- On Aug. 10, 2003, "The Baltimore Sun," the
only daily in town, published an unsigned editorial (I'm not making this
up) entitled, "Sharon's Peacemaking." It labeled the architect
of the 1982 serial bombing of Beirut, Lebanon; the 1982 Sabra and Shatila
Massacres; and of the IDF's rampage at Jenin, in 2001, "a willing
warrior and reluctant peacemaker!"
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- Meanwhile, "peacemaker" Sharon, on Aug. 12,
threatened to again attack Lebanon, (and Syria, too, for good measure),
and to launch a preemptive raid against Iran, in order to destroy its alleged
Nuke facilities.
-
- Since Sharon became Israel's Prime Minister, on March
7, 2001, the Israelis have killed over 2,000 Palestinians, which includes
about 400 children (Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group). During
this same period, they have also "targeted" for assassination,
over 100 Palestinians.
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- When the latter kind of homicidal activity was carried
out in Central America by government-sanctioned gangs, the practice was
roundly condemned. The "Sun" called it "running a death
squad." However, the "Sun" never uses that term of opprobrium
in describing Sharon's terrorist methods. I wonder, why?
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- Sharon's extreme provocations make some ponder. Is
he deliberately stirring up trouble with other Arab states to divert U.S.
attention away from: The fading "Roadmap?" His defiant building
of the Apartheid Wall? And/or the fact that Israel has done little or nothing
to "normalize" conditions on the ground for the Palestinians?
Take your pick!
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- On Aug. 13, 2003, "The Baltimore Sun" revealed
a second blow to its haughty motto that it delivers, "Light for All."
There was a shocking photo on its front page, showing an Israeli woman.
She was reclining, in a stressed out state, on an ambulance stretcher,
with her infant child by her side.
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- The woman had been wounded, on Aug. 12, in a suicide
blast at a mall, in the town of Rosh Haayin, near Tel Aviv. It was an AP
photo. It naturally generated sympathy for the woman, her child, and also
for the Israelis, the occupying power in that ongoing deadly conflict between
the indigenous Palestinian people and their Israeli colonizers.
-
- Question: Where are the photos on the front page of
the LIght-for-All "Baltimore Sun" of the Palestinian victims
of state-sponsored Israeli terrorism? Why haven't we ever seen any of them
in that place?
-
- Author Liz Curtis revealed in "Ireland and the
Propaganda War," (1984, Pluto Press), how the UK's propaganda machine
cleverly distorted, censored and/or misled the British public about what
was really happening in the British occupied north of Ireland. Curtis put
it this way, "We hear of bombs in Strabane, of buses burnt in Belfast.
But what do we ever hear about the experiences, feelings and hopes of the
Irish people."
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- Curtis' argument could be made today about the Palestinians
living under the brutal Israeli yoke. The Zionist Propaganda Machine, like
the British one, is distorting the truth about what is occurring in the
Occupied Territories. They do this, in their media outlets, by falsely
stereotyping the Palestinians as terrorists and the Israelis as their victims.
(See Kevin MacDonald's "Critique of Culture" for details on
the awesome power, in the U.S., of a clique of Media Moguls, who are rabidly
pro-Israel.)
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- If "The Baltimore Sun" reports or editorializes
on the Middle East news, in a consistently biased manner that unfairly
favors the Israeli position, then it, too, risks being accused of shilling
for the Zionists. Few will forget how, in an editorial on Nov. 13, 2002,
the "Sun" mocked the Baltimore City Council for holding hearings
opposing the war in Iraq.
-
- Since 1948, there have been hundreds of thousands of
Palestinian victims of the Israelis (Palestineremembered.com). Where are
the photos of the Palestinians victims of the IDF's rampage at Jenin? Where
are the photos of the Palestinians, who have been tortured by the Israelis?
Where are the photos of Israel's detention camps? Where are the photos
of the Israeli bulldozer destroying the homes of innocent Palestinians?
Why aren't those kinds of photos ever seen on the "Sun's" front
page?
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- For instance, when the Israelis murdered, via an IDF
bulldozer, the American peace activist, Rachel Corrie, on March 16, 2003,
in Rafah, a refugee camp, in Gaza, no photo of the victim appeared in the
"Sun." Why? Aren't American and Palestinian victims of Israeli
terror equal to the same kind of front page coverage as Israeli victims
of terrorism? Is one victim less human than the other? Why the disparate
treatment?
-
- The "Sun's" cited tendency to favor Israel
is the nub of an ongoing problem. Let's call it, "The Propaganda War."
The Israelis are winning that war in Baltimore, and throughout the U.S.
And, the "Baltimore Sun," among other print media outlets, is
contributing to that problem.
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- In any event, the U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing Israel's
belligerence. Try $3 trillion, since 1948! It's time for the "Baltimore
Sun" to give its readers the Middle East news straight, without any
pro Zionist slant.
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- And, finally: If Sharon is a "peacemaker,"
as the "Sun" claims, than the odious Neocon Richard Perle, is
St. Francis of Assisi!
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- © William Hughes 2003
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- William Hughes is the author of "Andrew Jackson
vs. New World Order" (Authors Choice Press) and "Baltimore Iconoclast"
(Writer's Showcase). He can be reached at liamhughes@mindspring.com.
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