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March 14th, 2021 
Awake Goy I’m excited to take part this Sunday in a panel about American foreign policy in the Middle East and the role of Israeli propaganda and the Israel lobby.
The panel will feature Diana Buttu, the Palestinian human rights lawyer, and Sut Jhally, professor and producer of the great documentary, “The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States.”
You can register here.
I just rewatched the film to prepare myself and though it was made in 2016, it’s sadly, stunningly fresh. Little has changed! Israel still manages to wrap American opinion and foreign policy around its little finger through a sophisticated propaganda operation.
The film shows how we’ve gone backwards in media honesty. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, world opinion be damned, John Chancellor of NBC said an “imperial Israel” was behaving as if “world opinion be damned.” While Richard Threlkeld of CBS called Israel the “neighborhood bully.”
That’s when Israeli propaganda moved into high gear, rebranding Israel and demonizing Palestinian resistance as terrorism. “Israeli violence is always considered to be legitimate because it’s characterized as self-defense,” says Phyllis Bennis.
Our media and politicians echo these talking points. American media is a different “planet” from Europe, in denying Palestinians a platform, says Rula Jebreal.
There are great commentaries on the film from Bennis, Jebreal, Amira Hass, Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi, Peter Hart, Norman Finkelstein, Max Blumenthal, Steve Walt, Henry Siegman, Mark Crispin Miller, M.J. Rosenberg, Yousef Munayyer, Norman Solomon, and Rami Khouri. And it’s narrated with poetical restraint by Roger Waters, whose description of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre sounds like his voice in a very sad song.
Here are excerpts of the flyer for the 3 p.m. event:
“Voices from the Holy Land, in conjunction with Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace and WRITE! (a media monitoring group), invites you to our eleventh monthly Online Film Salon to be held Sunday, March 14th at 3 pm ET/12 noon PT. Participants will discuss the award winning documentary ‘The Occupation of the American Mind: Israel’s Public Relations War in the United States.’ Please watch the film at your convenience and then join us for the online discussion.
“Sut Jhally, producer, Executive Director of Media Education Foundation, and Professor (retired) of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, and Philip Weiss, author and co-editor of Mondoweiss will participate in the Q&A discussion. Diana Buttu, Haifa-based Palestinian human rights lawyer and analyst at Institute for Middle East Understanding, will moderate this session.
“Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world — except the United Sates. The film takes an eye-opening look at the pro-Israeli public relations efforts within the U.S and explores how the Israeli government, the U.S. government and the pro-Israeli lobby have joined forces to shape American media coverage of the conflict. The film provides analysis of Israel’s battle for the hearts, minds and tax dollars of the American people in the face of international condemnation of the right wing policies.”
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