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Decrying "Brutal Operation Taking Place in Our Name," Israeli Military Reservists Refuse to Serve
As Israel pledges to continue the assault on Gaza for "as long as is required," we are joined by two Israelis who have refused to serve in their country’s military reserves. On Tuesday, The Washington Post ran an open letter authored by Yael Even Or titled "We are Israeli reservists. We refuse to serve," announcing that more than 50 former Israeli soldiers have signed a petition declaring their refusal to be part of the Israeli military reserves. "This petition, long in the making, has a special urgency because of the brutal military operation now taking place in our name," Even Or writes. An Israeli journalist and activist who evaluated candidates for the Israeli army’s recruitment department during her service, Even Or is now a graduate student in international affairs at The New School in New York City. She join us to discuss the reservists’ letter. We are also joined from Tel Aviv by Yonatan Shapira, a former Israeli captain and Air Force pilot, who in 2003 spearheaded a letter signed by 27 Israeli pilots who refused to participate in military operations against Palestinians.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to continue Israel’s military campaign against Gaza for, quote, "as long as is required." However, not everyone within the Israeli military supports the ongoing attack on Palestinians, which has entered its 17th day. On Tuesday, The Washington Post ran a piece by Yael Even Or called "We are Israeli Reservists. We Refuse to Serve." It notes over 50 former Israeli soldiers have signed a petition declaring their refusal to be part of the reserves. Yael Even Or writes, quote, "This petition, long in the making, has a special urgency because of the brutal military operation now taking place in our name. And although combat soldiers are generally the ones prosecuting today’s war, their work would not be possible without the many administrative roles in which most of us served. So if there is a reason to oppose combat operations in Gaza, there is also a reason to oppose the Israeli military apparatus as a whole. That is the message of this petition," she wrote.
Well, for more, we’re joined by the author of that article, Yael Even Or. She is an Israeli journalist and activist who, during her service, evaluated candidates for the recruitment department of the Israeli army. She’s now a graduate student in international affairs at The New School.
And in Tel Aviv, we’re joined by Yonatan Shapira, a former Israeli captain and Air Force pilot. He was one of the organizers of a 2003 letter signed by 27 Air Force pilots who refused to participate in Israeli military operations against Palestinians. Shapira has also signed on to the internal Israeli movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, known as BDS.
Yael Even Or and Yonatan Shapira, we thank you very much for being with us. I want to stay with you, Yonatan, in Tel Aviv, first. Talk about the climate right now in Tel Aviv and where you stand 10 years after you resisted attacking Palestinians as an Air Force pilot.
YONATAN SHAPIRA: Hi, Amy. The line is not perfect, but I will try my best. Just before I answer your question, you asked me where do I stand. So, if the cameraman can make a little wider shot, I can just turn to the back and show you the center of Tel Aviv. You can look behind me. The camera guy is not happy about that, but you can see the headquarter of the Kirya just few meters from the biggest hospital in Tel Aviv, Ichilov. You can see all of them just behind me, just in this frame. Just next to it, you have the biggest tower in this side of Tel Aviv. It’s the HaShalom Towers, the Peace Tower. And I think, in some symbolic way, it tells the whole thing. We are here talking about how the Hamas surround themselves with children, using them as a shield. By now, it’s 160 children dead and around 730, 740 people, most of them civilians. And Israel is still using this argument that the Hamas surround themselves with children. And I want you just to look at this picture and tell me what you think. You can really see the tower with the antennas. This is the headquarter of the Kirya, the headquarter of the army, the Israeli army that is controlling Gaza, controlling the air, the sea, the area in the West Bank, in everywhere. And just few meters from there, you have Ichilov and you have basically the city center of Tel Aviv. So, I think it’s very important, especially for liberal Jews that are now protecting and helping Israeli propaganda machine.
Regarding where I am after 10, 11 years after refusing, I feel that it’s like the situation that you feel that you are walking on a path, and slowly everyone else, or almost everyone else, are disappearing far, far to the right of you. Today we are a minority of a minority of activists in Israel. Of course there are more and more people, but we are still a very, very small minority. We have people that are going to jail. I have a friend who is going to jail on Monday for refusing to enlist with the army. There are now a few people in jail.
But overall, overall, there is a disease in my country, and the disease is spreading very fast, and it’s called fascism and racism. Fascism and racism is now the biggest threat of the Jewish people in the Middle East. And I can just cry and shout and ask everyone that hear us now to join the BDS movement, to join the boycott, divestment and sanction movement, and to try to put enormous pressure on your leaders, wherever they are, that they, in turn, will help us here stop this massacre, stop this ongoing slaughter of innocent people. I have friends in Gaza now that yesterday called and told us that their house in Shejaiya was leveled. Now the only thing they have is the cellphone, and a family of nine people are hiding in the Shifa Hospital. This is a war crime. This is an ongoing slaughter of innocent people. And that’s the discussion. That’s what we have to talk about, how to stop it.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me, Yonatan—
YONATAN SHAPIRA: I am getting very emotional, because I can even feel how—yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Yael into this discussion.
YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah, go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: Yael Even Or, who has written this piece in The Washington Post. Can you talk about how you came to your decision, Yael?
YAEL EVEN OR: Yes. First, I should say that the timing and the platform have been chosen because of the urgency of this matter and our call to the Israeli government to stop the attack on Gaza. But as we mentioned in the letter, it was—we planned it for a very long time. For me personally, it started when I decided that I don’t want to go to my reserve duty, and that was after the attack on Gaza in 2008. But I realized that in my position in my unit, I don’t have to really refuse. I mean, there’s no—I mean, political refusal, you can only do in public means; there is no category for it for the army. So I couldn’t find—so I found my way out by not taking the army’s phone calls, saying I’m in school. I moved here to do my master’s degree, so since I’m here, they can’t call me. But I never stated the reasons for which I decided to not go to the army. And I found other people—at the moment, 56 people—who felt the same and decided that they want to state—that they want to issue a statement talking about why they’re not going to the army, even if they found a way out or an exemption with other means. And the decision to publish it now was because of the operation, but we are trying to talk in the letter, as you can see, about things that are broader than just the current operation, or not talk about the occupation in the narrow sense of it.
AMY GOODMAN: So why don’t you talk about that? Expand what it is you explained in this letter.
YAEL EVEN OR: So, I think one of the main things is probably a sense, a lot of us sense, of kind of detachment or disconnect between soldiers’ actions and their violent consequences, as for people who sit in offices in the city center of Tel Aviv—Yonatan just mentioned the Kirya—and don’t really—and it’s really difficult to grasp the meaning of what you do when you just sit on the computer. I think even when it comes to refusal, the discourse and discussion is usually about what is happening in the Occupied Territories and encounters with Palestinians, which is really, really important to talk about, but it also leaves a whole area that is not widely spoken. And it’s our job in administrative role in the intelligence and equipment units, so we wanted to talk about that.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to a video that was posted by the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, that they say showcases some of the work its members do to keep Israeli civilians safe. Let’s go to a clip.
NOY EISEN: Since our country is surrounded by enemies, we have to be always prepared. One day you can live a normal day, and the day after you can experience a bomb or rockets. My name is Noy Eisen, and my job is emergency situation instructor. I feel very proud to do this, and I feel so satisfied from the fact that I actually help people to save their lives. This is very important.
AMY GOODMAN: Yael Even Or, your response to that video?
YAEL EVEN OR: I mean, I think it’s definitely part of what we were trying to talk about, the idea of teacher soldiers and soldiers going to school and for kids in a very early age to meet soldiers. This is part of the militarization we are trying to talk about. Having uniforms and weapon and teachers in uniforms is something that is so normal in Israel that it creates the idea that all of us are part of this thing, a part of the army. And I think this limits our thought in regards to what can be done, or in longer—if we’re talking longer terms, real transitional justice in the area.
AMY GOODMAN: Yonatan Shapira in Tel Aviv, when you resisted in 2003, refused as an Air Force pilot, as a captain, to attack Palestinians, what were the consequences of that move? You’re part of the elite group of Air Force pilots, your family; you come from a family of pilots.
YONATAN SHAPIRA: Well, first, luckily, I was flying rescue helicopters, and I flew soldiers, but I felt that my responsibility is nevertheless as big as the pilots who are attacking and throwing those bombs. The reaction was that, of course, the military dismissed us and, of course, said that it’s wrong, but we had about one-fifth of the Israeli society, in a poll that was conducted by the Israeli National Radio, supporting our initiative. One-fifth, in those days, mean one million Israelis were sympathetic to the concern that we raised about the morality of these actions.
I think the interesting thing about what happen now is what you hear is all the time how amazing and morally we act. Yesterday I listened to the army news, and the discussion was how pilots and soldiers are complaining that there are so many limitations they have to abide and follow because of the threat of harming civilians. So the whole discourse is how good we are and how we are willing to sacrifice and endanger ourself in order to be careful and not to kill civilians while doing this crazy massacre that, by the way, is much, much more intense. If you look at the mass of casualties and dead people in those days, it’s much faster than even in Cast Lead.
What the army actually did with us is, after 10 days that we got time to think about it and to meet our immediate commanders in the bases, we were invited to an interview with the commander of the army, and then if we said that we are not withdrawing our signature, we do not regret, we were dismissed from the Air Force. And we got a letter of dismissal saying that—like, the first thing they mentioned in this like sort of legal letter was that we filmed ourself and we interviewed with a uniform without permission. They had really difficult time to bring us to court, for example, because—and we actually wanted that. I sat in front of the commander of the Air Force, and I said, "Well, I feel totally complete and whole with everything that we did, and I’m happy to be even sent to jail if you can prove and show in court that we refused legal orders. We think that all these orders are illegal and immoral. And even by the laws of the Israeli army, you must disobey to an order that is illegal, immoral and is going to harm civilian and innocent people." Of course, the army, the Air Force chose not to open any court case against us, because it would just serve us and give us a platform to raise more and more of these issues within the public, the Israeli public, debate.
AMY GOODMAN: Yael, is there an Israeli conscientious objector status?
YAEL EVEN OR: By law, you mean? Or—not that I know of. I mean, you can find your way out through pacifism. It’s very rare. But I think, mostly, if you want to declare yourself as one, you have to do it just by publicly. The army avoids giving these kind of statuses and categories, from obvious reasons.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did you find the other reservists to join you in this? Fifty people have signed on. And is this an ongoing list?
YAEL EVEN OR: Fifty-six, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Fifty-six.
YAEL EVEN OR: Yeah, and some more joined. Well, I reached out to friends and people that I knew from my political circles, that I knew that were in the army once, and I also knew that they didn’t—they couldn’t find a way to refuse yet or to oppose or take responsibility for the action they committed in the past, since they weren’t combat soldiers, so they didn’t have the path to go to Breaking the Silence, for example, or they couldn’t refuse as pilots or high-rank officers. So, we just wanted to create a new category that could include all of us from—and also by saying that we all participated. And, of course, there are different degrees of maybe responsibility, but we all should take it.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issues that are raised by Benjamin Netanyahu, among them, well, it’s Hamas that is terrorist, that is firing thousands of rockets, terrorizing the people of Israel?
YAEL EVEN OR: You want me to respond to this argument? Well, this is my family and friends there that are definitely suffering from the rockets, and their life are in risk. But I also—this escalation, if that’s the right term, started not with that, so I don’t think that was the reason to start this operation, to start the operation in the West Bank before that. So I do think there’s a way, for example, by accepting the Hamas terms for a ceasefire, to stop the fighting.
AMY GOODMAN: Which are?
YAEL EVEN OR: Well, one of the—
AMY GOODMAN: The key point you feel that is critical?
YAEL EVEN OR: Yeah, well, to remove the siege, obviously.
AMY GOODMAN: When you say "obviously," most people in the United States—
YAEL EVEN OR: Yeah, sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: —don’t know what the siege is, what you’re referring to.
YAEL EVEN OR: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Most people, based on the media, see Israel under siege, because of the thousands of rockets, but they don’t know what you mean when you say Gaza is under siege.
YAEL EVEN OR: Yeah. I really don’t want to dismiss what the people in Israel are experiencing right now. I think it’s a bad time for Palestinians and Israelis, too. And obviously, my family is there, and my friends. But I think one of our main points also was that it seems very easy to go to a military solution, to a military attack, instead of trying to solve things by political means. I mean, it’s not even—it seems like it’s not even being discussed. And that’s how we feel right now. The rockets started after some political efforts were being dismissed very easily by the Israeli government.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, you, Yonatan, you are right there in Tel Aviv. This issue of the siege, that I asked Yael about, for an American audience, it is not explained very much what it means for Gaza to be under siege for these years. Can you explain technically what that means?
YONATAN SHAPIRA: Technically, Gaza is the biggest open-air prison. People inside cannot go in and out. They can find their way through tunnels sometime, but most of the population is locked there as prisoners. Israel control the air. Israel control the sea and the land. And the little strip that Egypt controls is basically coordinated with Israel and the United States to keep this a cage with those 1.8 million people. I, myself, tried, with different groups and a flotilla, to sail to Gaza and to break symbolically the blockade, but we were stopped by the Israeli occupation forces, claiming that we are dangerous because maybe we are bringing a weapon. So, just it’s so ridiculous to see now. You know, they stopped us from bringing the weapon, and I don’t think that Hamas had any problem to bring a weapon in. Maybe even in some paradoxical way it helps Netanyahu and his guys, these missiles, because I’m here in Tel Aviv, and I have a 10-month-old baby, and I have to hug her and go to the shelter when the missiles are falling, but it’s really nothing compared to what people in Gaza are experiencing. And I have family in Sderot, next to Gaza, and I have even relatives who are in Gaza as soldiers.
And I think that if I have to give one allegory to this whole thing, and this need of Israel and me, myself, of self-protection—legitimate thing, by the way; I want to be safe, I don’t want anyone to bomb me and to kill me and my baby—I would imagine it as gang rape. And forgive me for using this hard language, but when you have a group of people raping someone, and this person that is being raped starting to scratch, the first thing you want to do in order to stop the scratches is to stop the rape. And what Israel, official Israel, is trying to do is to continue the rape and deal with the scratches. And I say, stop the rape, stop the occupation, stop the apartheid, stop this inhumane ghettoization of Palestinians, and then—then—we can start talking, and we can reach peace agreements and all these beautiful words that now don’t mean anything for us.
AMY GOODMAN: Yonatan Shapira, I want to thank you for being with us, former Israeli captain, Air Force pilot, one of the organizers of the 2003 letter signed by 27 Air Force pilots who refused to participate in Israeli military operations against Palestinians. And I want to thank you, Yael Even Or, who has signed onto, is spearheading a letter of army reservists. She wrote in The Washington Post, "We are Israeli reservists. We refuse to serve." She is currently a graduate student at The New School. Fifty-six people so far have signed onto that letter. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Ukraine. Stay with us.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous: Bombed in Their Homes and in the Streets, Where Can Gazans Flee?
Israel has entered the 17th day of its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian death toll has reached at least 732. Palestinian militants are now claiming to have killed eight more Israeli soldiers, which would bring the Israeli military toll to 40. Three civilians have died inside Israel. We speak with independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous just after he visited the southern town of Khan Younis, which has faced heavy shelling since Tuesday. Israeli forces there killed an estimated 73 people in the last two days. Kouddous says residents tried to evacuate starting Tuesday, but "found Israeli tanks blocking the main streets. One group said the Israeli tanks started firing on them. They fled back to their homes. They had to leave the wounded behind." Many eventually walked out carrying white flags. Kouddous also spoke to a doctor who tried to assist the wounded in the area, but says his ambulance was fired on by the Israeli military four times.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israel continues to bombard civilians in the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian death toll has reached at least 732. The Israeli death toll stands at 32 soldiers and three civilians. Palestinian militants are now claiming to have killed eight Israeli soldiers today, which would bring the Israeli military toll to 40. On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed an estimated 73 people in the southern town of Khan Younis. The attacks come after Israel rejected a U.N. request for a brief humanitarian pause. The United Nations says at least 75 percent of the dead are civilians, including an estimated 168 children. In the last two days, children have been killed at a rate of one per hour.
As the bombing of Gaza continues, the United Nations Human Rights Council has voted to investigate Israel for potential war crimes. The vote was 29 to one, with 17 abstentions. The U.S. cast the lone "no" vote. Meanwhile, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said Israel may have committed war crimes in its attacks on civilians in Gaza. She also renewed calls for Israel to lift the seven-year Gaza blockade. This comes as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left Israel Wednesday after holding talks on a ceasefire.
For more, we go to Gaza, where we’re joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent, writer for The Nation magazine.
Sharif, can you tell us the latest?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Amy, I’m just coming from the south of Gaza, from Khan Younis, where people are talking of a very brutal assault on southeastern Khan Younis, particularly in the area of Khuzaa. They say this was worse than Shejaiya, the Gaza City eastern town that was attacked on Sunday in the bloodiest day of the conflict. People say the attacks began Tuesday night, the Israeli military moving in, firing very heavily with shelling—shelling, F-16s and drone attacks.
I spoke to multiple residents who said they tried to get out beginning yesterday morning. They walked out; they found Israeli tanks blocking the main streets. One group said that the Israeli tanks started firing on them. They fled back to their homes. They had to leave the wounded behind. They spent a harrowing 24 hours trying to go from house to house. They said each house they went to was shelled. And they finally ended up walking out, holding white flags and their hands above their heads, only Wednesday morning.
They said that there were the dead on the streets, that they were calling the hospitals and the Red Cross and ambulances all night, but they couldn’t get in. I spoke to a doctor who was in an ambulance. He went four times from his hospital, which is right next to the area, to try and get in. He said that he was fired upon four times on the—the ambulance was upon four times by the Israeli military. No one can get into the area. And they’re saying they’re getting calls from people on the inside who are still trapped, and the wounded can’t get out. Hospitals are overcrowded. The Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital in southern Gaza, was completely crowded today. They have no more room for any more people. They’re trying to send people to different parts. And doctors said that this was one of the worst nights that they’ve ever seen.
So, this is a continued, brutal offensive, ground offensive by the Israeli military. They are now at least a couple of kilometers or three kilometers into Gaza in that southern area near Khan Younis.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, what about the U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, coming to Israel and to meet with the Palestinian Authority?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, I think it’s significant that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has backed Hamas’s calls for a conditional ceasefire with the lifting of the siege and the freeing of prisoners who were re-arrested in the West Bank. These were prisoners that were freed in the Gilad Shalit deal and were re-arrested without charge. So, Kerry, you know, I think there’s a lot of diplomatic efforts to seek some kind of truce or some kind of humanitarian ceasefire, because this is really becoming a real humanitarian crisis. Every day we wake up to find more people have been killed. There’s very fierce attacks at night. And Israel is blocking people from escaping from their homes, firing on them as they’re trying to leave. Ambulances and medical workers are not allowed to go in even to rescue the wounded, to clear the dead bodies. There are still dead bodies in Shejaiya from the attack on Sunday. And so, there needs to be some kind of effort, some kind of reconciliation, some kind of stop to this kind of bloodshed.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, on Wednesday, a statement was put out of Gaza called "No Ceasefire Without Justice." It was academics, public figures, activists saying that we are "witnessing the intended genocide of 1.8 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, we call for a ceasefire with Israel only if conditioned on an end to the blockade and the restoration of basic freedoms that have been denied to the people for more than seven years." Do you know about the group that put this out, and can you explain the conditions that they’re talking about?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, the conditions are humanitarian requests that are based mostly on lifting the blockade and granting a dignified life to the people of Gaza. Any truce here, any ceasefire that’s not predicated on a political solution that includes a lifting of the siege is doomed to fail, to last only a few years. And we’ve seen that happen over the last several years. We saw the assault in 2007 and 2008, we saw 2012, and now there’s 2014. And this will only continue unless the siege and the basic rights of Palestinians living in Gaza are recognized.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, at this point, do you see an end to the fighting?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Amy, it’s hard to say. Every day, the violence seems to escalate. We think that it can’t get worse, and then it does. We see what happened in Shejaiya. We thought that that was the worst of it, and now I come and hear people saying that it’s worse in Khuzaa in Khan Younis. The Israeli military continues to push in. It’s become incredibly bloody since they launched their ground invasion. The words coming out of the Israeli government are only ones of bluster and increasing their offensive. So, it doesn’t, frankly, look very good. And it’s hard to tell how long people in Gaza can hold out. They don’t really—there’s nowhere to run, as we’ve talked about. Shelters have been attacked. They’re just being pushed in towards the coast from all areas. There’s people in hospitals. There’s people in unfinished buildings. There’s people in schools. You know, there’s well over 150,000 have been displaced. And there’s hardly any electricity, hardly any water. And this—I can hear the booming now starting again, and so the onslaught continues.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sharif, be safe. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent, writes for The Nation magazine. We’ll link to his pieces at TheNation.com at democracynow.org. When we come back, two Israeli reservists, one a former Air Force captain, one an Israeli living in the United States. They are refuseniks. They are resisters. They’ll talk about why. Stay with us.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: With 100,000+ Displaced, Why Is U.S. Ignoring Ukraine's Civil War?
A high-level rebel commander has confirmed for the first time that pro-Russian separatists had an anti-aircraft missile of the kind the United States says was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing all 298 on board. He blamed Ukrainian authorities for provoking the strike, saying they deliberately launched airstrikes in the area, even though they knew the missile system was in place and rebels would fight back. Meanwhile, the area near the Russian border continues to see heavy fighting between government forces and Russian-backed separatists. On Wednesday, two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down not far from where the Malaysian airliner was hit. "The tragedy of the downing of the plane occurred in the context of this virtually unreported civil war," says Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, who has reported on Russia for decades. "Americans have been done a disservice by one-sided media coverage [of the conflict]." Vanden Heuvel notes more than 110,000 refugees from eastern Ukraine have fled to Russia, and 56,000 are internally displaced in Ukraine.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Ukraine, where on Wednesday a rebel leader confirmed for the first time pro-Russian separatists had an anti-aircraft missile of the kind the United States [says] was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. The high-level commander blamed Ukrainian authorities for provoking the strike that killed all 298 on board. He said Kiev had deliberately launched airstrikes in the area even though it knew the BUK missile system was in place and rebels would fight back.
ALEXANDER KHODAKOVSKY: [translated] They provoked the usage of the BUK missile system, for example, by starting to attack the object that they don’t need at all, Saur Mogila, that hadn’t been attacked by planes for a week before that. And on that day, they pushed so hard. And at the moment of attack, at the moment of the civilian plane flying, they were attacking Saur Mogila. So even if there was a BUK missile system, and even if it has been used, Ukraine did everything for the civilian plane to be shot down.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down in eastern Ukraine Wednesday, not far from where the Malaysian airliner was hit. The area near the Russian border continues to see heavy fighting between government forces and Russian-backed separatists. Also on Wednesday, lawmakers in Ukraine’s Parliament broke into a fistfight after a decree passed that would enlist male citizens under 50 to combat Russian forces on the border.
And coffins carrying 40 of the 193 Dutch victims on the downed flight arrived in the Netherlands, as the government declared a day of national mourning. Crowds gathered on bridges along the 65-mile route to throw flowers onto the convoy of hearses.
For more, we’re joined by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation. She has reported on Russia for decades and blogs at TheNation.com, is also a columnist for the WashingtonPost.com. Her latest column is headlined "Downing of Flight 17 Should Trigger Talks, Not More Violence."
Talk about the latest, what people understand about Ukraine, what you feel is being missed.
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: I think the big story that has gone unreported in the kind of one-sided media narrative that Americans have been given in these last months is the unreported war in the southeast of Ukraine. The Nation published a story a few weeks ago called "The Silence of [American] Hawks [About] Kiev’s Atrocities," and we’re seeing in the downing of the plane—the tragedy of the downing of the plane occurred in the context of this virtually unreported civil war. Today, there are stories that Kiev has used four Grad rockets—these are missile launcher rockets—in Luhansk. The OSCE, the Organization [for] Security and Co-operation in Europe, is alleging civilian deaths in these parts. So I think, Amy, it’s the context that is needed. My column—
AMY GOODMAN: How many people have died in this war?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: You know, they’re reporting—I have figures here. They’re reporting 250 people have been killed in Luhansk, one of the major cities in the eastern part of Ukraine, 800 injured since the war began; 432, including 36 women, six children, died in Donetsk since April; 110,000 refugees from southeastern Ukraine have fled to Russia. There are 56,000 displaced people in Ukraine.
AMY GOODMAN: Would you call this a civil war?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: I would call this a civil war. And the tragedy, Amy, is that Ukraine has been a deeply divided country through time—language, religion, part of the country pro-Russian, ethnically Russian. This did not need to become a military civil war. There was the possibility—and this is what I tried to address in the column—in the wake of this tragedy of the downing of the plane. There should be a renewed effort, not to trigger more violence, but to trigger ceasefire, to trigger talks that could end the humanitarian catastrophe I’m describing in the southeast of Ukraine.
And another unreported story, Amy, is that there were ceasefire talks in June with Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine, the United States and Kiev. Poroshenko, the president, pulled out after two days. The United States acceded, if not supported or egged on, that decision, and the military offensive began anew. There must be an end to the violence.
And think just commonsense common sense. Ukraine, if it is to recover, if it is to emerge as a financially stable country with some elements of democracy, needs to be a bridge between East and West, between Russia and the West. The IMF, just months after agreeing to a $17 billion loan program, just yesterday acknowledged what is known, which is that there is a terribly sharp economic downturn in Ukraine. The costs of rebuilding this country are going to be enormous. And the oligarchs, Amy, the oligarchical control of this country, I think remains unreported, as well. You know, the protesters, the good protesters in Maidan, in the square, in last year, so much of their protest was about oligarchical kleptocracy. And that grip on the country remains.
So I think it’s a very—I think Americans have been done a disservice by the one-sided media coverage. I will say, and I hope in this case that The Nation's coverage, others' coverage—Robert Parry has been doing interesting coverage—has pushed The New York Times and The Washington Post, for example, in these last days to cover the civilian casualties and the assaults on cities like Donetsk, which has become a virtual ghost town.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the U.S. role?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: The U.S. role—I don’t understand the U.S. role, to be honest. I mean, it is not in the national security interest of the United States to make Ukraine a Cold War proxy, but it is becoming that. This is a regional civil war that has been internationalized. John Kerry often sounds like he’s the secretary of war, not the secretary of state. We have allied ourselves, tethered ourselves to the Kiev government in a way that may make it very difficult to find a way beyond a new Cold War, if not a hot war. And, Amy, a Cold War will warp both countries’ politics and international relations. I’m thinking of Russia and the United States. And think of what this has done in terms of diverting our attention and resources from the real security, the real threats, the real possibilities of providing and building a new world.
So I think America—it’s also unreported, underreported, you know, America sent advisers to Ukraine to embed with its military. America has put forward a package of night goggles and other military equipment. John Brennan, the head of the CIA—finally reported—headed off to Kiev. So, but I don’t—it is not in the U.S.'s interest. It is not in the world's interest. It is not in Ukraine’s interest. Yet, there is not a peep out of Congress. There is not a peep. And the media is so one-sided that we are not having a debate that is also deserving of America’s people. The wisdom, though, of America’s people, the disconnect we see between the Beltway establishment, the elite and the media elite, is very telling. America’s people are not interested in sending weapons. They weren’t interested in sending weapons to Syria. They’re not interested in sending weapons to Ukraine. They’re not interested in a war.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] We are being called on to use our influence with the separatists in southeastern Ukraine. Of course we will do everything in our power, but that is not nearly enough. Ultimately, there is a need to call on the authorities in Kiev to respect basic norms of decency and, at least for a short time, implement a ceasefire for the investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Vladimir Putin. Can you talk about Putin’s role and then how the U.S. actions compare to Europe—I mean, and the Dutch, in particular?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: That’s, I think, very important. I think the Dutch—and I have family in Holland. And I think the Dutch, in the way they have grieved in this tragic moment, are a model of dignity and a model of saying, "We’re not going to rush to judgment or use this as a political game, that is a disservice that did not honor those we have lost," as opposed to the United States, I have to say, where John Kerry, Secretary of State Kerry, rushed quickly, as did Samantha Power, someone whose work I admire but who’s supremely unsuited to be our ambassador to the United Nations at this moment. They rushed to judgment and said Russia played a role. And now the intelligence community is saying, "We don’t know. This was a mistake. We don’t know who actually played a role."
On sanctions, the United States, again, has led the way. The European Community, much of it, the key member being Germany here and France, have resisted. There is a tendency in this country to say it’s because of their trading ties. I think that’s true, but I think it underestimates the fact that they have in their DNA a history that understands that to have a sullen, angry Russia on their border is not in anyone’s interest.
On Putin, where do I begin? Putin is an authoritarian leader. On the other hand—he has done repressive things in his country, things I abhor, in terms of gay rights, in terms of women’s rights. It will become more repressive if this goes on in the way it is. The hawks of both sides always become more powerful when this happens. But Putin has a politics in his country, just as we have in ours. He has a right wing, a nationalist right wing, which has been pushing him to be far more assertive. I have friends, journalists who report on the right in Russia, and the right has been in a fury in these last weeks. "Our people," and again, that’s very complicated because Russia should not say "our people," but pro-Russian, ethnic Russians in Ukraine being bombarded and pounded, and where is Putin?
I do think Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov—again, not reported—have been calling for a ceasefire since April. The other day, Tuesday, in his speech, Putin said that he would do what he could to restrain the rebels. I think there are no question there are ties, but there is no question that what we’ve seen emerge in southeastern Ukraine, whenever you have a war like this, a civil war, the good guys don’t often emerge. I’m not talking, obviously, about the civilians who have been under assault, but you have the Rambos of Russia, those who fought in Chechnya or in Afghanistan. But Putin cannot do everything, but he can restrain these forces, some of them, but in the context of a real ceasefire, real negotiations, and in the context of the United States not playing games, as it has since the end of the first Cold War in expanding its economic, political and other influence to the doors of Russia, and the whole NATO question, Amy, again unreported.
Last November, when this whole EU offer triggered, in many ways, this conflict, what was unreported was there was a clause in that which was a kind of secret entry door for Ukraine to enter NATO. This is a Russian red line. There’s no reason, first of all, that we should have NATO in these times. It’s a military alliance. It’s not a tea party—that used to have more, different resonance. But anyway, so I think Putin is as—listen, the media in this country has so demonized Putin. As I said, he is an authoritarian. But I hate to quote—I will quote someone I know we have very mixed feelings about: Henry Kissinger. Putin—he has said, "Demonizing Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for not having a policy." And I think we need a policy, America needs a policy, not an attitude, as it engages Russia.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Katrina vanden Heuvel, I want to thank you for being with us, editor and publisher of The Nation. We will link to her column, "Downing of Flight 17 Should Trigger Talks, Not More Violence."
Botched 2-Hour Arizona Execution "Shrouded in Secrecy" Fuels Outrage over Lethal Injection Methods
Arizona’s execution of Joseph Wood was supposed to take about 10 minutes, but stretched out for nearly two hours Wednesday night as he gasped for air after being injected with a controversial two-drug combination of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone. Halfway through the ordeal his lawyers filed an emergency motion to stop the execution, saying it violated Wood’s Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment. This was a "predictable consequence of Arizona’s experimental drug procedure and the fact that Arizona shrouded its procedure in secrecy," says Megan McCracken, an attorney with the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Wood was killed after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that put the execution on hold. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had initially sided with Wood’s request that Arizona disclose its lethal injection methods and the source of the drugs involved.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We end today in Arizona looking at last night’s execution and how a procedure that usually takes 10 minutes instead took one hour and 57 minutes, the execution that took place of Joseph Wood. He gasped for air after he was injected with a controversial two-drug combination. Media witnesses described what they saw next.
TROY HAYDEN: Joe Wood is dead, but it took him two hours to die. And to watch a man lay there for an hour and 40 minutes gulping air, I can liken it to if you catch a fish and throw it on the shore, the way the fish opens and closes its mouth. So, the two drugs worked: He eventually died. But I can’t imagine this is what the criminal justice system had hoped for when it came up with this new drug protocol. And it was tough for everybody in that room. And at a certain point, you wondered if he was ever going to die. I mean, it was serious.
AMY GOODMAN: That last voice you heard was reporter Troy Hayden. For more, we’re joined from Philadelphia by Megan McCracken, an attorney with the University of California, Berkeley School of Law’s Death Penalty Clinic.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Megan. Can you explain what happened last night, and we only have a few minutes, but also the fact that the lawyers for the man who was being executed actually left the death chamber to appeal his execution in the midst of it, because it went on for so long as he gasped for air?
MEGAN McCRACKEN: [inaudible] in order to make contact with their office and ask other lawyers to go into court to seek an order to stop the execution. One lawyer did stay in the execution viewing area the entire time, so not all of the lawyers left. The execution, as you said, took an extraordinarily long time, almost two hours. Mr. Wood was breathing and gasping for air and struggling for an hour and 40 minutes. It was an extremely disturbing, prolonged execution, which really is the predictable consequence of Arizona’s experimental drug procedure and the fact that Arizona shrouded its procedure in secrecy.
AMY GOODMAN: But can you further talk about where the drug came from, the legal attempts to stop the execution before the fact that a court had stopped the execution in that day?
MEGAN McCRACKEN: Right, two courts had issued injunctions on the execution, not really stopping the execution, but saying that the department could not move forward with the execution without first disclosing additional information about the procedures. I cannot tell you where the drugs came from because the Department of Corrections has refused to disclose that information. The sum total of the information the department disclosed was the name of the two drugs that would be used and the doses. The department refused to disclose, despite repeated requests from Mr. Wood’s lawyers, where the drugs came from, their lot numbers, their expiration dates, were they FDA-approved, what pharmaceutical company made them, did they obtain them legally. They refused to disclose information about the qualifications of the execution team members. And they refused to disclose information about how they developed this procedure. They took the combination of drugs from Ohio, the only other state to have ever used it, and in that use it was also a botched execution. So that’s the procedure they took, and then they altered the doses. But they refused to disclose information about how they reached the new doses and why they thought that would work better than it worked in the also botched execution of Dennis McGuire in January.
AMY GOODMAN: Megan, there’s an amazing quote of dissent by the chief judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who wrote a blistering critique of lethal injection in Wood’s earlier appeal. After the court decided not to delay the execution until more was disclosed about the drugs to be used, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote, quote, "If some states and the federal government wish to continue carrying out the death penalty, they must ... return to more primitive—and foolproof—methods of execution. The guillotine is probably best but seems inconsistent with our national ethos. And the electric chair, hanging and the gas chamber are each subject to occasional mishaps. The firing squad," he wrote, "strikes me as the most promising. Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time." We only have 20 seconds. Can you respond to this?
MEGAN McCRACKEN: Well, what’s interesting about Judge Kozinski’s dissent is that he was seeking to engage in a discussion about how we carry out executions, and so it’s ironic that he wrote that as a dissent to an opinion that the Arizona Department of Corrections ought to disclose additional information, given that he wanted to engage in discourse.
AMY GOODMAN: Megan McCracken, thank you for spending this time with us, attorney with the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Death Penalty Clinic.
And that does it for our broadcast. Democracy Now! is hiring. We have an opening for an on-air graphic designer. Go to democracynow.org for details. I’ll be speaking at Martha’s Vineyard Saturday night, July 26, at 7:00. Check out the details at democracynow.org.
Headlines:
•Gaza Neighborhoods Bombarded as Palestinian Toll Tops 730
Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian death toll has reached at least 732. Israeli forces killed an estimated 73 people on Wednesday, including at least 31 in the southern town of Khan Younis. Another 25 people, including three children, were killed in a separate strike on the area earlier today. Hundreds of civilians are said to be trapped in the village of Khuzaa, which has seen heavy violence.
•U.N.: 1 Child Killed Every Hour in Gaza; School Shelled for 2nd Time
The latest attacks in Gaza come after Israel rejected a U.N. request for a brief humanitarian pause. The United Nations says at least 75 percent of the dead are civilians, including an estimated 168 children. In the last two days, Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of one per hour. More than 4,500 Palestinians have been wounded, and more than 150,000 have been displaced. Israel’s recent targets have included an apartment building where 19 children from one family were killed, mosques, a hospital and Gaza’s sole power plant. The United Nations says that a school for girls has been hit for the second time in three days.
•U.S. Casts Lone No Vote Against U.N. Probe of Israeli War Crimes
As the bombing of Gaza continues, the United Nations Human Rights Council has voted to investigate Israel for potential war crimes. The vote was 29 to one, with 17 abstentions. The United States cast the lone "no" vote. In Washington, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters: "We will stand up for Israel ... even if it means standing alone."
•Palestinian Militants Say 8 Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza
Three more Israeli soldiers were killed inside Gaza on Wednesday. Palestinian militants are now claiming to have killed another eight Israeli soldiers today, which would bring the Israel military toll to 40. Another soldier is missing, with Hamas claiming to have captured him and the Israeli military saying he died.
•Ceasefire Talks Deadlocked as Hamas Demands End to Blockade
Secretary of State John Kerry left Israel on Wednesday after holding talks on a ceasefire. But the efforts remains at a deadlock with Israel rejecting Hamas’ demand to link any long-term ceasefire to ending the Gaza blockade.
•FAA Lifts Ban on Commercial Flights to Tel Aviv
The State Department meanwhile has lifted a ban on commercial flights to Israel imposed after a rocket landed near the Tel Aviv airport earlier this week. The Federal Aviation Administration had said the move was carried out to protect passengers’ safety, but Israel denounced the decision, accusing the Obama administration of rewarding Hamas. In an appearance with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the flight ban.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "We protect this airport. There’s no reason whatsoever for the mistaken FAA decision to instruct American planes not to come here. I think you’re proving it by coming here. Where I stand, the prime minister of Israel, where you stand, anybody can stand. I think this decision only rewards the Hamas terrorists for nothing. You can fly in and out of Israel, and I hope that the FAA rescinds this decision as soon as possible."
•Twin Bombings in Northern Nigeria Kill 42
At least 42 people were killed Wednesday in two bombings in northern Nigeria. The attacks hit the city of Kaduna in apparent assassination attempts on two leading figures who have been critical of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Both targets survived the attacks.
•60 Killed in Bombing of Iraqi Prison Bus
In Iraq, at least 60 people have died in an attack today north of Baghdad. Suicide bombers and armed fighters attacked a bus transferring prisoners from the main prison in Taji. The victims included around 50 prisoners.
•Botched Lethal Injection Kills Arizona Prisoner After 2 Hours
The U.S. death penalty system is under new scrutiny today after yet another botched execution. On Wednesday, Arizona took just under two hours to kill Jospeh Wood, sentenced to death for a double murder. Wood gasped for air, choked and snorted after he was injected with a two-drug combination that was relatively untested and had been used only once before, a 26-minute execution in Ohio earlier this year. Wood was killed after the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that put the execution on hold. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with Wood’s request that Arizona disclose its lethal injection methods and the source of the drugs involved. Wood’s execution was the fifth since the botched killing of Oklahoma prisoner Clayton Lockett in April. In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union said: "In its rush to put Mr. Wood to death in secret, Arizona ignored the dire and clear warnings from the botched executions of Oklahoma and Ohio. It’s time for Arizona and the other states still using lethal injection to admit that this experiment with unreliable drugs is a failure."
•Funeral Held for NYPD Chokehold Victim Eric Garner
And a funeral has been held in New York City for Eric Garner, an African-American father of six who died after police placed him in a chokehold. Police say they confronted Garner because he was selling bootleg cigarettes. Graphic video of the incident shows an officer pulling Garner to the ground by the neck and then holding his head against the pavement. As other officers crowd on top of Garner, he repeatedly says, "I can’t breathe." Garner soon stops moving. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital. On Wednesday, Bishop Kareem Evans addressed mourners at Brooklyn’s Bethel Baptist Church.
Bishop Kareem Evans: "This is an awesome task because Brother Eric is not only a friend, but he is family. Not only is he family, but he is one that you consider close family."
The officer who used the chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo, has been moved to desk duty and ordered to turn in his badge and gun pending investigations. Three men have sued Pantaleo in the past two years for unlawful, racially motivated arrests. The New York City Police Department says it also plans to overhaul training procedures in the wake of Garner’s death. Four emergency response workers who were at the scene have been suspended without pay.
•U.N. Rights Chief: Israel May Be Committing War Crimes
Speaking at the United Nations, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Israel may have committed war crimes in its attacks on civilians in Gaza. She also renewed calls for Israel to lift the seven-year blockade that has crippled Gaza’s economy and infrastructure.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay: "Respect for the right to life of civilians, including children, should be a foremost consideration. Not abiding by these principles may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The crippling effects of the Israeli blockade and other measures linked to the Israeli occupation of Gaza suppress the ability of the people to go about their daily lives and prevent them from rebuilding their lives and communities after repeated military operations. I reiterate my numerous calls for this blockade to be lifted once and for all."
Pillay also condemned rocket fire by Palestinian militants into Israel, which have so far killed three Israeli civilians.
•Report: U.S. Adopts Broad Criteria for Terrorist Watchlist
The Obama administration has expanded the national terrorist watchlist system by approving broad guidelines over who can be targeted. Reporting for The Intercept, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux obtained the government’s secret watchlist from an intelligence source. The guidebook says that to be a deemed a terrorist target, "irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary." Both "known" and "suspected" suspects are tracked, and terrorism is so broadly defined that it includes people accused of damaging property belonging to the government or financial institutions. Other factors that can justify inclusion include postings on social media or having a relative already deemed a terrorist. The guidebook’s criteria also apply to the no-fly list and selectee list. In a statement, Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union said: "Instead of a watchlist limited to actual, known terrorists … the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven’t carried out."
•Funeral Held for NYPD Chokehold Victim Eric Garner
And a funeral has been held in New York City for Eric Garner, an African-American father of six who died after police placed him in a chokehold. Police say they confronted Garner because he was selling bootleg cigarettes. Graphic video of the incident shows an officer pulling Garner to the ground by the neck and then holding his head against the pavement. As other officers crowd on top of Garner, he repeatedly says, "I can’t breathe." Garner soon stops moving. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital. On Wednesday, Bishop Kareem Evans addressed mourners at Brooklyn’s Bethel Baptist Church.
Bishop Kareem Evans: "This is an awesome task because Brother Eric is not only a friend, but he is family. Not only is he family, but he is one that you consider close family."
The officer who used the chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo, has been moved to desk duty and ordered to turn in his badge and gun pending investigations. Three men have sued Pantaleo in the past two years for unlawful, racially motivated arrests. The New York City Police Department says it also plans to overhaul training procedures in the wake of Garner’s death. Four emergency response workers who were at the scene have been suspended without pay.
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"Overcoming the Media Blockade in Gaza" by Amy Goodman
According to the United Nations, one child has been killed in Gaza every hour for the past two days. Overall, the Israeli military has killed close to 700 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, since the assault on Gaza began more than two weeks ago. Details of the slaughter make their way into the world’s media, with horrific accounts of children killed on the beach, of hospital intensive-care units bombed, of first responders, searching for wounded amid the rubble, killed by Israeli sniper fire. Armed resistance groups in Gaza, most notably that of the area’s elected government, Hamas, have fired thousands of crude rockets that have killed two in Israel. Since Israel began its land invasion of Gaza, more than 30 Israeli soldiers have been killed. One of the greatest challenges in understanding the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is getting reliable information. This latest assault on Gaza reaffirms the key role played by the U.S. media in maintaining the information blockade. It also highlights the increasing importance of pressure applied by social networks.
One headline said it all: “Missile at Beachside Gaza Cafe Finds Patrons Poised for World Cup.” That was The New York Times, referring to a missile strike in Gaza that killed at least eight people on the beach in the town of Khan Younis. Ali Abunimah, a prominent Palestinian-American journalist who co-founded the website The Electronic Intifada, mockingly tweeted: “Israeli missile stops by Gaza cafe for a drink and dialogue with its Palestinian friends.” The odd, passive phrasing of the original headline became the subject of a global social-media firestorm. The New York Times replaced the headline with “In Rubble of Gaza Seaside Cafe, Hunt for Victims Who Had Come for Soccer.”
This wasn’t the first time in this latest attack on Gaza that a major news organization got a black eye. On July 16, NBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin witnessed an Israeli strike on a Gaza beach that killed four young boys who were playing soccer. After the deadly strike, Mohyeldin’s graphic tweets alerted the world to the breaking news: “4 Palestinian kids killed in a single Israeli airstrike. Minutes before they were killed by our hotel, I was kicking a ball with them #gaza.” He tweeted that they were all first cousins. He tweeted their names and ages:
“1) Ahed Atef Bakr 10 yrs old
2) Zakaria Ahed Bakr 10 yrs old
3) Mohamed Ramez Bakr 11 yrs old
4) Ismael Mohamed Bakr 9 yrs old”
Mohyeldin raced to the Al-Shifa hospital and witnessed members of the Bakr family as they learned of the killing of the boys. It would have been normal for the eyewitness to break the story on the “NBC Nightly News.” Instead it was journalist Richard Engel on the screen reporting from Tel Aviv. Pulitzer Prize-winning Glenn Greenwald told me on the “Democracy Now!” news hour what he learned about NBC’s decision-making around Mohyeldin after he reported on the deaths: “What was really stunning was, later that day, after what arguably was his biggest or one of his biggest events in his journalism career, where he really made a huge impact on having the world understand what’s happening in Gaza, they not only blocked him from appearing on the air to talk about it on NBC News, but then they told him to leave Gaza immediately.”
Social media lit up in protest, with the hashtag #letAymanreport. By Friday night, NBC announced that Mohyeldin would be back. Mohyeldin tweeted, “Thanks for all the support. Im returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC’s continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story.”
But back in NBC’s studios, the trouble was not over. Rula Jebreal is a Palestinian author and political analyst. She has been a paid contributor on MSNBC, where, during an interview this week, she critiqued that cable network’s coverage of Gaza:
“We are disgustingly biased when it comes to this issue. Look at how [much] airtime [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his folks have on air on a daily basis, Andrea Mitchell and others. I never see one Palestinian being interviewed on these same issues.” She tweeted later, “My forthcoming TV appearances have been canceled! Is there a link between my expose and the cancellation?” While MSNBC host Chris Hayes bravely brought her onto his show to discuss her critique, she is unsure if her contract will be renewed.
Early in this latest assault on Gaza, I asked Joshua Hantman, senior adviser to Israel’s ambassador to the United States, about the mounting death toll, the majority civilian. He chillingly replied: “I’ll be honest, the precision is quite outstanding. And there is no military in the history of the world that has actually used such precision targets.” The terror and death wreaked by the precision of which Hantman boasts is made clear, day after day, thanks to the work of too few courageous journalists, supported by an engaged global citizenry, using social networks to overcome traditional media blockades.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
© 2014 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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