FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Part of a description of the daily “two-minute hate” from George Orwell’s 1984:

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were – in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State….

In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen….In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic…

Do you have a sense of déja vu, as if you’ve recently experienced something similar? Probably you have, if you live in Fresno, where Amy Goodman’s radio program Democracy Now is heard every weekday morning for two hours on local station KFCF — rebroadcasting from KPFA in Berkeley — and the TV version is seen for an hour five days a week on KNXT, the TV station of the Catholic Diocese of Fresno.

Just for an almost-random example (h/t Charles Johnson, LGF),  the January 23 program featured an interview with the deranged linguist and extreme Israel-hater Noam Chomsky, today’s Jewish version of Julius Streicher. Asked about President Obama’s statement that “we will always support Israel’s right to defend itself”, he said:

[Obama] began by saying that Israel, like any democracy, has a right to defend itself. That’s true, but there’s a gap in the reasoning. It has a right to defend itself. It doesn’t follow that it has a right to defend itself by force. So we might agree, say, that, you know, the British army in the United States in the colonies in 1776 had a right to defend itself from the terror of George Washington’s armies, which was quite real, but it didn’t follow they had a right to defend themselves by force, because they had no right to be here. So, yes, they had a right to defend themselves, and they had a way to do it—namely, leave.

Interesting, I didn’t know Washington was firing rockets across the pond at innocent Brits living in Plymouth or Exeter. Too bad Chomsky wasn’t around in 1941; the decision to defend the US by force could have been avoided (we could have started by leaving Hawaii).

OK, what do you expect from Chomsky? But let’s look at how Democracy Now and Amy Goodman have covered the war during the past month:

• January 27, 2009: Worse than an Earthquake: Peace Activist Kathy Kelly on the Destruction in Gaza

• January 23, 2009: Noam Chomsky: Obama’s Stance on Gaza Crisis ‘Approximately the Bush Position’

• January 22, 2009: Part II: Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Blocked Ambulances

• January 22, 2009: Ex-Carter Admin Official: Israel Ignored Hamas Offer Days Before Attacking Gaza; Violated Ceasefire With Attacks, Blockade

• January 21, 2009: Palestinian U.S. College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Bar Ambulances

• January 16, 2009: Palestinian Astrophysicist in US Recounts How His 11-Year-Old Son Died When Israeli Warplanes Bombed His Family’s House

• January 16, 2009: Bloody Israeli Assault on Gaza Enters Fourth Week, Palestinian Death Toll Tops 1,100

• January 15, 2009: Israel Pounds Gaza: Shells Crowded Hospital, UN Compound and Building Housing Media Organizations

• January 15, 2009: U.S. Rabbis Urge Obama to Push For Gaza Cease-Fire

• January 14, 2009: Leading Israeli Scholar Avi Shlaim: Israel Committing ‘State Terror’ in Gaza Attack, Preventing Peace

• January 14, 2009: White Phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives: Is Israel Using Banned and Experimental Munitions in Gaza?

• January 13, 2009: Pro-Israel Supporters Praise Gaza Assault as Justified Despite Mounting Civilian Death Toll

• January 13, 2009: ‘Catastrophically Misguided and Incomprehensible Policy’–Renowned Jewish Playwright Tony Kushner Speaks Out Against Israel’s Assault on Gaza

• January 13, 2009: Gaza Suffers Most Intense Bombardment of 18-Day Israeli Assault

• January 12, 2009: Kucinich Cites Arms Export and Control Act in Decision to Vote Against House Measure Supporting Israeli Offensive

• January 12, 2009: Tens of Thousands Demonstrate Globally Against Israeli Actions, Jewish Women Among Those Leading Protests

• January 12, 2009: Fmr. Clinton Special Counsel Lanny Davis vs. Israeli Professor Neve Gordon: A Debate on the Israeli Assault on Gaza

• January 08, 2009: Former Amb. Martin Indyk vs. Author Norman Finkelstein: A Debate on Israel’s Assault on Gaza and the US Role in the Conflict

• January 07, 2009: 40+ Killed in Israeli Strike on Gaza School Sheltering Refugees

• January 06, 2009: Israeli F-16 Attack Kills Father of Palestinian Journalist; Israel Bombs UN School, Killing Three

• January 05, 2009: A Debate on Israel’s Invasion of Gaza: UNRWA’s Christopher Gunness v. Israel Project’s Meagan Buren

• January 05, 2009: US Blocks UN Security Council Vote Calling for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza

• January 05, 2009: Israeli Professor Under Hamas Rocket Fire, Neve Gordon Condemns Israeli Invasion of Gaza

• January 05, 2009: Report from Gaza City: Palestinian Journalist Sameh Habeeb on Gaza Under Siege

• December 31, 2008: Israeli Lawmaker and Conscientious Objector Nephew of Ex-PM Benjamin Netanyahu Denounce Israeli Attack on Gaza Strip

• December 29, 2008: Israeli Attacks Kill Over 310 in Gaza in One of Israel’s Bloodiest Attacks on Palestinians Since 1948

Chomsky, Shlaim, Finkelstein, Kushner, Gordon — a rogue’s gallery of extreme left-wing anti-Zionist Jews, interspersed with atrocity stories and stacked ‘debates’. This program is probably the most listened-to source of anti-Israel propaganda in our area.

KFCF and KPFA are listener-supported stations. KNXT is of course funded by the Diocese of Fresno.   I urge everyone to not contribute to KFCF or KPFA; and to express your opinion about KNXT (write to the Bishop, The Most Reverend John T. Steinbock, 1550 N. Fresno Street, Fresno, CA 93703-3788).

Technorati Tags: KFCF, KPFA, KNXT, Diocese of Fresno, Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, Israel

Most people that call themselves ‘progressive’ today should have a difficult time supporting Hamas.

It’s hard to hide the fact that Hamas is viciously antisemitic, with goals that are frankly genocidal. It’s hard to hide — Hamas will tell it to you — their position that no Jewish state, within any borders is acceptable in historic Palestine. It’s hard to hide the fact that Hamas is just plain vicious, when they brag about shooting their political opponents — secular Palestinian nationalists — in the hands and legs “to prevent them from helping Israel”. And it’s hard to hide the fact that Hamas is being supported with money and weapons by Iran, which has expressed the desire to put an end to Israel.

Whether one favors a two-state solution or even a single ‘democratic’ state encompassing Jews and Arabs, it goes beyond the pale of ‘progressivism’ to support Hamas, which wants to kill or drive out all the Jews, establish fundamentalist rules for the treatment of women, put homosexuals to death, etc.

It should also be quite clear that if there is a possibility for a rapprochement between Israel and moderate Palestinians — if it’s not too late for this — then the situation in which 40% of the Palestinian population lives under control of Hamas, which is violently opposed to any such agreement, ensures that a peaceful solution will not be found.

Since Hamas has been in control of Gaza, in addition to thousands of missiles fired at Israel, they have been pursuing a parallel propaganda offensive to convince people that the cause of the conflict is not Hamas viciousness but the Israeli ‘siege’ of Gaza and ‘the occupation’. Their goal is to achieve legitimacy, to open the gates for the import of even more explosives and weapons, and ultimately to take over the West Bank as well.

Since the beginning of the present war, the central theme has been the suffering of Gaza civilians. Although this war is probably unique in the history of warfare in respect to the care being taken by one side to avoid hurting noncombatants, nevertheless some segments of the media have been almost frothing at the mouth in their condemnations of Israel (which, needless to say are based on exaggerations and plain lies).

Here are the results of this, this Friday in San Francisco. Some of the violent demonstrators shown are Palestinians, but many are not.

There has been no more consistent source of  anti-Israel incitement and one-sided propaganda in our region than Pacifica Radio’s KPFA, and Fresno’s KFCF which rebroadcasts it. Programs such as Democracy Now — which is not only heard daily on KFCF in Fresno but whose TV version appears on the Catholic Diocese-owned channel 49 — go far beyond the bounds of simply slanted reporting, providing a steady diet of falsehoods and demonization of Israel.

In recent days KPFA has pulled out all the stops in its rhetoric, with the goal of turning American opinion against the Israeli operation in Gaza. If the worldwide propaganda campaign succeeds in forcing a premature end to the operation, Hamas will emerge stronger than ever, with enhanced legitimacy and able to re-arm — exactly as happened with Hezbollah in Lebanon. In addition to the direct damage to Israel’s security, any ‘peace process’, such as it is, will be doomed.

KPFA and KFCF are supported by contributions from the progressive community, which possibly doesn’t understand the consequences of its actions. These stations are simply doing Hamas’ work.

If you are happy with the goals of Hamas and Iran, then contribute. Every dollar you give them might as well be used to buy explosives for Ismail Haniyeh.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, KPFA, KFCF