Telegraaf-propaganda: 2 doden bij "schotenwisseling" met "Hamas" aan grens Gaza

Het (pro-Israëlische!) persbureau Novum berichtte gisteren:

Het Israëlische leger heeft twee ongewapende Palestijnen doodgeschoten die probeerden Israël vanuit de Gazastrook binnen te komen. Militairen schoten hen zaterdag neer nadat de mannen waren gezien bij het veiligheidshek tussen Gaza en Israël. Uit vrees voor aanslagen worden geen waarschuwingsschoten afgevuurd, maar wordt direct gericht geschoten. Sommige Palestijnen proberen de grens over te steken om werk te zoeken.

Tijdens een zoektocht na het schietincident raakte een Israëlische soldaat lichtgewond. Onderzocht wordt of hij door militanten of per abuis door Israëlische troepen is beschoten. Het geweld rond de grens is de afgelopen dagen toegenomen.

De Telegraaf maakt daarvan dat er een "schotenwisseling" met "Hamas" had plaatsgevonden en publiceert dus uitsluitend informatie van het Israëlische leger, dat als (enige) 'waarheid' wordt gebracht. Zo lezen we dat er "zich sinds het begin van het jaar ongeveer honderd terroristische incidenten bij de grens voorgedaan, die het leger toeschrijft aan de Hamas-beweging". En dat het hierbij alleen zou gaan om "gevechten bij het hek". Dat na de "schotenwisseling" Israëlische tanks Gaza binnenreden om nog wat in het rond te schieten, meldt de Telegraaf niet. Ook niet dat er met de instelling van genoemde Israëlische schietbaan 35% van het agrarische gebied van Gaza gestolen is.

De krant vergeet tevens genoegelijk te vermelden dat de Israëlische soldaat die gewond werd door eigen soldaten beschoten is - zo heeft het Israëlische leger reeds gemeld. Dit voorval is niet verwonderlijk, want de grens van Gaza is voor het Israëlische leger een heuse schietbaan: het schiet op alles dat beweegt. Palestijnse burgers, waaronder kinderen, zijn daar het slachtoffer van. Die komen aan de grens puin verzamelen, om wat geld te verdienen, omdat Israël de grenzen dichthoudt voor de zo broodnodige bouwmaterialen.

Volgens de VN zijn na Operation Cast Lead in genoemde 'bufferzone' 22 Palestijnse burgers doodgeschoten en 146 gewond.

De Telegraaf doet niet aan verslaggeving, want persberichten van het Israëlische leger kopiëren is goedkoper, en betreft 'toevallig' ook nog 'informatie' die de Israël lobby graag gepublicerrd ziet.

Adel al-Dama, 7, helps out during the school holidays

Israeli soldiers 'shot at children collecting gravel by Gaza border'

The Independent | By Donald Macintyre in Gaza | 12 October 2010

The Israeli military has been urged to investigate the recent shootings of at least 12 impoverished Palestinian teenagers and young men collecting gravel in an effort to eke out an income within 800 metres of Gaza’s heavily guarded northern border.

The youngsters - including at least two under 15 - were shot and injured as they gathered the gravel to sell cement manufacturers struggling to meet a fraction of the demand for building materials still banned from entering Gaza through Israel.

The shootings - highlighted in reports this week by two human rights agencies - are the latest development to come to light in a more general military enforcement of a "buffer zone" inside Gaza’s border.

The UN says this has resulted in 22 civilian deaths and 146 injuries since the end of Israel's 2008-9 military onslaught on the Hamas-controlled territory. A 91-year-old man and two other civilians were killed last month as they grazed sheep close to the border.
Mohammed Mogah, 16, was shot in his side at what he claims was a range of 700 metres - well beyond the 300-metre border exclusion zone declared in 2008 by the Israeli military.

Showing the scars from the entry and exit wound, he told The Independent he had been sifting sand from a pile of gravel in a cooking sieve, with his back to the border, before loading it onto a donkey cart, when he was hit.

He said he had been in an area of the long demolished Erez Industrial Zone, when he was shot on June 23. Other Palestinians, including a team with a bulldozer, were also busy working in the rubble. He said there were several shots but he did not see anyone else hit.

“Some people ran away and others lay on the ground. I’m new to this job. It was only the third time I had gone. I will never go again.”

Asked why he had gone to work in an area known to be dangerous, he said he thought he had "no option." He added: "If someone gives me other work I will do it." Mohammed lives with 14 members of his extended family in three rooms in a run down part of Jabalya.

His unemployed father, also called Mohammed, said that he had to keep his son back from his government school because he could not afford books or other items like stationery and school clothes. Palestinians adults say they can earn around £8,70 a day collecting gravel.

Mr Mogah, who has four other children, was a building worker in Israel until permits were withdrawn in 2006 and says that a 400-shekel [£70] a month insurance payment for serious burns he sustained while working in Israel stopped coming after the 2008-9 invasion. “We are in a bad state,” he said. “We are below zero.”



One of ten injured Palestinian boys who testified to the human rights agency Defence for Children International said that he had been told to look out for birds flying from the military watchtower at the Erez crossing.

The flight of disturbed birds meant that soldiers were climbing the tower and that shooting could be imminent.

The Israeli human rights agency B'tselem is calling on the Israeli military to conduct an investigation of shootings of gravel collectors.

It has also compiled a dossier on the enforcement of the buffer zone elsewhere along the border as evidence to the official Turkel Commission investigation into the background of the Israeli boarding on the Turkish-led flotilla which sought to break the Gaza embargo in May. Nine Turks were killed in the ensuing clashes.

The UN's Office of Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in August that Israel had been using live fire to enforce an exclusion zone of up to 1000-1,500 metres along the eastern border.

While acknowledging that operations by armed Palestinian factions in some border areas had resulted in the deaths of 41 Palestinian militants and four Israeli soldiers since the beginning of 2009, it pointed out that the restricted zone covered 35 percent of Gaza’s farmland. It said a combination of razed farmland and enforcement of the exclusion zone had cost Palestinian farmers around $50m a year.

The Israeli military said yesterday that “hostile terrorist activity” in “close proximity to the security fence surrounding the Gaza strip” had included since the beginning of the year 60 incidents of small arms fire, 34 of improvised explosive device (IED) plantings, and 15 incidents of anti-tank missile fire.
On occasions militants had disguised themselves as civilians, including one with a mule cart packed with explosives.

Palestinians had been clearly warned with leaflets since 2008 that a 300-metre buffer zone would be closed to Palestinians. The military added that it acted to prevent harm to civilians and “any complaint expressed regarding the conduct of IDF soldiers will be taken into consideration.”

*Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday offered to seek a resumption of the moratorium on building in Jewish West Bank settlements if Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state. Mr Netanyahu, speaking at the opening of a new session of the Knesset said he would request ministers to resume the partial settlement freeze which ended last month if the Palestinians “say unequivocally that it recognizes Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people”.

Reality Check: de Nederlandse Bomb Iran-lobby

14 september in Trouw:

"Het Westen verdenkt Iran ervan het atoomprogramma te gebruiken voor de productie van kernwapens."

Dit zinnetje is zo normaal geworden dat de leugen niet eens meer opvalt. Want wie zijn "het Westen" die dat denken? De Bomb Iran lobby is niet "het Westen", maar een club van oorlogzuchtige en immer oliehongerige neoconservatieven plus de illegale kernwapenmacht Israël.

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4 september Radio Nederland Wereldomroep:

"...Iran, dat mogelijk in het geheim aan kernwapens werkt."

Een vileine leugen met in het woord "mogelijk" het venijn. Een venijn dat hier voor journalistieke ethiek door moet gaan. Uit de categorie "naar vermeend" en "volgens [anonieme] bronnen", dat je alleen in tabloids en derderangs roddelblaadjes zou verwachten.

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Op 1 september liegt ene Ehsan Kermani de hele boel aan elkaar in Trouw, en begint al in zijn eerste zin:

"De internationale gemeenschap zet Iran van alle kanten onder druk vanwege zijn kernwapenprogramma."

Welk kernwapenprogramma? Kermani is een gevluchte Iraniër en voorzitter van een van de lobbyclubs die er naar streeft om het regime in Iran zo kwaadaardig mogelijk te presenteren, om zodoende de weg tot en consensus voor bombardementen en oorlog te plaveien (zie ook: Irak). De man doet niet eens de moeite om wat hij beweert in een "opinie" te verhullen, bijvoorbeeld omdat hij schrijft in de wij-vorm: "Laten wij duidelijk zijn. Alle kernwapens de wereld uit, te beginnen met de (toekomstige) kernwapens van Iran." Over Israël natuurlijk geen woord.

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Op 25 augustus schrijft Rutger van der Hoeven in de Groene Amsterdammer (ja, ook die):

"Zo bouwt Iran een eigen machtspositie op ... en Teheran zicht krijgt op een eigen kernwapen"

Maar hij gaat verder:

"...een nucleair bewapend Iran dat de sluimerende kernwapenprogramma's van Saoedi-Arabië, Egypte, Turkije en Syrië kan aanzwengelen."

Het meest alarmerende vind ik nog dat Van der Hoeven niet alleen als propagandeur door de massamedia wordt ingehuurd, maar dat hij ook nog geschiedenis doceert aan de Universiteit van Utrecht.

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Etcetera.

In Christian Science Monitor legt journalist Scott Horton bloot hoe onze zelfbenoemde "kwaliteitspers" onderdeel uitmaakt van het Bomb Iran propaganda apparaat, en hoe wij reeds jarenlang gebrainwashd worden door de dames en heren van de redactie.

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Reality Check: Iran is Not a Nuclear Threat
Forget the neoconseratie hype. The facts show Iran is not and has not been a nuclear threat to either the United States or Israel.

CSM -- Sept, 17, 2010 - - Politicians, lobbyists, and propagandists hae spent nearly two decades pushing the lie that Iran poses a nuclear weapons threat to the United States and Israel. After a brief respite in the intensity of the wolf cries oer the past two years, the neoconseratie moement has decided to relaunch the "Must Bomb Iran" brand.

The fact that Iran is not and has not been a nuclear threat to either nation is rendered irreleant by a narratie of uniersal "concern" about its nuclear program.

US media distortions
In mid-August, for example, after The New York Times quite uncharacteristically ran a piece diminishing the supposed danger of Iranian nukes, the story was misrepresented in newspapers and on T stations across the country in the most frightening terms. As MSNBC's news reader put it that afternoon: "Intelligence sources say Iran is only one year away from a nuclear bomb!"

On August 13, on Fox News, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton implicitly urged Israel to attack Iran's new light-water reactor at Bushehr before it began "functioning," the implication being that the reactor represented some sort of dire threat. But the facts are not on Mr. Bolton's side. The Bushehr reactor is not useful for producing weapons-grade plutonium, and the Russians hae a deal to keep all the waste themseles.

On September 6, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a new paper on the implementation of Iran's Safeguards Agreement which reported that the agency has "continued to erify the non-diersion of declared nuclear material in Iran to any military or other special purpose."

Yet despite the IAEA report and clear assertions to the contrary, news articles that followed were dishonest to the extreme, interpreting this clean bill of health as just another wisp of smoke indicating nuclear fire in a horrifying near-future.

A Washington Post article published the ery same day led the way with the aggressie and misleading headline "UN Report: Iran stockpiling nuclear materials," "shorthanding" the facts right out of the narratie. The facts are that Iran's terrifying nuclear "stockpile" is a small amount of uranium enriched to industrial grade leels for use in its domestic energy and medical isotope programs, all of it "safeguarded" by the IAEA.

More sensational claims

If the smokescreen wasn't thick enough, late last week a group of Marxist holy warrior exiles called the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq, working with the ery same neoconseraties who sponsored Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress - which manufactured so much of the propaganda that coninced the American people to support the inasion of that country - accused the Iranian goernment of building a secret nuclear enrichment facility buried deep in tunnels near Qazin.

Headlines once again blared in total negligence and without erification that here indeed was, an official told Fox News, proof that Iran has a "hidden, secret nuclear weapons program.'" T news anchors on eery channel furiously mopped sweat from their brows, hearts-a-tremor. When will the forces of good rise to stop this eil?!

Yet een US officials quickly admitted that they'e known about these tunnels for years. "[T]here's no reason at this point to think it's nuclear," one US official said - a quote that appeared in Fox's article, but only after fie paragraphs of breathless allegations. All day long, top-of-the-hour news updates on T and radio let the false impression stand.

IAEA inspectors hae had open access to the gas conersion facility at Isfahan, the enrichment facility at Natanz, and the new lightwater reactor at Bushehr, as well as the secondary enrichment facility under construction at Qom.

An ignored clean bill of health

The September 6 IAEA report confirming for the zillionth time the non-diersion of nuclear material should be the last word on the subject until the next time they say the same thing: Iran, a long-time signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is not in iolation of its Safeguards Agreement.

So what's all the hubbub about Iran's "nuclear defiance" and "danger"?

The IAEA's latest report does note that Iran has "not proided the necessary cooperation to permit the Agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful actiities." Indeed, the agency's frequent mentions of Iran's "lack of full cooperation" is a big reason why US media reports portray Iran in ominous terms.

But here, too, US media frequently miss the point. Neer mind that 118 nations around the world hae signed a statement criticizing the IAEA's "peaceful actiities" conclusion as a departure from standard erification language. More broadly, Iran's "lack of full cooperation" by itself is an outcome of Western bullying and propaganda.

Real reason for lack of cooperation

The US and the UN, acting upon no legitimate authority whatsoeer, hae demanded that Iran submit to an Additional Protocol to the Safeguards Agreement, which would ban any further enrichment on Iranian soil, as well as demanded they submit to an endless regime of IAEA inspections and questioning, based mostly on the "alleged studies" documents, which seeral sources hae said are forgeries posing as a pilfered laptop of a dead Iranian nuclear scientist.

These separate, UN Security Council-mandated inestigations hae een demanded blueprints for Shahab 3 missiles - a subject far remoed from hexafluoride gas or any legitimate IAEA function. In 2003, Iran oluntarily agreed to the extra burden of the unratified Additional Protocol during "good faith negotiations" with the so-called "E-3," Britain, France, and Germany, acting on behalf of the US. When those negotiations broke down, Iran withdrew in 2006.

With these details left out of the discussion, the impression is left that Iran is refusing to abide by international law, when in fact, it is completely within its NPT obligations.

An outrageous standard

Meanwhile, Washington continues to apply to Iran the outrageous standard it used in the run-up to the Iraq war: an unfriendly nation must "proe" it doesn't hae dangerous weapons or a secret program to make them - or potentially face military action.

"Proing a negatie" is, to say the least, a difficult obligation to meet: You say you haen't read Webster's Dictionary coer to coer? Proe it!

The bottom line is that Iran is still within its unalienable rights to peaceful nuclear technology under the NPT and the Safeguards Agreement - a point een Tehran's fiercest critics (grudgingly) acknowledge. The only issues it is defying are the illegitimate sanctions and demands of the US and UN, which themseles defy logic and sense.

Journalists' ethical obligation

It is far past time for the members of the American media to get their act together and begin asking serious follow-up questions of the politicians, "experts," and lobbyists they interview on the subject of Iran's nuclear program.

Many of these same journalists still hae the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis on their hands from the months they spent continuously and uncritically parroting the lies, half-truths, and distortions of agenda-drien Iraqi dissidents and their neocon champions who pushed us into the Iraq war.

Perhaps this is their shot at redemption.

Scott Horton is host of Antiwar Radio on the Liberty Radio Network and assistant editor at Antiwar.com.

Novum/Volkskrant: bedreiging met geweld wordt "Israël dringt aan"

Het Israëlische 'persbureau' in Nederland, Novum, brieft altijd uitgebreid door wat het Israëlische leger en de Israëlische regering dicteren. Aan wederhoor wordt meestal niet gedaan. Wat de internationale gemeenschap heeft bepaald, niet de mening van Israël, is altijd minder of niet belangrijk.

De meeste propaganda wordt bedreven door suggestie (framing en omissie van historische feiten - en dus de context. In dit korte bericht heeft Novum de bedreiging met geweld tegen burgers, komende van (nota bene) de Israëlische VN ambassadrice verwrongen tot een legitiem ogend sprookje dat Israël er bij Libanon er op "aandrong" om het hulpschip, waarbij het woord hulp natuurlijk weer weggelaten wordt, niet uit te laten varen. Wat ook weggelaten wordt is dat de opvarenden van het schip allemaal vrouwen zijn, en een samenwerking is van Libanese christenen en moslims. Dat Israël dreigt met geweld tegen een hulpschip met christenen en vrouwen moet natuurlijk koste wat het kost verzwegen worden! Novum houdt het Israël-sprookje graag in leven.

Het rept over de blokkade Gaza, maar laat weg dat deze blokkade illegaal is. Integendeel, alleen de visie van de bedreigster wordt gepresenteerd. Weggelaten wordt ook het geweld tegen het vorige hulpkonvooi, waarbij 9 burgers vakkundig (van dichtbij, in de rug, meerdere keren door het hoofd, etc.) werden geliquideerd door Israëlische commando's na entering in internationale wateren.

Novum weet zoals gewoonlijk weer wel te vermelden dat Hezbollah een "extremistische groepering" is. Maar Hezbollah is helemaal geen "groepering", maar een politieke partij, mét een paramilitaire afdeling. Formeel is het IDF nog veel meer een "extremistische groepering", omdat het een bezettingsleger is, bekend om haar mensenrechtenschendingen, lak heeft aan inmiddels 72 VN-resoluties, en tegenwoordig bij elke militaire operatie oorlogsmisdaden pleegt, en opzettelijk en zonder aanleiding burgers om het leven brengt - volgens getuigenverklaringen van IDF-soldaten.

» Het Nieuwsblad (BE): Israël dreigt met geweld tegen nieuw konvooi