Israel

Thus began in November of 1947 what is euphemistically called the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the combined forces of the Jewish armies, the Haganah, the Stern, and the Irgun as they drove more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes leaving them destitute, homeless and abandoned without a country in what is now the largest refugee Diaspora in the world. - A Tale of Lies, Deceit, and Terrorism: the Birth of Israel

Long used to carefully controlled media reports about Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, the world again revulsed into seeing the reality of Israel's naked aggression.

"The tragedy is not the brutality of evil but the silence of good people." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Occupation in Gaza

In Israeli discourse, Israel ended the occupation in Gaza when it evacuated its settlers from the Strip, and the Palestinians’ behavior therefore constitutes ingratitude. But there is nothing further from reality than this description. In fact, as was already stipulated in the Disengagement Plan, Gaza remained under complete Israeli military control, operating from outside. Israel prevented any possibility of economic independence for the Strip and from the very beginning, Israel did not implement a single one of the clauses of the agreement on border-crossings of November 2005. Israel simply substituted the expensive occupation of Gaza with a cheap occupation, one which in Israel’s view exempts it from the occupier’s responsibility to maintain the Strip, and from concern for the welfare and the lives of its million and a half residents, as determined in the fourth Geneva convention. 

Inevitable Conflict ?

"Most of the US thinks this crisis was started by Hamas and that therefore those parties should be made to pay the price. A more objective reading of the situation would note US and Israeli determination to strangle Hamas in the nest from day one, to starve it, humiliate it and, typically and expectedly, to drive its radical wing to undertake a guerrilla operation against Israel. So the region does not view this conflict as prompted by Hamas , but rather as one made inevitable and justifiable by unrelenting and merciless pressure from the US and Israel. In the end this will be one more bloody chapter in this now widening struggle. For the interim, unseen to our eyes, the radical jihadis are making silent recruits every night through the flickering television images of yet new regional horrors. Sadly we will be seeing those recruits as they turn to action in weeks, months or even years from now."

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land

A striking comparison of U.S.A. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle  East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S.A. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites-oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others - work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported. Through the voices of scholars, media critics, peace  activists, religious figures, and Middle East experts, Peace, Propaganda &  the Promised Land carefully analyzes and explains how - through the use of  language, framing and context - the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media, and Israeli colonization of the occupied terrorities appears to be a defensive move rather than an offensive one. The documentary also explores the ways that U.S.A. journalists, for reasons ranging from intimidation to a lack of thorough  investigation, have become complicit in carrying out Israel's PR campaign.At its core, the documentary raises questions about the ethics and role of journalism, and the relationship between media and politics