Chomsky on the ‘Responsibility to Protect’

26Jul09

Earlier this week Noam Chomsky participated, along with Jean Bricmont, Gareth Evans (former Australian FM and long-time President of the International Crisis Group) and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in a UN panel on the doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P).
You can watch the three hour discussion here [.rm], and PlasticJesus341 has uploaded the video of the [...]

Filed under: Media, US, Videos   |  9 Comments
Tags: Gaza, humanitarian intervention, Iraq, Jean Bricmont, liberal imperialism, Noam Chomsky, Palestine, R2P, Responsibility to Protect, Rwanda, UN, US

How to lose friends and alienate people

18Jul09

Hiring paid hasbaratchiks to “spew forth bullshit” online, parading out Ehud Olmert to convince Americans that opposing settlement construction is like opposing rainbows and kittens, launching a smear campaign against Human Rights Watch, one of the most conservative human rights organisations around… would it be an exaggeration to say that the Israeli Foreign Ministry is [...]

Filed under: Activism, European Union, Israeli / Palestinian   |  8 Comments
Tags: Activism, BDS, boycott, EU, hasbara, Obama, PR, propaganda, settlements, settlers, The Israel Project

Breaking the Spin (updated w/response)

15Jul09

The BBC’s report on the ‘Breaking the Silence’ testimonies of IDF soldiers describing the commission of serious war crimes during Operation Cast Lead is pretty representative of its output on the topic: there’s nothing outrageous, but there is nonetheless a systematic bias that underplays or ignores the most serious accusations levelled against Israel, juxtaposes  Palestinian [...]

Filed under: Israeli / Palestinian, Media   |  3 Comments
Tags: BBC, bias, Cast Lead, complaint, Gaza, IDF, Tarik Kafala

Global march on Gaza – satyagrahis wanted

07Jul09

When Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violent resistance (satyagraha) is invoked in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, it is invariably as a propaganda weapon intended to undermine the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance and shift the blame for the continuing occupation on to its principal victims.
Leaving such dishonest rhetorical jabs aside, the question of whether any of [...]

Filed under: Activism, Israeli / Palestinian, Videos   |  34 Comments
Tags: Activism, blockade, collective punishment, Gandhi, Gaza, non-violence, Norman Finkelstein, protest, siege

Newsnight goes a bit Chomsky

02Jul09

Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, FAIR, Robert McChesney, Media Lens and… Jeremy Paxman? That’s right, folks: if you’re looking for trenchant critique of media performance, rooting biased and misleading coverage in institutional structure and exploring the media’s broader social function beyond traditional pieties about the “adversarial press”, Newsnight is now the place to go. Sort of.
I’m [...]

Filed under: Media, UK   |  6 Comments
Tags: BBC, Jeremy Paxman, Noam Chomsky, PressTV, propaganda model