This atrocity by Israel is getting a lot of Americans upset if not angry, and may function to help break down the censorship barriers to understanding just what this Middle East conflict is all about: a military occupation whose sole purpose is the colonization of what is left of historical Palestine, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
But in this instance, that Israeli politicians would sacrifice the lives of hundreds of Palestinians for political advantage is becoming transparent and as such is dispicable.
but the right can marginalize any protest that occurs in San Francisco. Better the bring up the protests in Dearborn.
That occurred in a part of the country that doesn’t protest very much.
The second advantage of bringing up this protest is that it reminds people that we have arab americans and they matter too.
Are you in the SF Bay Area, Shergald?
Looks like it was a very substantial crowd. Any idea how many participated?
No. But I was also impressed by the turnout. In spite of the biased and censored MSM, there seems to be a lot more accurate information getting though on the blogosphere. I was also surprised at how much criticism came through on the big liberal blogs, Daily Kos and Huffington Post.
Was that no, you don’t live in the Bay Area, or no, you don’t know the size of the demonstration, or both?
As someone who has been involved in the very frustrating struggle for recognition of Palestinian rights for (I won’t say how many) decades (and note I did not say the struggle for the rights themselves, just for recognition that those rights exist), I can tell you that there HAS been great progress, but it has been a long, slow, hard slog. It does appear to me, though, that particularly since the internet has become a means of communication the rate of progress has increased significantly. Now one of the challenges is to help people understand that what they are seeing from Israel is nothing new. They still do not have a clear idea of the history of Zionism and of the conflict in Palestine. Among other things, very few Americans have even an inkling of an idea of the fact that Israel has been the clear instigator of most of its wars, and the only war in which the Arabs were clearly the instigator was 1973, and that war followed six years of frustrated Arab attempts to use non-violent attempts, including the U.N. and other forms of diplomacy, to obtain Israeli compliance with UNSC 242 and related resolutions.
And on the other side of things, this morning I turned the radio on to KGO, the largest, and most prestigious talk radio station in the country, and of course the guest for the hour was the Consul General of the State of Israel who was, of course, spouting the standard Israeli hasbara (propaganda is a nice word for it), most of which was purely and simply out and out fabrications or at best distortion of fact (one of the popular ones now is that Hamas overthrew the “duly elected government” of the Palestinians and took over Gaza, and of course American people, including people who should know better, buy that lie hook, line, and sinker). The pro-Israel bias of the host was palpable.
Of course, it is safe for them to lie as much as they like because no KGO host will EVER invite anyone familiar with, let alone friendly to, the Palestinians’ experience to spend an hour on the air, and if they did it would take more than the full hour just to deal with the cognitive capture (aka brainwashing) the Zionists and Israelis have always been so good at.
I was pleasantly surprised when Gene Burns, one of the more rational, thoughtful hosts at KGO, finally invited a CHRISTIAN cleric who teaches comparative religion to talk about Islam. The man actually did a creditable job of explaining Islam and answering the mostly very bigoted and ignorant questions and comments of the callers, but one has to wonder why the only people allowed to interpret and speak for Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are mostly western or Israelis non-Palestinians, non-Arabs, and non-Muslims.
No on the first question, and “large” on the second one, judging by the video, but no exact numbers available.
It would seem highly difficult for a country like Israel to cover-up a military occupation, while it proceeds in broad daylight to colonize the Palestinian territories, but except for the blogosphere, it has been fairly successful. I think that success is based on a highly sophisicated propaganda machine on one end, and the ability to enforce censorship on the other end, at least in the USA. When you can get the US State Department as well as virtually all components of the government involved, reality can be twisted in whatever way suits Israel.
But the blogosphere has been problematic, I would guess. Why else would Livni get personally involved in inviting representatives of the major left wing blogs to Israel, including a visit to Sderot, if not to curb the negatives.