Antony Loewenstein

Wikileaks reveals:

US diplomats in Sri Lanka have shown satellite images of damage by shelling in “safe zone” even after the government announced ending heavy artillery and aerial bombing, according to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

Charge d’Affaires of the US embassy James R. Moore, has said that he showed the images to President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona two weeks before the government declared its military victory over Tamil Tigers.

Sending a cable to the secretary of state, with a copy to the White House, Mr Moore says he took the opportunity to meet the president and Mr Kohona following a meeting Mr Rajapaksa had with donor co-chair ambassadors on 5 May 2009.

“The President maintained that Government forces have not been shelling into the “safe zone” since his April 27 statement announcing the end of heavy artillery and aerial bombing in this area,” the cable said.

The times they are a changing. Decades of Zionist arrogance, paying off dictatorships and expanding an illegal occupation is starting to bite. Finally. Violence against Israelis is utterly pointless and counterproductive, and should be condemned, but after years of Israel literally getting away with murder, we shouldn’t be surprised.

Welcome to the new Middle East (today’s New York Times page one story):

With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israelfound itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor.

The diplomatic crisis, in which winds unleashed by the Arab Spring are now casting a chill over the region, was crystallized by the scene of Israeli military jets sweeping into Cairo at dawn on Saturday to evacuate diplomats after the Israeli Embassy had been besieged by thousands of protesters.

It was an image that reminded some Israelis of Iran in 1979, when Israel evacuated its embassy in Tehran after the revolution there replaced an ally with an implacable foe.

“Seven months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egyptian protesters tore to shreds the Israeli flag, a symbol of peace between Egypt and its eastern neighbor, after 31 years,” Aluf Benn, the editor in chief of the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote Saturday. “It seems that the flag will not return to the flagstaff anytime soon.”

Egypt and Israel both issued statements on Saturday reaffirming their commitments to their peace treaty, but in a televised address on Saturday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned that Egypt “cannot ignore the heavy damage done to the fabric of peace.”

Facing crises in relations with Egypt and Turkey, its two most important regional allies, Israel turned to the United States. Throughout the night on Friday, desperate Israeli officials called their American counterparts seeking help to pressure the Egyptians to protect the embassy.

President Obama “expressed his great concern” in a telephone call with Mr. Netanyahu, the White House said in a statement, and he called on Egypt “to honor its international obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli Embassy.”

Washington — for whom Israel, Turkey and Egypt are all critical allies — has watched tensions along the eastern Mediterranean with growing unease and increasing alarm. And though the diplomatic breaches were not entirely unexpected, they prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity in Washington.

The mayhem in Cairo also exacted consequences for Egypt, raising questions about whether its military-led transitional government would be able to maintain law and order and meet its international obligations. The failure to prevent an invasion of a foreign embassy raised security concerns at other embassies as well.

The Egyptian government responded to those questions Saturday night, pledging a new crackdown on disruptive protests and reactivating the emergency law allowing indefinite detentions without trial, one of the most reviled measures enacted under former President Hosni Mubarak.

Since the start of the Arab uprisings, internal critics and foreign friends, including the United States, have urged Israel to take bold conciliatory steps toward the Palestinians, and after confrontations in which Israeli forces killed Egyptian and Turkish citizens, to reach accommodations with both countries.

Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador a week ago over Israel’s refusal to apologize for a deadly raid last year on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza in which nine Turks were killed. The storming of the embassy in Cairo on Saturday was precipitated by the killing of three Egyptian soldiers along the border by Israeli military forces pursuing terrorism suspects.

Israel has expressed regret for the deaths in both cases, but has not apologized for actions that it considers defensive.

The overriding assessment of the government of Mr. Netanyahu is that such steps will only make matters worse because what is shaking the region is not about Israel, even if Israel is increasingly its target, and Israel can do almost nothing to affect it.

“Egypt is not going toward democracy but toward Islamicization,” said Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo who reflected the government’s view. “It is the same in Turkey and in Gaza. It is just like what happened in Iran in 1979.”

A senior official said Israel had few options other than to pursue what he called a “porcupine policy” to defend itself against aggression. Another official, asked about Turkey, said, “There is little that we can do.”

Critics of the government take a very different view.

Mr. Benn, the Haaretz editor, acknowledged that Mr. Netanyahu could not be faulted for the events in Egypt, the rise of an Islamic-inspired party in Turkey or Iran’s nuclear program. But echoing criticism by the Obama administration, he said that Mr. Netanyahu “has not done a thing to mitigate the fallout from the aforementioned developments.”

Daniel Ben-Simon, a member of Parliament from the left-leaning Labor Party, said the Netanyahu government was on a path “not just to diplomatic isolation but to actually putting Israelis in danger,” he said. “It all comes down to his obsession against a Palestinian state, his total paralysis toward the Palestinian issue. We are facing an international tide at the United Nations. If he joined the vote for a Palestinian state instead of fighting it, that would be the best thing he could do for us in the Arab world.”

The Los Angeles Times reports:

It wasn’t long after the World Trade Center twin towers fell that U.S. Army special forces units were dispatched to the desolate outcroppings of Afghanistan to stalk and eradicate the Taliban.

The commandos were outfitted with radios, night vision goggles and automatic rifles. But a select few carried a new high-tech tool to hunt down the enemy.

It was a tiny robotic spy plane, so small it would fit in a backpack. Soldiers would throw the drone into the sky, where it would fly up to 400 feet, shoot video of what’s ahead and transmit those images back to the soldiers. The technology enabled them to avoid ambushes and pinpoint the location of enemy positions.

The small drones, made by Monrovia-based AeroVironment Inc., quickly became a staple of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and fueled the growth of the once-tiny company into a publicly traded defense contractor with thousands of drones at work in the war zone.

After the Cold War, the nation’s defense industry saw a devastating drop in business. But after Sept. 11, 2001, all that changed as money once again began to flow to big-name defense contractors, such as Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. andNorthrop Grumman Corp.

But far more dramatic was the abrupt change in fortunes for smaller Southern California companies such as AeroVironment. The company’s annual sales over the last 10 years went from $29.4 million to $292.5 million.

Owners of small military firms that never had much of a chance at winning major government contracts during the Cold War were thrown in the spotlight for their smaller, cheaper but powerful high-tech weapons — vital to waging guerrilla-type warfare. And they remain in the limelight today.

“The threat changed after 9/11, as did the way the military addressed the threat,” said Timothy E. Conver, AeroVironment’s chief executive. “By using smaller, efficient systems, it coincided to what we do best.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon budget more than doubled overnight, flooding defense contractors — big and small — with billions of dollars to build and develop hardware. It was a conflict that has bolstered Southern California’s fading defense industry.

“California’s aerospace industry has been one of the unsung heroes of the war on terrorism,” said John Noonan, aide to Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “They were able to quickly adapt to new battlefield requirements, most notably in their swift supply of badly needed reconnaissance, intelligence and communications platforms.”

Very few journalists in the corporate press seem interested in the ever-expanding role of unaccountable Serco, the British multinational. Privatisation is accepted as gospel by both major sides of politics and the mainstream media.

To its credit, Green Left Weekly publishes today the following important part of the story:

British-based multinational corporation Serco Group is bidding for more contracts with Australian federal and state governments. Worth £4.3 billion ($6.6 billion), Serco markets itself as a “solution to government”, which takes over government services and runs them for profit.

It has run Australia’s disastrous and increasingly unstable refugee detention centres since 2009, owns two Australian super-prisons and took over Western Australia’s court security and custodial services in June.

The $210 million WA contract was handed to Serco after private prison operator Global Services Limited — or G4S — was found to have been responsible for the death of Aboriginal elder Mr Ward, who died of heatstroke in the back of a prison van in 2008.

This month, Serco began training new workers to transport prisoners between jails and courts.

Robert Bell, a former senior officer in Britain’s public prison service, was in the first group hired by Serco to begin the training. But he told Green Left Weekly that, after only one week of training, he decided it would be a mistake.

“Serco are now carrying on the contract with the same G4S workers, and it was their colleagues who contributed to Mr Ward’s death,” he said.

Two workers formerly employed by G4S, and overseen by supervisors transferred from Britain on temporary work junkets, ran his training.

“The contract [for ex-G4S workers] never stopped. All they did was a series of weekend inductions for the G4S workers and gave them a new uniform.

“I did the first week of the Serco training period. It was a week of spin, not training. The head of human resources from Sydney came on the first day and told us what a fantastic company Serco was.”

Bell said there was a culture of silence about Serco’s working conditions even on that first day. After saying he was not impressed with Serco in Britain, a supervisor told him “some things are better left unsaid” and training staff had been told to “look out for troublemakers”.

Health and safety was emphasised in induction lectures, but not put into practice. “The trainer told us you’d wait to see physical injuries before saying anything,” Bell said.

The new workers were expected to carry out six weeks’ training and then start working with inmates. But it would be a year before they were considered fully qualified, with no recognition of prior experience, and be paid only the minimum wage.

“Over here the top pay rate is $25.40 an hour,” Bell said.

When he indicated he was considering resignation, human resources ended Bell’s contract before he even put it in writing. Serco’s employment contract allowed the company to sack workers without notice. “They could sack without reason in the initial training period.”

Serco is well known for running prisons on the cheap in Britain. Bell worked for many years at a British high-security state prison where he saw firsthand how Serco cut corners on its workforce.

“Serco came to deliver prisoners and the staff were just driven to the bone, working long hours. And they were on terrible money.

“A female supervisor bragged about their 28-hour shifts during the recent [British] riots. I said I hope Serco aren’t thinking of introducing 28-hour shifts in Australia. She said, ‘we just need to get the job done’.”

Bell said government prison workers were often sent to intervene when prisoner unrest broke out. “We had to bail out private centres run by Serco, when they lost control, we’ve had to go in.”

It’s like Nazi Germany in Australia at the moment, in case you hadn’t heard:

This shows the desperation of a Zionist lobby that simply can’t handle the threat of hearing about Palestinians:

The Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland (MOCHA) has decided to cancel an exhibit of art by Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), which was partnering with MOCHA to present the exhibit, was informed of the decision by the Museum’s board president on Thursday, September 8, 2011. For several months, MECA and the museum had been working together on the exhibit, which is titled “A Child’s View From Gaza.”

MECA has learned that there was a concerted effort by pro-Israel organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area to pressure the museum to reverse its decision to display Palestinian children’s art. 

Barbara Lubin, the Executive Director of MECA, expressed her dismay that the museum decided to censor this exhibit in contradiction of its mission “to ensure that the arts are a fundamental part of the lives of all children.”

“We understand all too well the enormous pressure that the museum came under. But who wins? The museum doesn’t win. MECA doesn’t win. The people of the Bay Area don’t win. Our basic constitutional freedom of speech loses. The children in Gaza lose,” she said. 

“The only winners here are those who spend millions of dollars censoring any criticism of Israel and silencing the voices of children who live every day under military siege and occupation.”

Unfortunately, this disturbing incident is just one example of many across the nation in which certain groups have successfully silenced the Palestinian perspective, which includes artistic expression. In fact, some organizations have even earmarked funds for precisely these efforts. Last year, regrettably the Jewish Federation of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs launched a $6 million initiative to effectively silence Palestinian voices even in “cultural institutions.” 

The free exhibit, co-sponsored by nearly twenty local organizations, was scheduled to open on September 24, and featured special activities for children and families, including a cartooning workshop and poetry readings.

The Gaza Strip, which has a population of 1.6 million, has been under siege since Israel imposed a blockade against it in 2006. The United Nations and many human rights organizations across the world have condemned the blockade as an inhumane and cruel form of collective punishment.

…

MECA is disappointed in the museum’s decision to deny Bay Area residents the opportunity to view Palestinian children’s art, and is committed to seeking an alternative venue.  

“We made a promise to the children that their art will be shown and we are going to keep that promise,” said Lubin.

Angry Arab:

While watching the scenes in Egypt today [protestors breaking into the Israeli embassy in Cairo], [New York Times columnist] Thomas Friedman, should have tweeted this to himself: I am so clueless.  I have no idea what is going on in the Middle East.  I was sitting in my suite at the Marriott and insisting that the Egyptian uprising has no foreign policy goals.  I feel like a fool, really.  Wait: what if I am.  cc To [Zionist lobbyist] Abraham Foxman.
PS Let me guess.  Friedman will write that extremist radicals exploited by an Iranian conspiracy hijacked the glorious Egyptian uprising. 

Tony Karon in Time.com shows what happens when you brutally occupy another people for decades; the world gets sick of it:

Israel’s fallout with long-time ally Turkey is no isolated spat that will be repaired any time soon; it’s a dramatic illustration that no amount of U.S. backing can prevent the growing international isolation resulting from Israel’s handling of the Palestinian issue. Indeed, the unconditional nature of Washington’s backing may, in fact, have become dysfunctional to Israel’s diplomatic standing: A U.S. domestic political climate in which challenging Israel on anything is about as wise as threatening to cut medicare payments leaves Washington unable to restrain the most right-wing government in Israeli history from its most self-destructive urges, while economic changes and the radical policies adopted by the United States in the decade since 9/11 have left Washington’s influence in the Middle East at its weakest since World War II.

The trigger for Turkey expelling Israel’s ambassador, cutting defense ties and vowing to wage a diplomatic campaign against the blockade of Gaza and in support of the Palestinian move for recognition of statehood at the United Nations was the Netanyahu government’s refusal to apologize for the killing of nine Turkish citizens and a Turkish American in last year’s raid on the Gaza flotilla. The Obama Administration had tried to broker a rapprochement involving some form of Israeli apology, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reportedly been inclined to accept but his ultranationalist foreign minister and key coalition partner (as well as rival) Avidgor Lieberman refused to countenance it.

The breakdown, however, is about a lot more than an apology: The flotilla itself, after all, had sailed in direct challenge to the Gaza blockade, with the support of the Turkish government — an expression of the fact that Ankara was no longer willing to follow its NATO allies, under U.S. leadership, in turning a blind eye to the plight of the beleaguered Palestinians. Israeli leaders and their most enthusiastic boosters in Washington like to paint this as a sign that Turkey had “gone over” to the region’s Iranian-led “resistance” camp, but despite the ruling AK Party’s roots in moderate political Islam and its insistence on a political solution to the nuclear standoff with Iran, Turkey is in fact a regional rival for influence with Tehran. Ankara’s stance on the Palestinians, like its refusal to support or enable the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq and its stance on the Iran nuclear issue or its break with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, is based on its own reading of what’s good for the region — which is quite different from Washington’s — and on Turkish public opinion. And, as if to underscore the fact that its break with Israel doesn’t threaten its commitment to NATO, Turkey announced last week that it had agreed to host radar installations for a NATO missile defense system targeting Iran.

Turkey’s actions also reflect a growing international impatience with and loss of faith in Washington’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel is worried, with good reason, that Egypt — whose foreign policy has been made more responsive to public opinion by the overthrow of the Israel-friendly U.S.-backed President Hosni Mubarak last February — may follow the Turkish example.

And the fact that a Palestinian leadership that has essentially mortgaged its political fate to the U.S. for the past two decades is now proceeding, over Washington’s objections, to seek U.N. recognition of a state based on the 1967 — and will likely win the backing of the overwhelming majority of member states — is testimony to the collapse of a tacit acceptance by U.S. allies since the Oslo Accords that the Israeli-Palestinian file would remain Washington’s exclusive preserve.

The anniversary of 9/11 is a good time to reflect on one of the growing alliances in modern times; the far-right in Europe and beyond and hardline Zionism. Its most extreme form was expressed by the Norway killer Anders Breivik. He “loved” Israel because the Zionist state is constantly fighting, killing and demeaning Arabs and Muslims.

Jeff Sparrow writes that fascist groups are increasingly hitching on the anti-BDS bandwagon, expressing devotion to Israel and hatred of Muslims. Where is the Jewish establishment, political mainstream and Zionist community? Perhaps being a “friend of Israel” trumps all else:

As Michael Brull noted here a few weeks ago, the anti-Max Brenner protesters have been widely denounced as Nazis.

Paul Howes, Michael Danby, Andrew Bolt, Gerard Henderson: have all joined in a very public campaign that draws a line between the Brenner protests and Fascist anti-semitism.

It’s certainly true that, throughout Australia, fascists are increasingly taking an interest in the Max Brenner rallies. But here’s the thing: they’re not supporting the protests.

They’re supporting the stores.

The newest face of what’s euphemistically-called the ‘nationalist community’ is an outfit called the Australian Protectionist Party. The APP was formed by Mark Wilson, a former organiser of the fascist British National Party, who emigrated to Australia in the 1980s. One of the APP’s most active members is Nicholas Hunter-Folkes. He was formerly the administrator of a charming Facebook group called ‘F**k off, we’re full’. More recently, however, he launched a new Facebook event entitled ‘Protest Against the Mad Marxists’: essentially, a counter-rally in support of the Sydney Max Brenner shop.

“The hardline left, radical Muslim and student groups have been campaigning for the closure of any business with links to Israel,” he explains, “[…] The left totally ignore the aggression and agenda of the Islamists in the Middle East and also in Australia.”

Another prominent APP leader is Darrin Hodges, a long-time racist activist. Joe Hildebrand once identified Hodges as the semi-anonymous poster on the Nazi Stormfront site explaining that: “I’m more interested in the purer form of fascism… and while I don’t subscribe to the whole ‘worship Hitler’ thing, his comments on multiculturalism and politics in general are still just as relevant today as they were 70-odd years ago.”

Not so long ago, Hodges distinguished himself on the ABC’s Q&A show complaining about Camden being invaded by Muslims.

On Stormfront, the poster identified by Hildebrand as Hodges argued that Hitler’s writings “still have much relevance …” Now, Hodges too, has created a Facebook event urging protests in support of Max Brenner counter protests.

Hodges’s page is in the name of the Australian Defence League. The ADL is another far-right grouplet that, like the APP, draws its inspiration from Britain. Over there, the English Defence League, a group with well-documented fascist connections, has become notorious for sending shaven-headed boot boys into areas with large Muslim populations, while, a few days ago, photos leaked of EDL members posing, military-style, with all kinds of weapons.

In Melbourne, the ADL has tried holding EDL-style marches but fortunately without much success.

Now, it has also made support for Max Brenner a priority.

…

The right in Israel might have its own reasons for welcoming fundamentalist Christian Zionists and German racial populists and the rest of the crackpot crew who have decided that they can surf the Islamophobic wave into respectability. But it’s a hop, skip and a jump from the tropes of the new Islamophobic bigotry to those of old-style anti-Semitism, and what’s good for Israel might very well have disastrous consequences elsewhere.

Amira Hass from Haaretz writes in the New Statesman with typical power on the 10th anniversary of 9/11:

It was 4pm in Palestine and Israel when the Hollywood-style scene of the falling towers for ever invaded our imagery and vocabulary. I was at home, in Ramallah, and I have no recollection what I was writing for Haaretz when human disaster gained such immediate global visibility.

It was almost a year since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising. My routine reporting laboured to remind the Israeli readers about our repressive military domination, and make visible the spiralling number of Palestinian civilian casualties, killed by the Israeli army. A doomed attempt. The Israeli vocabulary had space for Israeli pain and bereavement only. It made no causal link between supremacy and revolt, repression and revenge.

Did I betray my profession when I never wrote what one young Palestinian journalist had told me? She did not rejoice over the dead but was proud to see the symbols of empire attacked. Whether she represented the general mood among Palestinians, I cannot tell. But I could not quote her candid words while the cloud of smoke and dust still hovered above Manhattan. The trenchant comment would have been misinterpreted as an endorsement.

You would think Israel is about to be attacked tomorrow by aliens coming to suck the Zionism away. If only.

In reality, today sees yet more craven politicians – including some Greens, who clearly have been pressured by the Zionist lobby and their Dear Leader in Canberra (aka Bob Brown) and just want BDS to go away, which it won’t – and unionists who have no understanding about Palestine.

Feel the hysteria? It’ll only get worse as Israel continues to descend into its own occupying ways and these cretins will be remembered as being on the wrong side of history.

Sydney Morning Herald:

The NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham has spoken out against the targeting of Max Brenner chocolate stores as part of an anti-Israel boycott, deepening the split within the Greens over the issue.

Mr Buckingham argued that the campaign was ”counter-productive to the cause of peace and human rights in the Middle East”. He has also joined the Parliamentary Friends of Israel, as well as the equivalent Palestinian friendship group.

The boycott of the Israeli-owned Max Brenner stores has been a controversial part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in support of Palestinian rights.

The store’s parent company, the Strauss Group, supports the Israel Defence Forces.

Mr Buckingham’s criticism is likely to deepen the split within the Greens over support for the campaign, which derailed the party’s bid to take the seat of Marrickville at March’s state election.

The Greens senator Lee Rhiannon has publicly supported the Max Brenner boycott and the campaign in comments that are at odds with the federal Greens Leader, Bob Brown.

”There are a variety of ways to express concern about the abuse of Palestinian human rights and to push for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” Mr Buckingham said yesterday.

”I am concerned that the tone and the public perception of the Max Brenner protests may be counter-productive to the cause of peace and human rights in the Middle East”.

Max Phillips, a Greens councillor on Mr Buckingham’s staff, helped overturn Marrickville council’s support for the Israel boycott earlier this year.

Cr Phillips was one of two Greens on the council who changed their vote and sided with Labor and independents against the mayor, Fiona Byrne, to scrap the policy. The NSW Greens are reviewing their support for the international campaign.

The anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign has been dismissed by one of Victoria’s most senior unionists as potentially racist, ludicrous and a recipe for a civil war in the Middle East.

In a scathing critique of the campaign, Victorian Trades Hall Council assistant secretary David Cragg warned the union leadership of the flaws in the logic and integrity of the BDS strategy.

Mr Cragg also reminded his colleagues of the “totally repugnant history” of boycotting Jewish businesses, and questioned the comparison of Israel with apartheid South Africa.

“If the strategic goal of BDS is not just to end the settlements in the West Bank but to change the demographic composition of Israel, it is clearly a racist and frankly ludicrous enterprise at odds with the global consensus, which has always recognised Israel’s right to exist specifically as the state of the Jewish people legitimately created under international law and the UN Charter,” he said.

Ms Cragg said the slogan Boycott Israel should be rejected.

“Israel, as it is currently, would no longer exist if BDS achieves its goals,” he said.

Mr Cragg’s comments appear in a briefing paper to Trades Hall’s executive council and formed part of a report late last year on the BDS conference in Melbourne, which effectively launched the national campaign.

The comments represent what many believe is the majority union and Labor Party perspective. There is deep and growing embarrassment among many Labor supporters about outspoken unionists backing the BDS campaign, which is also advocated by Greens senator Lee Rhiannon.

The Australian has been approached by several senior Labor figures alarmed that the perception is being created that many in the party are backing the Palestinian-based BDS strategy.

There is limited backing for BDS among state MPs, and several prominent federal Labor MPs — including Michael Danby, Stephen Conroy and David Feeney — have voiced concerns.

However, the state Coalition has accused Labor of failing to denounce what it says is union support for BDS.

Mr Cragg, a respected Labor moderate with decades of party and union service, formed his views after observing a Melbourne BDS conference last November. “Some of the assertions that were made were clearly wrong and I have included in places a critical evaluation of what was said,” he wrote.

He also questioned the assertion by BDS supporters that Israel “stands out beyond all other human rights abuse in the world” because of its distinctive nature.

Mr Cragg countered: “The total number of people killed in the course of the Arab-Israeli and Israel-Palestinian conflicts over the last 90 years including seven wars and two intifadas is minuscule compared to the ongoing genocides in the Congo, Sudan, Nigeria, Western Sahara and Tibet, to count just a few global horror stories.”

The BDS campaign in Australia is set to intensify this month with further protests planned against the Israeli-owned Max Brenner chocolate shops.

Media diversity in the age of the internet offers even less excuses for the corporate press to ignore the depth and complexity of the world. And yet…

Evidence one (via the Columbia Journalism Review):

For the first time in history, mankind is developing a universal language: video. People now communicate with video on two billion computers and more than one and a half billion television sets, and by 2013 you can add another one billion video-capable people regularly accessing the web from their cellphones. The most popular spoken and written language is English, with 1.8 billion users. Looks like video already wins.

No wonder. Video is the distillation of the four ways people exchange information—speech, print, sound, and pictures. Video can convey more information more powerfully to more people in more places—and more quickly—than TV, radio, print, or the voice of the evangelist. And since, historically speaking, this age of video is relatively new, people are still getting better at acquiring and distributing their information via video.

Good news for the future of television news, right? “Luckily,” says Alex Wallace, an NBC News senior vice president, “we’re TV; we’re also based on pictures.”

Yes. Logically, the video revolution and television news should thrive together. But just as the rest of the world is alive with video information about a bullet-train crash in China or revolutions in Bahrain or Syria, America’s television screens, especially on cable news, are tuning out the world. When YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter show so much video of real life, why do ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox show us so little?

Data from long-term monitoring of American television news by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, as well as observations from our own much shorter-term sampling of American TV news outlets and a handful of foreign news channels, reveal several things:

• CNN has made a sharp turn away from video reporting. Fox News Channel now shows more video than CNN, while MSNBC, after some excellent reporting of the Arab Spring, rarely uses any video. Most of what it does broadcast is sound bites from the campaign trail, talking-heads-coal to talking-heads-Newcastle.

• At the networks, the loss is not in airtime but in authenticity, as “new ways to cover the news” increasingly substitute for journalists actually reporting from the scene.

• Worse, and displacing far more airtime from reporting, is the amount of talk. Interviews, panels, conversations among anchors, pundits, scholars, and “experts” which, at best, produce intelligent but evergreen generalizations by people who haven’t “been there” for a while, are preempting the current and specific observations available only from those who are there.

Evidence two (via the Nieman Journalism Lab):

The diminished capacity of American TV news networks to cover international news became sharply evident during the recent uprisings in the Middle East, most notably Egypt. Into that void stepped Al Jazeera English (AJE). With headquarters in Qatar and staff already stationed in Egypt, the global news media outlet quickly mobilized an on-the-ground newsgathering presence.

But most Americans couldn’t just turn on their televisions to watch AJE’s coverage. The network is largely absent from cable and the main satellite providers’ offerings despite being available in 250 million homes globally. As Ph.D candidates in communication studies at the University of Michigan, we were interested in the role that Americans’ perception of the channel might have in its difficulties getting cable carriage — and how online distribution might serve as a fruitful workaround. That led us to an experimental study that looked at how Al Jazeera branding might influence public perception of a piece of journalism.

…

We conducted an experimental study (pdf) on how potential viewer attitudes toward AJE change with exposure to the channel’s news content. Carried out online in late February to early March, our study involved 177 American participants, drawn from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk pool.

The participants were randomly assigned to three groups. Two of them watched an AJE-produced news clip about the Taliban’s position towards peace talks, which included minimal reference to America. The first group watched the original clip with AJE’s branding.

The second group saw the same news piece re-edited to carry CNN International’s (CNNI) logo.

The third group, the control, viewed no clip. We then asked participants in each group to rate, in general, how biased they thought AJE and CNNI were.

Watching the AJE clip — branded as AJE — did not seem to have an impact on perceptions of bias; bias ratings were equal between those in the AJE-clip-watching group and the control group.

But in the group that had just watched the clip with fake CNNI branding, participants rated CNNI as less biased than those in the control group.