Few days ago, I wrote that Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, has become the mouthpiece of the Israeli government in what looks like an attempt at spinning a nuclear war in the ME while coming out safely, in terms of the impact on public opinion, on Israel's military nuclear program. Now that's official. The Haaretz article below, published yesterday, wrongly cites a Canadian poll commissioned by the Canadian
Institute for Strategic Studies (CISS) revealing a massive support of Israeli public opinion for a nuclear strike on Iran. In the Haaretz article there is no link to the source of the poll. Haaretz's only source is the Israel army radio. On the CISS's website, there is no mention of the poll.
I called the CISS. They said someone called them from Reuters Jerusalem asking them about the poll. The CISS answered that it is not theirs and they know nothing about it. They did not order or commission the poll. They suggested maybe another Institute, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) commissioned the poll, and Haaretz might have mixed the names. I called the IISS. The IISS is not the source of such a poll.
Now either Haaretz is not verifying such a crucial information, or they are consciously reporting the propaganda of the Israel Army Radio. It is clear by now, as I wrote few days earlier, that Israel is manipulating middle eastern and international public opinions about a nuclear war in the ME. This propaganda could not have as a result a halt to Iran's nuclear enrichment neither a push toward consensus between Iran and the international community. The only result of this propaganda is to increase tension and rally Iran around its contested leader in accelerating its nuclear enrichment activity.
Here is an example of a short spin sequence:
October 1st, 2007. This information, published by Haaretz, has been verified by the author of this blog and proved false or, at best, unsourced.
"72% of Israelis back use of nuclear arms. The poll also showed that 75 percent of Israelis would feel safer if they knew with certainty that Israel has atomic weapons Israel has maintained an official veil of secrecy on rumors that it has in its possession nuclear weapons."
September 26, 2007. Israel lobbying to import nuclear material.
Read here my opinion about this piece of information.
May 19th, 2007. "71% of Israelis want U.S. to strike Iran if talks fail to halt Tehran's nuclear program, according to a new poll. The survey, commissioned by Bar-Ilan University's BESA Center and the Anti-Defamation League, found that 59 percent of Israelis still believe the war in Iraq was justified, while 36 percent take the opposite view."
And from Naj: "To add to the repository of Zionist lies"
Haaretz has been recently publishing, about the nuclear threat, either false polls or internal Israeli polls whose objectivity we can doubt if Haaretz, Israel, and the Israel army Radio, have been handling internal opinion polls the way they handled this last unsourced information. Not that I have any doubt about Israel's public opinion going in this direction. This is a country obsessed by its own security and strategic status in the region in total disregard for the ME and the rest of the world. But how are we to interpret the rush to elevate such a propaganda to the level of mainstream information in the present context ?
I have come to the conclusion that, at this stage, Israel is pushing Iran toward acquiring a military nuclear program. In a second stage, which may come before we realize that Iran,s nuclear capabilities are far from representing a threat to any country other than Iran and before we realize that the first propaganda stage was just lies, Israel will strike whatever Iran does or does not have as nuclear facilities, citing national defence worries. A rehearsal of this scenario was realized by the Israeli army on Syria earlier last September. In the meantime, the propaganda serves another purpose, legitimizing Israel's hidden military nuclear program in the context of an alleged Iranian nuclear threat on Israel.
UPDATE: On the day I published this post, I sent a comment to Haaretz on the unsourced article, follwed by another one the day after. They did not publish my comments as of October 4th, thursday, 8.pm, local time, and I bet they won't, but they published other comments since. Among other readers' earlier comments they published one which caught particularly my attention: it is from Petra in the USA, comment number 20.
"Title: Bomb Terhan and Mecca Let God sort them out
Name: Petra
City: State: usa
It worked for the USA against Japan. Now, Japan LOVES US!"
''My people decide the truth in sixty countries every morning. And in every one it's different.''
Since March 29th 2006
20 comments:
done at:
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/10/02/lebanon-israel-spinning-nuclear-threat/
Thanks Moussa. I had a suspicion about that and the first thing i did this morning when I read another piece in Haaretz about the nuclear threat was to verify ther information. It was so easy. How could a journalist not proceed to such an elementary and necessary verification before publishing sensitive information. I am sick of the propaganda that clouds western news outlets every time their governments go to war. We were done once, we shouldn't be done twice. Enough !
:)
to add to the repository of the Zionist lies!
Naj,
Even when the polls exist, most of the time they are phony. Polls are now used in democracies in order to influence public opinion and they can be tailored to yield the desired results.
You know I have been thinking recently of stopping the blog business. I am not reaching that much people and I sent two comments to Haaretz signaling the problem with their information they did not publish them. I am tired of this business, we are being given lies as information and we bloggers we cannot reach many people unless we accept to bow to the rule of the propaganda lies information machine. I am abit tired of all this.
FYI: I posted the link to this blog entry at Media Lens here.
Thanks for this 'heads-up'. Together with Naj's link above, this looks as if they are softening up the Israeli public for nuclear (?) attacks on Iran. That's scary!
Thanks Furgaia. I will add Naj's link in the main post. Hopefully someone will react. As I said I sent two comments to Haaretz that were ignored.
Sophia, I also sent the link to Antiwar.com. I thought they might be interested. I believe they have the staff to delve further into this.
Dear Furgaia,
Many thanks. Hopefully Haaretz and Israel army Radio will be made accountable for this.
Furgaia,
Your medialens message seems to be working.
a quick glance at the subject line of the comments that Haaretz did publish is an indication to me of world-wide skepticism of the poll results.
Haaretz is not usually so blatantly one-sided or propagandistic. The "poll results" are a disappointment in Haaretz's integrity.
Most wideley read newspapers are guilty of publishing propaganda from time to time.
Nunya,
May I remind you that this is no ordinary poll ? We cannot compare it to any other biased poll. of course there are many biased polls in the news that go unchecked because they suit whatever purpose. But again this is no ordinary poll. I did not see skepticism all the way until comment 62, which was posted after I sent my two comments. The paper should come out and recognize their error.
Sophia:
you CANNOT stop the blogging business. If that means that I come and start a hunger strike in front of you house (although I may be dissuaded by your cooking ;) ) I will!
I understand your fatigue, though. But every now and again, one discovers brilliant people, who articulate something above the usual repeated daily lines, and these little forces CAN/WILL aggregate ... and WILL make a change.
I have to introduce you to Nikogda now!
btw, were you at Tariq Ali's talk tonight?
Oh by the way, I have been going around like a little soldier sending this link everywhere too :)
We lack THIS kind of reporting Sophia!
Thanks a lot Naj. No I did not go to Ali's talk. Was he in town ? I live like a recluse these days.
I'm glad the link at Media Lens is working, Sophia. Kudos to Naj who tipped me off to this particular post.
I hope that you will add Media Lens to your list of resources. We would all benefit from your well-informed posts and intelligent insights regarding the Middle-East. ML is fairly well-known among journalists and antiwar activists. I have read that John Pilger and George Montbiot consult it from time to time, as does Jonathan Cook. I look forward to seeing you there. Indeed, I would encourage you to publish your longer and more important pieces in the 'Forum' section. Heaven knows we need as much 'reality-based' information as we can on the region.
Cheers!
Furgaia, I will add media Lens. Can you send me the main link because it seems to be a group site and is open only to members or am I wrong ?
Naj,
That means we should have a meal together. Buit seriously the blog is keeping me from writing interesting things, my husband says I am supposed to write books and not blogs.
Sophia, please tell your husband to bear with you for a little while longer.
As much as I simply LOVE books, they are no match to blogs for information flow. We NEED you here! We need information and more information, as fast as can be provided, while WE CAN STILL access it!
Speaking of which, have you read this. I hate sounding conspiratorial. Last night I posted the link to the original article on someone else's blog. This morning, it's gone! It may be just an Internet glitch. Anyway, I thought you might be interested.
Sophia,
Your husband is very right! You have to write books FOR SURE! But please do keep writing blogs too. Because, we are just spending more and more of our times on screens.
But I like to second to Furgaia's point: you have to write for well established magazines, online or offline.
You have too powerful a credential, Sophia, your voice WILL make a difference.
Thanks Naj.
The way I see things is that it is our responsibility to speak out and you are probably right, we have to do it through different media. Many mice and little time !
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