cubaninsider: Deciphering An Ode to Peace

As War-Mongers Win, Civilians Lose
{Monday, August 11th, 2014}

Reuters, perhaps the world's most respected news service, used this photo Sunday, August 10th, to illustrate a major article that had this headline: "Israel's Attacks in Gaza Town A War Crime." It referenced an Israeli attack earlier in the current war when Israeli tanks and warplanes had demolished the small town of Khuza'a in southern Gaza and then Israeli soldiers mopped up. The article, written by Mohammed Omer, stated: "An Israeli bulldozer crushed the outside of Mohammed Khalil al-Najjar's home, pushing rubble through his kitchen. Dozens of Israeli soldiers then entered his home, many of them masked, moving from room to room, weapons in hand. 'We are 14 family members inside this home, all civilian women and children,' al-Najjar screamed to the army commanders in Hebrew, a language he mastered over 30 years as a construction worker in Israel. 'I have built in Israel more than you,' he added, as the soldiers ignored his pleas. Moments later...the Israeli soldiers used the family as human shields, walking behind them through the streets of Khuza'a." These are the kind of reports from Gaza flashing around the world from respected news sources such as Reuters, the BBC, etc., but not necessarily having an impact in Israel or the United States. But more and more, even leaders in the UN such as Ban Ki-Moon and Navi Pallay are talking about "war crimes" being committed in Gaza, such as referenced in the above headline. The ongoing disaster in Gaza continues to turn strong international supporters of Israel against the current Israeli decision-makers.

At the least, most of the world believes, women and children should be allowed to leave Gaza, a tiny strip of land where 1.8 million Gazans are hemmed in and at the mercy, or lack thereof, of the ultra-powerful Israeli military machine, which is largely funded and continually refurbished by United States taxpayers and which maintains a cruel border-closing blockade around tiny Gaza. While the majority of Americans and Israelis accept this, the majority of the rest of the world does not.

The BBC headlined this photo of a Palestinian family in Gaza mourning the death of a 10-year-old child. Israeli propaganda has convinced many of the very racist notion that Palestinian parents, like the man in the white shirt, use their children as "human shields." But Ken Penhall, CNN's reporter in Gaza, says "It's like shooting sardines in a barrel" because the Gazans have no place to run, no place to hide.

This image flashed around the world this weekend from the West Bank, land where the UN, the U. S. and the rest of the world have begged Israel to stop building settlements and allow the Palestinian to also have a state. But Israel, a nuclear power, will not allow such a solution to a lopsided conflict that has been ongoing since 1948. This photo shows a sight the world is familiar with -- Palestinians throwing rocks at heavily armed Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, not Gaza. The deaths this weekend of young Palestinians in the West Bank is something that should be addressed.

Saturday's television ratings and interaction on the major social networking venues revealed that the world's most watched video the second weekend of August-2014 is entitled: "Shujayea: Massacre at Dawn." It is a half-hour documentary first aired from 10:30 P.M. till 11:00 P.M. Saturday night, August 9th, on the Aljazeera America network. "Shujayea: Massacre at Dawn" does not have a narrator except for the petrified voices of the surviving victims, including a tiny Palestinian girl, of a massive Israeli attack at dawn on the Shujayea district of Gaza City. The stunning video, buttressed only by the chaotic sounds of the living victims, features a brave little girl voicing her opinion of "Israelis" and a young Palestinian man screaming about all the "body parts of little children" littering the streets. Considering all that is happening in the world -- including red-hot wars in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, etc., the Ebola scare, etc. -- it is a bit surprising that "Shujayea: Massacre at Dawn" spent hours dominating worldwide television as well as the most ubiquitous social media forums. But if you missed it, you may want to go online and watch it because it is likely to win a multitude of international awards. Most of all, it reveals how massive military power in the year 2014 unleashed on a helpless, heavily populated civilian area can so quickly destroy so many lives, especially in a district in which the civilians have nowhere to flee because the attacking superpower has closed down the borders. In the U. S. and Israel the attacking superpower controls the narrative but elsewhere around the world videos and the sounds of the surviving victims speak much louder than propaganda, proving yet again that, in even the world's most famed democracy, overwhelming propaganda can easily trump actual news, including even sensationally authentic documentaries such as "Shujayea: Massacre at Dawn."

A scene depicted in "Shujayea: Massacre at Dawn."

News, not propaganda.

The photo above reportedly was the most viewed image on Facebook this weekend. The BBC headquarters in London were besieged by thousands of protesters denouncing Israel's attacks on Gaza. In England the BBC is being accused of slanting the conflict in favor of Israel although the BBC is generally considered to be among the Western media's fairest chroniclers of the Gazan attacks. Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and El Salvador all recalled their ambassadors from Tel Aviv this weekend. Bolivia officially listed Israel as a "terrorist state." In Cuba, Fidel Castro, five days shy of his 88th birthday, was asked to sign a "Save Palestine Manifesto," which he did along with the signatures of notables around the world. He said: "Like billions of others, I have supported most of what Israel stands for. But I don't support apartheid in which a strong nation imprisons helpless people. And I don't support the slaughter of children. So I sign this manifesto and I strongly suggest others do the same." {Note: Although he was vilified in the Western World for doing so, Nelson Mandela and other notables gave Fidel Castro the lion's share of the credit for ending apartheid in South Africa. And that, for the faint of heart, is news, not propaganda. Supporting apartheid requires military superiority and propaganda.}

This is a recent political cartoon by Scott Stantis in the Chicago Tribune. It was re-published by other outlets around the world. By using an eye-catching image plus 13 words, Mr. Stantis says a lot more about a major American problem than all the words about the subject that are used in large portions of your favorite news sources. This political cartoon is news, not propaganda. Political cartoons penned by great journalists such as Scott Stantis often say more by using pertinent images and a few words than other media sources say by using thousands of words and multiple related images. What Scott Stantis is saying so powerfully and succinctly in the above image, I believe, is this: "Yes, America has its hands full trying to deal with the thousands of children illegally crossing our borders as they remarkably flee crime-riddled nations such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala...but America also has to deal with its own crime-riddled streets, such as in Chicago." Indeed, at last, in the first week of August-2014 the National Guard was finally called out to help Chicago's overwhelmed and out-gunned police force deal with a massive problem that includes multitudes of children being killed via cross-fires or other senseless gunfire in Chicago. It is possible that the political statement by Scott Stantis inspired the use of the National Guard in Chicago. If so, thanks Mr. Stantis. Chicago's children, like children around the world, certainly deserved your forceful statement.

By contrast, this Wikipedia.org photo personifies propaganda, not news. Joseph Goebbels was Adolph Hitler's Propaganda Minister and his masterful use of that force accounted for Germany's Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945 capturing most of Europe on its way to almost dominating the entire world, failing because of America's Greatest Generation and because the fiendish Hitler double-crossed the fiendish Joseph Stalin and unwisely attacked the vast Soviet Union. The deadly effective use of repetitive lies by Goebbels actually created the word "propaganda" and to this day equates the word to a negative connotation. Goebbels in the 1930s and 1940s only had the written word, radio, and pulsating speeches to spread his propaganda. In modern times, however, Television, the Internet, Smart Phones, Twitter, advertising and public relations Firms, etc., provide propagandists with extraordinary tools that Goebbels never even dreamed about before he murdered his wife and six children and then committed suicide along with Hitler in that infamous Berlin bunker in 1945.

This image was one of the most viewed photos this week in the worldwide Windows Photo Gallery. It shows an Israeli air- strike on Gaza. It is both news, for depicting a real happening, and propaganda, for being widely used to excoriate Israel for unleashing its ultra-modern military power against a densely populated, besieged, and tiny land mass where 1.8 million Palestinians are denied their own status as a nation by a powerful neighbor that controls the borders and doesn't allow even children to escape the bombing. Thus, a true image, such as this one, can be used for legitimate "news" and/or pernicious or contentious "propaganda" by revealing the truth but also slanting it to fit pro-or-con biases.

For example, Evo Morales this week used the photo of Gaza being bombed along with much more graphic photos of Gazan children being killed and terrorized to highlight this statement: "These kids had no place to hide against the might of a nuclear superpower." The 54-year-old Evo Morales has been the democratically elected President of Bolivia since 2006. Since 1972 Bolivia and Israel have had a Visa Exemption Agreement allowing Israelis to travel to Bolivia without a Visa. This week President Morales revoked that agreement, citing the photo above and the comment by CNN's Karl Penhall that Israel's assault on Gaza was like "shooting sardines in a barrel." President Morales then loudly proclaimed Israel "a terrorist state" that should be held accountable for "crimes against humanity." Of course, Israel and its prime supporter, the United States, label Palestine's prime military wing, Hamas, "a terrorist organization" that repeatedly commits "crimes against humanity," mainly Israelis but also against Palestinian children by using them "as shields." So, one man's news is another man's propaganda; and one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. President Morales of Bolivia this week was trying to study the photos from Gaza to distinguish between what is news and what is propaganda. It actually is a very wide chasm, except in the hands of superb and often very vile propagandists. Thus, President Morales and millions of others, in this age of widespread state and sectional violence, face a real dilemma in trying to sift through the ashes of Gaza and other troubled spots. Meanwhile, humanity is forced to face the cards it has been dealt as it confronts a modern fact: Evil doers now have mankind's most terrible weapons at their disposal. Children, whether in Chicago or Gaza or Iraq or elsewhere often do not stand a chance to even reach their teenage years. President Morales this week said: "It seems God gave people like Mother Teresa all the humanity but gave the worst among us all the weapons. Man's inhumanity to women and children is the result."

And speaking of Gaza.............

..........two of the world's most intelligent elder statesmen -- Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter -- spoke about Gaza this week and both quotations received worldwide attention. Mr. Castro, who turns 88 on August 13th, called Israel a "fascist terror state" for its assaults on Gaza. Mr. Carter, who turns 90 on October 1st, had earlier called Israel's imprisonment of Gaza "clearly an apartheid situation." And then this week Mr. Carter said the United States, instead of being dictated to by Israel, should consider "Hamas a political party that has won a legitimate Palestinian election." Despite their age, both of these men remain awesomely intelligent. In his youth, Mr. Castro's teachers often tested his IQ by having him read a long page from a book and then, without notes, he could recite it back to them word-for-word. In his 30s, 40s, and 50s Mr. Castro could make seven-hour speeches without notes or a teleprompter. Of all the American presidents, Mr. Carter, a renowned peanut farmer from Georgia, most likely had the highest IQ and most likely was the most decent human being. His 28 books and his humanitarian work in his post-presidential years also establish Mr. Carter as America's most important ex-president. While vast anti-Castro and anti-Carter propaganda machines have abounded for decades, their sheer intelligence still resonates today and will fuel their considerable legacies. Thus, as a non-propagandist newshound, I thought their comments this week about Gaza were very pertinent.

Mr. Carter and Mr. Castro are shown above standing at attention as the U. S. and Cuban national anthems were played prior to a baseball game. In their twilight days, after a combined 18 decades on earth, Mr. Carter and Mr. Castro are prime examples of this essay's primary theme -- that "news" and "propaganda" are two different animals and distinguishing between them is more important than ever. Both of these men have made monumental news during their lifetimes. And both men, each of whom have had their share of successes and failures, have continually been assaulted by vicious, callous, and mostly unfair propaganda machines.

Meanwhile................

Israeli friends around the world.......................