A Very Good Piece
By John Pilger
"At 7.30 in the morning on 3 June, a seven-month-old baby died in the intensive care unit of the European Gaza Hospital in the Gaza Strip. His name was Zein Ad-Din Mohammed Zu'rob, and he was suffering from a lung infection which was treatable.
Denied basic equipment, the doctors in Gaza could do nothing. For weeks, the child's parents had sought a permit from the Israelis to allow them to take him to a hospital in Jerusalem, where he would have been saved......
Instead, Obama spoke in Cairo as if his and previous White House administrations were neutral, almost divine brokers of peace, instead of rapacious backers and suppliers of the invader (along with Britain). This Orwellian illogic remains the standard for what western journalists call the "Israel-Palestine conflict", which is almost never reported in terms of the law, of right and wrong, of justice and injustice - Darfur, yes, Zimbabwe, yes, but never Palestine. Orwell's ghost again stirred when Obama denounced "violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan [who are] determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can". America's invasion and slaughter in these countries went unmentioned. It, too, is divine....
In his "reaching out" in Cairo, as in his "anti-nuclear" speech in Berlin, as in the "hope" he spun at his inauguration, this clever young politician is playing the part for which he was drafted and promoted. This is to present a benign, seductive, even celebrity face to American power, which can then proceed towards its strategic goal of dominance, regardless of the wishes of the rest of humanity and the rights and lives of our children."
By John Pilger
"At 7.30 in the morning on 3 June, a seven-month-old baby died in the intensive care unit of the European Gaza Hospital in the Gaza Strip. His name was Zein Ad-Din Mohammed Zu'rob, and he was suffering from a lung infection which was treatable.
Denied basic equipment, the doctors in Gaza could do nothing. For weeks, the child's parents had sought a permit from the Israelis to allow them to take him to a hospital in Jerusalem, where he would have been saved......
Instead, Obama spoke in Cairo as if his and previous White House administrations were neutral, almost divine brokers of peace, instead of rapacious backers and suppliers of the invader (along with Britain). This Orwellian illogic remains the standard for what western journalists call the "Israel-Palestine conflict", which is almost never reported in terms of the law, of right and wrong, of justice and injustice - Darfur, yes, Zimbabwe, yes, but never Palestine. Orwell's ghost again stirred when Obama denounced "violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan [who are] determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can". America's invasion and slaughter in these countries went unmentioned. It, too, is divine....
In his "reaching out" in Cairo, as in his "anti-nuclear" speech in Berlin, as in the "hope" he spun at his inauguration, this clever young politician is playing the part for which he was drafted and promoted. This is to present a benign, seductive, even celebrity face to American power, which can then proceed towards its strategic goal of dominance, regardless of the wishes of the rest of humanity and the rights and lives of our children."
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