The Palestinian peoples historic Great March of Return has begun in Gaza in the face of horrendous Israeli military violence and the massive moral, logistical, corporate financial aid and support provided by Israel’s allied countries, whose worldwide corporate press progaganda continues to wage its own assault against the Palestinians. The corporate media network, always intensely adept and subtly clever, has gone into overdrive with spin to reframe the way they want the world to view what is happening in Gaza and the truly historic ‘tipping point’ moment it represents in the long sordid history between Israel and Palestine.
Canada’s role is one case in point. Radio CBC’s programme, The Sunday Edition, and its host Michael Enright, featured The Tablet Magazine writer Yair Rosenberg about his new article: 13 Inconvenient Truths About What Has Been Happening in Gaza (The Sunday Edition, May 27th, 2018).
Here are a few brief bio facts about Yair Rosenberg and his article that CBC’s Sunday Edition failed to mention. Rosenberg works for Tablet Magazine that published “13 Inconvenient Truths”. Tablet is a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, culture and the podcast Unorthodox that are part of NextBooks, Inc.; a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of Jewish literature, culture, ideas and themes; whose main projects include Nextbooks Press Jewish Encounter series, published by Schocken Books. Tablet’s News & Politics does not accept freelance opinion or editorial (op-ed) writing. Every one of its articles is tightly controlled, edited and veted, in-house, by its staff, all of who have variously worked for such corporate mainstream press entities, notable for their pro-Israel, pro-Zionist political bias, such as: the New York Times; Wall Street Journal; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times, New York Jewish Week and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
That being said, If the CBC’s Sunday Edition listeners didn’t know anything at all beforehand: about the author; read his article; or knew few details about the despicable politics, violations of international law, murder and mayhem that have been waged against civil society principles in Israel, Palestine and Gaza over the past seven decades, and; they only had the CBC interview between Michael Enright and Yair Rosenberg to go on; they would have come away with a far different perception of the Great Return March and the sordid, twisted tale of history than this writer’s own perspective has sought to provide the public in recent years with the number of articles he was penned on the subject (“Gaza & World’s Collective Soul Besieged”; “Gaza at Christmas”; “The Battle For Pqlestine”; “Israeli Zionism”; and “Syria’s Civil War & Human Folly”. His most recent article, that expounds upon how what is happening between Israel & Palestine is contributing to the deterioration of the cities of the world, is entitled, “Dubious Future of Sydney & Other World Cities; Who Will Decide Their Fate?”).
As this writer listened intently to the questions, answers and responses given by both Enright & Rosenberg, and especially the slick almost glib, staccato speed of Rosenberg’s dialogue, that almost seemed as if it was well-rehearsed, he couldn’t help wondering what the casual listener, perhaps not as well-versed in these issues as others, was getting from the interview.
Sitting in that person’s place before the radio, listening and concentrating however closely or distractedly he or she might be, this one tried to summate what ‘Inconvenient Truths’ the interview was attempting to convey. Was it intended to convey the truth about the well-documented brutality of the Israeli government’s long-standing official political, economic, military actions against the Palestinians in general and Gazans in particular; that are clearly, if not arguably, apartheid and genocidal if not blatantly racist in nature? Or did the Rosenberg interview instead intend to convey the image, not that Israel itself basically is a terrorist organization but that Hamas is the real terrorist organization; and not because of so many horrendous Israeli military invasions over the years that have sought to mercilessly pulverize Gaza and the Gazans trapped in their open-air prison, but because of the evil intent of Hamas who is primarily responsible for orchestrating the Great Return March? Was the intent of the CBC interview meant to convey the inconvenient truth that Israel all along has been one of the main “evil doers” that has prevented any resolution from ever happening to the long-standing human crisis that has existed throughout Palestine and especially in Gaza and the West Bank; who has consistently, repeatedly and intentionally frustrated any attempt to bring about peace in Palestine and Israel at large? Or was the emphasis of the interview in fact was meant to place the focus upon the role Hamas has played as one of the main “evil doers” in making that peace for Isreal, Palestine, they want the world’s populace to henceforth view what is everywhere happening.the Middle East and the world impossible?
As CBC’s Sunday Morning Edition interview with Rosenberg progressed yet many more questions arose in this listener’s mind about so many inconvenient truths left unsaid. Did it cast important light on the truth behind the awesome ground and air might of Israel’s IDF forces that have been used without compunction over the years against Gaza; or did the interview instead emphasize the ‘rocket attacks’ unleashed by Hamas that, in comparsion to the over-kill of Israel’s awesome killing fire power that has unhesitantingly been used against masses of displaced Palestinian people, should more truthfully be referred to as “fireworks displays” or “acts of bravado” by Hamas, that have killed very few actual Israeli citizens?
Was there anything in the interview about the inconvenient truths of culpability by Jewish Zionism and the long-standing malevolent historical role its philosophy has played, since the 1800’s, that has directly led up to the current events in Gaza of the present day, or was there never any mention of Zionism whatsoever at all? Did it briefly review, or even mention in passing, the many truths behind the horrific human-political-cultural-economic debacle that has befallen Palestine, the Palestinian people at large, and those specifically trapped in the hell-hole that is Gaza and the West Bank, or what the world could and should immediately do to get them all at once out of the hell-hole that has been made for them by the Jewish people and Israeli government?
An even larger truth that was left unmentioned and undiscussed during CBC’s interview was how the reality of this hell-hole has meant, since 1948, seven long decades ago, that the Palestinian people have had to struggle to survive under the harshest of subhuman conditions, with Palestinians made to live in their own lands as refugee’s, like dispossessed American Indians on reservations, in make-shift camps; without a city, a country, a motherland, fatherland or sacred sense of place to ever call their own; while the whole world has and continues to stand idly by, grossly inept, as if philosophically, ideologically and morally paralyzed, unable or unprepared to do anything to stop the sheer inhumanity of it all. Yet, in the meantime, like the proverbial bad apple in the barrel, the whole worlds’s barrel continues to turn rotten.
Did the truth that CBC’s interview of Rosenberg chose to emphasize was not that Israel’s IDF snipers were issued ‘Buttefly bullets”, intended to open up inside the man, women or child ‘target’, and blow apart whatever part of the body they hit, or was the emphasis of the interview placed upon Hamas and the role it in providing some of the marchers with guns that were never fired at or killed any Israeli IDF forces, but did in fact shoot down a drone that was wantonly dropping especially acrid tear gas on all the marchers?
Or did CBC’s interview of Rosenberg link together the inconveniet truths about the direct cause and effect connections that exist between the Nakba Catastrophe in 1948 and what has now culminated in the horrendous murderous bloodbath at Gaza of Palestinian men, women and children and their brave, epic Great March of Return to desperately try to reclaim for their children, born in the refugee camps, some with little or no semblance of knowledge of their once rich, full way of life that, now seventy years later, only their grandparents and grandparents can say they knew and can remember? Did the Enright/Rosenberg interview talk about the truthful fact that a majority of the Israeli people support the government’s actions against the Palestinian people and, over the years, have shown little concern or regard for their welfare?
Did the interview raise important truths about how much hostility exists among the Jewish people and its government towards seriously persuing or realizing either a Two-State or One-State Solution to the crisis between Palestine and Isreal? Or, by the time CBC’s hour-long interview of Rosenberg ended, was the listener left with the over-whelming intended message, “Oh well! This whole thing is not a simple problem! It’s very complicated. Thanks for listening!”
A mass meltdown of modern human and city-life is unquestionably everywhere underway in this world. The world’s fixation on, and preoccupation with, despots like Benjamin Netanyahu , Donald Trump and their kind, that the world itself is responsible for creating and yet rails against Netanyahi, Trump and their lot as though they are somehow alien to who and what everyone else is, is a reflection of that absurd reality.
Among the most greviously-blatant modern examples of human terror being caused by such political megalomaniacs is the on-going violent restructuring of the entire former country of Palestine, perpetrated by Israel’s right-wing Likud Party and its rabid supporters, whose apartheid practices are supported by the Trump’s of the world and allowed to continue in places like Gaza and the West Bank; just so the fascism of Jewish Zionism can realize for its ever-burgeoning numbers of Jewish so-called ‘settlers’, who continue to pour in from around the world, occupying still further stolen Palestinian lands, just to fulfill some prophesized biblical fantasy of a Heaven on Earth; ostensibly to be realized through the creation of a New Jerusalem that once established, it’s said, one day, will usher in everything from the coming of the Messiah & Anti-Christ, to an ‘End of Days Rapture’ of all the faithful to be lifted up into a ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’.
Because of the barbarism, aggression and violence that historically has been put upon the Palestinian people, the ‘green light’ has been given to other corrupt, dictatorial leaders and their rabid followers, following whatever other perverted fantasies of a biblical or religious nature, to persecute still other untoldhelpless, vulnerable human beings. As a result, cities throughout the world continue to be turned upside down by still more victimized displaced peoples and refugees. Too many human beings and cultures now are being persecuted that is turning everything that once was essentially good, positive and hopeful in life, completely on its head. The whole process further accelerated by ruthless corporate fascism that continues to eliminate whatever democratic processes and humanistic philosophy governing people’s lives still is trying to hang on. And now, with a renewed nuclear threat alive and well in the world, to say that things do not bode well for the future is a gross understatement.
Jerome Irwin is a freelance writer and author of “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a three volume account of his travels as a spiritual sojourner, during the 1960’s, 70’s & 80’s, among Native Americans & First Nations in North America. It encompasses the Spiritual Renaissance & Liberation Movements among native peoples throughout North America during the civil rights era. Since 2014, Irwin authored a series of articles on Israel, Gaza, Palestine and Syria (“Gaza & World’s Collective Soul Besieged”; “Gaza at Christmas”, “The Battle For Pqlestine”, “Israeli Zionism” and “Syria’s Civil War & Human Folly”). Irwin’s latest article, that expounds upon how what is happening between Israel & Palestine is deteriorating the entire world, is entitled, “Dubious Future of Sydney & Other World Cities; Who Will Decide Their Fate?” Irwin also is the publisher of The Wild Gentle Press