The only thing more disgraceful than the state sponsored slaughter in the Gaza strip are the lickspittles in our National Media that serve as the propaganda arm for the State of Israel. This is exactly why journalists like Glenn Greenwald are so important:
NBC News Pulls Veteran Reporter from Gaza After Witnessing Israeli Attack on Children ~ Glenn Greenwald
Mohyeldin recounted how, moments before their death, he was kicking a soccer ball with the four boys, who were between the ages of 9 and 11 and all from the same family. He posted numerous chilling details on his Twitter and Instagram accounts, including the victims’ names and ages, photographs he took of their anguished parents, and video of one of their mothers as she learned about the death of her young son. He interviewed one of the wounded boys at the hospital shortly before being operated on. He then appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, where he dramatically recounted what he saw.
Despite this powerful first-hand reporting – or perhaps because of it – Mohyeldin was nowhere to be seen on last night’s NBC Nightly News broadcast with Brian Williams. Instead, as Media Bistro’s Jordan Chariton noted, NBC curiously had Richard Engel – who was in Tel Aviv, and had just arrived there an hour or so earlier – “report” on the attack. Charlton wrote that “the decision to have Engel report the story for ‘Nightly’ instead of Mohyeldin angered some NBC News staffers.”
Indeed, numerous NBC employees, including some of the network’s highest-profile stars, were at first confused and then indignant over the use of Engel rather than Mohyeldin to report the story. But what they did not know, and what has not been reported until now, is that Mohyeldin was removed completely from reporting on Gaza by a top NBC executive, David Verdi, who ordered Mohyeldin to leave Gaza immediately.
We need a national discussion on whether we should be supporting a State that has created a new age Warsaw Ghetto.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Considering, Doug, the buttlicks of the establishment media have been part and parcel of the establishment transmission belt since the days of Lippmann and Duranty, the now-open “disappearing” of wayward journalists should not surprise anyone. Soon we’ll have examples of before-and-after picture airbrushings reminiscent of the “Commissar Vanishes.”http://www.amazon.com/The-Commissar-Vanishes-Falsification-Photographs/dp/B00007D037
Martin Fletcher is as pathetic as a “journalist” can be. He reports for NBC which is owned by Comcast the President of which is Brian Roberts a major contributor to Jewish and Israeli charities.
One is as likely to get hard-hitting reporting on Gaza from the NBC team as they are to get it from Wolf Blitzer of CNN. Speaking of CNN where is Christiane Amanpour? She’s not afraid to tell it like it is.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, correct?
So was Germany when Hitler started.
Doug
Is it your opinion that the response was too severe? Do you doubt Hamas killed the teenagers?
I agree a measured response would have been better, but Netanhayu doesn’t believe in measured responses.
I think Israeli political leaders and the Nazis of yore have way too much in common NRB. I strongly feel that my tax dollars should not be supporting a repressive regime that uses religion to justify mass murder.
Wow. 5 million people in Israel terrorized daily by Hamas rockets over the last 6 years. What are they to do, just ignore it and let life go on? For the most part they do. When I visited Israel two years ago things were quiet and there were daily rocket attacks. No response by Israel, it is just a fact of life living there.
Nearly every building in southern Israel has a rocket shelter. All new construction must have one and all existing buildings have had to install one. Do some research on the communities of southern Israel. Sderot, Ashkelon etc.
When things calm down I encourage you to go to Israel and see it for yourself as I did. I went several years ago thinking that Israel was a liability to the US. I came back a changed person. I didn’t just look at things from the Israeli side I also visited the West Bank to get an unbiased view.
I hope you speak from your ignorance of the realities of Israel and the Mideast but please go there and see for yourself before condemining something you don’t fully understand. I once shared your views but I found out how wrong I was.
One final comment. Comparing modern day Israel to the perpetrators of the holocaust is just wrong. Don’t rewrite history.
Remember. Rocket attacks have been a daily occurrence in Israel for the past 5 years. It only makes the news when it increases into the hundreds daily.
Measured response. Didn’t Israel agreed to two ceasefires?
One rejected by Hamas the second Hamas fired rockets in the middle of the 5 hour humanitarian ceasefire.
Last night on PBS Newshour Gwen had David Brooks from the NYT on with Mark Shields. Brooks must get a second paycheck from the State of Israel.
Brooks’ Wiki bio explains it. There is a great danger in intertwining religion and state such as is the case with Israel because it leads to all sorts of very bad places where killing is justified as a derivative of a divine right.
Being surrounded by people who continuously not only state they want to kill every person in your country but try to do it on a daily basis with dozens and dozens and dozens of attacks and it is ISRAEL who is extreme because of religion? Do you REALLY think some Israeli and not some Palestinian killed those three kids? What other country have you ever heard of that warns civilians to leave BEFORE they attack? And comparing Israelis to Nazis? I love the site, Doug, but jeez. You try living like those people do and tell me their response is extreme.