Memo to Media: Israeli Settlement Expansion Is Not All About the United States
Israel's decision to wait until Secretary of State John Kerry left the region before announcing it will pursue settlement expansion in the West Bank grabbed the headlines. It's the existence of the settlements, not the timing of the announcement, which should concern the media.
Thursday, 09 January 2014 00:00
By Justin Doolittle, Truthout | Op-Ed
The Israeli government, in its boundless benevolence, has decided to wait until Secretary of State John Kerry leaves the region before officially announcing plans to pursue more illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank. "We will respect John Kerry and not act to spite him," an anonymous Israeli official told The New York Times last week. The precise timing of Israel's announcements of imperialist intent has become its own little phenomenon in recent years; the Obama administration reportedly was furious when, in 2010, Israel announced new building plans while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting the country. Media outlets such as the Times report breathlessly on this diplomatic drama; the substance of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is now almost secondary to the crucial point of whether it is announced on Day X or Day Y and, accordingly, whether or not any high-ranking American officials' feelings are hurt.
It would be difficult to identify another matter that more clearly illustrates the news media's essential superficiality and its subtle allegiance to a framework in which the concerns of the US and Israeli governments distinctly outweigh those of the Palestinians. In a serious media culture, coverage of the "timing" of these announcements and the delicate sensibilities of US officials would be limited to a sentence or two in broader news reports. This recent phony gesture of goodwill by the Netanyahu government, though, was apparently deserving of a full article, landing on Page A6 of the January 2, 2014, edition of The New York Times.
Consider the title of a July 2012 Times editorial on Israeli settlements and how they tangibly harm the prospects for peace: "Wrong Time for New Settlements" - which directly implies that there is a "right" time for new settlements, that some times are better than others. This kind of twisted analysis and fraudulent dissent evokes memories of "opposition" to the criminally insane American invasion of Iraq, which was based not on principle but, rather, on the grounds that it was an unfortunate geopolitical "mistake" and "poor strategy" given the demands of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. At issue here is a policy of relentless Jewish expansion into Palestinian land, which most of the world considers illegal and which continues to stand as the central obstacle to any realistic drive for peace. Everything else is noise.
Israel's brutal occupation of the West Bank soon will reach its 50th year. By now, even casual followers of international affairs understand the stakes involved in this conflict, its incalculable human toll and how it infuses Middle Eastern politics with bottomless hatred and division. This wholly bizarre fascination with the timing of Israel's settlement announcements and the attendant, ultimately meaningless vicissitudes in US-Israeli power dynamics reduces the most consequential conflict in the world to a juicy diplomatic gossip story between the very powerful leaders of two very powerful states.
MORE...
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21101-memo-to-media-israeli-settlement-expansion-is-not-all-about-the-united-states
= new reply since forum marked as read
