Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Why Not a No-Fly Zone for Gaza?

by Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org, April 12, 2011

The Arab League will ask the UN to impose a no-fly zone on Gaza, according to its Secretary-General Amr Moussa. “If the Arab League wants a no-fly zone in Gaza is it also talking about missiles that are fired from Gaza on Israeli cities?”, the Israeli government retorted. “About missiles fired at school buses? About mortar shells fired at farms?”

If you get all your news from the U.S. mass media, you’d think that was a perfectly logical response. Every mass media report I’ve seen has Israel attacking Gaza in retaliation for Palestinian attacks. The Palestinians always start it — or so the U.S. mass media tell us, as if it were incontrovertible fact. Even commentators who criticize the disproportionate scale of Israeli attacks typically add, “But of course Israel has the right to defend itself, as any nation would.”

Self-defense? That excuse just doesn’t stand up, for those few who know the facts. The facts are out there, though they’re difficult to find in the fog of media distortion. I was lucky enough to discover “Associated Press Deconstructed,” a project of the very useful website If Americans Knew.

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