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Latest perspectives on Gaza, Israel and the media

Not surprisingly the present conflict in Gaza attracts both news and commentary from many quarters. Whatever the Israelis had hoped might be some sort of pr blackout, or indeed dominance reporting in the media, has clearly failed. A round up....

*** Robert Scheer writing on truthdig.com in "Why Do So Few Speak Up for Gaza?":

"Why are we so indifferent to the death and destruction in Gaza?

The major news outlets meekly accepted Israel’s banning of journalists from entering Gaza as an excuse for downplaying collateral civilian casualties, our president-elect, Barack Obama, has had little to say about an invasion that will much complicate his future Mideast peace efforts, and most commentators easily rationalize Israel’s many-more-eyes-for-an-eye killings.

Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of President Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state?

It is not."

*** Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, [the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East."] writing an op-ed piece in the NY Times "What You Don’t Know About Gaza"

*** Gideon Lichfield, a correspondent for The Economist [ the magazine’s Jerusalem bureau chief from 2005 to 2008] also writing in the NY Times "Fighting to Preserve a Myth"

*** Jonathan Cook, a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, in a piece "Bombing to make the Gaza prison even more secure for Israel" republished on The Electronic Intifada

*** Award winning and veteran reporter, journalist, writer, commentator and film-maker Jonathan Pilger on Information Clearing House in "The lying silence of those who know".

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