The corporate media has trumpeted
a Palestine-Israel peace conference in Annapolis
That this claim is being taken seriously
is another remarkable proof that,
in this bought-and-paid-for corporate
capitalist society, journalism is doornail-dead
Abbas: A Lackey for Bush & Olmert
Radical Islam slammed the Annapolis meeting
saying it was seeking to annihilate Palestine
and establish "the larger Jewish state”
Ismail Rıdvan, a Hamas representative said:
“The conference will not serve any of
the interests of the Palestinians
The gathering in Annapolis is being organized
only to support Zionist Israel”
Radical Islam said that the meeting in Annapolis served
as a disguised discussion of “the invasion of Iran”
Corporate Media Spin [Original]
The corporate media is abuzz with the notion that there was a Palestine-Israel peace conference in Annapolis.
That this claim is being taken seriously six years into the Bush Regime is another remarkable proof that, in this bought-and-paid-for corporate capitalist society, journalism is doornail-dead.
Read this excerpt from the Mother of All Corporate Media, Time magazine [in partnership with CNN!]. The headline inadvertently spills the beans on the real motive behind the laughably-named 'peace conference' - Can Iran and Hamas Sink Annapolis?:As would-be peacemakers bask in the international limelight of the Annapolis conference, back in the Middle East two other parties are serving up notice that no deal will come to pass, if they can help it: Iran and its Palestinian ally, Hamas.Fair and balanced reporting, eh?
"The Annapolis conference was already a failure," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told journalists after a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.
The U.S. could sponsor a hundred such meetings, he added, and the result would be the same.
In Gaza, which is effectively ruled by the fundamentalist Hamas group, anti-Annapolis protesters filled the streets.
"They can go to thousands of conferences and we will say in the name of the Palestinian people that we do not accept," Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told the demonstrators.
The warnings are not to be taken lightly, if history is anything to go by: Iran and Hamas have played a spoiler role in the past, and they could well do so again.
In 2000, the once-promising Oslo Accords signed at the White House in 1993 collapsed.
The blame was put on a failed attempt to negotiate a final historic peace deal at Camp David, which resulted in a new Palestinian uprising and fierce Israeli counter attack.
But the peace process was effectively derailed three years earlier by Iran and two groups to which it supplies political, diplomatic, financial and military support.
In 1996, Hamas launched its first major wave of suicide bombings in Israel. At the same time, the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hizballah escalated attacks on Israel.
The violence helped defeat then Prime Minister Shimon Peres, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the Oslo Accords, giving victory to hard-liner Benjamin Netanyhu, a staunch opponent, like Iran and Hamas, of that peace deal.
Since then, Iran, Hamas and Hizballah have grown even stronger.
Iran's strategic position became stronger with the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq, and its pursuit of a nuclear program that has the potential of being diverted into building an atomic weapon.
Capitalizing on the failure of the Fatah party of Yasser Arafat to deliver a Palestinian state in negotiations, Hamas triumphed in parliamentary elections last year.
Despite being under severe pressure from Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the international community, Hamas recently seized military control of Gaza and continues to hold an Israeli soldier it captured in 2006.
For its part, Hizballah not only drove Israeli forces out of Lebanon after a 22-year occupation, but was hailed in the Arab world last year for resisting a massive Israeli incursion into Lebanon.
That onslaught was triggered by Hizballah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, and Israel's failure to crush Hizballah or even win the release of its men severely damaged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's political standing.
One way to defeat the spoilers this time is to ignore any violence they sponsor and persevere toward the goal of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement.
Such an approach has merit, given that a majority of Israelis and Arabs desire peace and thus opponents could be scorned for prolonging misery and hopelessness.
The real truth, as reported (as a low-paragraph aside, of course) in a late-night thought piece posted on the New York Times website on November 26:
"Privately, officials also express confidence that the Arab world might finally get behind the effort out of fear of Iran's rising influence in the region."
In other words, the real design behind this charade is to see whether fear of Iran's rising prestige in the Middle East might convince the rape-victim-whipping Saudi "royal" family to coerce Mahmoud Abbas into finally caving in completely.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to attend the Annapolis conference is being hailed, as a great breakthrough for the Bush Regime while at the same time the Israeli regime of Ehud Olmert is barely able to suppress its ecstasy.
The Saudis have opted to offer Palestine on a tray to the apartheid state of Israel. More importantly, the illegitimate colonial settler state gains recognition beyond the borders of Egypt and Jordan now that the Saudi regime agrees join the clowns at Annapolis.
To those who ask whether the Arab client-states of the US possess any self-respect and dignity, it goes without saying that their lackey status does not confer on them the right to any dignity.
And in any case, since they are in alliance with America’s discredited “War on Terror”, they are able to brutally suppress dissension within their respective populations.
Saudi Arabia’s “bravery” to formally accord acceptance of Israel’s existence is a foolish risk that may blow up in King Abdullah’s face.
As the days leading up to Annapolis are being counted, and as each successive day reveals how minute the Jewish state’s “sacrifice” is likely to be; the House of Saud would be better advised to ponder on the morning after Annapolis.
Perhaps like Mahmoud Abbas and his clan of sell-outs, King Abdullah may hold the misguided view that PBush will wave a magic wand to get Israel behind the ’67 borders.
The truth is that the vast majority of Palestinians will not accept crumbs from Zionism’s table in the shape of a few disjointed Bantustans
Translating Annapolis
There is, of course, a great deal more that could be said about the Orwellian nature of the Annapolis proceedings and their "coverage" in the media.
For the moment, though, it seems to me that the most important thing is to do to the emerging propaganda stream what C. Wright Mills did to the Grand Theorists and Abstracted Empiricists in his classic, The Sociological Imagination -- namely, translate the confusion back into plain, logical language.
With this in mind, here are four of the main items needing this service so far:
1. "The United States cannot impose our vision." (George W. Bush, Monday, November 26)
Translation: We are here, once again, to impose our vision.
2. "[T]he terror and violence preached by Palestinian extremists is the greatest obstacle to a Palestinian state." (Bush, November 27)
Translation: As Adolf Hitler once remarked, these unruly Jewish bottle-throwers in Warsaw are forcing us to act as we do.
3. "For these negotiations to succeed, the Palestinians must do their part. They must show the world they understand that while the borders of a Palestinian state are important, the nature of a Palestinian state is just as important." (Bush, November 27)
4. See photo above
Translation: By not wearing a Palestine flag on my lapel, I, Mahmoud Abbas, do hereby solemnly swear to faithfully execute my role as hand-picked shill and to uphold its cardinal duty of being "responsible," which I understand to mean never asking for anything other than what I shall be offered.
Luckily, Palestinians are all too aware of the true character of the Annapolis Double-Speak Festival. Over 100,000 Gaza Strip residents are now protesting it.
Translation: You'll get what we and Israel give you, you will call it a viable state, and you will like it.
Update: At least 26 people have been injured, including one critically, during the West Bank funeral for a man killed during a protest yesterday against the Mideast peace summit.
About 5,000 people participated in the procession, which turned violent when marchers refused to stick to a pre-arranged route that had been cleared with police.
Police fired live ammunition over the heads of the procession. Protesters hurled rocks at police, who pitched the rocks back and beat people with clubs.
Three people suffered gunshot wounds and dozens were arrested.
Yesterday Palestinian police violently dispersed a series of protests throughout the West Bank using clubs, tear gas and live fire.