Social Media and Israel: Censorship of the Truth
Photo by Susan Ruggles | CC BY 2.0
The growing desperation of Israel to avoid public knowledge of its many war crimes and crimes against humanity knows no bounds. The country that, with United States support, proclaims itself the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, has, like its U.S. sponsor, a highly skewed opinion of what constitutes a democracy.
Freedom of the press is a hallmark of any nation that wants to define itself as a democracy. How does Israel ‘respect’ freedom of the press? The organization, Reporters without Borders in April of this year accused the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces; read: Israeli Government Terrorists) of the intentional shooting of reporters. Nothing has changed since then, as more unarmed members of the press have been shot by Israeli terrorists. And during Israel’s carpet-bombing of Gaza in 2014, clearly marked press vehicles and offices were targeted by Israel.
In April of this year, a program entitled “A Jewish-American on Israel’s Fascism: No Hope for Change from Within’, from the ‘Empire Files’, the teleSur program that is hosted by Abby Martin, was blocked in 28 countries. The program was a study of the militaristic posture that Israelis increasingly take towards Palestinians. The purported reason was that the program content violated ‘local laws’.
An interview with journalist Max Blumenthal was part of the program. Questioned later about his participation in the context of the program being so widely blocked, he stated that nothing in his comments “was even remotely illegal, even in countries with the strictest hate-crime laws.” When he was asked his opinion as to the reason for the video being blocked, he said that the decision was “likely made under pressure from powerful pro-Israel interests.”
So much for freedom of the press in Israel.
Another vital component of any democracy is freedom of speech.
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