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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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I'm going to go to the bathroom.

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The ever-whelming majority of these casualties was civilians.

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This strip of land is being bombarded from the air sea and land.

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It's very large that leased 160 strikes on the Gaza strip.

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And there's one less hospital in Gaza now.

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It is real today.

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Fletton, Waffa Hospital.

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The sheer scale of the attack sparked outrage and condemnation around the world.

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Israel's month-long pounding of Gaza shocked many people around the world.

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Mass demonstrations have been held in many of the world's major cities.

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But in the United States the story was different.

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Polls show the American people holding firm in their support for Israel.

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This is the latest in NORC poll.

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The American shows 57% of those polls say Israel's action in Gaza justified.

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34% say unjustified.

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These numbers were striking where they weren't new.

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Over the course of a conflict in which Palestinian casualties are far outnumbered.

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Israeli casualties, the American people have consistently shown far more sympathy for Israeli than for Palestinians.

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It's very difficult to divorce public opinion on any question

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from the media coverage that people rely on to form opinions.

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And I think the most prevalent lesson from looking at the coverage is that the coverage tends to see this conflict

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from the Israeli side.

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Study after study is demonstrated that it's really expected to dominate American media coverage.

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So by far the most common thing we've heard is that everything comes down to Israel's right to defend itself.

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Israel is a state that implements its right to defend itself and its citizens.

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It is a talking point that is set from the top and by the top.

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I mean from the highest officials, government officials who are commenting on this issue,

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which the media obsessively covers and repeats.

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A man's got to do what a man's got to do and he's got to do.

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What a country's got to do.

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We have to defend ourselves.

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In the most recent war in 2014, when we looked at mainstream media outlets,

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almost by a margin of three to one, Israeli spokespeople overrepresented compared to Palestinians spokespeople.

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So almost every time you turned on the screen, there was a Israeli representative on the screen telling you,

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Israel is the one that's in a position of defense.

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It is being attacked.

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And basically Israel is saying, hey, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the rockets flying you had, you allowed to defend yourself.

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Add to this the fact that you have American elected officials.

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Also, reinforcing Israel's right to defend itself.

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As I've said many times, Israel has a right to defend itself against rocket and tunnel attacks from Hamas.

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And you hear some of the same framing by anchors who reiterate and reinforce many of the same talking points that the Israeli officials spoke people.

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Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas, of course, a group that is firing rockets on Israel coming out of tunnels to attack Israelis.

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That imbalance there was very significant in shaping the way the public under the leadership of the Israeli government.

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The public understood this conflict.

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I worked in the European media for a long time.

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The coverage is the opposite.

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There's Palestinian legislators, Palestinian thinkers, Palestinian intellectuals, pro-Palestinian thinkers, many voices.

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So let me say very, very frankly.

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It's very easy to blame the victim.

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It's very easy to pull out a terrorist label.

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You come to America and you think that you are an alien.

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You're looking at a different world or a different planet.

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And I'm thinking what's going on here?

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When an narrative is so dominant, thousands of rockets were created.

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Without any visible descent or complication, it's extremely difficult to make clear to people that it is, it is basically a propaganda story.

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Israel is under siege by a terrorist organization.

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How do you make that clear when the mainstream spectacle is so unrelenting and total?

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We hear over and over again that the conflict comes down to Palestinian terrorism and it's really security.

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And what gets pushed out of the framing title is the fact that for almost 50 years, Palestinians have been systematically dispossessed from their land and denied their most basic human rights.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The United States has been a part of the United States.

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The Palestine soil is long neglected through the months.

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Zionism, the National of his movement that emerged in Europe in the late 1800s,

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was dedicated to the idea that the Jewish people,

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left a centuries of living as persecuted minorities within other countries,

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were entitled to a state in historic Palestine,

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the biblical homeland of the Jews more than 3,000 years before.

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But there was a basic problem with the choice from the start.

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Palestine was already home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs

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who had been living in Palestine for centuries.

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First under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and since World War I,

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under the control of the British Empire,

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and for decades had aspirations of their own for an independent state in Palestine.

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Tension steadily escalated during the 1930s,

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placing more and more pressure on the British colonial government

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to reconcile the competing interests of both sides.

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After World War II and the Honga Coast,

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the situation reached a breakpoint.

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Ultimately, the British colonial government made the decision to withdraw

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and to pass the problem onto the newly created United Nations.

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In 1947, UN Resolution 181 recommended that Palestine be split into two parts.

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Jews who were a third of the population would receive 56% of the land.

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Palestinians who were two-thirds of the population,

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and possessed more than 90% of historic Palestine, would receive 44%.

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These terms were immediately rejected by Arab leaders as unfair,

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but in the spring of 1948, Zionist leaders declared Israel a state along the proposed borders anyway,

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triggering the first Arab-Israeli war.

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Arab armies set out to destroy the newly born nation,

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that suffered repeated defeat.

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After winning a crushing victory, Israel took possession of even more land.

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By the time armistice was declared in 1949, Israel controlled 78% of the historic Palestine.

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The creation of the new state would be celebrated by Israelis as a triumph.

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But to this day, it is commemorated by Palestinians as the Nakhba,

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the Arabic term for the catastrophe.

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In memory of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were driven from their homes

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to make way for the new Jewish state.

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Old told approximately 700,000 people, more than half of Palestine's native population were uprooted.

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There is a lot of sympathy that can be generated,

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and I think rightly so, for what Jewish people,

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as a whole, have dealt with in Western societies and globally,

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because of anti-Semitism.

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The question then becomes,

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what is the proper response to that?

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The Zionist answer is of course, statehood.

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And there's many people who would sympathize with that.

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If it was in fact done in a vacuum,

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and if it was in fact done for a people without a land in a land without people.

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The reality is that's just not the way that it happened.

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There were people here.

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They lost their homes, their livelihood, their nation, their everything.

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This was a land in 1910 that was 93% Palestinian Arab and 67% Jewish.

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How did it suddenly become 80% Jewish and 20% Palestinian?

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This was not a normal demographic transition.

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This was a consequence of Israel's desire to create a Jewish state,

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and to do that and have to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible.

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There's other more complex factors,

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which bear bones as we see it.

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That is, I think, in a certain sense, the core of the conflict.

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The Palestinians have suffered,

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in more than, as a result of the creation of Israel.

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The creation of a Jewish state in a country that had an Arab majority,

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necessarily, and inevitably, caused them irreparable harm.

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The Palestinians use the term catastrophe to speak of the 1948 consequences.

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When they lost their land the first time around.

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In 67, it was another knackba, another catastrophe.

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In June of 1967, Israel won what was perceived as a stunning underdog victory

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of a much larger Arab armies during the 60-war war.

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With victory, in addition to taking land from Egypt and Syria,

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Israel began to militarily occupy all remaining Palestinian territory

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in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

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Suddenly, all of Palestine is now lost.

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We now have a new world, and we have a new world,

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we now have no Palestinian land left under Palestinian control.

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You had a huge Palestinian population living as refugees, or living under occupation.

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Palestinians are governed under military law.

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They are essentially prisoners.

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They are treated as if they were all prisoners of war.

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They have no rights.

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In the immediate aftermath of the 67 war,

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the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 242.

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Siting international law forbidding the takeover of territory by war,

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242 explicitly called for Israel to withdraw its armed forces.

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But to this day, Israel has largely failed to comply.

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Not only holding Palestinian territory,

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but confiscating additional land and building massive Jewish settlement blocks

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in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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In direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention,

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which expressly forbids states from transferring civilian populations

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into territory, it occupies.

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In addition, Israel has established an entire matrix of security control

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on Palestinian land to secure these settlements,

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including checkpoints that prevent Palestinians from traveling freely within their own land,

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and a 440 mile security war along Israeli border that cuts into Palestinian territory.

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We're talking about massive denial of human rights,

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for millions of people at the most basic level,

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the government that is ruling over these people is not a government

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in which these people, the Palestinians, have a voice.

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There's really no way to fully understand why the Palestinian people

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have resisted Israel for so long,

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without understanding this basic history of this possession of occupation.

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But for the most part, this isn't the story we get in American media coverage.

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Instead, the legitimate grievances of Palestinians,

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including their rights to resist an illegal military occupation,

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get pushed out of the frame by this constant discussion about extremism

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and terrorism and anti-Semitism.

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You know, rational clear-minded people understand that Hamas is a terror group,

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and it is committed to killing Jews and wiping Israel off the face of the earth.

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That's not debatable, that's a fact.

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It's never about land, somehow.

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That gets dropped out.

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It's never about settlements.

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It's always about they hate us because we're Jewish.

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Whatever the Palestinians have done is portrayed in terms of mindless violence

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against Jews out of some kind of primable anti-Semitism.

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No sense of how this started, where the animus comes from.

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It's completely inexplicable in the way in which it's generally presented.

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And these people basically kill because they hate and they hate

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because they're irrational Muslim, fanatics or whatever.

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And I think Americans largely get it.

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They know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

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This is not an illusion.

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American public opinion is generally supportive of Israel,

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because it's been led to believe that Israel is in the right

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and the Arab-Surpan guys.

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None of this is by accident.

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It's the result of the liberal effort to shape American perceptions of the conflict.

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A propaganda effort that really begins to take shape

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with Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

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Israel unleashed another massive era attack on Palestinian guerrilla targets in Lebanon today.

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From the sky, the whole is really jets, bombing and bombing.

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Tonight, Israel has never been closer to nor more in control of an Arab capital.

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In the summer of 1982, Israel invaded neighboring Lebanon in an attempt to drive

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the Palestinian-debutational organization out of its encampments on the southern border with Israel.

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Israeli officials justified the attack as a defensive action

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required to take out terrorists.

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That is the story played out on American television, a different narrative

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began to emerge.

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When the present is Israel, is the aggressive.

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What in the world is going on?

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Israel's security problem on its border is 50 miles to the south.

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What's in Israeli army doing here in Beirut?

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The answer is that we are now dealing with an imperial Israel,

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which is solving its problems in someone else's country.

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World opinion be damned.

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The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was a watershed.

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It was Israel breaking out beyond its immediate region to aggressively attack

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another country.

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And it was a bit of a shock to many people.

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Israel was always that gallop little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the

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odds.

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Now the Israelis have annexed East Jerusalem and the go-along heights settled down more or less

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permanently on the West Bank and occupied close to half of Lebanon.

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In the interests of self-defense that gallop little underdog Israel has suddenly started

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behaving like the neighborhood bully.

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By the time the war was over, Israeli military would kill 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians

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and wounded another 30,000 almost all of them civilians.

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In West Beirut hospitals are so taxed with the injured that they have become specialized.

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This better takes only burn victims of the fostering shells.

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Travel cases, concussions, confectures are directed to others with stability.

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And just a few months later, American media coverage would take an even darker time.

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There's been another horrendous turn of events in the Middle East.

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Hundreds of men, women and children, perhaps as many as 1,000 people in all have been massacred

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in two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut.

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Israel's Lebanese allies operating with the consent of the Israeli government

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had massacred several thousand Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sappera

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and Shatilla and American news media had the pictures to prove it.

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The Israelis permitted an armored column of right-wing Christian gunmen to enter West Beirut

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late Friday. They took up positions surrounding Shatilla refugee camp last night

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and this morning they were gone.

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The attacker which has heightened tensions between the US and Israel.

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Sappera Shatilla was hardly the first massacre committed by Israel against Palestinians

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and against Arabs. There's a dirty legacy of Israeli massacres from the pre-state

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through the creation of the state and beyond. The big difference was this one was televised.

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By all appearances, groups of men had been ordered to stand against the wall and then

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gun down in cold blood.

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Today, Palestinian church, frankly, for relatives.

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They took our children once they're killing our family.

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This was a game changer in terms of how Israel was going to deal with the question of publicity.

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They went on the offensive for the first time.

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All the direct or implicit accusations that the IDF bear any blame whatsoever

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for this human tragedy in the Shatilla camp are entirely based on this

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and without any foundation.

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The government of Israel rejects them with a contempt which they deserve.

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It was perhaps the first time they recognized at the highest levels inside Israel.

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How much they needed to do that? If they expected to maintain the kind of understood support

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in the United States, Israel can do no wrong. Israel is always the victim. Israel is the little David

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against the big bad Goliath.

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Two years after the Lebanon invasion, the American Jewish Congress sponsored a conference in Jerusalem

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to devise a formal public relations strategy known in Hebrew as Hasbara.

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Participants included PR and advertising executives, media specialists, journalists,

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and leaders of major Jewish groups.

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According to a brochure from the Congress, no single event bought home the need for a more effective

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hasbara or information program all persuasively than the 1982 war in Lebanon and the events of followed.

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As one conference participant put it, Israel is now on the perceived to be little David,

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but Goliath's steam rolling across the map.

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The primary aim of the conference was to develop strategies to spin unpopular Israeli policies

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and to counter negative press coverage by shaping the media-frame in advance.

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Newers doesn't just jump into a camera, a conference delegate said,

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it's directed, it's managed, it's made accessible.

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Israel-based advertising executive Martin Fenton would put it in even more blunt terms.

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propaganda is not a dirty word, he said.

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Face it, we are in the game of changing people's minds,

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but making them think differently to accomplish that, we need propaganda.

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The conference was chaired by US advertising executive Carl Spiel vocal,

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the legendary ad man who created the highly acclaimed Miller-like beards in the 1970s.

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The choice of Spiel vocal makes perfect sense.

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He's known as a master of image inversion and rebranding.

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The ad man responsible for transforming Miller-like,

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which had been viewed before as a woman's beer, into a manly beer that tough guys would drink.

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The best part is that a taste so great, the best part is its list,

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and not a taste great.

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Bullets is filling.

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His job with Israel would require the same kind of rebranding only in the opposite direction,

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to help soften the image of a country that's coming to be seen as a bully.

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So he recommends creating a cabinet post dedicated exclusively to explaining policy.

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His job would not be setting policy, but presenting it in the most attractive way to the rest of the world.

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Classic PR is to say the problem is not the policy.

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It's the presentation.

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When the policies are so reprehensible that many people become critical,

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rather than acknowledge there's anything wrong with the policy,

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there's a doubling down on the PR effort.

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After Lebanon, you start to see the basic has broad strategy in action.

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Image is a Palestinian fighting back against Israel's occupation,

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make their way onto American television screens.

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And Israeli military crushes this resistance in brutal ways that undercut Israel's image

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as underdog and victim.

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Israeli helicopters and gunships deliberately fired a missile into a crowd of civilians last night,

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killing seven Palestinians, and ruling 70 more.

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Then Israeli officials going to full has brahmo.

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And at the occupation doesn't even exist, framing all Palestinian resistance

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as terrorism and Israeli aggression as self-defense.

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We will do whatever it takes to defend ourselves and defend ourselves we will.

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That's the basic has brah strategy in a nutshell.

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Even when you're violently crushing resistance here on brutal occupation,

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portray Israel as an innocent victim by demonizing Palestinians as nothing but terrorists.

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The Palestinian terror campaign continues.

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It only justifies again and again that we Israel have to continue and defend ourselves.

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There have been horrific Palestinian terrorist attacks,

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and I use that word very specifically to mean what terrorism means,

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which is attacks on civilians for a political purpose.

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Anger in Israel today, last night's suicide bomb in Tel Aviv,

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which killed four wounded around 50.

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Those are horrific attacks which should be condemned.

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They are violations of international law, period.

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But the problem is Israeli violence is assumed to be legitimate because it's always

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self-defense.

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Some of the people who have been killed are said to be civilians.

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In fact, two of them are said to be little girls, but the Israeli military says they try to

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the best of their knowledge and make sure whoever they are striking was a known militant.

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All the cases when Palestinian people were killed by the Israeli military,

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and this is not called acts of terror and one should ask why,

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if it is civilians who are being killed, but from a plane and not by a suicide bomber,

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why this is not terror and only terror is when somebody is killed by a suicide bomber.

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If the terrorist label can only be affixed to one set of people,

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but not another set of people, then you're in an Orwellian zone,

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you're down a rabbit hole of linguistic manipulation.

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The last thing they want is a political settlement.

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What they want is more demonstrations, more riots, more bodies.

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That's what they want.

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And so this becomes the framing of the situation.

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Israel is defending itself, which means Israel is not the aggressor here.

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That doesn't square with the reality on the ground, and we know that.

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You have a right to defend yourself.

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You don't have a right to occupy people, deny them their human rights,

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and then cry foul when they resist.

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That's not the right to self-defense.

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That's the right to repression.

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That's what Israel is asking for here.

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Let us do away with these dissenters, these Palestinian dissenters, and call it defense.

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As News Media have proliferated over the years,

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Israel's public relations efforts have only become more and more explicit and intense.

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In the United States, we have a show called The Apprentice.

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We're Donald Trump, additions people to work in his corporate boardroom.

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In Israel, the version of the Apprentice is called The Ambassador.

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The Ambassador in a world where the real battles take place in newsrooms and TV studios.

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The ability to create a positive image for your country is a crucial task for every ambassador.

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It's a show where Israelis compete for who can offer the best husband or a.

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That means explain in Hebrew, explain our situation.

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While the Apprentice tests contestance ability to sell lemonade on the street,

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lemonade or handle office politics, the Ambassador finalists have learned that selling real politics is all lot harder.

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The problem is that when you sell lemonade, nobody hates lemonade.

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Nobody's going to say that you're lemonade occupies territories, but that you're lemonade kills babies.

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Israel's mechanism for directing its propaganda or what they call Hasbarah is one of the most sophisticated arms of its government.

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It's a weapon of Israeli warfare.

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When you look today at how the media come to conflict, you see just how successful Israel's propaganda is being in reversing the legacy of Lebanon.

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If there's any complaints and there should be about civilian deaths that they belong.

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The responsibility and the blame belongs in one place, Hamas.

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I don't think anyone should get that wrong.

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The Israeli position is the first position.

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They are allowed to determine the narrative, determine the facts on the ground.

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Hamas is a terror organization committed to our destruction.

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They fire thousands of rockets at our cities.

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It becomes a story of Israeli responding to Palestinian attacks.

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Israel says this is a response to the almost 800 rockets that had landed in Israel from Gaza this year alone.

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The gain and the gain, the wider context, the visual occupation simply drops out of the coverage.

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So it comes across as this confusing and endless cycle of violence.

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It begins when Palestinians attack and Israelis retaliate in self-defense.

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Three Palestinians were shot and killed while allegedly trying to attack Israelis with kitchen knives.

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This cycle of violence continues when Hamas launches rockets from Gaza is real hits back.

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Cycle of violence presupposes this back and forth retaliation.

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It's the same sort of thing with a low in the violence or a relative calm.

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After three days of relative calm, the violence is once again picking up here in the Middle East.

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Relative to who and to what?

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Right?

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What's actually going on on the ground is not ever a low in the violence for Palestinians.

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In fact, occupation is a system of violence that goes on every single day.

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Just because there's no violence that Israelis are witnessing for a particular period of time before it resumes again,

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does not mean that there's no violence facing Palestinians from the occupation.

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So this law in the violence is only seen through the prism of Israeli victimhood, not Palestinian victimhood.

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It's no wonder that Americans would identify with the Israeli side or support it.

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It would be shocking if they didn't.

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And I think this is the lesson to be drawn from 30 years of media coverage that I think has been slanted heavily in favor of Israeli interests.

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What we've seen is really another kind of occupation.

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A occupation of American media and what we could call the American mind.

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Right? Pro-Israel narrative does deflected attention away from what virtually everyone recognizes as the best way to resolve this conflict.

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And the occupation and the settlements so that Palestinians can finally have a state of their own.

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Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Arafa, chairman of the Executive Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization, his excellency Yatsa Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, the President of the United States.

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The ongoing peace process that began with the Oslo peace accords in 1993 was designed to negotiate the terms of Israel's withdrawal from Palestinian territory in accordance with UN resolution 242, which made an explicit connection between Israeli withdrawal and the just and lasting peace.

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In the end, there has been an overwhelming international consensus on a political settlement of the conflict, namely a settlement on the international recognized border.

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The international consensus for a two-state solution is based on the borders in place before the 67 war.

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This means that Israel gets 78% and the Palestinians get the rest, 22% of historic Palestine. 22% that's it.

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But since Oslo Israel has actually taken more Palestinian land for its Jewish-only settlements. In 1993 there were approximately 200,000 illegal Jewish settlers living in the occupied Palestinian territories.

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Since then, that number has more than triple, with approximately 650,000 settlers now living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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In addition, since 1967 Israel has also demolished approximately 28,000 Palestinian homes.

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The United Nations, as there's been a big increase in the number of Palestinian homes demolished by Israeli forces.

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This is what Palestinians have called ethnic cleansing. Demolitions and evictions carried out by Israel in the occupied West Bank.

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So if you look at the result, not the words and the pretty phrases, what's happened over the past 20 years and was inaugurated at Oslo.

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It was not a peace process. It was an exashing process.

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What has happened is that now one in 11 is really Jews living in these illegal settlements.

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So the failure to confront the settlement enterprise from the very beginning. I think has created a almost insuperable obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state.

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There's no place to put it.

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And that's what the settlements are all about. It's to claim the land facts on the ground that become nothing we can do about it now. It's too late.

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Israel wants as much of the land as they can get away with with as few Palestinians on it as possible.

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Is there any governments from the very beginning after the successful some more ever considered giving up Israeli control of the territories?

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Moshe Dion who served as the Fencemen, Uster and foreign ministry. People asked him what will be the future now or controlling the territories.

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And he said, the future will be exactly what it is today.

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We must continue to retain the control of these territories.

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Just listen to Netanyahu talking in private to his right wing settler base in 2001 about how he has no intention despite what Israeli creates.

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So it was Oslo giving up land and ending its illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank and the rest of the Jordan Valley.

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It's a good news for us to be able to do this.

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We have to do this for the people.

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And then the Hushberg's name is Oshel.

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We have to do this for the people.

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We have to do this.

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We have to do this for the people.

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We have to do this for the people.

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Netanyahu is clear that Israel is not giving anything up.

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But he is also very clear that the way to make that argument is to invoke security threats.

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And he is especially confident that he can manipulate the American people to buy into this argument.

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They are not letting them out of the city.

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They are not letting them out of the city.

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That must be the most of the show that this is the political.

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And this of course is exactly the case is made to the American people time and time again.

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Whenever Israel's been called out,

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through refusing to end the occupation and its settlement projects.

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We're willing to make great concessions for peace.

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But there is something that I will never compromise on.

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And that is what is security.

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The conventional wisdom is that continuing the occupation makes Israel more secure.

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And if you buy that argument, then it's a license to occupy indefinitely.

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What we're talking about here is something that is completely indefensible.

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Israel knows this. Israel knows this very well.

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And for that reason wants to talk about anything and everything else.

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They'd rather talk about terrorism.

463
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,000
They'd rather talk about security.

464
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,000
They'd rather talk about Iran.

465
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:24,000
Anything.

466
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,000
But the occupation.

467
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:33,000
The reason they've been able to so effectively change the subject isn't because they're practicing some kind of mass-mind control.

468
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:41,000
The main reason is that the US government itself has had a vested interest in promoting this same narrative for almost 50 years now.

469
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:46,000
This goes back to the start of the so-called special relationship with Israel in the late 1960s.

470
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:52,000
When the US decides to deputize Israel and make it what the Nixon administration called a cop on the beat,

471
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:57,000
which protects American interests in the Middle East, especially US energy supplies.

472
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:03,000
Ever since, the American government has continued to give Israel roughly $3 billion a year in military aid,

473
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:09,000
while also vetoing one UN resolution after another condemning the occupation and settlements.

474
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:16,000
The challenges to make sure that the American people stay on board with the USAID despite what Israel is doing.

475
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:24,000
A number of well-funded public relations organizations have emerged within the United States to help Israel justify as policies,

476
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,000
especially the occupation and settlements on security grounds.

477
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,000
One of these groups is the Israel Project.

478
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:38,000
In 2009, the Israel Project turned to Conservative Polster and rebranding expert Frank Luntz.

479
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:39,000
Frank Luntz.

480
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:44,000
This is the man that reframed the estate tax as the death tax.

481
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,000
The health care reform, as government take over, of health care.

482
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:52,000
Now, some critics have called Luntz a spind doctor who manipulates public emotion,

483
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,000
but Luntz would reframe that as Fox News analyst.

484
00:34:56,000 --> 00:35:02,000
The Israel Project hired him to determine which talking points used by Israeli and US officials over time

485
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:06,000
have been most effective in maintaining American sympathy for Israel.

486
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:12,000
Luntz wrote up his recommendations in a 2009 report called The Global Language Dictionary.

487
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:18,000
If you understand how the propaganda works, especially in the US, you need to read the Luntz document.

488
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:23,000
He's really clear that the occupation and especially the settlements are a problem.

489
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:30,000
And he points the polls that show a large majority of Americans actually think that Israel should retreat to the 67 borders.

490
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:38,000
In fact, he says, when you talk about land in terms of 67, you completely flip American sentiment against you.

491
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:44,000
But, and this is his solution, if you bring up the danger of terrorism, you win back the support.

492
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:52,000
The key, Luntz says, is to claim that the fight is over ideology, not land, about terror, not territory.

493
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:58,000
In fact, these three words, terror, not territory, summarise the basis of the propaganda campaign in the US.

494
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:07,000
And Luntz goes on to say that one of the most effective ways to make the conflict about terrorism is to refer to an obscure political document written in 1988

495
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:13,000
by small group of ideologues, the Hamas charter, that calls for the destruction of Israel.

496
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:19,000
Even though the Hamas leadership effectively disowned the charter a long time ago, it's been PR gold for Israel.

497
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:27,000
Luntz research has discovered that when Americans hear the words of the charter, Israel goes from Bully to Bixem,

498
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,000
and sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians disfades.

499
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:36,000
So he says, don't just quote it, read it, out loud, again and again.

500
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:40,000
And his advice has been taken up often historically by Israel's advocates.

501
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:45,000
The Hamas charter, not only cause resources, instructions ladies and gentlemen,

502
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:52,000
article seven calls for the murder of every Jew, it calls for the murder of every Jew.

503
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,000
It's a Nazi document.

504
00:36:54,000 --> 00:37:02,000
We have the Israeli Prime Minister saying movements like Hamas, that are national movements, are the same thing as ISIS.

505
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,000
Hamas is like ISIS.

506
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,000
Hamas is like Al-Qaeda.

507
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:09,000
Hamas is like his balla.

508
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,000
Hamas is like Boko Haram.

509
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,000
And they are completely not the same thing.

510
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:17,000
And anyone who understands anything about the Middle East and political dynamics there will

511
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,000
explain to you exactly why that is the case.

512
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,000
And immediately spot that for the propaganda that it is.

513
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:30,000
Hamas is as much a national movement as it is in a religious movement.

514
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:39,000
And in fact, it often assigns priority to its nationalist goals over its religious goals.

515
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:46,000
This false notion of Hamas as part of this al-Qaeda network is not bought even by

516
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,000
important elements of the American military.

517
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:54,000
In 2010, the United States Central Command was sent to come, the highest military command in the US.

518
00:37:54,000 --> 00:38:00,000
issued a classified report the question the current US policy of isolating and marginalizing Hamas as well as

519
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:01,000
Hezbollah in Lebanon.

520
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:05,000
The report described the two groups as pragmatic.

521
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:11,000
And argued that putting them in al-Qaeda in the same sentences if they're all the same is just stupid.

522
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:20,000
And it directly repudiated Israel's publicly stated view that Hamas and Hezbollah are incapable of change and must be confronted with force.

523
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:27,000
Warning that failing to recognize their grievances and objectives would result in continued failure in moderating their behavior.

524
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,000
And the US military isn't alone in the assessment.

525
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:36,000
ISIS itself is attacked Hamas again and again because they're not radical enough.

526
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,000
They're too pragmatic and too compromising.

527
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:47,000
But none of these facts thought people from going on and on about Hamas chart anyway in order to paint Hamas with the same brush as ISIS.

528
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:52,000
I spent a lot of time on my radio program going over Hamas's charter.

529
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,000
What it says, it wants to obliterate Israel.

530
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,000
It wants to destroy the Jews.

531
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:06,000
It is a sick, twisted, you know, perverted ideology, a religion that has been hijacked by radicals and it manifests itself in different forms.

532
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:12,000
Muslim Brotherhood Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Al-Qaeda.

533
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:13,000
It's all the same thing.

534
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:20,000
Meanwhile, you hear next to nothing about another extreme political charter that has much more relevance to the conflicts.

535
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:23,000
The platform of the ruling Lakrut Party in Israel.

536
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:29,000
Well, if you look at the language that's in that charter, the Lakrut charter, it flatly rejects,

537
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:37,000
quote, flatly rejects the existence of a Palestinian state anywhere, anywhere on that side of the Jordan River.

538
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:42,000
In other words, completely denying the right of a state of Palestine to exist.

539
00:39:42,000 --> 00:40:00,000
That's far more relevant to have language like the language in the Lakrut charter be in the charter of a party that is the largest in Israeli government driving in Israeli state and has the capacity to act upon the words in their charter in a way that no other party does.

540
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,000
So, strengthen the case that the conflict is about terrorism and not territory.

541
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:08,000
Lents points to the effectiveness of another well-established Israeli token point.

542
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:18,000
The claim that Israel gave up control of Gaza in 2005 in hopes of achieving peace and a two-state solution and got only rockets in return.

543
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,000
We left Gaza completely.

544
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:25,000
We had Gaza, they could have turned it into a flourishing, wonderful place to live in.

545
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:26,000
Look at what they did.

546
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,000
They turned it into a haven of terrorists coming from all over the world.

547
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:34,000
It's completely untrue that Israel left the Gaza Strip.

548
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:41,000
They did withdraw their colonists, but at the same time, they tightened their control over the Gaza Strip.

549
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,000
This is Gaza's main freight route into Israel.

550
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:53,000
And normally this road would be bumper to bumper with heavily laden trucks, but it's completely closed as is every other board across the country.

551
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:57,000
Nothing's coming into Gaza and nothing is getting out.

552
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:02,000
So, the idea that Israel left is 100% close.

553
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,000
Gaza remains occupied.

554
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:13,000
Gaza has no control over its coast, over its waters, over its harbor, over its airspace, over the land, over its borders, over its people,

555
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:17,000
who can come and go is totally at the Israeli discretion.

556
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:24,000
In Gaza, there are constant military attacks by the Israeli Air Force by drones.

557
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:28,000
Targeted assassinations go on all the time.

558
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:40,000
It wasn't really a withdrawal, but the conventional shorthand in the media is that Israel was willing to give up an enormous amount to the Palestinian side and the Palestinians responded with violence.

559
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:44,000
Israel, since 1967, controlled Gaza.

560
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:51,000
They gave it to the Palestinians at a gesture of peace and all they got are a bunch of rockets in the…

561
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,000
This is the basic frame of Israel's PR campaign.

562
00:41:54,000 --> 00:42:03,000
Make sure the media stays focused on terrorism and a mass extremism as a source of the conflict, not the occupation and the settlements.

563
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:10,000
If you want to see this in operation, just look at the coverage of any of Israel's many attacks on Gaza of the past few years.

564
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:15,000
Good evening.

565
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:21,000
In the 60 years of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, there had been few if any days like this one.

566
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:28,000
The scale and intensity of this attack was surprising, a deadliest operation against Palestinians in decades.

567
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:35,000
After an intense three week assault, 1300 dead, 5,000 wounded.

568
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:42,000
In late December of 2008, Israel launched Operation Coast Lead, a massive ground in Erasol on the Gaza Strip.

569
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:45,000
The Air Force released this cockpit video.

570
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:51,000
Over a period of three weeks, Israel military dropped over 600 tons of bombs on Gaza.

571
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,000
It doesn't clear yet how many civilians are among them.

572
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,000
In the 1400 Palestinians were killed in thousands more inches.

573
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:05,000
The wounded were carried on corrugated iron, in private cars, on bats and in arms.

574
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:10,000
The worst one they casualty telling Gaza anybody can all men.

575
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:16,000
Normally in a conflict, civilians can run for their lives.

576
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:24,000
Gaza was one of the few of the only modern conflict with the helpless civilians who were subjected to massive

577
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:29,000
technologically advanced firepower by these Israelis had no escape routes.

578
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:35,000
With Gaza City bombed and burning, Palestinians heated Israel's warning to get out of the way,

579
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,000
but found they had nowhere to go.

580
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:42,000
What's a safe place for us to go the woman cried?

581
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,000
Not the UN compound where 700 people took shelter.

582
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,000
Israeli artillery hit it, then hit it again.

583
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,000
That was a brutal, murders attack, devastating.

584
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,000
This attack was murders.

585
00:43:55,000 --> 00:44:02,000
As with the Lebanon invasion three decades before, horrific images of destruction spilled onto television screens around the world.

586
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:06,000
But this time the Israeli government was prepared.

587
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:14,000
Six months earlier, it had set up a new unit within the Israeli Prime Minister's office to help coordinate the government's messaging once the invasion started.

588
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:20,000
Israel is defending its action saying this assault is in direct response to almost daily rocket and water attacks.

589
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:28,000
If you asked any American why that war started, they would say, because the Palestinians started firing rockets at Israel.

590
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:33,000
Hamas, keeping up the rocket fire that triggered the Israeli attacks in the first place.

591
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:37,000
Hamas, once again firing several dozen rockets into Israel today.

592
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:46,000
They're always preparing Americans for an attack against these people who are incurgible terrorists, who are constantly shooting rockets,

593
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:49,000
and never ever giving the other side of the story.

594
00:44:49,000 --> 00:45:02,000
We were told endlessly, in any media that you want to look at, that Israel had to invade and attack the Gaza strip because of an unending assault from Hamas and various militant groups in Gaza.

595
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,000
What are the goals of that operation right now?

596
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:16,000
To change totally the behavior of the Hamas is a terrorist regime that keeps shaling Israel with thousands of rockets and motor shans.

597
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:26,000
What this forget is that for the latter half of 2008, there was a very successful ceasefire that curtailed rocket fire into Israel dramatically.

598
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,000
Almost to the point in which there was none.

599
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:34,000
This was shattered in November of 2008 when Israel attacked.

600
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:38,000
What they said was a tunnel building project killed six Hamas militants.

601
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,000
At that point the ceasefire was off.

602
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:46,000
Now the New York Times, the so-called paper of record, reported this very clearly one time.

603
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:51,000
The story gets buried on page eight of the New York Times, and Harley registers anywhere else.

604
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:52,000
Why?

605
00:45:52,000 --> 00:46:02,000
Well look at the day that Israel chose to break the ceasefire November 4th, 2008, which just coincidentally happened to be the day of the historic election of Barack Obama.

606
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:06,000
It virtually guaranteed that no one in America would notice.

607
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,000
And that's exactly how it played out.

608
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:17,000
When Hamas regime rocket attacks after Israel broke the ceasefire, Israeli officials went on American television and got away with blaming Hamas the breaking the ceasefire.

609
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:21,000
You know it was Hamas that you know actually tore up the ceasefire understandings.

610
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:26,000
It was Hamas that escalated the vines that reached a crescendo on Christmas day.

611
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:33,000
When we had in one 24 hour period some 80 rockets mortarshells and missiles coming into Israel attacking our civilians.

612
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,000
Now we want to work with the Palestinian government.

613
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,000
And the lie was then repeated uncritically by US News Media.

614
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:42,000
Games, there's no question here is there that Hamas started this.

615
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:45,000
Well look I don't think Israel had any choice.

616
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:47,000
It was a ceasefire that was broken by Hamas.

617
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:50,000
They fired something like 300 rockets in the Israel.

618
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,000
I mean this is an act of war. What are they supposed to do?

619
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,000
Just compared this to how media outside the US still with us.

620
00:46:56,000 --> 00:47:03,000
Isn't it the fact that during the ceasefire not a single Israeli was killed and the reason for that was because Hamas fired not a single rocket.

621
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:08,000
No I think you're wrong unfortunately because during that ceasefire of six months.

622
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,000
They were firing rockets on a daily basis.

623
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:16,000
Channel 4 in Britain you saw an anchor presenting evidence that these ready government itself acknowledged that Hamas observed the ceasefire.

624
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:19,000
This is actually a document that's given to journalists by the Israeli government.

625
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:24,000
And in this document it says that I'm quoting Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire.

626
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:29,000
These ready official clearly caught in a lie attempts to change the subject to how evil Hamas is.

627
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,000
But the interview doesn't let him get away with it.

628
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:35,000
There were fire and rockets and they're always trying to target civilians.

629
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,000
Their men go all is they try to kill children and women.

630
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:45,000
I'm going to have to stop you because this document is published by the intelligence and terrorism information centre.

631
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:49,000
The Israel intelligence heritage and commemoration centre and they say.

632
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,000
It's not that Hamas has made a ceasefire.

633
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,000
It's not a government. It's a government.

634
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,000
It's a statement of that.

635
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:01,000
Now the fact you'd like to hear the fact or you'd like to invent something.

636
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,000
I would like you to talk about the ceasefire.

637
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,000
Extanges like these are unthinkable in the US.

638
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:11,000
Even though Israel itself, behind the scenes, acknowledged Hamas had observed the ceasefire.

639
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:16,000
Something another British reporter forced Israeli spokesperson Mark Reggiv to admit on camera.

640
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,000
There were no Hamas. It's during the ceasefire.

641
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,000
Before and at end of the fourth there were no Hamas rockets.

642
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,000
And that's correct.

643
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:29,000
Israel officially recognized it until it broke the ceasefire.

644
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:31,000
I've come up to the fire single rocket.

645
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:39,000
I mean the propaganda is so powerful that these truisms literally truisms are almost inexperienced.

646
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:47,000
The lesson is that this conflict started when we say it started and we say it started when Israel was attacked.

647
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:55,000
In 2012 and again in 2014 Israel was two more devastating attacks on Gaza.

648
00:48:56,000 --> 00:49:12,000
Israel can saturate the media with its folks people, but there's still the problem of massive Palestinian casualties showing up on television screens.

649
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,000
You can't make those images go away.

650
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:18,000
And it's really official actually said in the war of pictures we lose.

651
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:22,000
So you need to correct, explain or balance it in other ways.

652
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:31,000
Here again, the lunch document spells out which talking points have been most effective in spinning the brutal reality of Palestinian casualties.

653
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:37,000
He says the first thing the pro is really supposed people should do is express empathy for the innocent victims.

654
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:42,000
Unfortunately innocent do get hurt and we really grieve that.

655
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:45,000
We're sad for every civilian casualties.

656
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,000
The entire situation is tragic.

657
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:53,000
And on that lunch says you also have to get people to empathize with Israelis by describing what life is like for them.

658
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:56,000
Living in constant fear of a mass rocket attacks.

659
00:49:56,000 --> 00:50:02,000
So again and again we hear the focus tested phrase that the rockets are raining down on Israel.

660
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:08,000
We have thousands of rockets raining down on our civilians rockets were raining down on Israel.

661
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:13,000
Any advertising executive will tell you the essence of propaganda is repetition.

662
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:15,000
Rockets raining down on southern Israel.

663
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:17,000
Rockets raining down on Israel.

664
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:21,000
But the mass rockets rain down on Israeli border towns.

665
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:28,000
Then lunch tells P.R. spokespeople to turn the tables and ask the American people what would you do?

666
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:30,000
So what would you do in the United States?

667
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:36,000
You will imagine what America would do if it were facing a similar threat.

668
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:40,000
We always try to ask you the question we ask ourselves what will you do?

669
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,000
What would you do?

670
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:45,000
If more than 3,000 rockets had been fired on your cities?

671
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:46,000
What would you do?

672
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:47,000
3,000 rockets?

673
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:48,000
What would you do?

674
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,000
If terrorists were tumbling under your frontier?

675
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:54,000
What would you do if three kids are kidnapped because of a tunnel network?

676
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:56,000
What sort of question is this?

677
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:00,000
Of course anybody would act to defend themselves against unprovoked aggression.

678
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,000
But it is a question that is completely devoid of any context.

679
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:11,000
What drives society to a point where after multiple devastating wars they continue to resist with these most feeble methods.

680
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:14,000
They don't want you to ask that question.

681
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:16,000
They don't want you to ask what is behind this?

682
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:17,000
What's the history here?

683
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:18,000
Who are these people?

684
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:19,000
Where did they come from?

685
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,000
Why are they so desperate?

686
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:22,000
No.

687
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,000
They want you to understand Israeli behavior.

688
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:29,000
Israeli behavior is always characterized as a reaction to unprovoked violence.

689
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:35,000
Then on top of that, when massive numbers of Palestinian civilians predictably die from Israeli attacks,

690
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:40,000
Israel claims is part of a deliberate Hamas strategy to drum up sympathy.

691
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:45,000
They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.

692
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:47,000
They want the more dead the better.

693
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:56,000
So they end up in this upside-down Owellian world where Israeli's killing civilians becomes an unforquivocal transgression against Israelis.

694
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:02,000
It is hard to come away with any feeling, but that we are in the midst of a world gone mad.

695
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:08,000
Last week, I found a quote of many years ago by gold in my ear, one of Israel's early leaders,

696
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,000
which might have been said yesterday.

697
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:14,000
We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, she said,

698
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:19,000
but we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.

699
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:24,000
It's not difficult to imagine Americans identifying with Palestinians who are suffering,

700
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:30,000
but they need to be able to see that suffering on their television screens and in their newspapers.

701
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:35,000
Israel said today, it's new offensive is targeting terrorists.

702
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:41,000
And when you're sense of the coverage is that there's something that these people did to deserve this,

703
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:46,000
or that they are affiliated with terrorists and terrorist-minded governments.

704
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:54,000
The fallout of that is an inability to identify with people who are suffering in far greater numbers and in far greater proportion,

705
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:57,000
then there is really counterparts.

706
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:13,000
The effort to shape American perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been taken up by a number of pro-Israel groups based in the US,

707
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:17,000
together these groups are commonly referred to as the Israel lobby.

708
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:23,000
No where has the lobby's power to shape a pro-Israel narrative be more visible than in the US Congress,

709
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:29,000
to largely to the efforts of one of the most influential lobby-ing groups working on capital Hill today,

710
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:33,000
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as APEC.

711
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:43,000
It is great to see so many good friends from all across the country.

712
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:48,000
I see more than 10,000 people, young and old.

713
00:53:48,000 --> 00:54:01,000
APEC's annual conference draws nearly 10,000 attendees from around the country, including the most influential members of both houses of Congress from both parties.

714
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:14,000
As you leave here today to meet with your senators and representatives, I want you to go there knowing with certainty that you will make a difference with every member that you meet.

715
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:23,000
You're going to feel so good when six months from now, you see the three major talking points evolved to three points of legislation for the US government.

716
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:36,000
It would be very hard for ordinary Americans to know that they're being deceived, that some very competent experts at spin management are, in fact, deluding them.

717
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,000
There are many reasons for this.

718
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:44,000
One of them is that the American political class has basically swallowed the line, hook line and sinker.

719
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:52,000
They keep getting rocket attack after rocket attack, and then they're criticized for human rights problems because they defend themselves.

720
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,000
This is particularly true for Republicans.

721
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:58,000
The responding, Mr. Speaker, to attacks on their civilian population.

722
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:00,000
I mean, what is it that they want?

723
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:01,000
Well, we know what they want.

724
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:04,000
They want Israel obliterated from the map, Mr. Speaker.

725
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:06,000
But it's also true for many Democrats.

726
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:08,000
We stand with our ally.

727
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:11,000
We stand with a democratic state of Israel.

728
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:14,000
We stand against terrorism.

729
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:21,000
This administration will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself.

730
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:27,000
They made the mistake of actually leaving Apax facts address on one bill that was actually laid before Congress.

731
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:29,000
And of course, nobody was apparently embarrassed.

732
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:35,000
The fact that Apac writes the legislation for them or writes their speeches for them doesn't seem to be released, Father.

733
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:38,000
There's nothing happening here that's secret or under the table.

734
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:39,000
It's not a cabal.

735
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:40,000
It's not a conspiracy.

736
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:45,000
It is, in fact, domestic politics, the way it's practiced here in the United States,

737
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:50,000
they are roughly three dozen or so pro-Israel Pax that give money.

738
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:57,000
Over the last 15 or 20 years, they've given $55,60 million in American elections.

739
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:04,000
There are one or two Arab American Pax, and I believe last time I looked, they'd given, you know, 800,000 to a million.

740
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:12,000
So you've got $55 million of Pax contributions on one side, and you've got maybe a million at most on the other side.

741
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:17,000
And that gives you a pretty good sense of what the balance of power is, what if you're planning on granting for Congress.

742
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:19,000
It's all about the money.

743
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:26,000
And I do see a lot of old friends here, and I see a lot of new friends of Israel here as well.

744
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:30,000
Democrats and Republicans alike.

745
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:36,000
You've been getting Yahoo, got a joint session, so that Democrats and Republicans,

746
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:41,000
we have the opportunity to stand up and share for him, and it would be good for their campaign surveys money.

747
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:47,000
He put out the most hard-line propaganda that went entirely against U.S. policy.

748
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:52,000
The border will be different than the one that existed on June 4th, 1967.

749
00:56:52,000 --> 00:57:01,000
Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967.

750
00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:05,000
And he gets $359 standing in Ovation. What are they applauding?

751
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:07,000
They continue to waste of the conflict.

752
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:12,000
Are they applauding at Moorsville, Isabel, and Palestinians? They're going to keep dying? Is that what they're applauding?

753
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:17,000
No, they're applauding. We want more money in the next campaign.

754
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:21,000
That's what's entirely about. There is no other issue like this.

755
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:26,000
For the most part, the lobby pushes policies that are consistent with U.S. interest anyway.

756
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:32,000
And when these interests on a line, we see the limits of the lobby's power, as we saw with our bombers Iran policy,

757
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:37,000
which passed despite an intense campaign by the lobby to defeat it.

758
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:41,000
So we shouldn't overstate the influence of the lobby on American foreign policy.

759
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:46,000
By the same time, we shouldn't underestimate the lobby's power to limit debate

760
00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:52,000
by these radio policies in the occupied territories, especially far right is radio policies

761
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:57,000
that are often way out of step with the political views of most American Jews.

762
00:57:57,000 --> 00:58:02,000
In fact, it's not accurate to call it a Jewish lobby at all. It's the Israel lobby.

763
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:06,000
The actual views of most people in the American Jewish community, according to every poll,

764
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:12,000
diverge greatly from the extreme right wing, neoconservative views of the entire establishment

765
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:17,000
leadership of that community. Most people in the Jewish community are much more liberal.

766
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,000
They're against settlement, they're against occupation, they want to state solution.

767
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:26,000
The lobby and its various other institutions are the main supports and prompts of settlement and occupation.

768
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:31,000
And of protection of the status quo. And there are some key elements of what we call the Israel lobby

769
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:34,000
that are a Jewish, so called Christian Zionists.

770
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:40,000
Even Jelical Christians in America have become Israel's staunchest ally in an increasingly hostile world.

771
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:45,000
Powerful groups like Kufai, Christian Jinnide for Israel, lobby Congress for an expansion

772
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:49,000
of Israeli territory, because they believe that's what the Bible calls for.

773
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:53,000
Kufai representatives from all 50 states went to Capitol Hill.

774
00:58:54,000 --> 00:59:00,000
Their purpose was to personally speak with very elected officials and express concerns for Israel's security

775
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:04,000
and their support of Israel's right to the land by biblical mandate.

776
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:13,000
In the United States roughly third of the population, it believes that every word of the Bible is literally true.

777
00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:20,000
If the Bible is literally true, then the land of Israel was promised to the Jews by God.

778
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:25,000
And they have every right to take it over from the New surfers.

779
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:29,000
Listen closely, those of you who are listening in the liberal media.

780
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:36,000
The Jewish people are not occupying the land of Israel. They own the land of Israel.

781
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:48,000
The truth about Israel is God gained the land of Israel to Abraham in an eternal blood covenant 4,000 years ago.

782
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:52,000
The land of Israel belonged to the Jewish people then.

783
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:58,000
It belongs to the Jewish people today, and it belongs to the Jewish people forever.

784
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:00:00,000
The land is their land.

785
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:09,000
One of the problems with the influence the Israel lobby has in the United States now is it has been hard for government officials to have an honest discussion.

786
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:16,000
Just look what happened to President Obama when he made the mistake of simply saying out loud what the international consensus is.

787
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:24,000
We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.

788
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:29,000
So that's secure and recognized borders are established for both states.

789
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:34,000
It didn't matter that Obama was just repeating what had been official U.S. policy for decades.

790
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:40,000
Other right-wing President Ronald Reagan had said essentially the same thing in the 1980s and even stronger language.

791
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:48,000
U.N. Resolution 242 remains holy valid as the foundation stone of America's Middle East peace effort.

792
01:00:48,000 --> 01:00:59,000
It is the United States position that in return for peace, the withdrawal provision of resolution 242 applies to all fronts, including the West Bank and Gaza.

793
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:09,000
Further settlement activities in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs that a final outcome can be freely and fairly negotiated.

794
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:15,000
When Obama said it he was immediately accused by right-wing groups of setting up Israel for another Holocaust.

795
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:17,000
President Obama abandoned Israel.

796
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:25,000
After strong support by 11 consecutive American presidents, it appears Obama has moved sharply toward Israel's enemies and the results could be disastrous.

797
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:29,000
The leader of Hezbollah has vowed to finish the job it was started.

798
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:36,000
Up till now America's strong backing of Israel made that impossible, but with Obama's waffling could the second Holocaust be on the way.

799
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:48,000
It's a pretty ingenious tactic. How you suppose to have a rational discussion about the occupation when pro-Israel extremists call the 67 borders that Auschwitz borders?

800
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:53,000
These are the two alternatives. You're either going to be an Auschwitz or a support Israel.

801
01:01:53,000 --> 01:02:01,000
Because Israel was in fact created in the wake of the Holocaust. It isn't that extraordinary that the two would be linked that way.

802
01:02:01,000 --> 01:02:08,000
I have a problem with the idea of exploiting the link and using those six million Jews and almost in my mind it's like saying,

803
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:11,000
and Frank would want the occupation to continue.

804
01:02:11,000 --> 01:02:17,000
You know the Jews have gone through an unspeakable historical trauma, right?

805
01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:28,000
But the fact is that if you look at other sort of reactionary or right-wing propaganda's various kinds, you know, nationalistic and so on,

806
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:36,000
you see that what they all kind of have in common is this view that we are in danger. We are victims. They're trying to destroy us.

807
01:02:36,000 --> 01:02:40,000
The history has taught the Jewish people anything.

808
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:48,000
It is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously. We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust.

809
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:55,000
When we say never again, we mean never again.

810
01:02:55,000 --> 01:03:01,000
You're the victim. So anything you do in self-defense is okay, even though it has you acting like a monster, right?

811
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:15,000
A suggestion that Israel has committed war crimes is particularly offensive given that the Jewish people suffered under the most terrific war crimes in the Holocaust.

812
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:19,000
It's there argument they always use. Remember the Holocaust.

813
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:29,000
So it's invoking the Holocaust in order to justify is who will be held to a different standard and everyone else is being held to.

814
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:37,000
I see a lot of manipulation here about the victimhood of Israeli Jews, the sense of victimhood.

815
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:50,000
And I'm a child of survivors Holocaust survivors. So I'll be the last one to underestimate the importance of history and the history of persecution of Jews in the Israeli Palestinian context.

816
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:56,000
But does it mean that Jews now in Israel go every day and think about Auschwitz, adopted?

817
01:03:56,000 --> 01:04:10,000
Anyone who is critical of the special relationship criticizes the activities of the lobby or disagrees with the policies that they recommend or is critical of Israel's conduct is virtually certain to be attacked.

818
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:22,000
Usually in very harsh ways by Israel's defenders, there are watchdog groups that keep track of what different media organizations publish or broadcast and if they're not happy about it,

819
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:26,000
they either publish their own attacks, they organize consumer boycotts.

820
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:36,000
Israelis and the lobby do not think there's ever any problem with policy. The problem is only the way it's covered, which is why they have organizations like camera,

821
01:04:36,000 --> 01:04:39,000
which is no committee on Middle East accuracy.

822
01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:44,000
Actors see means that you present the side that makes Israel look good.

823
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:51,000
The lobby and the Israelis believe that the mainstream media in America is pro-Palestinian.

824
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:53,000
I mean it's laughable.

825
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:59,000
Consistently, the times has suppressed any story that would portray Israel sympathetically.

826
01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:04,000
And on the other hand, it has written dozens of stories portraying the Palestinians sympathetically.

827
01:05:04,000 --> 01:05:14,000
Israel is now portrayed in much of the major media, especially CNN, the BBC as the aggressor, as the predator nation and the poor Palestinians and Arabs as the victims.

828
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:20,000
It's one of the most profoundly successful tactics of right-wing media pressure and media criticism groups.

829
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:24,000
And they are going to argue that it's true in violation of all the facts.

830
01:05:24,000 --> 01:05:33,000
You're saying that because CNN has interviewed Palestinian families and shown Palestinian children who had been wounded or killed,

831
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:38,000
it somehow CNN is saying that Hamas is okay. I don't think that those two were equivalent.

832
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:43,000
We're not allowed to show the civilians from the crossfire.

833
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:45,000
Of course, you're allowed to show civilians cut in the crossfire.

834
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:49,000
You shall also mention all the restrictions that Hamas put on your reporting inside the Gaza Strip.

835
01:05:49,000 --> 01:05:53,000
You should also mention all the context with regard to Hamas putting children in harm's way.

836
01:05:53,000 --> 01:05:56,000
You should also routinely mention the fact that Hamas is chartered calls for destruction.

837
01:05:56,000 --> 01:06:00,000
Not only the state of Israel, but for the murder of Jews across the world, which of course he and end is not.

838
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:08,000
That's silly, Ben. We talk about that all the time. We talk about the charter, the Hamas charter that says that they want to obliterate Israel and wipe Israel off the face of the map.

839
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:11,000
You're just not being fair. That's not true.

840
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:13,000
And you mentioned it occasionally.

841
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:19,000
You mentioned it occasionally, and the midst of vast swaths of imagery about Israel using what you would term excessive force.

842
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:22,000
The media outlets don't see the pushback from the other side.

843
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:28,000
They don't see the upside to standing up for their own reporting.

844
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:31,000
So I think in most cases they cave.

845
01:06:31,000 --> 01:06:39,000
Look at the pressure that came down on veteran NBC reporter, I'm in my Eldin, when he was covering the 2014 Gaza invasion for NBC.

846
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:47,000
My Eldin was playing soccer on a beach with four Palestinian kids, just moments before they were killed by an Israeli rocket.

847
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:53,000
And he talked about this on social media and shared video of the heartbroken reactions of the kids' parents.

848
01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:16,000
And what did NBC do? They responded by pulling my Eldin from Gaza.

849
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:24,000
And of course, there's no greater weapon in the attack arsenal than equating critical coverage of Israel's policies with anti-Semitism.

850
01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:28,000
Any fair-minded person who falls out here knows that's anti-American and anti-Semitic.

851
01:07:28,000 --> 01:07:30,000
There is a huge man, correct?

852
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:34,000
Yes, I am. It doesn't come more anti-Semitic now, isn't it?

853
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:37,000
They would, they would do violence to you.

854
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:40,000
Who are journalists and alches who have run that work?

855
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:42,000
They would violence, man. I hardly think so.

856
01:07:42,000 --> 01:07:47,000
I have unwrote an article in which he explained to American Jews what their task was.

857
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:55,000
Their task is to show that anyone who's a critic of Zionism by which he means a critic of the policies of the state of Israel

858
01:07:55,000 --> 01:08:04,000
must be either an anti-Semite or a neurotic self-hating Jew that covers 100% of the possible criticism.

859
01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:10,000
We'll start tonight in the Middle East, where Israel is, israel, israel is the supposed to defend Israel?

860
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:12,000
The physical bomb taxes will be extra $1,000.

861
01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:14,000
What are the options for the same state as Israel?

862
01:08:14,000 --> 01:08:16,000
We're not one of the right-hand categories.

863
01:08:16,000 --> 01:08:18,000
What are the options for the human rights?

864
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:20,000
We're not one of the right-hand categories.

865
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:22,000
What are the other options for the human rights?

866
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:24,000
Telling you?

867
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:28,000
So just to be that was always called the self-hating Jew,

868
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:31,000
and everybody liked me was called the self-hating Jew.

869
01:08:31,000 --> 01:08:36,000
I am now not only a self-hating Jew, but they also call me an anti-Semite.

870
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:39,000
For George Manparents, I'm still an anti-Semite.

871
01:08:39,000 --> 01:08:44,000
My wife was born and a displaced person's camp in Germany, and I'm an anti-Semite.

872
01:08:44,000 --> 01:08:52,000
They have for a very long time been able to effectively defend the indefensible to the American public

873
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:58,000
through miseducation and misinformation campaigns, through effective talking points,

874
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:03,000
through smearing individuals on the opposite side of things,

875
01:09:03,000 --> 01:09:07,000
labeling them all kinds of things sympathizers with terrorism.

876
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:12,000
I've done dozens of interviews which begin from the terrorism departure,

877
01:09:12,000 --> 01:09:18,000
but when given an opportunity to actually speak and present a different perspective,

878
01:09:18,000 --> 01:09:21,000
that can dissolve rather quickly.

879
01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:24,000
Is Hamas a terrorist organization?

880
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:26,000
Do I get to actually speak now?

881
01:09:26,000 --> 01:09:27,000
You get to answer the question.

882
01:09:27,000 --> 01:09:29,000
It's a simple yes and no question.

883
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:30,000
Is Hamas?

884
01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:32,000
You invited me on here.

885
01:09:32,000 --> 01:09:35,000
Is Hamas who charter calls for the destruction of Israel?

886
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:37,000
Is that a terrorist organization?

887
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:39,000
That's a yes or no question.

888
01:09:39,000 --> 01:09:40,000
Thank you for your question.

889
01:09:40,000 --> 01:09:45,000
I'm very telling to me that, and it should be telling to your viewers as well, by the way,

890
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:48,000
that the moment you have a Palestinian voice on your program,

891
01:09:48,000 --> 01:09:51,000
who begins to explain the legitimate grievances of Palestinian-

892
01:09:51,000 --> 01:09:53,000
Is Hamas a terrorist organization?

893
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:56,000
Sir, let me question.

894
01:09:56,000 --> 01:09:59,000
What part of this can you get through your thick head?

895
01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:02,000
I think it's Hamas a terrorist organization.

896
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:04,000
Is he asking or no?

897
01:10:04,000 --> 01:10:07,000
The only thing that you're going to say is what we want you to say.

898
01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:10,000
And if you don't say it, we're not going to let you speak.

899
01:10:10,000 --> 01:10:16,000
So you end up with reporting that gives way more priority and weight to the official Israeli perspective than to the Palestinian one.

900
01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:21,000
Look at how American media covered Israel's 2014 attack on Gaza.

901
01:10:21,000 --> 01:10:26,000
A keyword search of all the major networks showed that over the course of the 51-day assault,

902
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:32,000
Israel's ongoing military siege and blockade of Gaza were barely mentioned compared to the thousands of times,

903
01:10:32,000 --> 01:10:34,000
a mass rocket attacks on Israel were mentioned.

904
01:10:34,000 --> 01:10:39,000
Why is Hamas launching missiles into population centers of Israel?

905
01:10:39,000 --> 01:10:43,000
The basic propaganda frame is built into the various assumptions journalists,

906
01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:44,000
bring to the table.

907
01:10:44,000 --> 01:10:53,000
Since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, eight thousand rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel.

908
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:55,000
This is how propaganda works.

909
01:10:55,000 --> 01:10:59,000
It works by getting your words in the mouths of other people,

910
01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:02,000
especially the mouths of supposedly objective media commentators.

911
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:07,000
I'm wondering though whether you're outraged by the conduct of Hamas,

912
01:11:07,000 --> 01:11:12,000
starting the conflict by firing rockets, building tunnels to kill and kidnapped Israelis,

913
01:11:12,000 --> 01:11:19,000
being more than willing to sacrifice Palestinian lives by embedding them into their own kind of arsenal,

914
01:11:19,000 --> 01:11:22,000
and using them as Israel contends as human shields.

915
01:11:22,000 --> 01:11:24,000
Do you have a level of outrage at Hamas itself?

916
01:11:24,000 --> 01:11:27,000
It doesn't seem like propaganda at all.

917
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:28,000
It just seems like news.

918
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:33,000
And this goes across all the major media, including the supposedly most liberal.

919
01:11:33,000 --> 01:11:36,000
Look at Rachel Madal on MSNBC.

920
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:40,000
There's known as the leading progressive voice on mainstream television.

921
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,000
She did only four segments on the war.

922
01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:48,000
And during these few segments, she never once mentioned Israel's ongoing occupation of the West Bank.

923
01:11:48,000 --> 01:11:51,000
Or it's siege on blockade of Gaza.

924
01:11:51,000 --> 01:11:54,000
And never once mentioned the fact that the US as armed Israel

925
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:59,000
with a very weapons that were being used against the defenseless civilian population.

926
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:05,000
Instead, choosing to frame the invasion as part of a senseless cycle of violence

927
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:07,000
perpetrated by both sides.

928
01:12:07,000 --> 01:12:12,000
It's been a constant cycle of fighting between Israel and Hamas for the past several years in Gaza.

929
01:12:12,000 --> 01:12:15,000
And the fighting, and the cause of the fighting, feel terribly familiar

930
01:12:15,000 --> 01:12:18,000
because this is basically a recurring war.

931
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:23,000
And if it feels like Deja Vu feels like, uh, I've heard all of this before, you are right.

932
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:27,000
Because this really does keep happening over and over and over again.

933
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:34,000
Rachel Madal, the most important woman on MSNBC, the leader when it comes to politics.

934
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:41,000
In six weeks or four, never mentioned the word blockade occupation, illegal sediments.

935
01:12:41,000 --> 01:12:46,000
Never mentioned the support that Congress have for Israel and conditional Amano money,

936
01:12:46,000 --> 01:12:47,000
billions of dollars.

937
01:12:47,000 --> 01:12:48,000
What is that?

938
01:12:48,000 --> 01:12:50,000
What a disappointment.

939
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:52,000
Our media operations.

940
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:56,000
National media is a scandal when it comes to Israel.

941
01:12:56,000 --> 01:13:00,000
I look at the UK with all its deficit and there's a real debate.

942
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:04,000
For example, there's this anchor called Jones Snow, Channel 4 in the UK.

943
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:08,000
And he interviewed Mark Regev and he grilled him with questions.

944
01:13:09,000 --> 01:13:14,000
Regev, how does killing children on a beach contribute to that purpose?

945
01:13:14,000 --> 01:13:17,000
What was the point of bombing the El Waffa hospital for goodness sake?

946
01:13:17,000 --> 01:13:21,000
There are great uncertainties about whether you're acting within the law.

947
01:13:21,000 --> 01:13:22,000
Yes.

948
01:13:22,000 --> 01:13:23,000
Oh yes.

949
01:13:23,000 --> 01:13:28,000
You are deliberately targeting neighborhoods in which you know there are women and children.

950
01:13:28,000 --> 01:13:30,000
You've tried everything with Gaza.

951
01:13:30,000 --> 01:13:32,000
You've besieged it for seven years.

952
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:36,000
The people live an intolerable and ghastly life and you know that better than anybody.

953
01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:38,000
Why did you try one other thing?

954
01:13:38,000 --> 01:13:39,000
Talking.

955
01:13:39,000 --> 01:13:40,000
Why not talk?

956
01:13:40,000 --> 01:13:43,000
Why not be brave and talk directly with them?

957
01:13:43,000 --> 01:13:44,000
Why not?

958
01:13:44,000 --> 01:13:46,000
I can never see this in America.

959
01:13:46,000 --> 01:13:49,000
I never seen anything like this in the United States.

960
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:55,000
There are being occasional examples of American journalists who've had the courage to challenge the official Israeli line.

961
01:13:55,000 --> 01:13:58,000
Back in the 50s CBS is Mike Wallace.

962
01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:02,000
Didn't back down from grilling Israeli ambassador Aberibon,

963
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:05,000
but Israel's illegal takeover of Arab land.

964
01:14:05,000 --> 01:14:10,000
The fact remains that Israel benefited territorially from a war from armed violence.

965
01:14:10,000 --> 01:14:16,000
Well as a member of the Judaeic faith which cherishes social justice and morality.

966
01:14:16,000 --> 01:14:21,000
Do you believe that any country should profit territorially from violence?

967
01:14:21,000 --> 01:14:27,000
A year later, Wallace then shy away from comparing the terrorist tactics of Palestinian militants

968
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:30,000
with the terrorist tactics of Jewish militants in the 1940s.

969
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:34,000
The fact is that innocent people die from a terror whoever the terrorist.

970
01:14:34,000 --> 01:14:39,000
The Jewish independence fighters trying to ease in the exit of the British from Palestine

971
01:14:39,000 --> 01:14:42,000
and to intimidate the Arab population there.

972
01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:47,000
Bomb bust ups and office buildings, railroad trains and shopping grounds.

973
01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:53,000
The fighters of Stirren and Irgon took a toll of innocent victims that ran into the hundreds.

974
01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:59,000
More recently in 2012 during a 60 minutes piece,

975
01:14:59,000 --> 01:15:04,000
the late Bob Simon dared to report on what date they life is like for Palestinian Christians

976
01:15:04,000 --> 01:15:06,000
who live under Israeli occupation.

977
01:15:06,000 --> 01:15:10,000
Israel has occupied the West Bank for 45 years.

978
01:15:10,000 --> 01:15:16,000
Turning the little town where Christ was born into what its residents call an open air prison.

979
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:21,000
Christian Astus lives with her mother Claire, her father, brother and sister,

980
01:15:21,000 --> 01:15:25,000
in this house which is surrounded on three sides by the wall.

981
01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:27,000
How do you live with this?

982
01:15:28,000 --> 01:15:33,000
The Simon's report was seen as so unusual and so incendiary that Israeli ambassador Michael Orran

983
01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:39,000
actually tried to spike it, censor it, leading Simon to directly confront him on camera.

984
01:15:39,000 --> 01:15:48,000
When I heard that you were going to do a story about Christians in the Holy Land and my as something

985
01:15:48,000 --> 01:15:56,000
and had, I believe information about the nature of it and it's been confirmed by this interview today.

986
01:15:56,000 --> 01:16:01,000
I think it's been confirmed by the interview Mr Ambassador because you don't know what's going to be put on air.

987
01:16:01,000 --> 01:16:02,000
Okay, I don't.

988
01:16:02,000 --> 01:16:03,000
True.

989
01:16:03,000 --> 01:16:12,000
Mr Ambassador, I've been doing this a long time and I've received lots of reactions from just about everyone I've done stories about.

990
01:16:12,000 --> 01:16:17,000
But I've never gotten a reaction before from a story that hasn't been broadcast yet.

991
01:16:19,000 --> 01:16:21,000
Well, there's a first time for everything, Bob.

992
01:16:21,000 --> 01:16:25,000
These are examples of exceptional reporting, but they are the exception.

993
01:16:25,000 --> 01:16:26,000
And there's a reason for that.

994
01:16:26,000 --> 01:16:32,000
They're in each of these cases, these journalists were mercilessly attacked and labeled anti-Semitic.

995
01:16:32,000 --> 01:16:34,000
It didn't matter that they were both Jewish.

996
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:37,000
That's how the climate of intimidation works.

997
01:16:37,000 --> 01:16:43,000
It's almost impossible to get any view that isn't one way or another shaped by an Israeli perspective.

998
01:16:43,000 --> 01:16:44,000
Almost impossible.

999
01:16:44,000 --> 01:16:51,000
It cannot get in without facing a firestorm of pit bull attacks to make sure that the line is following.

1000
01:16:52,000 --> 01:16:56,000
Everyone who's trying to tell the American public a different side of the story,

1001
01:16:56,000 --> 01:17:02,000
an alternative view of the conflict that's a reality-based has already crossed a barrier of fear.

1002
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:08,000
And I think they've already told themselves, well, I'm going to pay for this, but I'm ready to pay the price.

1003
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:12,000
The American public has been a part of the world.

1004
01:17:12,000 --> 01:17:15,000
The American public has been a part of the world.

1005
01:17:15,000 --> 01:17:16,000
The American public has been a part of the world.

1006
01:17:16,000 --> 01:17:24,000
Over just the past few years, the proliferation of social media and internet news sources has made it increasingly difficult for the Israeli government and

1007
01:17:24,000 --> 01:17:29,000
pro-Israel groups in the US to manage American perceptions of the conflict.

1008
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:37,000
Video footage and reporting from the ground bearing witness to the reality of the occupation and our more accessible than ever on the internet.

1009
01:17:37,000 --> 01:17:49,000
In addition, with the past few years, a number of high profile documentaries made by Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers alike have trained a harsh light on current Israeli policy in the repression of Palestinian lands.

1010
01:18:08,000 --> 01:18:17,000
At the same time, a powerful new boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has been gaining momentum and raising awareness of the occupation.

1011
01:18:17,000 --> 01:18:25,000
While activists from the Black Lives Matter movement have been making explicit connections between police violence against African Americans,

1012
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:28,000
the Israeli military's repression of Palestinians.

1013
01:18:28,000 --> 01:18:33,000
We stand next to people who continue to courageously struggle and resist the occupation.

1014
01:18:33,000 --> 01:18:37,000
People continue to dream and fight for freedom.

1015
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:41,000
Confergis in the Palestine, the struggle for freedom continues.

1016
01:18:41,000 --> 01:18:44,000
And all of these developments seem to be having an effect.

1017
01:18:44,000 --> 01:18:52,000
Those now show that while sympathy for Israel remains at all time highs among older Americans, it has been hammering around young people.

1018
01:18:52,000 --> 01:18:56,000
Despite the effort to the lobby, something really striking is taking place.

1019
01:18:56,000 --> 01:19:02,000
A lot of young people are abandoning the mainstream media and turning its third other independent sources.

1020
01:19:02,000 --> 01:19:08,000
So they have a totally different way of making sense of what's happening and unfiltered view of Israel's repression.

1021
01:19:08,000 --> 01:19:12,000
And pro-Israel operatives like Frank Lans are in a panic.

1022
01:19:12,000 --> 01:19:20,000
In his latest report, he calls what's happening with young people at disaster and demands that Israel's supporters respond.

1023
01:19:20,000 --> 01:19:22,000
And people are answered the call.

1024
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:28,000
You have powerful right-wing billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and Major Donut to Republican candidates,

1025
01:19:28,000 --> 01:19:33,000
bankrolling a campaign to silence and intimidate student activists on college campuses.

1026
01:19:33,000 --> 01:19:35,000
But it's not working.

1027
01:19:35,000 --> 01:19:43,000
Groups like students for justice in Palestine, who see what's happening to Palestinians as a civil rights issue, have refused to be intimidated.

1028
01:19:43,000 --> 01:19:49,000
They're refusing to back down even though they're being labeled as anti-Semitic and terrorist sympathizers.

1029
01:19:49,000 --> 01:19:51,000
And their numbers are growing.

1030
01:19:51,000 --> 01:20:00,000
As the discourse begins to open, more people are starting to understand this as a rights-based issue.

1031
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:03,000
Not an issue of radicalism.

1032
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:10,000
This is a movement for the rights of people who's rights are being denied, who are living under occupation,

1033
01:20:10,000 --> 01:20:16,000
who want to live in their country freely just like anybody else.

1034
01:20:16,000 --> 01:20:23,000
You can see just so many video clips of kids having their hands smashed by soldiers with batons.

1035
01:20:23,000 --> 01:20:28,000
You can see just so many pictures of thousands of people being killed as happened in Gaza.

1036
01:20:28,000 --> 01:20:32,000
And at a certain point, there's a cognitive business.

1037
01:20:32,000 --> 01:20:35,000
You realize that what you're being told is a pack of lies.

1038
01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:39,000
Let's just get away from the mythologies and talk about the reality.

1039
01:20:39,000 --> 01:20:46,000
And then maybe be able to persuade people that they should not any longer give their unwaverning support to a nation,

1040
01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:53,000
engaged in a policy that's not just inhumane and brutal but ultimately suicidal.

1041
01:20:53,000 --> 01:20:59,000
Given the central role that the United States plays in backing Israel,

1042
01:20:59,000 --> 01:21:05,000
seems to be Americans, all Americans have a right to question particular Israeli policies,

1043
01:21:06,000 --> 01:21:08,000
and in particular the prolonged occupation.

1044
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:15,000
The fact that the Palestinian people have been kept without a state and without any political rights for decades now.

1045
01:21:15,000 --> 01:21:20,000
For us in the United States, I think the issue has to be what is our government doing.

1046
01:21:20,000 --> 01:21:27,000
How is our government allowing enabling supporting, arming, defending Israeli violations?

1047
01:21:27,000 --> 01:21:31,000
In the end, this comes down to a battle for the minds of the American people.

1048
01:21:32,000 --> 01:21:35,000
A battle over the stories they're told to make sense to this conflict.

1049
01:21:35,000 --> 01:21:37,000
A battle over perception.

1050
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:41,000
The more Americans are able to see the reality of occupation with their own eyes.

1051
01:21:41,000 --> 01:21:44,000
They see images of routine daily violence.

1052
01:21:44,000 --> 01:21:48,000
Of the repression and humiliation that never make their way into mainstream use,

1053
01:21:48,000 --> 01:21:55,000
the more they'll question the image of Israel as this tiny little David up against the bullying Arab Goliath.

1054
01:21:55,000 --> 01:22:00,000
And start to wonder, this actually the outgun Palestinians who might be the real David here.

1055
01:22:01,000 --> 01:22:06,000
When that starts becoming the dominant perception here in the US, all bets are off.

1056
01:22:06,000 --> 01:22:09,000
It all comes down to American public perception.

1057
01:22:09,000 --> 01:22:15,000
That's the one way to change anything, changing perception and understanding here,

1058
01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:17,000
leading to a change of policy here.

1059
01:22:17,000 --> 01:22:21,000
As long as the United States supports Israel, nothing's going to happen.

1060
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:25,000
U.S. government will support it as long as the US population tolerates.

1061
01:22:31,000 --> 01:22:36,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1062
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:39,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1063
01:22:39,000 --> 01:22:41,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1064
01:22:41,000 --> 01:22:43,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1065
01:22:43,000 --> 01:22:45,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1066
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:47,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1067
01:22:47,000 --> 01:22:49,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1068
01:22:49,000 --> 01:22:51,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1069
01:22:51,000 --> 01:22:53,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1070
01:22:53,000 --> 01:22:55,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1071
01:22:55,000 --> 01:22:57,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1072
01:22:57,000 --> 01:22:59,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1073
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:01,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1074
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:03,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1075
01:23:03,000 --> 01:23:05,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1076
01:23:05,000 --> 01:23:07,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1077
01:23:07,000 --> 01:23:09,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1078
01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:11,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1079
01:23:11,000 --> 01:23:13,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1080
01:23:13,000 --> 01:23:15,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1081
01:23:15,000 --> 01:23:17,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1082
01:23:17,000 --> 01:23:19,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1083
01:23:19,000 --> 01:23:21,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1084
01:23:21,000 --> 01:23:23,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1085
01:23:23,000 --> 01:23:25,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1086
01:23:25,000 --> 01:23:27,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1087
01:23:27,000 --> 01:23:29,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1088
01:23:29,000 --> 01:23:31,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1089
01:23:31,000 --> 01:23:33,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1090
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:35,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1091
01:23:35,000 --> 01:23:37,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1092
01:23:37,000 --> 01:23:39,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1093
01:23:39,000 --> 01:23:41,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1094
01:23:41,000 --> 01:23:43,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1095
01:23:43,000 --> 01:23:45,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1096
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:47,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1097
01:23:47,000 --> 01:23:49,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1098
01:23:49,000 --> 01:23:51,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1099
01:23:51,000 --> 01:23:53,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1100
01:23:53,000 --> 01:23:55,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1101
01:23:55,000 --> 01:23:57,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1102
01:23:57,000 --> 01:23:59,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1103
01:23:59,000 --> 01:24:01,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1104
01:24:01,000 --> 01:24:03,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1105
01:24:03,000 --> 01:24:05,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1106
01:24:05,000 --> 01:24:07,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1107
01:24:07,000 --> 01:24:09,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1108
01:24:09,000 --> 01:24:11,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1109
01:24:11,000 --> 01:24:13,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1110
01:24:13,000 --> 01:24:15,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1111
01:24:15,000 --> 01:24:17,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1112
01:24:17,000 --> 01:24:19,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1113
01:24:19,000 --> 01:24:21,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1114
01:24:21,000 --> 01:24:23,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1115
01:24:23,000 --> 01:24:25,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1116
01:24:25,000 --> 01:24:27,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1117
01:24:27,000 --> 01:24:29,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1118
01:24:29,000 --> 01:24:31,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1119
01:24:31,000 --> 01:24:33,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1120
01:24:33,000 --> 01:24:35,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1121
01:24:35,000 --> 01:24:37,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1122
01:24:37,000 --> 01:24:39,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1123
01:24:39,000 --> 01:24:41,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1124
01:24:41,000 --> 01:24:43,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1125
01:24:43,000 --> 01:24:45,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1126
01:24:45,000 --> 01:24:47,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1127
01:24:47,000 --> 01:24:49,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1128
01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:51,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.

1129
01:24:51,000 --> 01:24:55,000
The United States is a very important part of the world.