Cecilie Surasky of Muzzlewatch (Jewish Voice for Peace) tagged this report AIPAC. It is about the sweeping censorship about events in Israel-Palestine that has overtaken the so-called “progressive” left wing blogs in America like Daily Kos, Huffington Post, MyDD, and others (including Democratic Underground, and wavering blogs like My Left Wing).
Although Sarasky’s title is, DailyKos (and others) get free trip to Israel, but won’t touch Israel-Palestine, Richard Silverstein probably summed it up best in his article, Daily Kos AWOL on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
Here’s what Cecile Sarasky has to say,
Back in April, we were very upset to learn that the Israeli Foreign Ministry was organizing an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel for progressive American leaders and bloggers, led by the director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. (See the video above for folks you’ll recognize from outfits like HuffingtonPost, DailyKos, MyDD, and MoveOn. Let us know if you recognize any progressive Israeli leaders like folks from Rabbis for Human Rights, New Profile, ICAHD, or Tayush or… ).
Apparently, this was the first trip to Israel for the bloggers. Participants went to Sderot to see the devastation wrought by Qassam rockets, but needless to say, the group didn’t bother to head to the West Bank or Gaza beyond a meeting in Ramallah with the PA’s chief negotiator.
We wrote to some bloggers to urge that them to visit the Palestinian Occupied Territories, but got no response. At the time, most were keeping their names secret. (We think it was shame-how many of these folks actually wrote about the propaganda educational trip they were on? The few who did deserve kudos for their transparency. )
Israel, AIPAC and private philanthropists have long funded free trips to Israel as a way to shore up support for Israel’s so-called “war on terror”. What was so shocking was the ease with which left bloggers and leaders allowed themselves to be purchased with the promise of a free trip. (There’s no doubt about the objective of the trip.)
Now, Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam points out, that the issue has been deliberately cleansed from one of the internet’s most influential liberal blogs.
Silverstein reports a recent interaction with a blogger who apparently has some sort of official capacity at DailyKos beyond a Diarist:
I introduced myself to the visiting blogger as a local political blogger who writes about U.S.-Israel relations and the presidential election. I asked her whether her blog (remember, I didn’t at the time know it was DK) ever covered the foreign policy implications of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
She shook her head sagely and said: “No.” I asked her why. “Because there’s just no upside in it for us. Too much dissension and disagreement.”
Several years ago, I heard pretty much the exact quote from the station manager of an NPR affiliate. The atmosphere is so bad that there’s no shame in saying it openly.
In fact, a cursory search in DailyKos indicates that debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nearly invisible. Markos himself gives some indication of why they shy away from the issue:
When I get an email with the word “zionist” on it, how come it’s ALWAYS some crazy, anti-semitic conspiracy rant
While I sympathize with the reality that this issue brings out the extremists on all sides, there’s simply no excuse for excising the topic nearly altogether -especially when they’re accepting free trips to Israel. Trips, lets face it, which are no more likely to be even-handed than free trips offered by Fatah or Hamas.
DailyKos and the other bloggers should all be transparent about the trips, and their policies on covering the issue, but they’re not.
To state the obvious, this is not a sideshow issue here. We’re talking about everything from the presidential race and efforts to derail Obama, and possible war with Iran, to the meaning of Sarah Palin’s Christian right ascendancy and preventing a future 9/11. With everyone more than happy to just back down and avoid the issue altogether, and with left bloggers hiding in plain view, no wonder we’re in the mess we’re in.
The truth of the matter is that while Kos and other left wing blog owners now suck up to AIPAC influenced censoring, and even use the anti-Semitism charge to explain the absence of IP discussion on their sites, half of the critics of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, colonialism, and brutal behavior toward the Palestinians are themselves Jewish. Even Cecile Sarasky at one time cross-posted at Daily Kos. No more.
There is little doubt that AIPAC has had a hand in the censorship that now prevails on left wing blogs, which merely repeats the censorship seen in the mainstream media in the US. Keeping Americans including liberal Democrats ignorant and even deluded about what is going on in Israel-Palestine seems to be its purpose.
Cecile Sarasky is correct in her estimate that this is a right wing AIPAC/Likud effort and there is no doubt who these left wing blogs are now working for.