PhotoSet 1
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2014/08/265162.php

PhotoSet 2
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2014/08/265194.php

PhotoSet
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2014/08/265215.php

PhotoSet 4
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2014/08/265235.php

Please be advised that all pictures are free to use by any nonprofit organization with permission of the photographer robert stuart lowden. I'm at rlowden@earthlink.net


On August 2nd, There was an international day of protest with a march on the White House in opposition to the 26th day of Israel's Operation "Safe Edge " , which has to this date of August 5th, 2014 has displaced
450,000 people with more than 1865 dead with 9000 people injured.

Gaza has a population of 1.8 million.

Israel has at this point reportedly barraged a number of United Nations schools and UN shelters for the displaced. The UN is sheltering 278, 000 people out of the 450,000 made homeless.
Mosques, hospitals, homes and public utilities that supply water and electricity have been destroyed by the Israeli Defense Force or IDF.

Wikipedia has an entry on the Isaeli raids on UN schools.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel_raids_on_UNRWA_schools


The Ministry of Health in Gaza reports the following statistics as at 2000 hours on Monday August 04, 2014

Deaths: 1,865 – 429 children, 243 women 18-60 years, 79 persons over 60 years
Injuries: 9,536 – 2,877 children, 1,853 women 18-60 years, 347 over 60 years.
ICU: 153 patients Source: Julie Webb-Pullman

The Global Post has published photographs of the injured and dead that are very true to life and graphic.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/140709/these-are-the-photos-gaza-too-graphic-for-some-news-media-to-show

Here is an article talking about Gazan plastic surgeons and their challenges from the invasion.
HTTP://WWW.MAANNEWS.NET/ENG/VIEWDETAILS.ASPX?ID=718138


Also at this point a prominent member of the Israeli Knesset Moshe Feiglin has called for the setting up of concentration camps.

World Bulletin
http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/141870/israeli-official-calls-for-concentration-camps-in-gaza

Electronic Intifada reports on this as well.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/concentrate-and-exterminate-israel-parliament-deputy-speakers-gaza-genocide-plan

To read about Feiglins history…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Feiglin



Saturday saw a fourth day of protest at The Westwood Federal Building. The crowd estimates were as low as 500 from a casual LAPD estimate to a larger number of 2500 to 3500 people from another casual approximation by a member of the Sheriffs department. By two oclock the crowd had swelled with tempers flaring as some supporters of Israel came out of their cars to argue. The crowd had a few fringe figures who added to the threatening chaos by screaming about Christian Armageddon , 911 Truth and Holocaust Revisionism. ( Oddly they did not march . ) The LAPD and the Sherrifs department handled it well with no injuries or free speech trampling. The crowd surged after the fracas and crossed the street in mass, marching a mile loudly to the Israeli Consulate in the hot sun.

The crowd was livid but peaceful, with family units leading the protest chants and holding hands as they proudly raised their voices in outrage at the latest Israeli incursion. Fathers came with their sons while mothers walked their families down Wilshire holding messages that accused Israel of butchery and irony, with swastikas and Nazi comparisons to be seen on signs throughout the march.

The crowd was multi-ethnic and united in it's cries. Some folks had messages of hope and love as an antidote to the violence. Many were Jewish.

The march stopped at the consulate whereupon the crowd layed down on the ground. Some speeches were made and the activists observed a moment of silence. As the protestors were making their way back down Wilshire a group of perhaps twenty five flag draped supporters of Israel emerged and a shouting matched ensued. The police stopped this fracas as well. This reporter has seen quite a bit of police crowd abuse and this was one of the better moments. They kept the two apart. The crowds must be commended primarily though. They were both nonviolent although quite verbally abusive with each other.

Children were a prominent feature of the crowd from babies to high school kids often with their parents in tow.


If you are wondering if there is anything that can be done by average citizens these outlets may be of some help.


Boycott Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycotts_of_Israel


UN Relief and Works Agency
http://www.unrwa.org/donate


Doctors Without Borders
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-room


Save The Children
https://secure.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.9174661/k.C275/Gaza_Children_in_Crisis_Fund/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?msource=wexgpgaz0714&gclid=CIjinJ6O9L8CFfA-Mgod0hAAYAm


Americares
http://www.americares.org/who-we-are/newsroom/news/humanitarian_medical_arrives_in_gaza.html


The Palestinian Ministry of Health has a desperate call out for medical supplies. Be aware that there are procedures that have to be followed .

http://www.moh.ps/?lang=1
http://www.moh.ps/?lang=1&page=3&id=2472


For Coverage on Gaza from West Bank news sources; The Independent Media Center endorses these four sites. There is no Indymedia in Palestine.

Ma'an News Agency
http://www.maannews.net/eng/Default.aspx

Palestine News and Info Agency
http://english.wafa.ps/

Palestine News Network
http://english.pnn.ps/

International Middle East Center
http://www.imemc.org/index.php


Wikipedia has an entry for the amount of Hamas rocket attacks that have been fired at Israel in 2014
Wikipedia on Hamas Rocket attack frequency 2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2014


At this point a truce has been holding for some hours.

Robert Stuart Lowden
Aug 4th, 2014
Los Angeles CA

Answer was the most prominent organization and primarily organized the event nationally.
Co-sponsors of the Aug. 2 National March on Washington: ANSWER Coalition - American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) - Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) - American Muslim Alliance (AMA) - Al-Awda: Palestine Right to Return Coalition - Palestinian American Women's Association (PAWA) - Al-Awda: Palestine Right to Return Coalition - New York - CODEPINK - Muslim Legal Fund of America -World Can't Wait - Partership for Civil Justice - MAS Immigrant Justice Center - UNAC - United National Antiwar Coalition - Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) - Arab Americans for Syria - House of Latin America (HOLA) - SI Solidarity Iran - Labor Fightback Network - Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Cleveland Chapter - Al Quds Committee - Washington D.C. al-Quds Committee - Veterans For Peace - Methodist Federation for Social Action - The National Muslim Council for Justice (NMCJ) - Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel - Free Palestine Movement International Solidarity Movement - Northern California - AF3IRM - KmB Pro-People Youth - Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines - Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality - Virginia - The Phil Berrigan Institute for Nonviolence and Occupy the Dream, Reading, PA - LA Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild - The Green Party of New Jersey - - Jews for Palestinian Right of Return - Labor for Palestine - New York City Labor Against the War - Socialist Action - Damayan Migrant Workers Association - Palestinian American Council-Chicago (PAC) - Malcolm X Center for Self Determination - International Action Center - San Diego Coalition for Peace & Justice - National Black United Front - National Committee to Free the Cuban Five - Existence is Resistance - US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) - KmB Pro-People Youth - and more...

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First, there have been credible reports that Hamas is NOT giving truthful numbers about who has died. Would Hamas, if Israel kept the death count low, ever say so? How many have died from being human shields? How many of those killed by Hamas for suspected aid to Israel were then reported as killed by Israeli fire?
Second, Hamas says the state of Israel must go. Period. Why don't Muslims attack this as causa belli? The Palestinians when they controlled Christian shrines before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war refused to allow Christians to repair their churches and shrines. That receives no press.
Thirdly, Muslims say Israel wasn't first in Palestine, Muslims were. Christians were all over the Middle East before Islam was even born: Jews even longer. How come the "we were there first" argument isn't applied in those cases?
Fourthly, Palestinians are angry over the missle/bomb barrage of Israel, yet feel fine about Hamas sending thousands of rockets into Israel. They are hypocrits, plain and simple.
Fifthly, Why should the world care about a religion that hates other religions and persecutes them, or kills their adherents, whenever possible? They just got done stoning a woman for "adultery" (a charge that need have no evidence to back it up, the huband of whom can lie about things and his word is the only one atended to. Ie, justice in Muslim lands is non-existent. Sixth, What kind of a "religion" says that killing people for God is just--and a way to have virigins in heaven? This is no true religion any way you look at it, but a parady of religion. Muslims want to be well-treated by other religions yet in no way do they themselves treat other religious groups well.
Moreover, the evidence is pretty clear that early Islam was a Christian heresy and turned into a political religion. Islam isn't even mentioned for over 100+ years in any document from the time of its supposed founding and expansion. That's why Christ is so prominent in the Koran. When you abandon Christ, bad things happen. Islam is that bad thing, which glorifies violence, intolerance, hate, and murder.

All over the world, Christians, including Palestinians Christians are demonstrating for Israel

It is typical of the psychopathic ideology of zionism to accuse others of its own crimes.
The Israeli state is well known to use Palestinian children for human shields. Not the other way around.
More mental illness

What a Brave Soul. A Palestinian Christian stands in support of Israel. He risks brutal retaliatory actions against his family in the West Bank by taking this public stand. Many Palestinian Christians are afraid of talking about the abuse they receive, not just in Gaza, but in the West bank Many have sought sanctuary in Israel

like we believe you ^
you asses are sick

In this article, we will debunk Zionist myths, present facts about Palestine/Israel conflict, expose the real face of apartheid Israel and share some stats which will enrich your knowledge about the Palestinian catastrophe and long ongoing journey of resistance seeking justice.

[SR Editor note: this post is a "work in progress" as Zionist hasbara never ends faking new lies. The post will be updated frequently with new facts, questions and answers to uncover Israeli-Zionist hasbara lies about Palestine]


Part 1

THE GREAT ZIONIST MYTH: The Palestinians never existed before modern Israel was established. They came from other Arab lands to try to take what the Israelis had rightful claims to. “Palestinians” pretend to the world and to themselves that they have always been there, but they are delusional and do it all merely because they hate Jews.

The following series of questions has been circulating on the internet for awhile. It is a piece of trashy Zionist propaganda, meant to make the Palestinians look as though they never existed – a favorite Zionist fairytale. Note the snarky “humour” and the confused cartoon faces. I became sick of seeing these questions posted everywhere without answers, so I wrote the answers.


1. When was the country of Palestine founded and by whom?

The Land of Palestine was given its name by the Roman Empire. The Arabs were already there, and the Empire named it Paleshtin (Palestine) after the Biblical Pelishtim (Philistines). Paleshtin = Pelishtim

The Pelishtim descended from their patriarch Pelish; they were a sea-going people who inhabited the Mediterranean coast long before the Israelites straggled in, and were not likely Arabs (though it’s not impossible). Nonetheless, the Arabs living there in the later time of Jesus came to be called Palestinians by the Romans, and they accepted the name. Recall that both Abraham and Isaac made permanent friendship treaties with Pelishti (Philistine) kings (Genesis 21:21-34 & 26:23-31) – centuries later the Israelites continually tried to steal their land and warred against them.



2. What were Palestine’s borders?

That’s a galling question considering Israel has never declared its border, and in arrogance has changed it constantly since the very first proposal was offered by the Occupying British Empire.

The Roman borders of newly-named Palestine were political borders, set up and tended by the Roman rulers of course, just as the borders of Judea were. And every other occupying power has decided Palestine’s borders too. Learn a bit of history. Palestine has always been occupied by larger empires: Hittite, Egyptian, Philistine, Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek (all pre-Roman) in ancient times; and the pattern continues to this day. The reason? Because it’s always been one of the most important series of ports and trading routes for the world – the gateway between East and West. It’s a major intersection. And it has always been occupied by super-powers who wanted to control the trade and collect all taxes. Just like today.

Note that modern Zionists do not recognize the ancient place defined by the Roman Empire, but expect us to recognize a new place defined a few decades ago by the British ex-Empire, who the new Israelis immediately drove out after they got their country. British troops were stationed there to quell violence – but the Israelis wanted violence, so they went to war with the British, blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where the British troops stayed, and hung two British officers, which apparently convinced the British to leave. From there, Israel went on to expel 700,000 Arabs from their homes, and they bulldozed entire villages into dust (which they continue to do). This is documented in Dayan’s autobiography and in many quotes by various leaders of modern Israel.

People still living today, who resided in Palestine pre-1948, say the Arabs and Jews lived in harmony until the Zionist Ashkenazis arrived. Since then, there has been non-stop war.

For Israelis to pretend that Palestine never existed, and that Palestinians invented themselves merely to stop the Jews and take back something from the Jews is an incredible double standard coming from white-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed Europeans who suddenly decided that this land of a brown-skinned indigenous people is theirs, and who came to take it with guns.


"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu’a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
– Moshe Dayan addressing the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) in Haifa – Ha’aretz, April 4 1969"


4. What were Palestine’s major cities?

ncredibly foolish questions. Palestine’s cities are so old they are listed in the Bible, and they were already there when the Israelites invaded. Those cities still bear those names today. Ashdod, Ekron, Beer-sheba, Shechem, Ashkelon, Rehoboth, Beth-El (House of El, god of the Canaanites), and lots more.

How about: Kiryat-Arba — changed to Hebron by ancient Israelites, while a neighboring town now preserves the older name. Some modern Jews know Hebron is the true ancient Kiryat-Arba and insist it is theirs


5. Name at least one Palestinian “leader” before Arafat.

Just because modern Zionists pretend a people never existed and refuse to acknowledge them, doesn’t mean it’s the case. In the Arab world there are local kings, sheikhs. Many local leaders have lived, ruled, died. The ancient Israelites noted the sheikhs of many Arab peoples (Genesis 36 etc).

Who are the Jewish leaders during the diaspora? Where’s the list? Who of world Jewry speaks for all the Jews? No one ever. Can you think of any time in the last 2,000 years when all the Jews of the world followed a single leader? Lots of Jewish leaders claim to speak for all Jews, but no one ever has. Therefore, by the questioner’s reasoning, there has never really been a Jewish people, because they never had a single leader over all of them. Even today, the leader of Jerusalem has no influence on the average Jew around the world. And leading rabbis only speak for the Jews who agree with their particular reading of the Torah.

Jews in North America choose their own agendas — some include Israel some don’t. Jews never got organized until the 20th Century, and they have yet to follow one single leader. Schneerson? Rahm Emanuel? Goldman-Sachs? Name at least one leader of all the Jews ever. King David? Nope. Not even him. Read the Bible stories. David ignored the Northern tribes and paid all attention to the tribes of Judah and Levi. This caused unrest which his son was able to use when he challenged his father for the throne. Even David didn’t care about, or represent, all the Israelites.

Israel doesn’t recognize any Palestinian leaders because it pretends they don’t exist. Flying overhead in a helicopter to bomb a religious leader in a wheelchair (Sheikh Ahmed Yassin) would seem to indicate that Israel saw the man as a very real threat — a Palestinian leader who could influence vast numbers of people. Why else would Israel so desperately need to get rid of him?

Israel regularly kills and kidnaps Palestinian leaders and holds them in prisons indefinitely without charges. Just because they make Palestinian leaders disappear doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

(google Israel + Palestine + “arrest raid” – there have been countless of them)
Israel is running a smoke and mirrors show, and this questionnaire only contributes to the destruction of history.


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this is a very big webpage - read it all INCLUDING CITATIONS here :

Something that the media doesn't report is that a lot of Palestinians aren't Muslim. There are Christian Palestinians. I imagine a lot are from the Orthodox sects and are the original Christians. Also, there must be atheist Palestinians too.

As the signs sometimes say, Palestine isn't a religion. It's a nation.

When Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone:

United States -- Muslim 1.0%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1%-2%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%
At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:
Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.
They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law.

France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- Muslim 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

When Muslims reach 10% of the population, they will increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions ( Paris -- car-burnings). Any non-Muslim action that offends Islam will result in uprisings and threats

( Amsterdam -- Mohammed cartoons).
Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 10-15%

After reaching 20% expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings and church and synagogue burning:
Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40% you will find widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare:
Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60% you may expect unfettered persecution of non-believers and other religions, sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels:

Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80% expect State run ethnic cleansing and genocide:
Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of "Dar-es-Salaam"-- the Islamic House of Peace -- there's supposed to be peace because everybody is a Muslim:
Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 99.9%
Of course, that's not the case. To satisfy their blood lust, Muslims then start killing each other for a variety of reasons.
"Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel." -- Leon Uris, "The Haj"
It is good to remember that in many, many countries, such as France , the Muslim populations are centered around ghettos based on their ethnicity. Muslims do not integrate into the community at large. Therefore, they exercise more power than their national average would indicate.
Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots.

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948465/

This 50-minute documentary analyzes the way Arabs have been shown in Hollywod films, from the black-and-white classics to recent films like Syriana. The film, narrated by Jack Shaheen, consists of virtually non-stop clips from American films, organized by topic, including "Myths of Arabland," "the Arab Threat," "Terror, Inc.," "The Only Good Arab," "Islamophobia," and "Getting Real." The thesis of the film is that Hollywood has perpetuated stereotypes of Arabs as violent, greedy, and oversexed, stereotypes that would not be tolerated of other groups such as Blacks and Jews.



Hindus Burn Christians Alive, Etc., By Dr. Peter Hammond, born in Capetown, apartheid south africa

sourcewatch: saveamericafoundation

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2010/08/9349/beware-constitutional-convention


An organization called the "Save America Foundation" is putting on conferences around the country

Investigation reveals that these so-called "Constitutional Conventions" are part of a wave of hysterical fear and scapegoating currently sweeping the country


Glenn Beck Redux

The Save America Foundation's web site lists nine principles and twelve values for which the Foundation stands. They are exactly the same nine principles and twelve values that conservative Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck put forth in his 9/12 Project. Thus, the Save America Foundation is, at its core, an extension of Glenn Beck's project. 9-12 Project

Fear Inducing, Apocalyptic Speakers

The speakers and organizations scheduled to appear at the first "Constitutional Convention" event to be held in Grand Junction, Colorado on August 28 have similarly apocalyptic, and sometimes racist, overtones.

The headline speaker at the convention is Tom Tancredo, the former Colorado congressman who claimed Obama won the presidency because we "don't require a literacy test before people can vote." In explaining his opposition to Sonia Sotomayor, Tancredo called the hispanic civil rights and advocacy group La Raza "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses."

Another listed speaker is Marita Noon, executive director of the Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE), a fossil fuel advocacy group funded by New Mexico oil and gas interests that flatly opposes the pursuit of "green," or sustainable energy development. CARE claims that the pursuit of solar and wind power "will end the America we know and love." The group refers to sustainable energy advocates as "Gang Green," and its Web site contains a quote by Fred L. Smith, Jr., president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute


Wacky Theorists

Tinfoil hat chemtrailsAnother speaker expected at the Grand Junction "Constitutional Convention" is Paul St. John, whose claim to fame is organizing the "Chemtrails Truth and Awareness Movement." Adherents to this movement believe that the condensation trails ("contrails") that jet airplanes leave behind in the sky contain heinous chemical and biological agents that the government is deliberately spraying onto people for purposes ranging from population control to "global dimming" to biological warfare against the country's own citizens. This bizarre "chemtrail conspiracy theory" has been around for years. It has been repeatedly debunked by scientists and governments around the world, and is standard fare on wacky, late-night AM radio talks shows that also discuss things like UFOs, channeling the dead and the coming of the anti-Christ.

The conference is being sponsored locally in part by the Western Slope Conservative Alliance, the right-wing, western Colorado group that worked with Americans for Prosperity


Americans for Prosperity



This article is part of the Center for Media & Democracy's spotlight on front groups and corporate spin.

Americans for Prosperity is a right-wing political advocacy group founded by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, the owners of Koch Industries. In the 2012 election cycle, it was a key component of the Kochs' $400 million political network..

Debari is just pushing the old Muslims as sub human untermenschen crap made famous by the NAZIs to rationalize the Zionist's blood soaked war of conquest.

What is it like to out yourself as sharing the morals of NAZIs?

There is nothing that any or all Muslims can do or say that will make the Zionist's chosen murderous theft of the Palestinian's homeland anything other than a vile offense, or make the Democrap and Republitrash support of Zionism anything other than a vile offense. It really is just that simple. The rationalizations just showcase your own prejudiced views.

the post from "Debari" has been cut-and-pasted since at least 2008
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30675

which is why I said 'is this the best megaphone can do?'

and called 'her' a hasbara troll

notice also that whenever this hasbara shit is posted that the troll always uses a different pseudonym for each different pasted piece - that's what megaphone operatives are instructed to do.. I've read, and posted their 'manuals' on here before, so you can read for yourself exactly what their tactics & goals are.

the 'ol "Muslims are scarrry!" routine is to distract you from the current genocide they're commiting in illegally occupied Palestine.

it's considered an oldie but goodie, to be re-used each time they attack yet another civilian population using our military weapons and tax dollars, while they steal all their oil and water from the surrounding nations, and export our own stolen technology while bragging about it. the only export they can really call their own is propaganda

professional liars and very little else

Smearing a Progressive Website to Support Israel

Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. But on Common Dreams these posts have been so frequent and intense they have driven away donors from a nonprofit dependent on reader generosity.

A Common Dreams investigation has discovered that more than a thousand of these damaging comments over the past two years were written with a deceptive purpose by a Jewish Harvard graduate in his thirties who was irritated by the website's discussion of issues involving Israel.

His intricate campaign, which he has admitted to Common Dreams, included posting comments by a screen name, "JewishProgressive," whose purpose was to draw attention to and denounce the anti-Semitic comments that he had written under many other screen names.

The deception was many-layered. At one point he had one of his characters charge that the anti-Semitic comments and the criticism of the anti-Semitic comments must be written by "internet trolls who have been known to impersonate anti-Semites in order to then double-back and accuse others of supporting anti-Semitism"--exactly what he was doing. (Trolls are posters who foment discord.)

The impersonation, this character wrote, must be part of an "elaborate Hasbara setup," referring to an Israeli international public-relations campaign. When Common Dreams finally confronted the man behind the deceptive posting, he denied that he himself was involved with Hasbara.

His posting on Common Dreams illustrates the susceptibility of website comment threads to massive manipulation. As another illustration, he even audaciously tricked the white-supremacist Vanguard News Network, posing as "DeShawn S. Williams," a "Pro-White/Black, anti-jew."

On Vanguard, where this African-American persona posted more than 1,400 times, he encouraged the malevolence of Frazier Glenn Miller, the neo-Nazi accused of killing three people whom he believed were Jews outside a Jewish community center and retirement home in Kansas in April. The character Williams was engaged in a comment thread more than 200 times with Miller, whose screen name was Rounder.

In a Vanguard post under the Williams screen name the commenter asked rhetorically, "Are left wing folks finally waking up to the jew?" He then referred the Vanguard online community to a thread of anti-Semitic comments on Common Dreams--most of which he had written himself under several screen names.

A typical DeShawn Williams comment might include: "Israel is a stain on the world that needs to be expunged once and for all." Or: "The jews are the most racist people on earth. Just look at their Talmud. They consider the 'goyim' (non-jews) to be cattle whose only purpose on earth is to serve them."

But on Common Dreams, DeShawn S. Williams was only one among dozens of screen-name characters this poster created. They seemed to be in competition to revile Jews. Here's how "HamBaconEggs," the site's most prolific anti-Semitic persona, began a conversation last October:


A few posts later the HamBaconEggs character was taken to task for his hatred of Jews by the JewishProgressive character, who responded to another (sincere) poster who had pointed out the anti-Semitism :


JewishProgressive frequently followed HamBaconEggs with an expression of disgust. Here's an exchange begun at 11:57 a.m. on January 14:

HamBaconEggs: ". . . There are reasons beyond mere 'anti-Semitism' why these people were kicked out of 109 countries. You don't elicit that degree of anger and hostility from host populations without significantly contributing to the problem through your antisocial, predatory behavior."

JewishProgressive replied 12 minutes later: "You are singlehandedly the most vicious Jew-hater I have ever encountered among those professing to be 'progressives.' Do you actually post about anything on CD other than 'the jews,' or is that your sole agenda? No true progressive could be so unrelentingly malicious against an entire group of people the way you are."

At 2:49 p.m., HamBaconEggs responded:

"Oy vey! Cry me a river, you Talmudic parasite. Direct your criticism at your sociopathic tribe of money-grubbers, warmongers, and land thieves."

When Common Dreams examined hundreds of posts in this ugly charade, the aim appeared clear-cut: to cast a deep shadow on, and drive support from, one of the largest and oldest progressive-news websites.

The man who was the source of the charade, however, claimed he didn't want to hurt Common Dreams.
Detection

It was during their daily efforts to block objectionable commenters from using the site that the Common Dreams staff got an inkling that significant manipulation was going on.

The website's executive director, Craig Brown, was personally appalled at the anti-Semitic comments--and had a financial motivation to block these commenters. One generous funder had told him, he said, referring to the stream of anti-Semitism, "I gave you five thousand dollars last year, but I'm not doing it again."

"We've had hundreds of donors say similar things," Brown added. "People are right to be offended by the anti-Semitism, and it has a serious impact on our reputation and our fundraising." But when Common Dreams tried to block DeShawn, HamBaconEggs, et al, they kept coming back.

DISQUS, the comment-hosting system used by Common Dreams and many other websites, makes commenter Internet Protocol addresses visible to a website's moderators. The Internet Protocol address is a unique number the internet assigns to every computer or, in some cases, a set of computers in an office. An IP address looks like "99.88.77.666." (If you want to see your IP address, Google: "What is my IP address?")

One day when Brown was looking at the IP address of an offensive commenter he noticed that commenters using other screen name had the same IP address. "We eventually found," he said, "that many, many different comments were coming from a very few IP addresses."

Next, Brown plugged the IP numbers into one of the specialized search websites--cqcounter.com/whois/--that give a non-numerical "name" of a computer and the name and location of the company, government agency, university, or other institution providing internet service to that computer. Many of the IP addresses turned out to be camouflaged by being sent through internet "proxy," IP-address-hiding services, such as ZenMate.com. Those IPs led only to the proxy websites.

But sometimes the IPs didn't lead to proxies. Sometimes--presumably when the poster just didn't take the time to go through a proxy--they led to an internet-service provider in a Midwestern city or to a university campus in that same city. That's how Common Dreams determined that one major, constant stream of anti-Semitic posts--as well as posts condemning the anti-Semitism--came from a few, close-in-proximity computers.

Then a big mistake was discovered. Comments under the screen name HamBaconEggs and a few others had occasionally been posted from an IP address with a name that included a personal email address and a university domain name. Email addresses are often part of the user names given to students and faculty by a university to enable them to access the institution's computer network.

A few minutes on Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn led Common Dreams to the owner of the email address, a graduate student at the Midwestern campus. The student also had made the same mistake by using a university computer that had the name of his tiny academic unit.

Let's call the student Jason Beck. Common Dreams is not revealing his identity because, as a Jew who for years tricked Vanguard News Network, a major neo-Nazi website that has harbored people committed to violence, he could be put in danger by such a revelation.


Confession

Beck nervously denied everything and hung up when he answered a phone call from this reporter, who then informed him by email that "soon" university officials would be told about what he was doing, including his use of a university computer for his posts. The email listed a few of his online aliases.

Minutes later, Beck replied by email with an apology to Common Dreams, which he continued in subsequent emails and phone interviews.

Beck said he got involved in an "ill-advised intellectual exercise," using "extremely poor judgment," that became a "psychological obsession," a kind of "tic." It was a particular "error in judgment" to use the university's computers. His aim, he claimed in one email, was "to gauge how pervasive anti-Semitism really was on websites like CD."

("I wish I could give you a clear explanation of the psychology," he added, about his considerable posting on Vanguard News Network. Despite his inflammatory comments there, he claimed he "consistently condemned any sort of violence." In a recent Vanguard post, he had written: "First of all, killing people for no reason, even if they're jews, is immoral under ANY circumstances.")

HamBaconEggsBut his "psychological obsession" explanations about his Common Dreams postings were inconsistent with another explanation he had made in his initial confessional email and in an interview. He had admitted that he had begun commenting on Common Dreams and other sites because "I became frustrated some time ago with what I perceived to be the blurring of criticism [of] Israel and anti-Semitism"on these sites.

Indeed, most of Beck's comments on Common Dreams followed stories critical of Israel. For a long time progressives in the United States and abroad have strongly criticized--including on Common Dreams--Israel's treatment of Palestinians and what progressives see as the American government's no-matter-what support of Israel. In return, many Israelis and American Jewish organizations have expressed concern about left-wing criticism.

Also putting in doubt Beck's "obsession" explanations were the references that his characters made in multiple postings to Hasbara, the effort by the Israeli government and private groups to generate a positive image of Israel--and attack detractors--internationally. These references looked like a toying with his deception, revealing it while not revealing it. But Beck insisted his was totally a lone-wolf operation.

In his statements to Common Dreams, Beck repeatedly used formal, limit-your-expression-of-guilt words like "ill-advised" and "personal indiscretion." In one email, he wrote: "The experience of having my personal identity traced down has certainly deterred me from continuing to engage in this sort of posting." He didn't use many words suggesting that what he did was unethical.

The professor in charge of his academic unit, who said he was "devastated" to hear what his student had done, described him as "the sweetest guy you can imagine."

Craig Brown had another perspective: "Playing games with anonymous internet identities is juvenile. Massive, hateful, damaging fraud is outrageous."
Going Rogue?

This Hasbara that Beck's characters brought up and that he denied being involved with--what is it? Numerous other commenters on Common Dreams and other news websites refer to Hasbara.

The word means "explanation" in Hebrew, and it's somewhat synonymous with "p.r." It's used to mean the Israeli government's specific public-relations efforts to influence opinion across the globe through news and social media, but the word also has come to encompass a slew of private efforts to help generate good publicity for Israel and to defend it from, and attack, critics.

To put Hasbara in perspective, Israel is hardly alone in using news and social media to try to influence foreign opinion. The United States calls it "public diplomacy." Those are polite words--like Hasbara--for propaganda. China's 50 Cent Party online commenters are perhaps the most notorious internet propagandists because they work openly on the domestic population.

Jewish and evangelical-Christian groups and other organizations outside Israel have long promoted Israel's interests--some by attacking what they perceive as bias in newspapers and on television and radio. In the U.S., the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), founded in 1982 (with a newer offshoot, CAMERA on Campus), has aggressively pushed pro-Israel narratives in American news media.

Israeli-government-promoted internet activism--reactive and proactive--is a newer effort. News reports show it was ramped up in recent years, in step with other governments, including the U.S. government. Some civilian Israelis apparently are paid by the government to work the internet. The Associated Press reported from Jerusalem last year that the government was "looking to hire university students to post pro-Israel messages on social media networks."

But internet activism--by the nature of the medium--cannot be controlled by any government.

"Today many supporters of Israel worldwide are becoming digital ambassadors," Neil Lazarus, a prominent Israeli public-relations consultant to the government, wrote in the Times of Israel in 2012. "The internet is transforming the battle lines of Israel's public relations war. . . . As Hasbara becomes a grass-roots movement, the very essence of the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry is being transformed."

Lazarus, in fact, has teamed up with the pro-Israel website HonestReporting.com to train "digital ambassadors" globally to promote Israel's interests online. The website claims 3,000 such ambassadors, a number Lazarus confirmed in a phone conversation with Common Dreams from Israel.

American and European left-wing news sites--in particular their comment threads--have long been a special headache for many Israelis. In a 2010 paper, "Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism in Progressive U.S. Blogs/News," Israeli writer Adam Levick claimed that "Israel is demonized" on progressive sites. Levick is managing editor of CIF Watch: "monitoring and combating antisemitism, and the assault on Israel's legitimacy, at [the news website of] the Guardian and its blog, 'Comment Is Free.'"

On progressive sites, "Jew-hatred, in both its classic and anti-Israeli forms, manifests itself," Levick wrote. The anonymity of bloggers and commenters, he added, provides "moral impunity." His paper was published online by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a think tank.

Within the U.S., pro-Israel internet promotion isn't a secret. Andrea Levin, executive director of Boston-based CAMERA, the watchdog over the American news media, told Common Dreams that her group encouraged people to post "talk-backs" in internet forums, but to be always "factual and courteous."

So where did Beck's campaign fit into this picture? It was far from the factual and courteous discourse that CAMERA claims to promote. It was a brutal, destructive lie. Levin felt the kind of thing Beck did was rare--observing, however, that the internet "can really leverage . . . craziness in a big way."

Similarly, the media-relations director at the Anti-Defamation League in New York, Todd Gutnick, dismissed Beck-type internet commenting: "Any idiot with a computer can do something like this." In the Internet Age, Beck's kind of campaign seems to many people to be unavoidable.

What he did had no connection with Israel, Gutnick asserted. But Beck's campaign had a connection with Israel--just a different one than the state-sanctioned connection Gutnick meant.

There's no evidence that any Israeli official or pro-Israel organization encouraged Beck’s actions, which in his own word were "stupid." They also were highly risky, as he discovered. And his posting on Vanguard can't easily be explained by invoking Hasbara.

Beck was likely involved in his own personal beyond-Hasbara campaign. In the Internet Age it's easy for anybody to develop his or her own way of trying to do propaganda for any country--with, sometimes, very destructive results.

Israel has encouraged its supporters--and not just Jews--to speak out on its behalf in many media, including the internet. But Neil Lazarus in his 2012 article may have pointed his finger at a lesson that could be drawn from Beck's campaign: "The downside to digital diplomacy is that Israel is losing control over a centralized message."

Surely, Beck's campaign has in the end demonstrated a downside to "digital diplomacy"--and a lesson not just for Israel. Beck went far beyond diplomacy into counterproductive digital warfare. Beck may have shown the future, unless defenses are mounted. As the ADL's Todd Gutnick said, "Any idiot with a computer can do something like this." But Beck is highly intelligent--at least in some ways. Think what a team of Becks could do.

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the 'liberated' emails from HBGary and Stratfor show this is happening on a wide scale. Remember how I said these 'progressive' websites while chasing donations, are always only on the cusp of discovery of issues like this.

- the above article bears both of my points out - that chasing money keeps them meek and compliant, and their actual job as left gatekeepers is to always be way behind current events and ignore the real issues.

One troll isn't the issue - it's that it's happening on a wide scale and the government - using our tax dollars - is deploying the services of companies like HBGary, and dozens of similar companies and PR firms, including SAIC and other war contractors, working for the pentagon.

I've done a thorough expose' on all of them including airing my findings on community affairs.

Common dreams only dox'ed a single sloppy hasbara agent operation on the front lines - what I've uncovered is that these people infest all levels of government and get the bulk of our tax dollars thrown away on the department of fatherland INsecurity, who's real job is to create boogie men, to sell brand fear, and provide 'solutions' for problems they themselves create.

our foreign policy is completely saturated with this - so we can keep on invading & occupying small defenceless nations to steal their natural resources at the behest of corporate criminals and billionaire's investment portfolios.

THIS is what the liberated emails that 'progressive' websites refuse to touch, contain - all the gory details, while the diplomatic cables liberated by wikileaks, show the overseas part of the operation.