Obama (and Big Media) Turn Blind Eye to Israeli Apartheid
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
by BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon
Israel is now an apartheid state, according to the publisher of Ha'aretz, that country's largest circulation daily newspaper. The occasion was the recent renewal of Israeli citizenship laws which refuse to recognize marriages and families among most of the Arabs living in that country. How can Barack Obama, himself the son of an American mixed marriage remain an apparently uncritical supporter of Israeli apartheid, and why does corporate media continue to pursue a longstanding "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward the odious policies of racial and ethnic discrimination in Israel?
Obama (and Big Media) Turn Blind Eye to Israeli Apartheid
by BAR managing Editor Bruce Dixon
The presidential campaigns of Democrats and Republicans are no more about placing issues before the US public than competing commercials for new cars or bottled water are about the facts. Brought to us by the same corporate marketers that sell us lifestyles and beer, mainstream presidential campaigns aim to establish and exploit visceral, fact-proof loyalties to the brand of a party or candidate. The fact-proof nature of the Obama brand, and the lengths corporate media go to protect it were on prominent display during the candidate's brief visit to Israel Palestine this week.
Barack Obama's smiling brown face and Kansas-Kenya parentage are key elements in the Obama brand, that hazy image of progressive, post-racial transformation at home and abroad which lie at the heart of his appeal. At the same time, Barack Obama is committed to preserving what he calls Israel's “identity as a Jewish state”, the polite term for what much of the rest of the world recognizes as an apartheid state.
A June 29 editorial by no less a member of the Israeli
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