Two Examples of Media Bias and One Action Alert

 

Mohamed Khodr’s Column

No one should doubt that American governmental and public opinion is formulated and shaped by our media. Greater than Israel’s military success against Arab countries in six different wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1979, 1982) has been Israel’s overpowering monopoly on our media to tell its lies and myths in a most sympathetic and romantic story of a beleaguered weak democratic nation trying to simply survive in a “sea of Arab hatred”.

Whether its through Jewish ownership of our media, Jewish directorship, Jewish editors and reporters, Jewish advertising dollars, or Fear of and Intimidation by powerful Jewish Lobbies with enormous money and tremendous organization in all fifty states, our media cowardly panders to the Israeli viewpoint thus guaranteeing that our busy uninformed Congress will kowtow to the Israeli viewpoint as well as the American public that has been indoctrinated since childhood on the glory of Israel fighting the barbaric violent terrorist Arabs.

Jewish Americans like the “Jewish Unity for a Just Peace or “Junity” (www.junity.org) or Jews for Justice in the Middle East (www.cactus48.org) as well as other Jewish organizations who have the courage and moral fortitude to oppose Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestinian lands and its murderous destructive policies, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, as well as many Americans who oppose our country’s blind and immoral support of a rogue nation like Israel do NOT have access to our media whether its television or the print media. Letters from me, an Arab American Muslim, as well as the groups mentioned above need not trouble themselves to write to the major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, the twin towers of Zionist Israeli propaganda. They have a stealth sign on their editorial pages: ANTI-ISRAEL AMERICANS NEED NOT APPLY.

All of us together whether Jews, Christians, and Muslims must reach out to each other, organize our strategies and fund our efforts to do what’s right by Israel and the Palestinians to end the violence (mainly against the Palestinian civilians), end the occupation including of East Jerusalem, dismantle the settlements, and pressure our Israeli dominated government to impose a peace based on UN Resolutions 242, 338, 476, and 478. The American people are only seeing and hearing Israel’s public relations indoctrination of its lies. Americans deserve the truth and the trust that then and only then they will do the right thing for peace and justice.

I have personally written over 500 letters to our media on the issues of Palestine and Islam with only a handful being published that were toned down and deemed acceptable. Below are two of my latest letters to the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post.

Please contact the groups below and support their courageous efforts. With God’s blessing we will succeed but only if we get involved and speak out. 

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For further information on the future of Junity, see www.junity.org. For information on the May 20 protest in New York, contact Jews Against the Occupation at [email protected].

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LETTER TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: NOT PUBLISHED

As I read the article “With the McVeigh delay, pressure rises for FBI reform” (May 14) by Dante Chinni and Abraham McLaughlin that detailed a series of missteps and errors committed by the FBI in several high profile cases none more so than the deadliest domestic terrorist act in Oklahoma City, I couldn’t help but wonder how things may differ if Timothy McVeigh was a Muslim. In fact, our media, law enforcement, and government officials immediately accused Muslims after the Oklahoma bombing without any evidence.

If McVeigh was a Muslim would he have been guaranteed the full extent of our Constitutional protection, including the recent delay, during his trial? Would 60 Minutes have spent an entire hour (May 13) interviewing him politely, patiently asking him his motives and feelings while the victims reacted to his statements, debated the death penalty and asking God to forgive him? Would so much media attention be given to America’s most lethal “Christian” terrorist? Would the FBI be so castigated and investigated for its errors and would Congress hold hearings on the FBI handling of this case? Would his lawyers be interviewed with such respect by all the media as to their next strategy? The answer is obviously NO. When it comes to Muslim suspects, Americans or otherwise, the FBI’s quick investigations here and abroad are never questioned, not their methods, witnesses, or lab results. The suspects would be automatically identified as “Muslim Terrorists” presumed guilty until proven innocent. The media could care less about their fate, the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service would even violate the Constitutional due process of law and hold these suspects for years without a trial or charge under so called “secret evidence”. The Congress until now has not even voted to repeal this unconstitutional practice despite 112 Representatives cosponsoring the repeal. Neither the Attorney General nor the President would even be involved in such cases. In fact such suspects are usually brought to New York in front of a hostile prejudicial jury against Islam (World Trade Center bombing) and convicted and sentenced within a few days to weeks. Ironically, our own government is silent when even dozens of Arab American citizens are held in Israeli prisons without charge. Our justice system is callous reeking with double standards when it comes to non-white religious minorities with Jews being the exception (recall the Mark Rich and Hassidic Jew pardons).

The moral of the story in our Justice system is if you’re an Arab American, Muslim American, African American, Hispanic or other minorities the system will racially profile you, your trial is a sham, forget about governmental guarantees, no 60 Minutes or media attention, or even due process. America’s dual justice system for the rich, the whites, the powerful is friendly while for the colored, poor, foreigners, and non-Christians its a disgrace.

Mohamed Khodr MD

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LETTER TO WASHINGTON POST: NOT PUBLISHED

53 Years of Western Silence

Mr. Lee Hockstader’s “Israeli Raids in Territories Grow Routine” (May 14) is commendable for its candid assessment of the tragic and domestically motivated western silence regarding Israel’s disproportionate, aggressive and violent military incursions, bombings, and helicopter rocket assassinations against Palestinian police and civilians. So far over 450 Palestinians have been killed, a third are children under 15 with over 21,000 injured with 73 Israeli’s dead and 13 Israeli Arabs killed during a peaceful demonstration. 

Mr. Hockstader laments the silence of Europe, Bush, and Powell regarding Israeli’s destructive forays that our media deliberately ignores unless there are Israeli casualties. However, western silence is not new toward the Palestinian tragedy but has been a matter of policy since Israel’s founding in 1948 by force on Palestinian land resulting in the destruction of 450 villages, countless massacres of Palestinians, and the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from their homes only to be repeated in 1967 with Israel’s preemptive occupation of the West Bank and Gaza resulting in another 300,000 refugees. 

Tomorrow, May 15, Israel celebrates its statehood while Palestinians mourn their tragedy imposed by England, the U.S., and the United Nations out of Holocaust guilt and Jewish domestic influence. 

For 53 years Palestinians have seen over 60 UN Resolutions adopted by the United Nations in their favor defied by Israel while the U.S. has cast 73 Vetoes since 1947 mostly to protect Israel. The confluence of a powerful Jewish lobby on our government, the impotence of Arab and Muslim leaders, a paralyzed U.N. at the whim of Jesse Helms, and a neglectful media on Israeli atrocities, the Palestinians will continue to endure death, injury, expulsions, house demolition, a military siege and occupation that denies freedom of movement, food, water, and medicines until the only voice that can impose a just peace for both Israeli’s and Palestinians can muster the courage to speak—the American people. Our silence complicity emboldens Israel’s use of our money and weapons upon Palestinian civilians. 

Mohamed Khodr MD

Mr. Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim physician and a native from the Middle East. He has worked in Academic Medicine and Public health with national and international health experience. He is a freelance writer who often writes columns on the Palestinian cause, Islam and on America’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East. He lives in the Washington DC area.

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