the country up to international agencies like the World Bank and IMF, and to dollarize the local currency, moves which are sure to be a bonanza for Western corporations. Nevertheless, some opinion polls show Maduro is the favorite to win, in part due to the highly unpopular opposition parties that even the Post (11/15/17) describes as “hopelessly ineffective.” Perhaps this explains why the US government and the media have already decided the whole process is a sham.

Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) is a member of the Glasgow University Media Group. His latest book, Bad News From Venezuela: 20 Years of Fake News and Misreporting, was published by Routledge in April.

Friday, May 18, 2018

Assange Asylum 'Under Threat'

Julian Assange's Asylum in Ecuador's Embassy is 'Under Threat'

by TRNN


May 18, 2018

Guillaume Long, Ecuador’s foreign minister under former President Rafael Correa, comments on the recent revelations in The Guardian that Ecuador spent millions of dollars on Assange’s security, on his current total isolation, and on the current government’s apparent lack of interest in guaranteeing Assange’s political asylum.



Guillaume Long was Ecuador’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva under current President Lenín Moreno but resigned last January because of political differences with the Moreno administration.

Demanding NDP Withdrawal from 'Israel-Canada Friendship Group'

Demanding NDP Withdrawal from Israel-Canada Friendship Group

by Yves Engler


May 18, 2018

Is it appropriate for NDP Members of Parliament to be working for “greater friendship” with a country that is killing and maiming thousands of non-violent protestors?

Would it have been appropriate for any elected member of the party to be a “friend” with South Africa’s government during the apartheid era?

Victoria area MPs Randall Garrison (left) and Murray Rankin are members of the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group (previously named Canada-Israel Friendship Group).

Garrison is vice-chair of a group designed to promote “greater friendship” and “cooperation” between the two countries’ parliaments.

The chair of the group is York Centre MP Michael Levitt, a former board member of the explicitly racist Jewish National Fund, who issued a statement blaming “Hamas incitement” for Israeli forces shooting thousands of peaceful protesters, including Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani.

The Interparliamentary Group is one of many pro-Israel lobbying organizations in Canada. In conjunction with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, the Interparliamentary Group has hosted wine and cheese lobbying events on Parliament Hill. Three hundred parliamentarians and parliamentary staff attended their 2014 “Israeli Wine Meets Canadian Cheese” gathering in the East Block courtyard.

The group regularly meets the Israeli Ambassador and that country’s other diplomats. Representatives of the Group also regularly visit Israel on sponsored trips. For their part, Garrison and Rankin both participated in CIJA-organized trips to Israel in 2016.

The Interparliamentary Group works with its Israeli counterpart the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group. In 2016 the Group sent a delegation to the Israeli Knesset and last year they organized a joint teleconference with Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group co-chairs Yoel Hasson and Anat Berko.

Last month Hasson responded to Meretz party Chairwoman Tamar Zandberg’s call for an investigation into the Israel Defense Forces’ killing of non-violent Palestinian protesters by tweeting, “there was nothing to investigate, the IDF is doing what’s necessary to defend the Gaza border.”

Murray Rankin, (right) among NDP members
of Canada–Israel Interparliamentary Group

Chairman of the Zionist Union Knesset faction, Hasson opposed the UN resolution on a Palestinian state. When the Knesset voted to strip Arab MK Hanin Zoabi of parliamentary privileges for participating in the 2010 Gaza flotilla Hasson and MK Carmel Shama “nearly came to blows” with Zoabi and her fellow Balad party MK Jamal Zahalka. Hasson later called Zoabi a “terrorist”.

Berko is even more openly racist and anti-Palestinian. A Lieutenant-Colonel in the IDF reserves prior to her election with Likud, Berko openly disparaged African refugees. In February Israel National News reported, “Berko said that the MKs should see the suffering that African migrants have caused South Tel Aviv residents before jetting off to Rwanda” to oppose an effort to deport mostly Eritrean and Sudanese refugees to the small East African nation.

In January Berko co-sponsored a bill to bypass a High Court ruling that Israeli forces cannot use the bodies of dead Palestinian protesters as bargaining chips. The aim of the bill was to make it harder for the bodies to be given over for burial, which should happen as soon as possible under Muslim ritual, in the hopes of preventing high profile funerals. In a 2016 Knesset debate Berko make the ridiculous claim that the absence of the letter “P” in the Arabic alphabet meant Palestine did not exist since "no people would give itself a name it couldn't pronounce."

In response Richard Silverstein noted,

“Apparently, the fact that the word is spelled and pronounced with an ‘F’ (Falastin) in Arabic seems to have escaped her. It’s worth noting, too, that according to her logic, Israeli Jews do not exist either, since there is no letter ‘J’ in Hebrew.”

Garrison and Rankin must immediately withdraw from the Canada–Israel Interparliamentary Group. If the NDP MPs refuse to disassociate themselves from the pro-Israel lobby organization, party leader Jagmeet Singh should replace them as (respectively) NDP defence and justice critics.

Israel’s slaughter in Gaza should lead to an end of the NDP’s anti-Palestinian past.

Please join me in asking Garrison (Randall.Garrison@parl.gc.ca) and Rankin (Murray.Rankin@parl.gc.ca) to withdraw from the Canada–Israel Interparliamentary Group. Make sure to cc Jagmeet Singh (jagmeet@ndp.ca)

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Israel Targeting Medics at Gaza Shooting Gallery

Meet Tarek Loubani, the Canadian Doctor Shot by Israeli Forces Monday While Treating Gaza’s Wounded


by DemocracyNow!


May 17, 2018

As Palestinians vow to continue protesting against the Israeli occupation of Gaza, we speak to a Canadian doctor who was shot by Israeli forces in both legs Monday while he was helping injured Palestinians. Israeli forces shot dead at least 61 unarmed Palestinian protesters taking part in the Great March of Return Monday, including one doctor. Canada, Britain, Germany, Ireland and Belgium have called for an investigation into the killings.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has announced that it will hold a special session Friday to discuss escalating violence in Gaza.




We speak with Dr. Tarek Loubani, an emergency room medical doctor, one of 19 medical personnel shot in Gaza on Monday. Loubani is an associate professor at Western University in London, Ontario. He is a Palestinian refugee and a member of the Glia Project creating open-source medical devices for low-resource settings.

Syria Viewed from Iran

An Iranian Viewpoint on the Battle for Syria

by Rick Sterling - Special to Consortium News


May 17, 2018

A new feature from Iran gives a totally different perspective of the war raging in Syria than Western audiences are used to, explains Rick Sterling.

West against East on the Syrian battle-field, in the newspapers and now on film: A new, full-length action movie, titled “Damascus Time,” gives an Iranian perspective on the battle against ISIS in Syria.

The movie comes from Iranian screenwriter and film director Ebrahim Hatamikia. Two award-winning Iranian actors, Hadi Hejazifar and Babak Hamidian, play father and son pilots trying to rescue civilians besieged and attacked by ISIS forces in eastern Syria.

The pilots have come to help the townspeople escape in an aging Ilyushin cargo plane.

Still from “Damascus Time”

Syrian and Iraqi actors play Syrian civilians and ISIS terrorists hell bent on blowing up the plane or using it on a suicide mission against Damascus.

The movie portrays sensational scenes from real ISIS atrocities with a backdrop showing the Syrian desert and famous ruins of Palmyra. The city where civilians are surrounded and besieged is similar to the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, which was surrounded and attacked by ISIS for years. During that time, the townspeople and soldiers depended on air-dropped food and ammunition to hold off the attackers, as shown in the movie.

“Damascus Time” starkly sensational scenes from real ISIS atrocities jihadists. They display a human side, but they are wrapped in sectarianism, hate and violence.

Life’s complexities are demonstrated in the younger of the two Iranian pilots who has left his pregnant wife to be with his father. The mother-in-law of the young pilot bitterly criticizes him for leaving his wife. He tells her it will be his last trip.

While the story is fiction, what it portrays is all too real: Hundreds of thousands of real Syrians and Iraqis have been killed by the unleashing of the ISIS Frankenstein. Ironically, American leaders criticize Iran for being the “leading state sponsor of terrorism.” But in the Syrian war, Iran has been combatting it. Iran is more tolerant than most Westerners think too, as indeed Islam is. How many know for instance that Jews are represented in the Iranian parliament?

Western-backed Extremism


In reality, the U.S. and UK have allied for decades with extremists for short-term political gain. As documented in “Devil’s Game: How the U.S. Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam,”by Robert Dreyfuss, Britain and the U.S. promoted a violent and sectarian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood to undermine the nationalist and socialist policies of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. Starting in 1979, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia promoted the founders of what became Al Qaeda to attack the socialist-leaning government of Afghanistan.


Hell bent on blowing up the plane.

This policy has continued to the present. In the summer of 2012, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency outlined their strategy in a secret document :

“THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR).”
The U.S. looked favorably on what the document predicts will be the creation of the “Islamic State”:
“THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…”.

Then, in a leaked audio conversation with Syrian opposition figures in September, Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S., rather than seriously fight Islamic State in Syria, was ready to use the growing strength of the jihadists to pressure Assad to resign, just as outlined in the DIA document.

“We know that this was growing, we were watching, we saw that Daesh [a derisive name for Islamic State] was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened,” Kerry said.
“We thought however we could probably manage that Assad might then negotiate, but instead of negotiating he got Putin to support him.”

Russia began its military intervention in late September 2015 without the United States, with the Kremlin’s motives made abundantly clear by Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials. But such clear explanations are rarely reported clearly by Western corporate media, which instead peddles the line from officials and think tanks that Russia is trying to recover lost imperial glory in the Middle East.


 
Who sponsors terrorism?

But Kerry knew why Russia intervened. “The reason Russia came in is because ISIL [another acronym for Islamic State] was getting stronger, Daesh was threatening the possibility of going to Damascus, and that’s why Russia came in because they didn’t want a Daesh government and they supported Assad,” he said in the leaked discussion. Kerry’s comment suggests that the U.S. was willing to risk Islamic State and its jihadist allies gaining power in order to oust Assad.

The Biggest Sponsors


The true “state sponsor of terrorism” is not Iran; it is the West and their allies. Since Iran has been fighting ISIS and other extremists in Syria, it is appropriate that the first feature length movie depicting that battle against terrorism and ISIS comes from Iran.

Hundreds of Iranians have given their lives alongside their Syrian and Iraqi comrades. “Damascus Time” is not the product of Hollywood fantasy; it’s the product of actual human drama and conflict occurring in the Middle East today. “Damascus Time” is fictional but based on a real conflict with actual blood, atrocities, tragedies and martyrs.

The movie is currently being shown at cinemas throughout Iran. In recent weeks it was the second highest ranking movie. A trailer of the film can be viewed here. It should be available for viewing in the West in the near future, unless western sanctions and censorship are extended to culture.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com

To Gaza Allies

Thank You for Helping Gaza

by Mazin Qumsiyeh - PalestineNature.org


May 17, 2018

“When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British [now Americans] and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations build up from our own ranks.” - Letter from Albert Einstein to Shepard Rifkin April 10, 1948

From Palestine, I can only say thank you to all who work tirelessly for peace and justice. As I get over 200 emails a day, I know of so many who do great actions. From 2000 people who gathered in Oslo Norway to protest the massacre and Gaza and show solidarity to lone individuals who wrote letters to editor or acted in some fashion even with a donation or a prayer.

Each and every one of those people lights candles in the darkness.

We will not conquer darkness but we will at least see ourselves and fellow human beings in new light. For that we are deeply thankful.

To our Muslim friends who begin the fast of Ramadan, they know that the best and most difficult jihad is internal jihad: changing our hearts and minds. My they find this month a real blessed season of reflection and enlightenment and work for peace and justice. My only wish is for more people to shed apathy and join the struggle. History and inner conscience will not be forgiving to those who do not act. You cannot be neutral on a moving train especially if you are Israeli, Jewish, or live in one of the Western Countries that helped keep tragedies going (USA, England, France etc).

There has been 70 years of ongoing Nakba, conflict and war since 1948 when the Zionist gangs ethnically cleansed hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns by military force. That experiment continues to cause unspeakable horrors here from wars to massacres (like that committed in Gaza). In 1948 there was on the other side of the world a remarkably different vision. In 1948, Costa Rica abolished its military. It has reaped benefits since then (see http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/bold.html ) Dare we dream of a demilitarized world and of a sharing and living together (see my 2004 book “Sharing the Land of Canaan”)

The truth about Israel's killing of Palestinians: Interview with Mazin Qumsiyeh
http://www.risingupwithsonali.com/the-truth-behind-israels-killing-of-palestinians/

Where you can donate to help Gaza
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/give-charity-gaza/

A Grotesque Spectacle in Jerusalem (by Myriam Goldberg in NY Times): 

It was a consummation of the cynical alliance between hawkish Jews and Zionist evangelicals who believe that the return of Jews to Israel will usher in the apocalypse and the return of Christ, after which Jews who don’t convert will burn forever. Religions like “Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism” lead people “to an eternity of separation from God in Hell,” Robert Jeffress, a Dallas megachurch pastor, once said. He was chosen to give the opening prayer at the embassy ceremony. John Hagee, one of America’s most prominent end-times preachers, once said that Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews to their ancestral homeland. He gave the closing benediction. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/opinion/jerusalem-embassy-gaza-protests.html

Pope Francis joined by Cardinal Nichols in condemning Israeli killings in Gaza
https://www.christiantoday.com/church/pope-francis-joined-by-cardinal-nichols-in-condemning-israeli-killings-in-gaza/129200.htm

Why Jews in solidarity with Palestinians will win the day
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/writingfromtheedge/2018/05/why-jews-in-solidarity-with-palestinians-will-win-the-day/

Palestine Open Maps is a platform for map-based exploration and immersive storytelling. This alpha version of the platform allows users to navigate and search the historic map sheets, and to view basic data about present and erased localities.
https://palopenmaps.org

Israel and Palestine in 2018: Decolonisation, not peace
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-palestine-2018-decolonisation-peace-180514073500781.html

Stay Human


Mazin Qumsiyeh
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Professor, Founder, and (volunteer) Director
Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability
Bethlehem University
Occupied Palestine
http://qumsiyeh.org
http://palestinenature.org
Join me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/mazin.qumsiyeh.9

HumanRights newsletter
http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/listinfo/humanrights

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Standing Orders Are To: Kill and Kill and Kill

Kill and Kill and Kill 

by Saree Makdisi - CounterPunch


May 16, 2018

Two spectacles unfolded in Palestine on Monday. In Gaza, Israeli army snipers shot and killed 58 Palestinians—including six children—and injured almost three thousand others amid scenes of smoke, fire, teargas, dust, agony and blood.

At exactly the same time, to the tinkling of champagne glasses at a glittering reception barely fifty miles away in Jerusalem, Jared Kushner and an elegant Ivanka Trump oversaw the opening of Donald Trump’s new embassy there.

The juxtaposition of these two contemporaneous scenes encapsulates at a single glance the entirety of Zionism’s murderous conflict with the Palestinian people.

Photo: Jordi Bernabeu Farrús | CC BY 2.0

The Palestinians targeted and executed one-by-one by Israeli snipers had gathered to demand their right of return to their lands and homes inside the rest of Palestine, from the coastal plain up to and including Jerusalem.

They or their parents or grandparents were driven from their homes during the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 for the simple reason that they are not Jewish: too many non-Jews in the putative Jewish state would not make for much of a Jewish state after all. (“There could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist,” the Israeli historian Benny Morris bluntly pointed out in an interview justifying ethnic cleansing with the newspaper Ha’aretz in 2004; “a Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians . . . [therefore] it was necessary to uproot them”).

They have been denied the right to return to their homes ever since for the same reason: they are not Jewish, and their presence would upset the carefully-engineered demographic tables maintained by the state to preserve its tenuous claim to an exclusively Jewish identity. The maintenance of that demographic balance and the suspension of their political and human rights are inseparable from one another: the one enables, produces and requires the other.

The demographer Arnon Sofer of Haifa University is the architect of the current isolation of Gaza. In 2004, he advised the government of Ariel Sharon to withdraw Israeli forces from within Gaza, seal the territory off from the outside world, and simply shoot anyone who tries to break out.

“When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe,” Sofer told an interviewer in the Jerusalem Post (11 November 2004); 
 “Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.” 
 He added that “the only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.”

This imperative to kill and kill and kill human “animals” explains the violence taking place at the gates of Gaza—which has been sealed off precisely according to Sofer’s prescription—for the past several weeks, most calamitously this Monday. The killing now taking place is, in other words, exactly, to the letter, the “killing and killing and killing” he called for fourteen years ago. Calmly premeditated and intentionally designed by its architect, it is equally calmly and intentionally being carried out by Israeli soldiers (about whose psychological traumas I, unlike Sofer, am not even remotely interested).

In response to the current killing and shooting, a senior member of the Israeli parliament, Avi Dichter, reassured his audience on live television on Monday that they need not be unduly concerned. Their army, he told them, “has enough bullets for everyone.” If every man, woman and child in Gaza gathers at the gate, in other words, there is a bullet for every one of them. They can all be killed, no problem.

Remember Kurtz in Heart of Darkness? “Exterminate the brutes!” The genocidal intent expressed by the likes of Sofer and Dichter—mainstream and senior figures in Israeli politics—is so obvious as to make assiduous interpretation of their words unnecessary. The people of Gaza are exterminable because they are not Jewish: that is what the situation amounts to, not according to critics of the siege of Gaza, but according to its architects, planners, enablers and supporters. For that exterminability, and the ability to calmly and methodically transact it (“kill and kill and kill”) guarantees one thing, according to Sofer (in that same interview):

“It guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews.” 

To be clear then: according to its own planners and architects—these are their words, not mine—the maintenance of a “Zionist-Jewish” state fundamentally requires the Israeli army to prepare itself with a bullet for every man, woman and child in Gaza, and to shoot them one by one if they approach the gates penning them in. And if none of them are left after the smoke clears, well, so much the better; Israeli “boys and men” will return to their families and sleep better at night for not having to kill them any longer.

Exactly as Israeli snipers were following their orders to “kill and kill and kill,” Jared Kushner was marking the occasion of the opening of the embassy with an inane speech extolling the virtues of his bombastic father in law. Kushner was empowered to present this speech not because of his qualifications (he has none), not because of his accomplishments (he has none), not because of his insights (he has none), not because of his charisma or strength of character (he has none), not because of his oratorial skills (he has none), and certainly not because of the rousing qualities of the speech itself (it had none). He was empowered to do so simply because he is Jewish; that is the one single attribute that brings him to the table: an act of birth.

But acts of birth are randomly distributed by the hand of fate. And fate played one hand to Jared Kushner and a different hand to Ezzedine al-Samaak (14 years old), Ahmad al-Shair (16 years old), Said al-Khair (16 years old), Ibrahim al-Zarqa (18 years old) and Iman al-Sheikh (19 years old). They were all born in Gaza, refugees and the children of refugees driven by Zionist shock troops from their homes elsewhere in southwestern Palestine in 1948.

Unlike Jared Kushner, who was in Jerusalem because he is Jewish, they cannot go to Jerusalem, because they are not Jewish. Unlike Jared Kushner, who can go to Jerusalem whenever he wants in the future because he is Jewish, they will never go to Jerusalem because they were shot in the head by Israeli army snipers on Monday and they are now all dead.

Having robbed them of their past and their present, the state of Israel stole their future as well. And it did so—it could do so—simply because they are not Jewish.

There is a direct link between the events in Jerusalem and those taking place in Gaza; Netanyahu himself pointed it out. “We are here in Jerusalem, protected by the brave soldiers of the army of Israel,” he said at the opening ceremony on Monday, “and our brave soldiers, our brave soldiers are protecting the borders of Israel as we speak today.” By “brave soldiers,” of course, he meant cowardly snipers hiding in reinforced positions and shooting unarmed civilians at a distance of 1,000 meters; and by “protecting” he meant killing and killing and killing, exactly according to Dr. Sofer’s prescription.

There are two racial groups in close proximity in Palestine. The members of one racial group—the one to which Netanyahu and Kushner belong—are free to come and go as they please, to live life, to travel, to study, to work, to raise children. The members of the other racial group are to varying degrees denied those rights, though nowhere more starkly and abjectly than in Gaza, where over two million people have simply been rounded up and warehoused without prospects or hopes, let alone rights, simply because their very existence is deemed to be a mortal threat to the exclusive racial identity of a state that was violently established on their land and at their expense.

To maintain the exclusive identity of that state, these people must either accept their fate as essentially human cargo in permanent storage—a superfluous population—or take the bullets that the Israeli army has prepared for each one of them.

And that, fundamentally, is what Zionism’s conflict with the Palestinians is all about. At few other moments than the present has the juxtaposition between the racially privileged and the racially dehumanized and exterminable been so crystal clear. Liberal Zionists like Peter Beinart or Roger Cohen may wring their hands and bewail the crude and explicit viciousness of Netanyahu and his circle or the hideousness of the spectacle unfolding at the locked gates of Gaza. They harken back to the golden days of the 1950s and 1960s, when the Palestinians seemed (to the fevered Zionist imagination) to have quietly vanished, as though by magic.

But what is happening today is not an aberration. This is what Zionism has always entailed and what it will always entail. “Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties,” Frantz Fanon once pointed out. “It is violence in its natural state.” It is not possible for a settler-colonial regime to racially enable one people at the expense of another people without the use of violence.

As Arnon Sofer himself admits, the maintenance of a “Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews” requires permanent institutionalized violence. That was already true in 1948 and it remains true today and it will remain true until this project of racial exclusivism and privilege is abandoned once and for all for the hideous anachronism that it is.

Saree Makdisi’s latest book is Palestine Inside Out.
More articles by:Saree Makdisi

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Media Can't Break Groupthink on Israel or Gaza "Clashes"

‘A Suffocating Groupthink’: Sampling The Corporate Media On Israel, Iran, Syria And Russia

by Media Lens  


16 May 2018

The gaping chasm between reality and unreality is exemplified by recent contrasting statements about journalism from two veteran reporters.

On the one side we have Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's Middle East editor, who enjoys a public image of principled honesty and a supposedly fierce commitment to news balance and impartiality.

But, when he was challenged recently on Twitter about the blatant bias in BBC News reporting, he responded just as one would expect of a well-rewarded, high-profile employee of the national broadcaster:

'We are the best source of decent, impartial reportage anywhere in the world.'

As Noam Chomsky has observed of elite power and allied corporate journalists:

'Heaven must be full to overflowing, if the masters of self-adulation are to be taken at their word.' (Chomsky, 'Year 501', Verso, 1993, p.20)

In reality, as hundreds of media alerts, and several of our books attest, and also the work of many others, Bowen's assertion could not be further from the truth.

By contrast, consider a recent interview with renowned journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger on 'mainstream' media coverage of Syria, Salisbury, Yemen and Korea. He said:

'I've never known journalism to be so distorted in order to serve this propaganda [...] What we're seeing is the most intense campaign of propaganda at least since the build-up to the Iraq war in 2003.'

Pilger often makes a specific point of including BBC News in his scathing criticism:

'Why has so much journalism succumbed to propaganda? Why are censorship and distortion standard practice? Why is the BBC so often a mouthpiece of rapacious power?'

In what follows, we itemise a range of important issues where current 'mainstream' reporting is not simply poor or weak; but systematically skewed in the interests of Western state-corporate power.

It is important to grasp that this is not about the so-called 'failure' of corporate journalism. Rather, this is a reminder that corporate journalism is performing exactly as it should. As Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky noted when introducing their propaganda model of the media in 'Manufacturing Consent', published thirty years ago:

'The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.' (Herman and Chomsky, 'Manufacturing Consent', Vintage, 1988/1994, p. 1; our emphasis)

1. Israelis Deliberately Killing Palestinians, Including Children


A recent media alert highlighted the mass killing and wounding of Palestinians in Gaza, including children, by Israeli armed forces in what the media often describe as 'clashes'. Before the latest major massacre on May 14 (see below), Israeli forces had already killed over 50 Palestinian protesters and injured over 5000, including 1700 by live fire, during Great March of Return protests that began on March 30. UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk condemned Israel's actions as violations of international law.

On April 21, an Israeli general confirmed in a radio interview that even children have been shot deliberately under clear and specific orders. United Nations peace process envoy Nickolay Mladenov declared the targeting of children 'outrageous.'

In a sane world, such an appalling Israeli policy would be major headline news. Our searches revealed not a single 'mainstream' report about it in the days following the Israeli general's comments. We asked senior BBC News editors and journalists to point us to the BBC News headlines and follow-up coverage on this revelation. BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet was the only one to respond. And that was after we observed that she had previously reported in 2013 that Syrian children had been 'targeted by snipers'. What about Palestinian children targeted by Israeli forces? She replied:

'Thank you for message. Am involved in another story now but will forward to colleagues working in the region now.'

Predictably, there was no follow-up on BBC News, as far as we could see. We need only imagine the global outrage if Palestinian snipers were found to be deliberately targeting Israeli children to gauge the current level of media silence.

Even more mass killings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers have occurred since. On May 14, on the day that the US controversially opened its new embassy in Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers killed and wounded huge numbers of Palestinians. By the evening, the UN noted that 55 had been killed, including six children. 2,771 people were reported injured, including 1,359 by live ammunition, with 130 people in a critical condition. By the following day, the death toll had risen to 61, including an eight-month-old baby who died from tear gas inhalation.

All day long, BBC News disgraced itself with headline after headline on the top page of its website masking the truth. Despite weeks of public outrage at previous biased reporting of Gaza protests, BBC News was still using the Israeli-approved word 'clashes' to describe the deliberate mass killing of Palestinians.

Compare with the Guardian website which, for once, did not mince its words about Israel's crimes: 'Israeli troops kill dozens of Palestinians'. Would that really have been too difficult for someone at BBC News to type out? Clearly so, and no surprise given that the BBC routinely trembles in fear before the pro-Israel lobby. Why else would BBC News choose 'Dozens die as US opens Jerusalem embassy' as a headline, masking the fact that Israeli troops had massacred civilians? To be fair to the BBC, the Guardian print edition of May 15 was equally as bad, featuring the headline, 'Israel: Trump's new embassy opens – and dozens are killed'.

By the end of the day, the top headline on the BBC News website was: 'Israel defends Gaza action as 55 killed'. As ever, the Israeli perspective is given prominence, even as it commits abhorrent crimes against civilians. The massacre of unarmed civilians was merely an 'action', and the identity of the people murdered by the Israeli army was obscured – perhaps a mix of Israelis and Palestinians had been killed? In fact, there were no Israeli casualties.

On the flagship BBC News at Ten, graphics and headlines proclaimed, 'Gaza Clashes', an abomination used by the BBC instead of 'Gaza Massacre'. The heart-breaking reality behind the lie of 'clashes' could be seen in the anguish of a Palestinian father crying in farewell to his little boy:

'Oh people, my son'

The following day (May 15), the BBC's truth-mangling headline read:

'Gaza braced for further violent protests'

A more honest headline would have been:

'Gaza civilians braced for a further Israeli massacre'

A glimmer of hope for sanity was seen when, following public outrage, The New York Times changed its headline on an article from 'Palestinians died in protest' to 'Israeli soldiers killed dozens of Palestinians'. As Twitter user @FalafelDad observed:

'media accountability is NECESSARY and can be achieved.'

2. Fact-Checking Trump's Iran Deal Speech


When Donald Trump announced last week that the US was withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, analysis by Now This News website revealed in a short video that, in his speech:

'Trump averaged one false claim every 83 seconds.'

For example, Trump claimed:

'The deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and – over time – reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.'

As the video pointed out:

'False. The deal forced Iran to give up all weapons-grade uranium and barred it from producing more.'

Trump continued:

'The deal lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for very weak limits on the regime's nuclear activity.'

And in the real world?

'Wrong. The deal gave inspectors unrestricted access to all Iranian nuclear sites and suspicious facilities.'

And so on.

In contrast, BBC News at Ten essentially took Trump's speech at face value. Our challenge to senior BBC editors and correspondents to actually fact-check Trump's assertions was met with the usual silence.

In an online piece, Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent, did go so far as to say:

'The inconvenient truth for Donald Trump is that, as far as it goes, the nuclear deal was working.

'Despite this, Mr Trump presented it in stark and frankly erroneous terms - for leaving out things that it was never supposed to cover in the first place.'

But two lines couched in rather vague and non-specific terms is scant compensation for flagship BBC News television reporting that is little more than stenography. Senior editors and journalists seem to believe that their job is to tell the public what 'our' leaders say, and not to scrutinise claims made. This is galling; all the more so when dangerous rhetoric, making war more likely, goes unchallenged. But then, as John Pilger once wrote, corporate journalists are:

'the essential foot soldiers in any network devoted to power and propaganda.'

3. Douma And The Salisbury Attack


There is so much that could be said on Douma following our recent two-part media alert. Note, for instance, the corporate media's response to a press conference at the headquarters of the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW in the Hague on April 26. A number of Syrians, including children, gave their version of events in Douma, casting serious doubt on the official Western narrative of a chemical weapons attack that provided the pretext for missile attacks by the US, the UK and France on April 14. 'Mainstream' media dutifully headlined the scathing dismissal by Western powers of the Russia-organised press conference as 'nothing more than a crude propaganda exercise' and an 'obscene masquerade.'

Meanwhile, the corporate media blanked the assessment of Scott Ritter, the UN weapons inspector vindicated in his detailed appraisal that Iraq had been fundamentally disarmed of 'WMD' before the 2003 war. Last month, interviewer Dennis Bernstein of Flashpoints Radio asked Ritter:

'Isn't it also the case that there were problems with the allegations concerning Syria using chemical weapons in 2013 and then again in 2015? I believe The New York Times had to retract their 2013 story.'

Ritter replied:

'They put out a story about thousands of people dying, claiming that it was definitely done by the Syrian government. It turned out later that the number of deaths was far lower and that the weapons systems used were probably in the possession of the rebels. It was a case of the rebels staging a chemical attack in order to get the world to intervene on their behalf.'

He continued:

'A similar scenario unfolded last year when the Syrian government dropped two or three bombs on a village and suddenly there were reports that there was sarin nerve agent and chlorine gas wafting through the village, killing scores of people. Videotapes were taken of dead and dying and suffering people which prompted Trump to intervene. Inspectors never went to the site. Instead they relied upon evidence collected by the rebels.'

Ritter expanded on this vital point:

'As a weapons inspector, I can tell you that chain of custody of any samples that are to be used in the investigation is an absolute. You have to be at the site when it is collected, it has to be certified to be in your possession until the laboratory. Any break in the chain of custody makes that evidence useless for a legitimate investigation. So we have evidence collected by the rebels. They videotaped themselves carrying out the inspection, wearing training suits that would not have protected them at all from chemical weapons! Like almost everything having to do with these rebels, this was a staged event, an act of theater.'

Ritter then turned to the US/UK/France missile attack on Syria on April 14:

'We bombed three targets, a research facility in Damascus and two bunker facilities in western Syria. It was claimed that all three targets were involved with a Syrian chemical weapons program. But the Syria weapons program was verified to be disarmed. So what chemical weapons program are we talking about? Then US officials said that one of these sites stored sarin nerve agent and chemical production equipment. That is a very specific statement. Now, if Syria was verified to be disarmed last year, with all this material eliminated, what are they talking about? What evidence do they have that any of this material exists? They just make it up. [Emphasis in original]'

Serious questions also remain regarding the official story on the Skripal poison attack in Salisbury; not least, why the rebranded D-Notice committee has issued not just one, but two notices in an attempt to shut down aspects of media coverage.

As ever, the views of 'experts' and witnesses whose testimony accords with the Western narrative are given heavy coverage in the corporate media; while those whose testimony runs counter to that narrative tend to be either dismissed or simply ignored. As Noam Chomsky once observed:

'Under what's sometimes been called "brainwashing under freedom," the critics, or at least, the "responsible critics" make a major contribution to the cause by bounding the debate within certain acceptable limits – that's why they're tolerated, and in fact even honored.' (Quoted, 'Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky', edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel, The New Press, New York, 2002, p. 13)

4. Today's McCarthyism

As noted earlier, the 'intense campaign of propaganda' described by John Pilger is severely distorting what passes for journalism. A constant target of this distortion is Russia, in a grotesque echo of Cold War propaganda. From Moscow, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg plays the required role, recently commenting on the inauguration ceremony following Russian president Putin's re-election:

'The symbolism and the message couldn't be clearer. Putin, the modern tsar. Loved by his people.'

Putin and Russia are forever portrayed as flexing their military muscles and representing a threat to the West, not least by BBC News. It is notable that a similar snooty, doom-mongering tone are absent when UK state occasions, or military exercises, are reported.

Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News responded to us on Twitter:

'You will find Putin has a little more power than the Queen by the way. Just a tad...'

We replied:

'UK churnalism endlessly drools over "our" dear leaders. Remember the Blair adulation? And Obama? But that's okay, because they're "good guys", not like Putin.'

Thomson followed up with:

'I don't see much drooling. And neither Blair nor Obama routinely liquidate opposition/journalists as happens under Putin's Kremlin, unarguably.'

Our response:

'Because you don't want to see it. But you can see Putin's crimes. Can you also see that Blair and Obama destroyed entire countries [Iraq, Libya], also unarguably? Can you see that the state-corporate system they served is ferociously violent, exploitative and criminal?'

Thomson did not answer, other than to request to be 'untagged' from an exchange he had initiated, following a further critical response from another tweeter.

Meanwhile, the increasingly neocon Guardian plastered on its front page, not just one, but three, pieces of anti-Russia propaganda:

Revealed: UK's push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance
'Deny, distract and blame': how Russia fights propaganda war
Clickbait and Skripal jokes: Russia's RT thrives online

The Guardian, once regarded by many on the left as the vanguard of power-challenging journalism, was clearly pushing the 'red scare' agenda hard, in line with UK government priorities.

The big 'Revealed' piece was written by Patrick Wintour, the paper's diplomatic editor. The main message, which could have come straight from a government press release, was this:

'The UK will use a series of international summits this year to call for a comprehensive strategy to combat Russian disinformation and urge a rethink over traditional diplomatic dialogue with Moscow, following the Kremlin's aggressive campaign of denials over the use of chemical weapons in the UK and Syria.'

Former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook was rightly critical in a blog piece:

'When I trained as a journalist, we reserved a "Revealed" or an "Exposed" for those special occasions when we were able to bring to the reader information those in power did not want known. These were the rare moments when as journalists we could hold our heads high and claim to be monitoring the centres of power, to be fulfilling our sacred duty as the fourth estate.'

Cook continued:

'But today's Guardian's "exclusive" story "Revealed: UK's push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance" is doing none of this. Nothing the powerful would want hidden from us is being "revealed". No one had to seek out classified documents or speak to a whistleblower to bring us this "revelation". Everyone in this story – the journalist Patrick Wintour, an anonymous "Whitehall official", and the named politicians and think-tank wonks – is safely in the same self-congratulatory club, promoting a barely veiled government policy: to renew the Cold War against Russia.'

The author of the second piece on 'how Russia fights propaganda war' was, ironically, Luke Harding, the paper's former Moscow-based correspondent who regularly churned out pro-West propaganda in that role. Former UK diplomat Craig Murray describes Harding as 'MI6's most important media conduit (after [BBC security correspondent] Frank Gardner)'. The pinpoint demolition of Harding by Aaron Maté of The Real News Network last year is a must-watch.

A later Guardian piece by Amanda Meade, Guardian Australia's media correspondent, actually contained this line:

'RT is a powerful PR arm of the Russian government which is used as a weapon in the global information war.'

When did the Guardian ever write the following line?

'The BBC is a powerful PR arm of the British government which is used as a weapon in the global information war.'

As Caitlin Johnstone rightly notes, any discussion of 'Russian disinformation' is invalid if it sweeps under the carpet previous massive Western propaganda campaigns; not least that leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Those questioning the official Western narratives on Russia and Syria have been subjected to an appalling McCarthyite campaign of vilification and intimidation; in large part initiated by The Times and followed up by others, including Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Huffington Post. This has led to the late rearrangement of a planned conference in Leeds, titled 'Media on Trial', after the city council pulled the plug on allowing Leeds City Museum to be used as the venue. A report on the event's cancellation, written by Chris York, a senior editor at HuffPost UK, smeared the speakers, including Professors Tim Hayward and Piers Robinson, as 'pro-Assad'. Indeed, York has been relentless in attacking the academics as 'pro-Assad'.

As for George Monbiot, the Guardian's long-time resident 'dissident', his subservience to the official narrative on Russia and Syria was starkly exposed by journalist Peter Hitchens in recent exchanges on Twitter. Hitchens had previously published a detailed piece on his blog titled, 'Who Gassed Whom in Syria? We don't Know. Please Don't be Rushed into War.'

The Twitter exchange is lengthy and not archived in a single thread, as far as we are aware. But as an indicator of Monbiot's inability to respond to Hitchens, consider this discussion on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(OPCW):

Monbiot:

'The OPCW/JIM report on Khan Shaykhun [in 2017] presented a mountain of evidence for a chemical weapons attack by the Assad government'

Hitchens:

'1. The report is based on a study that breaks the OPCW's own stated 2013 rule: No assessment without visiting the site. But the OPCW never visited the site. It is full of anonymous judgements of likelihood, phrases such as "appeared to be" and "highly likely"'

Followed up by:

'2. Sorry to put it like this George (but not very) but any proper journalist knows that "appears to be;" and "highly likely" are phrases used by people who would have loved to say "is", but haven't the facts which would allow them to do so.'

And:

'3. I'd also say that in a long career I have learned to be sceptical of opinions convenient to the person presenting them, originating from unnamed and unidentified sources, and of people with firm views about events they did not themselves witness.'

After Monbiot had 'liked' a tweet smearing Hitchens as 'a chemical weapons denier/Assad-Putin stooge', together with Monbiot's clear inability to properly respond to reasonable questions from Hitchens about supposed incontrovertible evidence of Assad's guilt, Hitchens concluded:

'I have been dismayed and disappointed by the behaviour of @GeorgeMonbiot on this issue, where he has preferred smear to rational, fact-based debate. What has happened to radicalism in the west, when prominent left-wingers behave like this?'

Indeed. Although, when it comes to UK foreign policy, far from being a 'left-winger', Monbiot has consistently aligned himself with dubious neocon and 'interventionist' voices for some considerable time.

Concluding Remarks


It may have taken several years, but Guardian columnist Owen Jones has come to realise something vital about the 'mainstream' media which, to his credit, he has been willing to share:

'The main thing I've learned from working in the British media is that much of it is a cult. Afflicted by a suffocating groupthink, intolerant of critics, hounds internal dissenters, full of people who made it because of connections and/or personal background rather than merit.'

As Ian Sinclair pointed out in the Morning Star:

'the indignant responses [from corporate journalists] — perfectly illustrating Jones's argument — came thick and fast.'

The response from Deborah Haynes, Times defence editor, was typical when she proudly declared:

'No-one tells me what to think'

US writer and media critic Michael Parenti had the perfect response for this recurring facile boast from corporate journalists:

'You say what you like because they like what you say.'

In other words, journalists are filtered for 'reliability'; only those who say, write and even think the right things are able to reach senior positions in journalism. The consequences for genuine truth-telling journalism are horrendous, as the above examples show.

DC & DE