Baroud in Al Jazeera – The Israel Lobby vs the First Amendment

• August 15, 2017, 7:37 pm

The adage goes, “Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it.” Indeed, this is the very predicament in which the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) could soon find itself.

In its obsessive efforts to defeat the Palestinian-led boycott movement, AIPAC will soon force the revisitation of a long-dormant debate on the illegal Israeli military occupation of Palestine.

US mainstream media has long avoided an honest discussion on Israel and Palestine as if the mere acknowledgment of a Palestinian point of view, let alone Palestinian rights, is in itself a sinister act.

The more the lobby tries to defeat BDS, the more it exposes itself and its stranglehold on the American… https://t.co/Sd3NrhLaaz

— Ramzy Baroud (@RamzyBaroud) August 15, 2017

If it were not for alternative media and varied margins available in international media, the Palestinian voice would have been completely silenced, and Palestinians would merely exist as notorious “terrorist” figures standing obstacle to Israel’s supposedly Western-style democracy.

In fact, this is the very image that is constantly peddled by the Israeli government, its official propaganda (hasbara) machine and its many allies in the United States.

A large network that is purportedly motivated by its undying “love” for Israel, encompasses among its ranks powerful politicians, end-of-time religious fanatics, business interests and media moguls.

The Israel Lobby vs the First Amendment @RamzyBaroud @AJEnglish #BDS https://t.co/WEOnezdFUj pic.twitter.com/2jAODVr5RG

— ChroniquedePalestine (@palestinechronf) August 15, 2017

It is this conglomerate of individuals and the massive interests they represent that we often refer to as the “lobby”. AIPAC is the central piece in the lobby’s intricate web, which has to a large degree succeeded in tainting the oppressed Palestinian as an aggressor, and the militarily powerful Israel as a victim.

To ensure that ordinary Americans never understand that reality is entirely different from what the media reports, the Palestinian voice is habitually muffled and the Palestinian intellectual is hidden from view. For many years, the “debate” has rarely focused on Palestinian rights, but has been a one-sided Israeli diatribe about its security, future and its twisted, convenient and ever-flexible definition of anti-Semitism.

But the rise of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement posed a serious challenge to Israel’s self-tailored narrative.

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