Follow the money …
by Justin Raimondo
Pat Buchanan was widely vilified by the neocons and the politically correct left when he famously described the Congress of the United States as “Israeli-occupied territory.” Oh, what a conniption the liberals and the Commentary crowd had! That was during the countdown to the first Gulf War, when almost no one rose to object – and those who did, like Pat, were smeared for their trouble. Today, such an observation is hardly considered controversial: it is simply a known fact.
There is more discussion in the Knesset over the pros and cons of US intervention in the Middle East on Israel’s behalf than there is in on http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6336" online media is following suit, with an alacrity that is none too surprising.It is especially unsurprising in the case of the Huffington Post, which founder Arianna Huffington touts as a “people’s media” in which “truth” is the highest value. As she put it to the San Francisco Bay Guardian:
“Our highest responsibility is to the truth. The truth is not about splitting the difference between one side and the other. Sometimes one side is speaking the truth … The central mission of journalism is the search for the truth.”
Taking Ms. Huffington at her word, one can only conclude that, when it comes to Israel’s rape of Gaza, the Huffington Post is siding with the rapist. Their “news” coverage of the ongoing devastation is heavily slanted toward the Israelis, with those journalistically unique paragraph-long lead-story headlines never mentioning Palestinian casualties (a number would suffice). When a genuinely antiwar voice is allowed on the site, it is prefaced by an apologia, as our own Jeremy Sapienza reports:
“Huffington Post was so very kind this week to give space to almost frustratingly moderate Palestinian intellectual Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi. In his well-reasoned article, ‘Palestine’s Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood,’ he supplied all the basic facts behind the problems in Palestine. … But what gives with the long disclaimer marring the top of Barghouthi’s article?
“HuffPo runs all kinds of commentary from all over the political spectrum (or at least its leftish side), but only those who dare speak against the sainted Israelis seem to require an editorial explanation that resembles an apology.
“Shame on Huffington Post for its disgusting lack of integrity.”
Shame? Jeremy is a fine lad, and very smart, but perhaps a bit naïve in believing these people even accept the concept of shame, applied to themselves: indeed, they oppose it as a matter of high principle.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13990