[Peace-discuss] News from Neptune on UPTV for 1 August 2014, a hand-washing edition

Sat Aug 2 18:22:01 EDT 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG7DnOhrgUc

{INTRO} ~ Good evening, & welcome to News from Neptune for the 31st week of 2014. (Cablecast Friday at 7pm on ch. 6 & 99 in C-U.)
~ For more than twenty years, this program has been "a spontaneous & unrehearsed discussion of the news of the week and its coverage by the media" - first on a so-called community radio station - and, when censored & locked out of there - welcomed, I'm happy to say, by the good people at Urbana Public Television.
~ I’m Carl Estabrook. My discussants tonight are Karen Aram & David Johnson.
~ Our program's name, News from Neptune, was chosen to honor Noam Chomsky, who has been talking sense about American politics for twice the quarter-century we've been on the air. Chomsky has said that in the American media, “...either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.” 
~ Our format is to take turns suggesting stories that have been ignored or misreported (occasionally even innocently) and then having our colleagues comment on them.
~ Previous programs are archived on YouTube and posted to the facebook page for News from Neptune, where you’ll also find comments from viewers (not all unadulterated praise) and some answers from us. I also can be reached at <carl at newsfromneptune.com>; I'm happy to receive your comments.

THREE WEEKS AGO, NOAM CHOMSKY WROTE AS FOLLOWS:

At 3am Gaza time, July 9, in the midst of Israel’s latest exercise in savagery, I received a phone call from a young Palestinian journalist in Gaza. In the background, I could hear his infant child wailing, amidst the sounds of explosions and jet planes, targeting any civilian who moves, and homes as well. He just saw a friend of his in a car clearly marked “press” blown away. And he heard shrieks next door after an explosion but can’t go outside or he’ll be a likely target. This is a quiet neighborhood, no military targets – except Palestinians who are fair game for Israel’s high tech US-supplied military machine. He said that 70% of the ambulances have been destroyed, and that by then over 70 had been killed, and of the 300 or so wounded, about 2/3 women and children. Few Hamas activists have been hit – or rocket launching sites. Just the usual victims.

It is important to understand what life is like in Gaza when Israel’s behavior is “restrained,” in between the regular manufactured crises like this one. A good sense is given in a report to UNRWA by Mads Gilbert, the courageous and expert Norwegian physician who has worked extensively in Gaza, also throughout the vicious and murderous Cast Lead operation. In every respect, the situation is disastrous. Just keeping to children, Gilbert reports: “Palestinian children in Gaza are suffering immensely. A large proportion are affected by the man-made malnourishment regime caused by the Israeli imposed blockage. Prevalence of anaemia in children <2yrs in Gaza is at 72.8%, while prevalence of wasting, stunting, underweight have been documented at 34.3%, 31.4%, 31.45% respectively.” And it gets worse as the report proceeds.

When Israel is on “good behavior,” more than two Palestinian children are killed every week, a pattern that goes back over 14 years. The underlying cause is the criminal occupation and the programs to reduce Palestinian life to bare survival in Gaza, while Palestinians are restricted to unviable cantons in the West Bank and Israel takes over what it wants, all in gross violation of international law and explicit Security Council resolutions, not to speak of minimal decency. And it will continue as long as it is supported by Washington and tolerated by Europe – to our everlasting shame.

TODAY IS AUGUST FIRST. The ceasefire in Israel’s US-backed attack on the 1.8 million people of Gaza, which was supposed to begin this morning, broke down almost immediately. Discussions between the army of occupation and the resistance government were supposed to begin in Cairo this evening. But both the Egyptian government and - far more importantly - the US government, support the attack that has now killed more than 1400 people, more than Israel killed in its last major attack on Gaza, in 2008-09, between the election and inauguration of Barack Obama. Obama refused to condemn that massacre as well.

So you’re watching News from Neptune, a hand-washing edition, as the president of the United States once again commits mass murder.

{OUTRO} You've been watching News from Neptune for the 31st week of 2014. This has been a Hand-Washing Edition.
~ I'm Carl Estabrook: my discussants tonight have been Karen Aram and David Johnson. Hear David Johnson's programs on WEFT and UPTV. 
~ Our thanks to UPTV, especially Jake, Jason, & Dan.
~ Inshallah we'll be back next week with a new edition of News From Neptune, to remind you - in the words of Edward de Vere -

"...what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge."

~ In the meantime, confusion to our enemies,
and a good night to you. ###
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20140802/4d906d53/attachment-0001.html>