CHICAGO: From Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi to Pink Floyd singer and songwriter Roger Waters, more than a dozen Palestinian speakers told a gathering of activists in Washington DC on Friday that Israel manipulates news media coverage and justifies its hypocrisy. Is. Hides behind allegations of anti-Semitism. Policies on Palestine.
The annual conference titled “Crossing the Israel Lobby at Home and Abroad” virtually ran in Arab news, praising the sheer breadth of anti-Palestinian policies not only in Israel but also from the US and the challenges with President Joe’s current administration. Biden. , ,
Ashrawi said a thin line separates Donald Trump’s “toxic policies” and Biden’s “indecision.”
“The settlers are wreaking havoc everywhere in Palestine. The expansion and expansion of settlements and the demolition of houses has been going twice as fast during Trump’s tenure. During Biden, the escalation of breaches is incredible and vast. Extrajudicial executions, the daily killings of our people continue with full remission,” Ashrawi said from his home in Ramallah in occupied Palestine.
“And Israel, as they say, is taking advantage of America’s weakness and indecision. They are happy that they see the Biden administration as indecisive, and they are happy enough to live with timid verbal reprimands to no avail. The rate at which destruction is happening and killings are happening so fast.”
Ashrawi said Biden opposes a “settlement extension” but does not speak out to confront the current “illegal settlements,” a major change from the previous administration. She said the Biden administration allows the Israeli government to “set policies” for the US, including “asking” Israel to allow it to do things it has the power to do, with organizations such as UNESCO. To reopen or rejoin consulates in East Jerusalem. ,
US policy changed dramatically, Ashrawi said, under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who announced US policies had to “move away from the Middle East” because peace was difficult to achieve.
Sut Zhalli, professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and executive director of the Media Education Foundation, said many of the challenges facing Palestinians are the result of a deliberate propaganda campaign by Israel to define Palestinians as terrorists and Israelis as defenders.
Jhalli said that until the late 1980s, the mainstream news media were unbiased and often criticized and challenged Israel’s actions.
“This kind of coverage is unimaginable today… Journalism in America doesn’t exist today,” Jhali said. One strategy was to counter justice for the Palestinians with threats of terrorism against the Israelis. Reverse the reality, he said Israelis were advised, and always begin their propaganda by repeating phrases such as “Hamas rockets” and “Palestinian terrorism”, and not with Israeli violence.
Jhalli said that in the 1990s, Israelis gathered marketing and media experts to redefine how the news became known as “Hasbara”, and struggle to manage news media coverage in front of the public. is being introduced. Make a strategy “Propaganda is not a dirty word,” media experts told Israel. Hasbara’s strategists also recommended “avoidance of history and avoidance of facts” in speaking to Americans, Western audiences and the media.
Waters, who has organized boycotts of Israel by some of the world’s most famous artists, said he is often attacked for being “anti-Semitic” because he supports the human rights of Palestinians.
“I support the fight for the human rights of all people everywhere,” Waters said bluntly.
Waters, who has called Israel a “terrorist, apartheid regime,” said the cast’s boycott on Israel has positive implications for Palestinians, educating fans about Israel’s apartheid policies and violence.
He said he speaks in defense of human rights around the world, but added that his voice in support of the Palestinians is “the most angry I’ve ever heard”.
“We know what anti-Semitism means and it doesn’t mean criticizing the State of Israel, you a——,” Waters said to cheers. “Any conversation about Israel is not possible without using the word apartheid. Because Israel is an apartheid nation.”
Speakers addressing the conference included Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, who said Israelis simply close their eyes to reality, condemning the occupation and violence in Ukraine, and about the occupation and violence in the occupied West Bank. Some say. does not say.
Donald Wagner, former national director of the Friends of Sable-North America and Middle East Studies professor, spent years studying “Christian Zionism” and explained the powerful influence of most right-wing American Christians on American policy against the Palestinians. Ironically, the Christian Palestinian population has declined from 13 percent at the beginning of the 1967 occupation to less than 1 percent today.
Huwaida Araf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and running as the Democratic nominee for Congress in Michigan’s 10th District, said her activism fighting for Palestinian human rights helped her fight for the rights of families in her district. helped in prepares for.
“My neighbours, human rights are being violated every day around me. They are not like what I saw in Palestine.
“When you have to decide between putting food on the table and heating your house, you’re not free… Being denied, you’re not free.”
He added that his focus is “to put people at the center of our policies, whether they are foreigners or not.”
Araf said she hopes her critics avoid the real issues and instead falsely attack her as “anti-Semitic” in the campaign.
The conference was organized by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine and the Washington DC-based Institute for Research and Middle East Policy.