You can better appreciate the bias of the mainstream American news media when you look closely at the issue of Israel, Iran and Nuclear weapons. No country has been more violent than Israel and yet Israel wants you to look closely at Iran. And while Israel wants the world to closely scrutinize Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Israel doesn’t want the world to examine the reality of their own nuclear weapons of mass destruction campaign.
By Ray Hanania
Nuclear weapons (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s kind of an inside American joke that Israel continues to criticize Iran allegedly for trying to build a nuclear program while Israel itself has one of the largest caches of nuclear weapons of mass destruction in the entire Middle East and Asia.
It’s a part of the hypocrisy of the anti-Arab mainstream American news media which closes its eyes to Israel’s terrorism, ethical lapses and moral contradictions, and yet produces a never ending stream of anti-Iranian rhetoric based on Israeli-driven suppositions regarding Iran’s alleged desire to obtain one nuclear bomb.
Some argue that Iran with one nuclear bomb is worse than Israel with 300 nuclear bombs, but if you ask the people who have been brutalized by Israeli hegemony and militarism over the years, Israel is clearly the bigger threat.
That’s why it is so satisfying to learn — not from the biased mainstream American news media, of course — from the foreign news media, that the United States has finally released a 386-page report on Israel’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and Israel’s weapons of mass destruction that was declassified in 1980 but kept secret because of Israeli protests.
Israel knows that everyone knows it has nuclear weapons, but Israel is the master of public relations and spin. They know that if you keep an issue out of the news media — and Israel gets a lot of help with that from the anti-Arab biased mainstream American news media — then the issue is irrelevant.
Next week, warmonger Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been denounced as a war criminal by international human rights organizations, will address a special meeting of the United States Congress organized by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Israel and Netanyahu sidestepped the President of the United States, Barack Obama in convening the special meeting as a slap in the face of the American public. Obama was not consulted on the invite and it is intended to first and foremost strengthen Netanyahu’s re-election political campaign by exaggerating the Iranian threat.
English: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli politician (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Netanyahu will demand that the United States attack Iran and destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, even though it is somewhat of a political exaggeration created by Israel that Iran even has a nuclear program. Like every nation int he world, Iran wants nuclear power to replace costly energy resources.
So it’s ironic that as he prepares to assault the American people through their elected representatives in Washington D.C., the Obama White House has decided to remind the world by releasing the 386-page report that Israel is the ONLY nation in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons that are a threat to all of Israel’s surrounding countries.
Colleague Eileen Fleming has written extensively on the issue of nuclear weapons and whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu who exposed Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program. Click here to read Eileen’s reports.
Doesn’t it bother anyone that Israel would so easily lie about its own nuclear weapons and exaggerate the nuclear capabilities of a country that — gasp! — dares to criticize Israel’s egregious violations of human rights against Christians and Muslims?
One reason why Israel has been so brutal in punishing Vanunu, who was released from prison but remains basically under house arrest is that Vanunu converted from Judaism to Christianity. And Israelis love to complain about how Muslims oppose those who convert to Christianity!
Everything about Netanyahu smacks of lies. From his reasons for addressing the unofficial joint session of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, to his government’s efforts to hide Israel’s own nuclear weapons program, the world is slowly seeing Israel for what it really is. A brutal regime that is as bad or worse than the nation’s it constantly criticizes, like Iran.
While Israel complains that Iran violates human rights, the truth is that Israel violates human rights even more.
Mordechai Vanunu (Hebrew: מרדכי ואנונו, born in Marrakech, Morocco on 14 October 1954) is an Israeli former nuclear technician who revealed details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. (Photo credit: Eileen Fleming)
While Israel complains that Iran is a military threat to the region, it is only Israel’s military that has been attacking civilian and government targets beyond its borders in neighboring Arab states. And it has only been Israel that has initiated violent attacks against Iran, not the other way around.
While Israel claims Iran is extremist, the truth is that Israel’s government is the most extremist government in the Middle East and openly and unashamedly opposes peace based on land compromise with the Palestinians.
Israel’s government and Benjamin Netanyahu are the real terrorist threats in the Middle East. And Netanyahu is using Iran to incite fear and loathing in the minds of mainstream Israelis, just as Netanyahu has convinced Israelis that “peace means war” and “war means peace.” Israeli voters are being herded to his side through bullying, lies and fear mongering and attacking Iran is a part of Netanyahu’s strategy to win re-election.
But, if the Israeli people were to reject Netanyahu and turn away from the rising extremism and violence that is dominating their society, and reject the terrorist settler movement in exchange for real peace, the Arab World would openly recognize Israel and peace could be achieved.
But Israeli fanatics are the worst. They hide behind the anti-Arab biased mainstream American news media and instead assert that they want peace by brutalizing and oppressing Christians and Muslims, and by keeping the American people in a mental headlock leverage by threats of being denounced as “anti-Semites.”
Israel doesn’t want peace because it believes it doesn’t need peace to dominate the Middle East. Once Israel annexes all of the Occupied West Bank, as it is slowly doing, the next frontier will be the annexation and conquest of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
That’s Israel’s agenda. And they are using Iran as the “boogieman” to incite fear and hatred among Israelis and the uneducated and easily manipulated American public to achieve its goals.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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