De:  Ioan Rosca   
Date:  Samedi 25, Septembre 2004  18:40  
Objet:  Re: Iata si americani care gindesc (si actioneaza) altfel

Influenta Israelului asupra politicii americane

Informatiile din document sint, cred, foarte relevante pentru ce se intimpla 
acum in Romania: redeschiderea procesului pentru holocaust (in locul 
genocidului comunist ai carui actori conduc inca tara), trimiterea soldatilor 
romani in Iraq, denuntarea nationalismului romanesc etc. 
Ele sugereaza ce agenda pot avea in Romania Statele Unite, cit timp sint conduse 
de o guvernare credincioasa Izraelului si influentate de o presa majoritar 
pro-Izraeliana. 
Nu cred ca slugarnicia fata de o astfel de orientare americana, contestata de 
americanii emancipati, e in interesul Romaniei. 
Ioan Rosca 
 
marta476 wrote: 
 
> Dear Mr.Rosca, 
> 
> I'm aware about the most of the censored story in the American media ... 
> 
> So, please don't spam ... 
> 
> I'll be glad to read about Romania only., not about The Arabs . 
> 
> Sincerely,

De:  Ioan Rosca   
Date:  Vendredi 24, Septembre 2004  3:51  
Objet:  Iata si americani care gindesc (si actioneaza) altfel
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/sides.html 
 
Israel and Palestine, Choosing Sides 
Alison Weir 
Founder and Executive Director of If Americans Knew 
Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Stories 
Consortium; September 15, 2004 
 
The most monumental cover-up in media history may be the one I'm about 
to describe. In my entire experience with American journalism, I have 
never found anything as extreme, sustained, and omnipresent. 
 
Three and a half years ago, when the current Palestinian uprising began, 
I started to look into Israel and Palestine. I had never paid much 
attention to this issue before and so – unlike many people – I knew I 
was completely uninformed about it. I had no idea that I was pulling a 
loose piece of thread that would steadily unravel, until nothing would 
ever be quite as it had been before. 
 
When I listened to news reports on this issue, I noticed that I was 
hearing a great deal about Israelis and very little about Palestinians. 
I decided to go to the Internet to see what would turn up, and 
discovered international reports about Palestinian children being killed 
daily, often shot in the head, hundreds being injured, eyes being shot 
out.1 And yet little of all this was appearing in NPR reports, the New 
York Times, or the San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
There was also little historic background and context in the stories, so 
this, too, I began to fill in for myself, reading what has turned into a 
multitude of books on the history and other aspects of the conflict.2 I 
attended presentations and read international reports. 
 
The more I looked into all this, the more it seemed that I had stumbled 
onto a cover-up that quite possibly dwarfed anything I had seen before. 
My former husband had been one of the founders of the Center for 
Investigative Reporting (CIR), an institution known for its powerful 
exposés. He and CIR have won numerous well-deserved awards from Project 
Censored from the very beginning of its creation. Nevertheless, the 
duration and violence of the injustice I was discovering, and the extent 
of its omission and misrepresentation – even in Project Censored itself, 
seemed unparalleled. 
 
In February and March of 2001 I went to the Palestinian territories as a 
freelance reporter, traveling alone throughout Gaza and the West Bank. I 
saw tragedy and devastation far beyond what was being reported in the 
American media; I saw communities destroyed, ancient orchards razed, 
croplands plowed under. I saw children who had been shot in the stomach, 
in the back, in the head. I still see them. 
 
I saw people convulsing and writhing in pain from a mysterious poison 
gas that had been lobbed at them; they said it felt like there were 
knives in their stomach.3 I talked to men who had been tortured.4 
 
I watched as a mother wept for her small son, and I took pictures of his 
spilled blood. I watched a son grieve for his mother, killed on her way 
home from the market on a day that I was told was the Muslim equivalent 
of the day before Christmas, or Passover, and I thought of my own son, 
the same age. 
 
I listened to old people who described the start of this holocaust – 
over fifty years ago, at the end of an earlier one. They described what 
it was like when three-quarters of your entire population is ethnically 
cleansed from their homes and land, children dying along the roadside 
while aircraft shell the fleeing families. They told of dozens of 
massacres of entire villages, and I've since read accounts by Israeli 
soldiers, published in Israeli publications, of how they raped the 
women, and then killed them, of how they used sticks to crush the skulls 
of children.5 I discovered the message sent by Menachem Begin, later 
elected Israeli prime minister, to troops following the massacre of 
Palestinians in one village, Deir Yassin: 
 
"Accept my congratulations on this splendid act of conquest. Convey my 
regards to all the commanders and soldiers. We shake your hands. We are 
all proud of the excellent leadership and the fighting spirit in this 
great attack...Tell the soldiers: you have made history in Israel with 
your attack and your conquest. Continue this until victory. As in Deir 
Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, 
Thou has chosen us for conquest." 
6 
Censorship At Work 
And I saw the cover-up. I saw how one of the most massive and brutal 
displacements of a people in modern times has largely been swept under 
the rug; how the continuing and ruthless methods used by a theocratic, 
exclusionary state7 to rid itself of people of the "wrong" 
religon/ethnicity are covered up. Let me describe how this censorship 
works. 
 
A few days after the deaths of the little boy and of the mother I 
mentioned above, there was a suicide bombing in Israel. I went to a 
hotel in East Jerusalem and saw that the New York Times had published a 
front-page story about it.8 
 
I wondered if the paper had run similar headlines about, or at least had 
mentioned, the Palestinian deaths in the days before, and I discovered 
that they had not. But I noticed that the story about the suicide 
bombing had at least contained some information about these preceding 
Palestinian deaths – one phrase each, in the second paragraph. Near the 
end of the story, full of extensive, graphic descriptions of the Israeli 
tragedies, I also saw that there were a few paragraphs about Israeli 
crowds beating random Palestinian Israelis to a pulp – one was almost 
killed – and chanting "Kill Arabs." 
 
A few days later I was back in the San Francisco Bay Area, and went to 
the library to see how the San Francisco Chronicle had covered these 
events. (I had emailed them on-the-scene reports, incidentally, about 
both Palestinian deaths.) I noticed that this paper, also, had neglected 
these deaths at the time. It had, however, carried the New York Times 
report about the suicide bombing that had followed. When I looked at the 
S.F. Chronicle's version of this report, however, I was astounded: 
someone had surgically excised the sentences near the top of the story 
telling of the Israeli killing of a nine-year-old Palestinian boy and a 
mother of three. The person had also deleted all information about the 
Israeli mob violence. 
 
Since that time I've monitored the media closely, and investigated 
numerous similar incidents, in an attempt to discover the nuts and bolts 
of obfuscation on Israel. 
 
Not long ago Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff, passed away. For many years Moorer, a four-star admiral and 
World War II hero, had strongly condemned Israel's 1967 attack on the 
USS Liberty9, a virtually unarmed US Navy intelligence ship. Israeli 
forces had killed 34 American servicemen and injured 172; 
stretcher-bearers were machine-gunned and lifeboats were shot out of the 
water. In addition, Moorer had been outraged at the U.S. government's 
abandonment of this crew. Following the attack, crew members, surrounded 
by blood and body parts, had been ordered by the government not to speak 
to anyone about what had just been done to them, and were dispersed to 
new postings around the world. One critically injured crewman who had 
been evacuated to a hospital in Germany woke up to find military 
policemen on either side of him, and an identity band on his wrist with 
someone else's name on it.10 
 
Moorer had long called for an investigation of all this. Last fall, in 
fact, he had chaired an independent commission on this incident, reading 
a report on Capitol Hill that said, among other things: "Israel 
committed acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war 
against the United States."11 Another admiral – who had been the head of 
the Navy's legal branch – read a just-released affidavit by the officer 
who had been the chief attorney to the quickie Naval court of inquiry 
set up by Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. (Sen. John McCain's father) to 
look into the attack. This affidavit revealed that there had been a 
cover-up at the presidential level – that Pres. Lyndon Johnson and 
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had ordered the court to find, 
despite all evidence to the contrary, Israel innocent of culpability.12 
 
The story of the commission's unprecedented findings died after one day 
of coverage. Despite an excellent AP report on it, a search of 300 
newspapers only turned up 10 that had printed it. 
 
A few months later Moorer died. The first quick AP obituary that came 
out about him contained one sentence about the Israeli attack. It was 
minimal, but present. Within a few hours a longer obit came out, 
containing a great deal of additional information about Moorer. But the 
sentence on the Israeli attack had been taken out. 
 
I have phoned AP many times, asking them why information on the USS 
Liberty was removed from the obituary, and who removed it. Each time, 
the person I reached agreed that the Liberty information was important, 
and told me they would get back to me. I'm still waiting. 
 
I'll discuss just four more telling examples. While such groups as 
Amnesty International have condemned Israel for its routine torture of 
Palestinian prisoners for decades13, coverage of such abuse virtually 
never appears in American media. 
 
In October of 200214 I received email reports of a Palestinian farmer 
who had been brutally tortured by Israeli settlers. I felt this was an 
important story, and decided to check it out. I phoned the American on 
the scene who had sent out the report and asked for more information. He 
filled in the gruesome details, sent me photos, and gave me the name and 
address of the hospital where the victim was being treated. I then 
phoned the S.F. Chronicle and gave the foreign desk all the information 
I had gathered. I suggested that they send one of their correspondents 
in the area to cover it, since although Chronicle reporters always 
reside in Israel, they do occasionally visit the Palestinian 
Territories. 
 
No word, however, ever appeared of this incident in the Chronicle.15 In 
fact, a search of the Chronicle looking for the words "torture" and 
"Israel" in lead paragraphs turned up only one article in the past 10 
years: an editorial in 1999 that opined: "Israel's Supreme Court was 
courageous, idealistic and absolutely right to outlaw torture as an 
interrogation technique by the Shin Bet security force."16 
Unfortunately, Israeli torture did not end after this decision.17 
 
Earlier this year, American media reported prominently on a prisoner 
swap in which an Israeli businessman imprisoned by Lebanon was traded 
for three Lebanese resistance leaders and a few hundred Palestinians 
(who had been scheduled for release within a few months anyway). Earlier 
news stories had reported that the Israeli had been tortured in Lebanon, 
but, happily, upon his release the man stated that he had been treated 
well by his captors.18 
 
On the other hand, I learned through Al-Jazeera that one of the Lebanese 
leaders just released had, two days before, testified for 10 hours in an 
Israeli court describing gruesome sexual abuse by Israeli prison guards, 
his claims validated by a member of the International Red Cross.19 
(Incidentally, I subsequently saw that accounts of this abuse had been 
reported in the foreign press for years20). 
 
I was in Washington DC at the time, and noticed that there had been no 
mention of any of this in the Washington Post, despite extensive 
coverage of the swap. I then did a search of the Post website, typing in 
" Mustafa Dirani" and "torture," and was surprised to find a full, 
detailed report on it by Peter Enav of AP.21 In other words, the 
Washington Post had the information on Dirani, the story was on their 
website, but they had not printed a word of it in the newspaper. (And 
you only found it on the website if you knew to look for it.) 
 
I phoned the Post and was referred to the editor responsible for foreign 
news. I asked why the paper had not contained information about Dirani's 
testimony and corroborating statements by others. He replied that they 
were waiting to look into it further, and would probably cover it 
sometime in the future. I pointed out that alleged torture of an Israeli 
– since proved to be false – had been printed, and asked, 
unsuccessfully, for an explanation of this double standard in news 
coverage. To date, this projected coverage has still not come. 
 
In fact, index searches revealed that while many newspapers had covered 
the prisoner swap extensively, and a number of newspapers around the 
country had carried the report of Dirani's abuse buried on their 
websites somewhere, I could find only nine newspapers that had printed 
these serious allegations of Israeli torture of a major Lebanese figure 
– interestingly, most of them local papers. 
 
Moreover, in my searches I also came across the fact that Dirani's young 
nephew Ghassan had been imprisoned by Israel for ten years. Israel had 
never contended that Ghassan was even political, much less a member of 
any resistance groups; he was simply held as a bargaining chip. At some 
point he had apparently suffered a complete mental breakdown, and was 
transferred to a psychiatric prison. Finally, he was released to his 
family in Lebanon, his mind, reportedly, gone. All of this, also, was 
unmentioned in American coverage of the prisoner swap.22 
 
In June 2002, Foreign Service Journal published what should have been an 
explosive exposé on Israel's torture of American citizens.23 Yet, when I 
went to the journal's website, I could not find the article. In fact, 
there was no mention that the issue even contained such a piece. I 
phoned the editor, and discovered that they had decided it was too 
controversial to put on their website. Today, the website does mention 
the article (in an extremely expurgated fashion; minus the word torture, 
for example), but there is still no link to the actual report.24 In 
addition, I have not been able to find a single American news source 
that even mentioned this thoroughly documented report. 
 
Finally, in the midst of the unfolding scandal about torture and 
humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu-Ghraib, two international human 
rights organizations released findings that 374 Palestinian teenagers 
imprisoned by Israel were being treated with similar cruelty. There was 
a short AP story on the report. It was sent to Britain, Europe, Africa, 
India, and Asia. It was not, however, sent to American newspapers. Phone 
calls to AP asking why it was deemed newsworthy in the rest of the world 
but not in the United States went unanswered. 
 
Media Studies 
Soon after my visit to the occupied territories I founded an 
organization called If Americans Knew25 to monitor the media and to 
provide Americans with accurate information on this topic. Two years 
ago, prompted by such anecdotal evidence of massive omission, If 
Americans Knew began conducting statistical case studies on coverage of 
Israel and Palestine. We chose categories that would be universally 
acknowledged as significant and as immune as possible from subjective 
interpretation. We recorded the number of deaths of both Palestinians 
and Israelis mentioned in headlines, then compared the percentages of 
overall deaths that were covered.26 
 
Our findings are staggering. 
 
We discovered, for example, that the San Francisco Chronicle had 
prominently covered 150 percent of Israeli children's deaths—i.e., many 
of the deaths were the subject of more than one headline in the 
paper—and five percent of Palestinian ones. In other words, Palestinian 
deaths were rarely accorded headline coverage even once. 
 
In the first three and a half months of the current Palestinian uprising 
against Israel's continuing confiscation of Palestinian land and 
suppression of human rights, Israeli forces killed 84 Palestinian 
children. The largest single cause of their deaths was gunfire to the 
head.27 During this period, not one Israeli child was killed. Not one 
suicide bombing against Israelis occurred.28 
 
Of these 84 Palestinian children, only one received headline coverage in 
the Chronicle – Mohammed al-Durra, the little boy whose murder while he 
was cowering with his father was recorded for all the world to see by a 
French TV crew. 
 
Was the Chronicle alone in such unbalanced news coverage? 
 
No. A study of National Public Radio that Seth Ackerman29 conducted for 
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) showed that NPR had reported 
on 89 percent of Israeli children's deaths and 20 percent of Palestinian 
ones. In other words, NPR, which has been accused of being 
"pro-Palestinian," reported Israeli deaths at a rate four and a half 
times greater than Palestinian deaths. 
 
Two studies we conducted of the San Jose Mercury News – for a total of 
twelve months of data – also revealed enormous distortion in coverage. 
For example, we discovered that front-page headline coverage of all 
deaths (adults and children) had so emphasized Israeli deaths over 
Palestinian ones that the newspaper had, in effect, reversed reality – 
and then widened the gap. While 313 Israelis and 884 Palestinians had 
been killed during this period, Mercury News front-page headlines had 
reported on 225 Israeli deaths, and only 34 Palestinian ones – 72 
percent of Israeli deaths and 4 percent of Palestinian ones.30 
 
What do these case studies tell us about American coverage in general? A 
great deal. 
 
Let us imagine what would have happened if a newspaper's headlines had 
reported the World Series backwards – that the score had been reversed, 
the winning team declared the loser. The paper would have been the 
laughingstock of the country; late-night comics around the nation would 
have had a field day. 
 
Yet, here was an equivalent error in a situation involving life and 
death, literally, and virtually no one noticed. Why? The logical 
conclusion is that the entire environment of news most people were 
accessing – television, radio, magazines – communicated similar 
inversion. 
 
As a result, the public is staggeringly misinformed. During the current 
intifada, Palestinian children were being killed – often shot in the 
head – day after day, week after week, month after month, before a 
single Israeli child's death. Yet a survey taken later that year showed 
that 93 percent of the respondents either had no idea which children had 
died first, or believed them to be Israeli. 31And this despite ample 
coverage of the conflict in general: the Chronicle, for example, ran 
over 250 stories on Israel and Palestine during this period. 
 
Also omitted was information on US tax money to Israel: well over $10 
million per day – more than to all of sub-Saharan Africa and the 
Caribbean put together.32 Our study showed that in six months of 
extensive reporting on Israel, the Chronicle had never even once 
reported the total amount of US money being sent to Israel. 
 
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of omission on this issue. 
 
Let us look at Project Censored, itself – a highly respected 
media-monitoring institution intent on bringing attention to critical 
information not covered by the corporate media. Each year it screens 
thousands of articles in hundreds of journals, drawing on the 
participation of a long list of experts. It has helped publicize 
profoundly valuable information on a wide variety of topics, with 
particular sensitivity to injustice, racism, and the plight of oppressed 
populations. 
 
Yet, it has largely missed one of the longest and most egregious cases 
of oppression of the 20th (and now 21st ) century. 
 
Over fifty years ago, the massive dispossession of almost an entire 
indigenous population was carried out by a colonial population pursuing 
ethnic "purity"33 – a purity Muslim and Christian Palestinians did not 
fit into. Israeli writer Yshar Snmilasky described this beginning: "We 
came, shot, burned, blew up, pushed and exiled... will the walls not 
scream in the ears of those who will live in this village?"34 
 
In 1967 this nation then overran the small remnants of land left to the 
indigenous population, and placed the inhabitants under brutal military 
occupation. In 1982 this apartheid nation35 invaded yet another country 
in its quest to prevent the original inhabitants of what was now Israel 
from returning to their land. Some 20,000 men, women, and children in 
Lebanon were killed, and hundreds of thousands injured – through the 
illegal use of American-made weapons. One American physician wrote at 
the time that she had never before seen "such hideous injuries." In one 
day, 1,000 mangled limbs were amputated.36 
 
In 1987 there was more violence, when the virtually unarmed indigenous 
population in the occupied territories attempted to rise up against 
their occupiers and died at the rate of 7 per every one Israeli death. 
The Palestinian death rate would have been higher, but the occupation 
forces chose a less reported form of violence to subdue the rebels – 
soldiers held them down and broke their bones. In the first three days 
of this new strategy, 197 people were treated for fractures at one 
hospital in Gaza alone.37 The policy was implemented by Yitzhak Rabin, 
the Israeli leader later known as a "peace-maker" before being 
assassinated by a Jewish extremist. One episode was caught on film, and 
can be viewed in various documentaries.38 The Israeli cameraman was 
later killed by Israeli forces.39 
 
Through this entire period there was an ongoing campaign to break the 
indigenous people's spirit. Tens of thousands were incarcerated without 
recourse to judge and jury. Tens of thousands were tortured, humiliated, 
maimed. Homes were destroyed by the thousands, cropland plowed under and 
replaced with concrete colonies from which the ancestral owners of the 
land were to be eternally excluded. Families were ripped apart, sons 
deported, schools closed.40 
 
And in its first 20 years, Project Censored made no mention of any of 
this – of this profoundly covered-up conflict, of these people, of this 
oppression. The longest-standing military occupation of modern times – 
unmentioned. The largest refugee population in today's world (an 
estimated 8 million), and the longest dispossessed – unmentioned. 
 
Actually, Project Censored carried one story on Israel during this 
period – an exposé of its support of oppression in Central America. Then 
finally, in 2001, in Project Censored's 25th anniversary edition, there 
was notice of Israel's oppression of Palestinians – it was mentioned in 
the introduction and in a story about ethnically specific bioweapons.41 
 
Astoundingly, the first time that a topic pertaining to Israel's 
treatment of Palestinians made it onto the Project Censored list was 
just last year. After including a story about U.S. tax money to Colombia 
in the previous volume – the #3 choice of that year – Project Censored 
decided to also cover U.S. tax money to Israel – a vastly larger amount, 
that has been dispensed far longer. This story was #24. Since many 
reports about Project Censored list only the top ten stories, this low 
rating meant that this story went widely unmentioned. 
 
Such long neglect of this issue is startling, particularly given the 
subject matter that Project Censored regularly addressed, and the 
numerous powerful exposés on Israel related to these subjects that were 
ignored by the mainstream press – stories that seemed right up the 
Project Censored alley. 
 
For example, Project Censored has done an excellent job of covering 
nuclear power and proliferation. Yet, through all these years there was 
no mention – ever – of Israel's possession of hundreds of nuclear 
weapons; no mention of the young technician who blew the whistle on 
their nuclear weapons program, and was then kidnapped by Israel, brought 
back for a kangaroo trial under grotesque conditions and held in 
solitary confinement in a cell two meters by three meters for over 12 of 
his 18 years of incarceration.42 
 
Similarly, Project Censored promoted important articles about 
Iran-Contra and on the oil embargo that shot oil prices through the roof 
and threw thousands out of work. Yet, there was no mention of the 
fundamental role played by Israel in both events.43 
 
Projected Censored highlighted a moving and powerful report on the 
"Death of a Nation: The Tragedy of Transkei" in South Africa, yet there 
was no such article about the death of Palestine, and the various 
strategies being implemented to expel its remaining inhabitants.44 
 
While Project Censored contained valuable information on "The Most 
Powerful Secret Lobby in Washington" (the Business Roundtable), there 
was no mention of the pro-Israel lobby that has been at the forefront of 
influencing US foreign policy in the Middle East for over half a 
century.45 
 
If space permitted, this list would go on and on. 
 
Even last year, after Project Censored had begun to discover Palestine, 
the book's top censored story of the year, which exposed the 
neoconservatives' role behind the attack on Iraq, astonishingly omitted 
any mention whatsoever of these neoconservatives' close, long-term ties 
to Israel and the documented record of their work on its behalf.46 
Similarly, there was no mention of what should have been an 
award-winning exposé on Israeli torture of American citizens that came 
out the same year. 
 
Finally, this year, a story revealing that top U.S. governmental 
officials have been investigated by U.S. intelligence agencies for 
decades for spying for a foreign government – a story that should have 
produced reverberations throughout the country, resulting in 
Congressional inquiries and calls for special prosecutors47 – was not 
only unmentioned by the mainstream media, it was missed by Project 
Censored and its array of experts as well. The foreign government was 
Israel. 
 
In other words, while the corporate media was ignoring the slaughter, 
torture, and dispossession of Palestinians, while it was ignoring a 
presidential cover-up that dwarfed Watergate in its significance, while 
it was ignoring the attempts of abandoned vets to get recourse from 
their government, while it was ignoring multitudes of stories of 
potentially world-shaking importance about Israel and its actions, 
Project Censored was, too. 
 
I don't know why or how this has been happening, but I suspect that 
Project Censored's omission of this issue is largely a reflection of 
what has been going on throughout much of the progressive press – and 
community – for many years. A search of the Center for Investigative 
Reporting's website, for example, reveals only two stories, 25 years 
apart, about Israel or Palestine – both by the same author. 
 
When we approached CIR and Media Alliance, another organization known 
for its ethical actions against censorship, to join us in activities 
regarding our Chronicle and Mercury-News studies, the reaction was 
disappointing. CIR, we were told, was in the midst of negotiating with 
the Chronicle on some future projects. (We also later noticed that David 
Yarnold, Executive Editor of the Mercury-News, is on the CIR advisory 
board.) When we contacted Media Alliance about co-sponsoring a forum on 
our studies, a project that we had thought would mesh well with the 
organization's progressive philosophy, our phone calls went unreturned. 
 
When we asked Peace Action why their brochures about nuclear weapons 
omitted any mention of Israel's large arsenal of such weapons, we were 
told that discussing Israel would interfere with the group's ability to 
lobby Congressman Tom Lantos (one of Israel's most fervent Capitol Hill 
supporters and a major promoter of both Iraq wars). 
 
These are not isolated incidents. 
 
All of the above organizations – and many others with equally dubious 
records on Palestine – have produced profoundly important, often 
courageous, work. Why has there so often been a "blind spot" on Israel? 
 
I suspect that the causes are complicated and multi-factorial. I suspect 
that I and others like me – who remained ignorant and negligent on this 
issue for so long – bear much of the guilt. I suspect that others whose 
emotional ties to Israel served as blinders on this subject share in our 
culpability. I suspect that still others who knew the truth and refused 
to speak of it, or who participated in its cover-up, bear a significant 
portion of this awful responsibility. I suspect that the career damage48 
and death threats49 that often result when one begins to speak out on 
this issue played a part. 
 
Whatever the cause, it is time that we all, finally and resoundingly, 
move forward. It is time that we bring to an end what we have all helped 
to perpetuate. 
 
Perhaps one of the places we can start is by recognizing and 
disseminating the immense body of work created through the years by 
journalists diligently digging up the still mostly-buried facts on 
Israel and Palestine. Many of these people are nearing the end of their 
careers, and it is time we thanked them, and joined in their efforts. 
 
I propose a special Lifetime Most Censored Award, and that among the 
first to receive it be the following writers whose extraordinary work 
has continually been censored out of American discourse on the Middle 
East: (in alphabetical order) Richard Curtiss, for his massive research 
into all aspects of Israel and Palestine, in particular on U.S. aid to 
Israel and Israeli PACs; James Ennes, for being the first to gather and 
expose the story of the USS Liberty and its cover-up; Andrew Killgore, 
for his numerous writings and his historic role, with Richard Curtiss, 
in founding and keeping alive the Washington Report on Middle East 
Affairs and the American Educational Trust book publishing; Paul 
Findley, for ground-shaking research on the Israel lobby and the 
injustice being done to Palestinians and Muslims; Stephen Green, for his 
meticulous investigative reporting on Israeli spying and arms 
procurement; Alfred Lillienthal, for his early and principled exposes of 
Israel; and, especially, Donald Neff, for his brilliant and 
comprehensive books on all aspects of Israel, Palestine, and the core 
injustice at the center of the Middle East. 
 
In memoriam awards should go to Edward Said, who broke through this 
censorship, and to Grace Halsell and Elmer Berger, who sadly did not. I 
am at a loss to describe the tribute that should go to 23-year-old 
Rachel Corrie, whose life and death, as well as whose words, have been 
largely erased or distorted in media discourse on Israel and Palestine – 
including by some publications once considered progressive, such as 
Mother Jones.50 
 
Next, I hope future editions of Project Censored will include work by 
some of the other superb writers and reporters on this topic today: Ali 
Abunimah, Naseer Aruri, Dennis Bernstein, Jerri Bird, Jeff Blankfort, 
Lenni Brenner, Alexander Cockburn, Kathleen Christison, Norman 
Finkelstein, Delinda Hanley, Rashid Khalidi, Janet McMahon, Rachelle 
Marshall, Nur Masalha, Nigel Parry, Jason Vest, Ahmed Yousef, Mazin 
Qumsiyeh, Charlie Reese, and the many others deserving of recognition. I 
apologize for those I'm forgetting to mention and I hope others will add 
to this list. ( I have not included here foreign journalists of note, 
because it is my understanding that Project Censored concentrates on 
censorship inside the U.S.) 
 
Finally, we must help to end the censorship of the ongoing reports by 
Palestinian and international journalists, including Israeli ones, who 
report at great risk from inside the Palestinian territories (in the 
past four years twelve journalists have been killed there and 295 
wounded51), as well as by writers from such organizations as Christian 
Peacemaker Teams and the International Solidarity Movement, and, 
especially, from among the Palestinian population itself, who are daily 
sending out searing first-hand accounts from the very center of the 
violence. 
 
May they all survive. 
 
 
 
Un-Censoring: Some Recommended Reading on Israel-Palestine: 
Fallen Pillars: US Policy towards Palestine and Israel since 1945 
by Donald Neff Buy it! 
 
Deliberate Deceptions 
by Paul Findley Buy it! 
 
Perceptions of Palestine 
by Kathleen Christison Buy it! 
 
Fifty Years of Israel 
by Donald Neff Buy it! 
 
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel 
by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky Buy it! 
 
Sharing the Land of Canaan 
Mazin B. Qumsiyeh Buy it! 
 
Assault on the Liberty 
by James Ennes 
(First-hand account of Israel's attack on US Navy ship) Buy it! 
 
Journey to Jerusalem 
Grace Halsell Buy it! 
 
Expulsion of the Palestinians 
Nur Masalha Buy it! 
 
They Dare to Speak Out 
Paul findley Buy it! 
 
The Lobby 
Edward Tivnan Buy it! 
 
The Passionate Attachment 
George W. Ball, Douglas Ball Buy it! 
 
Samed 
Raja Shehadeh Buy it! 
 
Zealots for Zion: Inside Israel's West Bank Settlement Movement 
by Robert Friedman Buy it! 
 
The New Intifada 
edited by Roane Carey Buy it! 
 
Fateful Triangle 
Noam Chomsky Buy it! 
 
 
 
Endnotes 
A few of the best online sources include Al Jazeera; Reports by Robert 
Fisk and Phil Reeves in the London Independent; The UK Guardian; The 
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; The Palestinian Red Crescent 
Society; and B'Tselem. Regarding eye injuries, an example is: "By May 
2001, there were already two hundred people treated for eye wounds at 
St. John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem alone." Tanya Reinhart, 
Israel/Palestine, Seven Stories Press, New York, p. 115 
Some of the best books I have read are listed at the end of the article 
and online at 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/materials.html#books 
For more information about the nerve gas being used, see Brooks, James, 
"The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A preliminary investigation", Media 
Monitors Network, January 8, 2003, 
http://www.mediamonitors.net/jamesbrooks2.html 
There are numerous human rights reports on Israeli torture, see for 
example, "Israel Increases Its Use of Torture Practices Among 
Palestinian Prisoners", A Report Issued by the Palestinian Prisoner 
Society, June 21, 2002, 
http://www.ppsmo.org/e-website/Reports/Israeli%20Tourture%20July%202002.htm 
 
Davar, June 9, 1979: Testimony of an Israeli soldier who participated in 
the massacre at al Duwayma Village on Oct. 29, 1948: "[they] killed 
between 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. To kill the children they 
fractured their heads with sticks. There was not one house without 
corpses. The men and women of the villages were pushed into houses 
without food or water. Then the saboteurs came to dynamite the houses. 
One commander ordered a soldier to bring two women into a house he was 
about to blow up ... Another soldier prided himself upon having raped an 
Arab woman before shooting her to death. Another Arab woman with her 
newborn baby was made to clean the place for a couple of days, and then 
they shot her and the baby. Educated and welll-mannered commanders who 
were considered "good guys"... became base murderers, and this not in 
the storm of battle, but as a method of expulsion and extermination. The 
fewer the Arabs who remained, the better." For additional information on 
Israel's beginnings: Masalha, Nur, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The 
Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, The 
Institute for Palestine Studies: Washington D.C., 1992. 
Ball, George W. and Douglas B. Ball, The Passionate Attachment: 
America's Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present, W. W. Norton & 
Company: New York, 1992, p. 29. 
See for example, Amir S Cheshin., Bill Hutman, and Avi Melamed, Separate 
and Unequal: The Inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem, Harvard 
University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1999, and David McDowall, Palestine and 
Israel, University of California Press, 1989, pp. 123-145 
Deborah Sontag, "Suicide Bomber Kills 3 Israelis," New York Times, March 
5, 2001; it's interesting to see how this situation was reported 
elsewhere; for example, the Houston Chronicle carried Sontag's story 
under the headline: "Palestinian suicide bomber kills 3 Israelis: Attack 
gladdens West Bank mourners as conflict grows" 
For more information about the attack on the Liberty, visit 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ussliberty.html 
Assault on the Liberty (Random House 1980; Ballantine 1986; Reintree 
Press 2002), http://www.ussliberty.org. 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-commfindings.html 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-boston.html; 
http://www.freewebs.com/gidusko/boston 
Neve Gordon & Ruchama Marton, Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and 
the Case of Israel, Zed Books, London; See for example, Amnesty 
International Report, "Israel and the Occupied Territories: Mass 
detention in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions", May 23, 2002, 
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde150742002. 

http://www.flashpoints.net/index-2002-10-30.html 
For first-hand reports, visit http://www.palsolidarity.org, 
http://www.hearpalestine.org, or http://www.cpt.org/hebron/hebron.php 
San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 10, 1999, A20 
See for example, Amnesty International Report, "Israel and the Occupied 
Territories: Mass detention in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions", 
May 23, 2002, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde150742002 
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/29/prisoner.exchange 
"Hizb Allah leader says Israel tortured him", Al Jazeera, January 27, 
2004, 
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EC01FA53-F114-44AF-89F9-75903CB8008F.htm; 
Gutman, Matthew and Tovah Lazaroff, "Dirani to Testify on Rape Charges," 
Jerusalem Post, Jan 27, 2004 
For example: "Facility 1391: Israel's Secret Prison," UK Guardian, Nov. 
14, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1084796,00.html; 
"Lebanese group calls on ICRC to prevent Israeli torture in jails," 
Deutsche Presse-Agentur, March 13, 2000 
Enav, Peter, Associated Press, "Militant says he was abused by Israel", 
Jan. 27, 2004. 
"Israel Surrenders A Bargaining Chip," Washington Post, April 6, 2000, 
p. 1 
Jerri Bird, "Arab-Americans in Israel: What 'Special Relationship'?", 
June 2002, http://www.partnersforpeace.org/inmedia/db200206010/ 
http://www.afsa.org/fsj/2002.cfm 
If Americans Knew is dedicated to providing full and accurate 
information to the American public on topics of importance that are 
underreported or misreported in the American media. Our primary area of 
focus at this time is Israel/Palestine. 
All four of our studies completed so far can be found online at 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/report_cards.html 
Information about Israeli and Palestinian children killed in the 
conflict is available online at http://www.rememberthesechildren.org 
http://www.btselem.org 
Ackerman, Seth, "The Illusion of Balance: NPR's coverage of Mideast 
deaths doesn't match reality", Extra!, November/December 2001, 
http://www.fair.org/extra/0111/npr-mideast.html 
The second study is online at 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/merc2/report.html 
Retro Poll of September/October 2002, online at 
http://www.retropoll.org/results_poll_01.htm 
Richard Curtiss, "The Cost of Israel to US Taxpayers, Washington Report 
on Middle East Affairs,, Dec. '97, pp 43-45, 
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/1297/9712043.html 
There are numerous excellent histories that cover this period; two are 
Sharing the Land of Canaan, Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Pluto Press, and Nur 
Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in 
Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, The Institute for Palestine 
Studies: Washington D.C., 1992. A book list can be found at 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/materials.html#books 
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0794/9407072.htm 
Desmond Tutu & Ian Urbina,"Against Israeli Apartheid," International 
Herald Tribune, 07/02 
Mallison, Sally V. and W. Thomas, Armed Conflict in Lebanon 1982: 
Humanitarian Law in a Real World Setting, American Eduational Trust. 
McDowall, David, Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond, 
University of California Press (1989): "Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 
shifted away from firearms, telling his soldiers to use 'might, power, 
and beatings'... Soldiers armed with cudgels beat up those they could 
lay their hands on regardless of whether they were demonstrators or not, 
breaking into homes by day and night, dragging men and women, young and 
old, from their beds to beat them. At Gaza's Shifa Hospital 200 people 
were treated during the first five days of the new policy, most of them 
suffering from broken elbows and knees. Three had fractured skulls...A 
government official explained: 'A detainee sent to prison will be freed 
in 18 days... but if soldiers break his hand, he won't be able to throw 
stones for a month and a half." 
For example, "People and the Land", Director: Tom Hayes; "Palestine is 
Still the Issue", Director: John Pilger. 
Personal conversation with filmmaker Tom Hayes, Director of "People and 
the Land." 
http://www.hrw.org/un/chr59/israelot.htm; 
http://www.dci-pal.org/reports/dcireports.html; 
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/israel_and_occupied_territories/reports.do 
 
"Human Genome Project Opens the Door to Ethnically Specific Bioweapons," 
#16 
Mordechai Vanunu, see Mark Gaffney, Dimona, the third temple?: the 
story behind the Vanunu revelation, Amana Books,: Brattleboro, VT, 1989 
 
Green, Stephen, Living by the Sword, pp. 193-218; 
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0591/9105011.htm; Neff, Donald, Fifty 
Years of Israel, pp. 279-287, 
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/1097/9710070.html, Donald Neff, "Nixon 
Administration Ignores Saudi Warnings, Bringing On Oil Boycott," 
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Oct/Nov, 1997, pp. 70-72 
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/032486/860324012.html; 
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0689/8906021.htm 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/pg-blankfort.html; 
http://www.wrmea.com/aipac; 
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0198/9801065.htm 
Numerous excellent articles can be found at 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/neocons.html, Israeli media by 
the way, have covered this aspect openly, eg: Ha'aretz, Friday April 04, 
2003: "The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative 
intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to 
change the course of history..." 
Green, Stephen, "Serving Two Flags", CounterPunch, Feb. 28-29, 2004, 
http://www.counterpunch.org/green02282004.html 
Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out, Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago, 
1989, pp. 295-314; Democracy Now, Thursday, April 24, 2003, "San 
Francisco Chronicle Fires Reporter for Attending Peace Protest," 
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/sf_chronicle_fires_042403.htm 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/death_threat.html 
Phan Nguyen, "Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie: Specious Journalism in 
Defense of Killers," CounterPunch, Sept. 20, 2003 
http://www.counterpunch.org/nguyen09202003.html. In contrast, Harper's 
magazine ran a number of Corrie's letters. These can be read in full at 
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/rachelsletters.html 
Palestine Monitor, "Palestinian Intifada Fact Sheet", 
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/new_web/factsheet_intifada.htm#Statistics%20for%\ 
20the%20Palestinian%20Intifada.