veteranstoday--2020-06-17--Five Women Veterans Who Deserve to Have Army Bases Named After Them

Should the U.S. military remove the names of Confederate generals from its Army bases in the South ?
The longstanding debate was recently revived by demonstrations against police brutality—and just as quickly quashed by President Donald Trump , who refused to consider the idea despite reports military officials were open to the move .
Among the prominent officials who voiced their interest in losing the names of generals who turned their backs on the United States were David Petraeus , a retired U.S. army general and former director of the CIA , and Robert Gates , former defense secretary under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s always puzzled me that we don ’ t have a Fort George Washington or a Fort Ulysses S. Grant or a Fort Patton or a facility named for an African-American Medal of Honor recipient , ” Gates told the New York Times .
“ I think the time has come , and we have a real opportunity here.
” An opportunity unmentioned by Gates , however , is that though ten Army installations are named after Confederates , zero are named after women .
For historian Kara Vuic , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do something about both .
“ It fits [ the Army ’ s ] goals and their own regulations to name installations after people who can be an inspiration to their fellow soldiers—heroes and distinctive individuals , ” says Vuic , a professor at Texas Christian University who studies war , gender and the U.S. military .
Though women only became full , permanent members of the U.S. Armed Forces in 1948 , they have been part of the Army since its earliest days .
Women have always served alongside American men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laundresses , nurses or spies , or even disguised as soldiers .
But it took generations for women to win the right to officially serve their country , and women waited until 2013 for acknowledgment of their right to serve in combat roles .
Today , 181,000 women serve in the Army , and women make up 18 percent of the Army and 36 percent of its civilian workforce .
The names on Army installations “ didn ’ t fall from the sky , ” says Vuic .
“ They aren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she says , they reflect a series of choices to uplift a variety of individuals—distinctive officers , engineers , even Confederate generals—choices that have yet to reflect women ’ s importance within the Army itself .
“ This is a great moment for the Army to really reckon with its own past , ” says Vuic .
“ The military is one of the most diverse institutions in our society .
Renaming bases might hold up a better standard that the Army can hold itself accountable to.
” Whether the names of Confederate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are five women with names worthy of one day gracing Army installations : Harriet Tubman is best known for helping more than 700 enslaved people gain their freedom after fleeing slavery herself .
But her tactical skills also made her a vital Army asset during the Civil War .
Born into slavery in Maryland in 1822 , Araminta Ross , who later married and changed her name , escaped in 1849 .
She would return South again and again to help other enslaved people escape and find safe passage to free states and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outset of the Civil War , Tubman began working at U.S. Army camps designed to aid escapees , but it didn ’ t take long before she became a scout and a spy .
Though she served in an unofficial capacity , she was commanded by Army officers and held her own .
Not only did Tubman provide information that proved vital to the army ’ s operations , but she went on to lead the armed assault of plantations across South Carolina ’ s Combahee River .
The Combahee Ferry Raid—the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman during the Civil War—surprised Confederate troops .
Led by Tubman , 150 Black soldiers from the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment overran Confederate plantations , and freed 700 people despite the efforts of slavers and Confederate troops to stop them .
After the war , Tubman devoted the rest of her life to helping formerly enslaved people get on their feet .
But she struggled to get recognition for the service she rendered the United States .
“ Tubman received only $ 200 for her service in the military and did not begin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that was for her husband ’ s military service , not her own , ” writes Alice George for Smithsonian .
“ Nevertheless , when she died in 1913 at about 91 , she was buried with full military honors.
” Like thousands of women who came before her , Edith Nourse Rogers went to war in an unofficial capacity , but through her own determination , became one of the Army ’ s most steadfast allies and innovators .
During World War I , the newlywed served as a field hospital inspector @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ No one could see the wounded and dying as I saw them and not be moved to do all in his or her power to help , ” she wrote later .
Rogers returned from the front dedicated to veterans ’ causes , and her nursing at Walter Reed General Hospital earned her the nickname “ the angel of Walter Reed.
” When her husband , a congressman from Massachusetts , husband died , Rogers took his seat and embarked on an 18-term career in the House of Representatives—a legislative career @ @ @ @ @ @ @ variety of laws affecting veterans and servicemembers .
She sponsored the creation of veterans ’ hospitals and got pensions for women Army nurses .
She voted for the Selective Service Act , which established the draft during World War II .
She sponsored of the GI Bill of Rights , which helped returning white veterans access education and low-interest loans , and suggested that the federal government establish a Department of Veterans Affairs .
Rogers paved the way for women to participate in the Armed Forces , too .
She remembered the plight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who had gone overseas on their own dime and were given no medical care , food , housing or disability benefits despite the essential services they rendered .
In 1941 , she proposed that the Army create a paid program in which American women could enlist and serve their country in non-combat roles .
The U.S. Army has 10 installations named after Confederate generals .
Zero are named after U.S. Military Women The Women Army Auxiliary Corps ( WAAC ) brought women into the war—and a year later , Rogers brought them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bill that created the Women ’ s Army Corps ( WAC ) and granted them military status .
Over 150,000 women served as WACs , the first to serve the Army in non-nurse roles , and the legislation set the stage for other branches of the military to admit women , too .
Though no military installation is named after Rogers , a veterans ’ hospital in Bedford , Massachusetts , bears her name .
When Charity Adams enlisted in the WAAC during World War II , her race meant she was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She did so with distinction : Not only did the psychologist and educator become the first African American woman to serve as an Army officer , but in 1944 she led the only group of Black WACs to serve overseas .
Born in North Carolina , Adams trained as a math teacher .
But when the WAAC was formed , she was intrigued by the opportunity , and her initiative and drive soon made her the highest-ranking Black woman in the U.S. military at the time .
She worked her way up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her fellow WACs , then oversaw the herculean effort to get undelivered mail to servicemen fighting in Europe .
Her unit completed its goal three months ahead of schedule , managing about 65,000 pieces of correspondence each day amidst the chaos of war .
While overseas , she defied segregation and discrimination , refusing to buckle when a white general threatened to send a white officer to run her unit in her stead and rebelling against orders to stay in segregated quarters and relax at a segregated recreation center .
Eventually , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ highest rank a woman could achieve in the WAC .
After the war , she married , worked as an educator and administrator , and became a bastion of civic service in Ohio .
Mary Clarke enlisted in the Women ’ s Army Corps just before World War II ended , so it looked like her days serving her country would be short .
But by the time she retired in 1981 , she had worked her way up from private to major general and served for 36 years—a record for a woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : She assisted with the Berlin Airlift of 1948-9 , oversaw training and eventually became the WAC ’ s final director before its dissolution in 1978 and incorporation into the U.S. Army .
“ This action today in no way detracts from the service of WACs who have been pioneers—in fact , it honors them , ” she said during the WAC ’ s disestablishment ceremony .
She called the action “ the culmination of everything the members of the Women ’ s Army Corps have been striving for for 36 years….the Army @ @ @ @ @ @ @ integration of women in the United States Army as equal partners.
” The WAC was no more , but Clarke ’ s Army career was still in high gear .
The first woman to serve as major general , she commanded the U.S. Army Military Police School and Chemical Schools and was the first woman to command a major Army installation , Fort McClellan , named in honor of the general-in-chief of the U.S. Army during the Civil War .
Lori Piestewa : First Native American Woman to Die in Combat Lori Piestewa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work her way up the Army ranks—when she died , she was a private first class .
In 2003 , her convoy was ambushed in southern Iraq and the 23-year-old soldier became both the first woman in the U.S. Armed Forces to die in the Iraq War and the first Native American woman in the Armed Forces to die in combat .
Piestewa , a member of the Hopi Tribe , was the daughter of a Vietnam veteran and the granddaughter of a World War I veteran , both of whom served in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two small children , she was deployed to Iraq as part of the 507th Maintenance Company , which provided supplies and support for combat units .
On March 23 , 2003 , the Humvee she was driving was ambushed .
“ I had a peace—this calming feeling—because I was with Lori , ” Jessica Lynch , who served alongside Piestewa , told History ’ s Adam Janos .
“ I knew that whatever we had to face , we were going to do it together .
She drove us through flying bullets .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ bullet whizzing through the window…and she remained under control.
” Moments later , Piestewa was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade , and Lynch and a fellow servicewoman , Shoshana Johnson , were taken prisoner .
In death , Piestewa was posthumously promoted to specialist and awarded a Purple Heart and a Prisoner of War Medal .
Arizona officials renamed a mountain in the Phoenix Mountains Piestewa Peak , and the Lori Piestewa National Native American Games , which brings together athletes of all ages from 72 Native American tribes , still commemorates her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ competition of its kind .
Erin Blakemore is a Boulder , Colorado-based journalist .
Her work has appeared in publications like The Washington Post , TIME , mental_floss , Popular Science and JSTOR Daily .
Learn more at erinblakemore.com .
Read more from this author | Follow @ heroinebook

…by Erin Blakemore, SmithsonsianMag.com
Should the U.S. military remove the names of Confederate generals from its Army bases in the South? The longstanding debate was recently revived by demonstrations against police brutality—and just as quickly quashed by President Donald Trump, who refused to consider the idea despite reports military officials were open to the move.
Among the prominent officials who voiced their interest in losing the names of generals who turned their backs on the United States were David Petraeus, a retired U.S. army general and former director of the CIA, and Robert Gates, former defense secretary under the Bush and Obama administrations.
“It’s always puzzled me that we don’t have a Fort George Washington or a Fort Ulysses S. Grant or a Fort Patton or a facility named for an African-American Medal of Honor recipient,” Gates told the New York Times. “I think the time has come, and we have a real opportunity here.”
An opportunity unmentioned by Gates, however, is that though ten Army installations are named after Confederates, zero are named after women.
For historian Kara Vuic, there’s no time like the present to do something about both. “It fits [the Army’s] goals and their own regulations to name installations after people who can be an inspiration to their fellow soldiers—heroes and distinctive individuals,” says Vuic, a professor at Texas Christian University who studies war, gender and the U.S. military.
Though women only became full, permanent members of the U.S. Armed Forces in 1948, they have been part of the Army since its earliest days. Women have always served alongside American men at war, whether as cooks or laundresses, nurses or spies, or even disguised as soldiers.
But it took generations for women to win the right to officially serve their country, and women waited until 2013 for acknowledgment of their right to serve in combat roles. Today, 181,000 women serve in the Army, and women make up 18 percent of the Army and 36 percent of its civilian workforce.
The names on Army installations “didn’t fall from the sky,” says Vuic. “They aren’t innate to the buildings.” Instead, she says, they reflect a series of choices to uplift a variety of individuals—distinctive officers, engineers, even Confederate generals—choices that have yet to reflect women’s importance within the Army itself.
“This is a great moment for the Army to really reckon with its own past,” says Vuic. “The military is one of the most diverse institutions in our society. Renaming bases might hold up a better standard that the Army can hold itself accountable to.”
Whether the names of Confederate generals are removed or not, here are five women with names worthy of one day gracing Army installations:
Harriet Tubman: Army Scout and Spy
Harriet Tubman is best known for helping more than 700 enslaved people gain their freedom after fleeing slavery herself. But her tactical skills also made her a vital Army asset during the Civil War.
Born into slavery in Maryland in 1822, Araminta Ross, who later married and changed her name, escaped in 1849. She would return South again and again to help other enslaved people escape and find safe passage to free states and what is now Canada.
At the outset of the Civil War, Tubman began working at U.S. Army camps designed to aid escapees, but it didn’t take long before she became a scout and a spy. Though she served in an unofficial capacity, she was commanded by Army officers and held her own.
Not only did Tubman provide information that proved vital to the army’s operations, but she went on to lead the armed assault of plantations across South Carolina’s Combahee River. The Combahee Ferry Raid—the first armed assault to be led by a woman during the Civil War—surprised Confederate troops. Led by Tubman, 150 Black soldiers from the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment overran Confederate plantations, and freed 700 people despite the efforts of slavers and Confederate troops to stop them.
After the war, Tubman devoted the rest of her life to helping formerly enslaved people get on their feet. But she struggled to get recognition for the service she rendered the United States.
“Tubman received only $200 for her service in the military and did not begin to get a pension until the 1890s—and that was for her husband’s military service, not her own,” writes Alice George for Smithsonian. “Nevertheless, when she died in 1913 at about 91, she was buried with full military honors.”
Edith Nourse Rogers: Mother of WAC
Like thousands of women who came before her, Edith Nourse Rogers went to war in an unofficial capacity, but through her own determination, became one of the Army’s most steadfast allies and innovators. During World War I, the newlywed served as a field hospital inspector and Red Cross volunteer nurse in France.
“No one could see the wounded and dying as I saw them and not be moved to do all in his or her power to help,” she wrote later. Rogers returned from the front dedicated to veterans’ causes, and her nursing at Walter Reed General Hospital earned her the nickname “the angel of Walter Reed.”
When her husband, a congressman from Massachusetts, husband died, Rogers took his seat and embarked on an 18-term career in the House of Representatives—a legislative career that would see her involvement in a variety of laws affecting veterans and servicemembers. She sponsored the creation of veterans’ hospitals and got pensions for women Army nurses.
She voted for the Selective Service Act, which established the draft during World War II. She sponsored of the GI Bill of Rights, which helped returning white veterans access education and low-interest loans, and suggested that the federal government establish a Department of Veterans Affairs.
Rogers paved the way for women to participate in the Armed Forces, too. She remembered the plight of women volunteers in World War I, who had gone overseas on their own dime and were given no medical care, food, housing or disability benefits despite the essential services they rendered. In 1941, she proposed that the Army create a paid program in which American women could enlist and serve their country in non-combat roles.
The U.S. Army has 10 installations named after Confederate generals. Zero are named after U.S. Military Women
The Women Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) brought women into the war—and a year later, Rogers brought them into the military, too, with a bill that created the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and granted them military status.
Over 150,000 women served as WACs, the first to serve the Army in non-nurse roles, and the legislation set the stage for other branches of the military to admit women, too. Though no military installation is named after Rogers, a veterans’ hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts, bears her name.
Charity Adams Earley: First African American Woman Army Officer
When Charity Adams enlisted in the WAAC during World War II, her race meant she was forced to serve in a segregated unit. She did so with distinction: Not only did the psychologist and educator become the first African American woman to serve as an Army officer, but in 1944 she led the only group of Black WACs to serve overseas.
Born in North Carolina, Adams trained as a math teacher. But when the WAAC was formed, she was intrigued by the opportunity, and her initiative and drive soon made her the highest-ranking Black woman in the U.S. military at the time. She worked her way up to an officer position supervising training of her fellow WACs, then oversaw the herculean effort to get undelivered mail to servicemen fighting in Europe.
Her unit completed its goal three months ahead of schedule, managing about 65,000 pieces of correspondence each day amidst the chaos of war. While overseas, she defied segregation and discrimination, refusing to buckle when a white general threatened to send a white officer to run her unit in her stead and rebelling against orders to stay in segregated quarters and relax at a segregated recreation center.
Eventually, she was promoted to lieutenant colonel, the highest rank a woman could achieve in the WAC. After the war, she married, worked as an educator and administrator, and became a bastion of civic service in Ohio.
Mary E. Clarke: The Army’s Longest-Serving Woman
Mary Clarke enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps just before World War II ended, so it looked like her days serving her country would be short. But by the time she retired in 1981, she had worked her way up from private to major general and served for 36 years—a record for a woman.
Clarke’s service was diverse: She assisted with the Berlin Airlift of 1948-9, oversaw training and eventually became the WAC’s final director before its dissolution in 1978 and incorporation into the U.S. Army.
“This action today in no way detracts from the service of WACs who have been pioneers—in fact, it honors them,” she said during the WAC’s disestablishment ceremony. She called the action “the culmination of everything the members of the Women’s Army Corps have been striving for for 36 years….the Army’s public commitment to the total integration of women in the United States Army as equal partners.”
The WAC was no more, but Clarke’s Army career was still in high gear. The first woman to serve as major general, she commanded the U.S. Army Military Police School and Chemical Schools and was the first woman to command a major Army installation, Fort McClellan, named in honor of the general-in-chief of the U.S. Army during the Civil War.
Lori Piestewa: First Native American Woman to Die in Combat
Lori Piestewa didn’t have a chance to work her way up the Army ranks—when she died, she was a private first class. In 2003, her convoy was ambushed in southern Iraq and the 23-year-old soldier became both the first woman in the U.S. Armed Forces to die in the Iraq War and the first Native American woman in the Armed Forces to die in combat.
Piestewa, a member of the Hopi Tribe, was the daughter of a Vietnam veteran and the granddaughter of a World War I veteran, both of whom served in the Army. The single mother of two small children, she was deployed to Iraq as part of the 507th Maintenance Company, which provided supplies and support for combat units.
On March 23, 2003, the Humvee she was driving was ambushed. “I had a peace—this calming feeling—because I was with Lori,” Jessica Lynch, who served alongside Piestewa, told History’s Adam Janos. “I knew that whatever we had to face, we were going to do it together. She drove us through flying bullets. At one point, I remember a bullet whizzing through the window…and she remained under control.” Moments later, Piestewa was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade, and Lynch and a fellow servicewoman, Shoshana Johnson, were taken prisoner.
In death, Piestewa was posthumously promoted to specialist and awarded a Purple Heart and a Prisoner of War Medal. Arizona officials renamed a mountain in the Phoenix Mountains Piestewa Peak, and the Lori Piestewa National Native American Games, which brings together athletes of all ages from 72 Native American tribes, still commemorates her each year. It is the largest competition of its kind.
Erin Blakemore is a Boulder, Colorado-based journalist. Her work has appeared in publications like The Washington Post, TIME, mental_floss, Popular Science and JSTOR Daily. Learn more at erinblakemore.com.
Read more from this author | Follow @heroinebook


veteranstoday--2020-06-17--Strange: Egyptian Air Force Intercepts Two Russian Military Cargo Planes from Syria to Haftar in Lib

Strange: Egyptian Air Force Intercepts Two Russian Military Cargo Planes from Syria to Haftar in Libya

BEIRUT , LEBANON – The Egyptian Air Force intercepted two Russian military aircraft that were en route to Libya this past weekend , Avia.Pro reported on Sunday .
“ The Egyptian military for the second time in the last 48 hours intercepted a Russian military plane flying from the Khmeimim airbase to the Libyan national army airbase in Libya , ” the publication said , pointing out that “ the reasons for the denial of the passage of Egyptian airspace by the Russian military side are still unknown , however , the last time , according to the audio recording @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on entering Egyptian airspace was associated with the lack of diplomatic permission.
” Russia , which is arguably one of the largest exporters of weapons to Egypt , has also played an imperative role in the neighboring conflict in Libya , as they have backed the Libyan National Army and their leader , Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar .
However , the two interceptions are not likely due to the Russian military ’ s support to the Libyan National Army , as Egypt itself is also a major backer of Haftar .
“ According @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aircraft received a warning about the inadmissibility of entering Egyptian airspace , after which it turned around and headed back to the Khmeimim air base , similar to what it was a few days earlier , ” Avia.Pro added .
Over the past few weeks , the Russian military has been conducting direct flights from the Khmeimim Airbase in western Syria to the LNA ’ s headquarters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi .
Some reports have even claimed that the Russian military has transported advanced military aircraft to Libya in order @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the Turkish forces and Government of National Accord .

BEIRUT, LEBANON – The Egyptian Air Force intercepted two Russian military aircraft that were en route to Libya this past weekend, Avia.Pro reported on Sunday.
“The Egyptian military for the second time in the last 48 hours intercepted a Russian military plane flying from the Khmeimim airbase to the Libyan national army airbase in Libya,” the publication said, pointing out that “the reasons for the denial of the passage of Egyptian airspace by the Russian military side are still unknown, however, the last time, according to the audio recording of the radio interception, the ban on entering Egyptian airspace was associated with the lack of diplomatic permission.”
Russia, which is arguably one of the largest exporters of weapons to Egypt, has also played an imperative role in the neighboring conflict in Libya, as they have backed the Libyan National Army and their leader, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
However, the two interceptions are not likely due to the Russian military’s support to the Libyan National Army, as Egypt itself is also a major backer of Haftar.
“According to some reports, the Russian military aircraft received a warning about the inadmissibility of entering Egyptian airspace, after which it turned around and headed back to the Khmeimim air base, similar to what it was a few days earlier,” Avia.Pro added. Over the past few weeks, the Russian military has been conducting direct flights from the Khmeimim Airbase in western Syria to the LNA’s headquarters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. Some reports have even claimed that the Russian military has transported advanced military aircraft to Libya in order to assist the LNA in their battle against the Turkish forces and Government of National Accord. It should be noted that Russia has denied sending these aircraft to Libya and the LNA spokesperson, Ahmad Al-Mismari, has denied any knowledge about such a delivery. https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/egyptian-air-force-intercepts-2-russian-military-aircraft-en-route-to-libya-report/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook


veteranstoday--2020-06-17--The Autopsy Report on the Death of the Liberal Class

A little irony , some history , and a message for the left .
After a long illness the Liberal Class faded away .
It died after decades of being morbidly dysfunctional .
It was often out of its mind with delirium , and with periods of being semi-comatose .
It had suffered from physical deterioration , mental depression and hallucinations of its former grandeur .
An autopsy was performed to determine the exact cause of death .
Political scientists wanted to examine the corpse for underlying pathologies and their progression .
The information may prove useful to future social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be saved from the tragic fate of the Old Liberal Class .
The peaceful protests against riotous police violence gives one some hope for the next generation .
Survivors of the Liberal Class are Identity Politics and Political Correctness .
The relatives were left squabbling over Liberal ’ s legacy .
The Biden faction claims that it is the sole legitimate heir .
The Sanders faction is begging for the silverware set .
The pro-maskers and anti-maskers are in an angry Twitter feud .
Identity politics , political correctness , incrementalism , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the estate .
The middle class was left with nothing but broken promises .
The working class and the poor had become estranged from the Liberal Class for many years , and were cut out of the will entirely .
The 100-year-old body of the Liberal Class had many wounds .
In its younger days it had won some milestone battles : organizing labor , the 40-hour work week , a minimum wage , women suffrage , child labor laws , Social Security , Medicare , the Civil Rights Movement , and protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few .
Battles lost were to McCarthyism , COINTELPRO , the wars on drugs and crime , mass incarceration , Latin American death squads , privatization , corporatism , and international imperialism .
In later years the Liberal Class grew fat , dull and lazy .
Fast-food , slow metabolism , consumerism , too much screen time and its decrepit age had severely weakened its immune system .
A mussy brain caused ambivalence , confusion , and senility .
The heart was broken from waiting for hope and change , which never came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up the fight .
Chris Hedges , in his book The Death of the Liberal Class , had speculated that the cause of death was gullibility .
This was a contributing factor .
Liberalism had been foolish enough to believe that it could change the political class from within the system .
It had believed that elections and voting for the lesser evil would buy it time .
The priority was always to vote for the lesser evil in THIS election , while waiting for the messiah to appear in the NEXT election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ false messiahs .
In 1976 it elected Jimmy Carter .
The 1976 election took place when the Vietnam War and Watergate were still fresh in the political mind .
The economy was in a shambles , and there was an oil crisis .
Hyper-inflation and recession were a new phenomenon called stagflation .
Liberalism hoped Carter would be the Promised One .
Carter attacked the energy crisis by calling for conservation and solar energy .
He wore a sweater and turned off the lights .
He put solar panels on the White House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a God-fearing pious man .
He talked about peace in the Middle East , and nuclear arms reduction .
In the end , Carter was undone by a feud with his own liberal political party , and he was angry with the American people whom he scolded for having a “ moral malaise ” .
A hostile mainstream media ridiculed him and made him a laughing stock .
On top of that was the Iran Hostage Crisis— Despite Carter ’ s come-to-Jesus lecturing he was defeated in the 1980 election by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pitchman for General Electric and drugstore cowboy named Ronald Reagan .
Undiagnosed at the time , Carter left the Liberal Class with a malignant tumor .
It metastasized in the twenty-first century into the War on Terror .
Carter and his National Security Advisor , the great-game aficionado Zbigniew Brzezinski armed a band of terrorists in Afghanistan .
Brzezinski later bragged that he and Carter egged the Soviet Union into a Vietnam-style war .
Revenge seemed so sweet at the time .
Instead the U.S. was later hoisted by its own petard into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Afghan war lead to the destruction of that developing nation .
Afghan women were launched back into the future of the 13th century , and the war killed over a million Afghan men , women and children .
Carter ’ s chickens hatched into the attacks on the U.S. of September 11 , 2001 .
For over forty years Afghanistan has been a humanitarian disaster , because of a liberal president ’ s meddling .
After 12 years in the wilderness of Reaganomics , Thatcherism , and Papa Bush , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sent another messiah by the name of William Jefferson Clinton .
Clinton was from Hope– Hope , Arkansas .
Hope was the Liberal Class ’ s drug of choice .
It kept looking for higher-highs , and instead got lower-lows .
Clinton was a New Democrat : What the New Democratic Coalition called being committed to pro-economic growth , pro-innovation , and fiscally responsible policies .
In other words , Clinton was a neoliberal in sheep ’ s clothing .
It was even said that Clinton was the first black president , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bread .
[ 2 ] Clinton slashed welfare for the poor , and flooded the prison population with African Americans .
Clinton waxed eloquent about the middle class , and the Liberal Class stopped caring about the downtrodden .
There was a Democrat in the White House , and the Liberal Class was loyal to the Democratic Party .
Liberalism stopped caring about the problems that society created .
As Senator Joe Biden said of his 1994 crime bill , “ I don ’ t care ; LOCK THEM UP ” .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young Black men .
In the 2019 Democratic presidential debates Senator Cory Booker called Joe Biden out : “ There are people right now in prison for life for drug offenses , because you stood up and used that tough-on-crime phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine.
” [ 3 ] Biden ’ s tough-on-crime speech was the most crude and racist speech made on the Senate floor in modern history .
Southern racist senators Strom Thurmond and Richard Russell would have been proud .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ holding Blacks down .
Now the police would do it .
LISTEN HERE to Senator Strom Thurman ’ s racist 1957 24-hour talking filibuster against the 1957 Civil Rights Act .
[ 4 ] The following quote was then enough to make the youthful Liberal Class ’ s hair stand on end : “ There ’ s not enough troops in the army , to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theaters , into our swimming pools , into our homes , and into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forgot about the 1960 ’ s Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements .
Clinton ’ s “ crime bills ” were crimes against humanity .
The laws broadened the death penalty to 60 more crimes , and three strikes mandated life-time sentences .
Clinton financed building more prisons , and locking up millions of people , disproportionately Black and Poor .
Clinton and the Liberal Class ushered in the New Jim Crow .
[ 5 ] [ 6 ] Clinton signed NAFTA ( North American Free Trade Agreement ) , which hastened deindustrialization , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the working class .
He deregulated Wall Street , which lead to the 2008 financial collapse of the banking industry and the Great Recession .
That economic meltdown resulted in the loss of 8.5 million jobs , 3 million families being kicked out of their homes , and a massive transfer of wealth to the rich .
It was the worst recession since the 1930 ’ s Great Depression .
Clinton signed into law the “ Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 ” , which was used as the legal cover by George Bush @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1995 Clinton ’ s economic strangulation of Iraq killed 500,000 Iraqi children .
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said it was “ worth it ” , since it furthered U.S. foreign policy .
So they killed a million more from cholera , typhoid , and starvation .
[ Madeleine Albright – The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it for Iraq ’ s non-existent WMD ’ s ] Clinton ’ s shredding of the social contract was no surprise to the Liberal Class .
It was one of Clinton ’ s 1992 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety net ” .
Clinton promised to “ end welfare as we know it “ , and he did .
[ 7 ] Clinton made it tougher for the poor to qualify for benefits , he set lifetime limits , and punted the responsibility for social programs to the states , without giving them the adequate federal block grants to fund it .
The Liberal Class did not object because a Democrat did it .
In 2000 George W. Bush started his criminal presidential enterprise by stealing the needed Florida electoral votes from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declared that recounting the infamous “ hanging chads ” violated the U.S. Constitution .
Gore could have petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for a total recount of the state , but the Liberal Class advised him not to .
It said that a recount would cause a tremendous uproar , make liberals look like spoilsports , and harm our democracy .
So Gore conceded the purloined presidency to George W. Bush .
[ 8 ] After the attacks on the US of September 11 , 2001 , the Liberal Class voted in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the Use of Military Force .
Democrat Barbara Jean Lee was the single vote against it .
[ 9 ] Bush ’ s War on Terror was on .
Bush used the authorization to invade Afghanistan .
The last big anti-war hurrah for the Liberal Class was in February 2003 against the planned illegal invasion of Iraq .
The Liberal Class ’ s new enthusiasm for antiwar protests was short-lived .
As the oligarch class and their servants pulled one illegal outrage after another the Liberal Class barely made a whimper .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ detention , illegal covert operations , domestic spying , persecuting and torturing whistleblowers , and shredding the Bill of Rights were overlooked and even abetted by Democrats .
The Liberal Class begged for authoritarianism to keep the country safe from terrorists ; the Constitution be damned !
Today George Bush is being rehabilitated as a great president who just made a few mistakes .
The Liberal Class forgot that Bush is a war criminal , committed crimes against humanity , and tightened the fascist grip on the U.S.A. Bush killed and destroyed millions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of U.S. democracy .
Ellen DeGeneres says we should be kind to war criminals even if we disagree with them .
The Liberal Class agreed and said that forgiveness is what America is all about .
[ Ellen DeGeneres , Be kind to everyone , even war criminals ! ]
The Liberal Class thought that the messiah had finally arrived when Barack Hussein Obama was elected president .
The Liberal Class believed Obama ’ s lies and hoped his promises of change were true .
Unbeknownst , Obama had already sold out to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Big Pharma .
Obama went on to leveraged Bush ’ s authoritarianism to beat down the middle class and poor .
He did nothing for Blacks .
Obama went from bombing three countries to bombing seven .
He made Bush ’ s tax-cuts for the oligarchs permanent .
He continued the programs of assassinations , extraordinary-renditions , secret prisons , secret terrorist mercenaries , secret wars and regime-change projects .
Obama turned the New Cold War into a hotter war with Russia and China .
He overthrew elected governments in Ukraine , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Asia .
He destroyed the welfare state in Libya .
Even Obama could not keep a straight face when he declared Venezuela a threat to the U.S. national security .
Obama is a war criminal .
He committed crimes against humanity , and he killed and destroyed millions of lives .
GITMO still stands as an avatar to his lies .
He illegally prosecuted more whistleblowers , deported more undocumented immigrants , transferred more wealth to the rich , and militarized the police more than all previous presidents combined .
Obama is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Still , the Liberal Class adored him .
The Liberal Class died from irrelevance— a disease from the 1960s that afflicted liberals then over the age of 30 .
Dementia set in during the 1990s .
The Liberal Class became brain dead in 2008 .
Trump-Derangement Syndrome took over its subconscious mind in 2016 .
Russiagate brought on a near-fatal attack of hysteria .
Paralysis set in when Joe Biden became the Democratic Party ’ s presumptive nominee .
Covid-19 caused Liberalism ’ s internal organs to start shutting down .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ purpose in life , lost the will to live , and just faded away .
Funeral services will NOT be held since The Liberal Class ’ s friends and relatives have prior commitments with Democratic Talking Points .
The Liberal Class left a note asking that instead of flowers , contributions be sent to Bernie or Bust 2024 .
[ 1 ] .
You might also enjoy reading on VT “ Martial Law was Liberalism ’ s Final Capitulation ” , May 19,2020 .
[ 4 ] .
“ The Racist Filibuster We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , The Takaway Podcast , New York Public Radio , WNYC Studios , August 29 , 2016 .
( https : //www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/racist-filibuster-we-cant-afford-forget ) .
[ 5 ] .
The New Jim Crow , Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness , by Michelle Alexander .
Website https : //newjimcrow.com/ .
[ 8 ] .
“ Hanging Chads : As the Florida Recount Implodes , the Supreme Court Decides Bush v. Gore ” , U.S. News and World Report , January 17 , 2008 .
( https : //www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/the-legacy-of-hanging-chads ) .
[ 9 ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Authorization for Use of Military Force , GovTrac , September 14 , 2001 .
( https : //www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2001/h342 ) .
David William Pear is a Senior Editor for OpEdNews.com , and a Senior Contributing Editor for The Greanville Post .
David is a journalist , columnist , and commentator for TV and radio .
His articles , essays and interviews have an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy , and he also focuses on economic and social issues .
He is an advocate for peace , ending US wars of aggression , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He has been writing for The Real News Network , OpEdNews , The Greanville Post , American Herald Tribune , and other publications since 2009 , after he retired as a Certified Financial Planner ( CFP ) .
He is a member of Veterans for Peace , Saint Pete ( Florida ) for Peace , CodePink and the Palestinian-led non-violent organization International Solidarity Movement .
His articles are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution , Non-Commercial 4.0 International License , and they may be republished as such without obtaining any other or prior @ @

A little irony, some history, and a message for the left.
After a long illness the Liberal Class faded away. It died after decades of being morbidly dysfunctional. It was often out of its mind with delirium, and with periods of being semi-comatose. It had suffered from physical deterioration, mental depression and hallucinations of its former grandeur.
An autopsy was performed to determine the exact cause of death. Political scientists wanted to examine the corpse for underlying pathologies and their progression. The information may prove useful to future social movements. Hopefully, future generations can be saved from the tragic fate of the Old Liberal Class. The peaceful protests against riotous police violence gives one some hope for the next generation.
Survivors of the Liberal Class are Identity Politics and Political Correctness. The relatives were left squabbling over Liberal’s legacy. The Biden faction claims that it is the sole legitimate heir. The Sanders faction is begging for the silverware set. The pro-maskers and anti-maskers are in an angry Twitter feud. Identity politics, political correctness, incrementalism, and mainstream Democrats are demanding their share of the estate. The middle class was left with nothing but broken promises. The working class and the poor had become estranged from the Liberal Class for many years, and were cut out of the will entirely.
The 100-year-old body of the Liberal Class had many wounds. In its younger days it had won some milestone battles: organizing labor, the 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, women suffrage, child labor laws, Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Movement, and protests against the Vietnam War were just a few. Battles lost were to McCarthyism, COINTELPRO, the wars on drugs and crime, mass incarceration, Latin American death squads, privatization, corporatism, and international imperialism.
In later years the Liberal Class grew fat, dull and lazy. Fast-food, slow metabolism, consumerism, too much screen time and its decrepit age had severely weakened its immune system. A mussy brain caused ambivalence, confusion, and senility. The heart was broken from waiting for hope and change, which never came. Psychologically the Liberal Class simply gave up the fight.
Chris Hedges, in his book The Death of the Liberal Class , had speculated that the cause of death was gullibility. This was a contributing factor. Liberalism had been foolish enough to believe that it could change the political class from within the system. It had believed that elections and voting for the lesser evil would buy it time. The priority was always to vote for the lesser evil in THIS election, while waiting for the messiah to appear in the NEXT election.
The Liberal Class believed in many false messiahs. In 1976 it elected Jimmy Carter. The 1976 election took place when the Vietnam War and Watergate were still fresh in the political mind. The economy was in a shambles, and there was an oil crisis. Hyper-inflation and recession were a new phenomenon called stagflation. Liberalism hoped Carter would be the Promised One.
Carter attacked the energy crisis by calling for conservation and solar energy. He wore a sweater and turned off the lights. He put solar panels on the White House roof. Carter acted as if he was a God-fearing pious man. He talked about peace in the Middle East, and nuclear arms reduction.
In the end, Carter was undone by a feud with his own liberal political party, and he was angry with the American people whom he scolded for having a “moral malaise”. A hostile mainstream media ridiculed him and made him a laughing stock. On top of that was the Iran Hostage Crisis—
Despite Carter’s come-to-Jesus lecturing he was defeated in the 1980 election by a Hollywood “B” movie actor, pitchman for General Electric and drugstore cowboy named Ronald Reagan. Undiagnosed at the time, Carter left the Liberal Class with a malignant tumor. It metastasized in the twenty-first century into the War on Terror.
Carter and his National Security Advisor, the great-game aficionado Zbigniew Brzezinski armed a band of terrorists in Afghanistan. Brzezinski later bragged that he and Carter egged the Soviet Union into a Vietnam-style war. Revenge seemed so sweet at the time. Instead the U.S. was later hoisted by its own petard into wars that would never end.
Carter’s Afghan war lead to the destruction of that developing nation. Afghan women were launched back into the future of the 13th century, and the war killed over a million Afghan men, women and children. Carter’s chickens hatched into the attacks on the U.S. of September 11, 2001. For over forty years Afghanistan has been a humanitarian disaster, because of a liberal president’s meddling.
After 12 years in the wilderness of Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and Papa Bush, the Liberal Class thought that it had been sent another messiah by the name of William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton was from Hope– Hope, Arkansas. Hope was the Liberal Class’s drug of choice. It kept looking for higher-highs, and instead got lower-lows.
Clinton was a New Democrat: What the New Democratic Coalition called being committed to pro-economic growth, pro-innovation, and fiscally responsible policies. In other words, Clinton was a neoliberal in sheep’s clothing. It was even said that Clinton was the first black president, even though he was as white as sliced bread. [2]
Clinton slashed welfare for the poor, and flooded the prison population with African Americans. Clinton waxed eloquent about the middle class, and the Liberal Class stopped caring about the downtrodden. There was a Democrat in the White House, and the Liberal Class was loyal to the Democratic Party. Liberalism stopped caring about the problems that society created. As Senator Joe Biden said of his 1994 crime bill, “I don’t care; LOCK THEM UP”. The words PREDATORS and THEM were code for young Black men.
In the 2019 Democratic presidential debates Senator Cory Booker called Joe Biden out:
“There are people right now in prison for life for drug offenses, because you stood up and used that tough-on-crime phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine.” [3]
Biden’s tough-on-crime speech was the most crude and racist speech made on the Senate floor in modern history. Southern racist senators Strom Thurmond and Richard Russell would have been proud. They were used to the Ku Klux Klan holding Blacks down. Now the police would do it.
LISTEN HERE to Senator Strom Thurman’s racist 1957 24-hour talking filibuster against the 1957 Civil Rights Act. [4] The following quote was then enough to make the youthful Liberal Class’s hair stand on end:
“There’s not enough troops in the army, to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches—”
In the 1990s liberalism forgot about the 1960’s Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements. Clinton’s “crime bills” were crimes against humanity. The laws broadened the death penalty to 60 more crimes, and three strikes mandated life-time sentences. Clinton financed building more prisons, and locking up millions of people, disproportionately Black and Poor. Clinton and the Liberal Class ushered in the New Jim Crow. [5] [6]
Clinton signed NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), which hastened deindustrialization, and the loss of good-paying jobs for the working class. He deregulated Wall Street, which lead to the 2008 financial collapse of the banking industry and the Great Recession. That economic meltdown resulted in the loss of 8.5 million jobs, 3 million families being kicked out of their homes, and a massive transfer of wealth to the rich. It was the worst recession since the 1930’s Great Depression.
Clinton signed into law the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998”, which was used as the legal cover by George Bush to invade Iraq in 2003. By 1995 Clinton’s economic strangulation of Iraq killed 500,000 Iraqi children. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said it was “worth it”, since it furthered U.S. foreign policy. So they killed a million more from cholera, typhoid, and starvation.
[Madeleine Albright – The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it for Iraq’s non-existent WMD’s]
Clinton’s shredding of the social contract was no surprise to the Liberal Class. It was one of Clinton’s 1992 campaign promises to “restructure the social safety net”. Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it“, and he did. [7]
Clinton made it tougher for the poor to qualify for benefits, he set lifetime limits, and punted the responsibility for social programs to the states, without giving them the adequate federal block grants to fund it. The Liberal Class did not object because a Democrat did it.
In 2000 George W. Bush started his criminal presidential enterprise by stealing the needed Florida electoral votes from Al Gore. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that recounting the infamous “hanging chads” violated the U.S. Constitution. Gore could have petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for a total recount of the state, but the Liberal Class advised him not to. It said that a recount would cause a tremendous uproar, make liberals look like spoilsports, and harm our democracy. So Gore conceded the purloined presidency to George W. Bush. [8]
After the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001, the Liberal Class voted in a joint resolution to give Bush the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Democrat Barbara Jean Lee was the single vote against it. [9] Bush’s War on Terror was on. Bush used the authorization to invade Afghanistan. The last big anti-war hurrah for the Liberal Class was in February 2003 against the planned illegal invasion of Iraq. The Liberal Class’s new enthusiasm for antiwar protests was short-lived.
As the oligarch class and their servants pulled one illegal outrage after another the Liberal Class barely made a whimper. Assassinations, torture, kidnappings, indefinite detention, illegal covert operations, domestic spying, persecuting and torturing whistleblowers, and shredding the Bill of Rights were overlooked and even abetted by Democrats. The Liberal Class begged for authoritarianism to keep the country safe from terrorists; the Constitution be damned!
Today George Bush is being rehabilitated as a great president who just made a few mistakes. The Liberal Class forgot that Bush is a war criminal, committed crimes against humanity, and tightened the fascist grip on the U.S.A. Bush killed and destroyed millions of lives, and what was left of U.S. democracy.
Ellen DeGeneres says we should be kind to war criminals even if we disagree with them. The Liberal Class agreed and said that forgiveness is what America is all about.
[Ellen DeGeneres, Be kind to everyone, even war criminals!]
The Liberal Class thought that the messiah had finally arrived when Barack Hussein Obama was elected president. The Liberal Class believed Obama’s lies and hoped his promises of change were true. Unbeknownst, Obama had already sold out to Wall Street, the health-insurance industry, and Big Pharma. Obama went on to leveraged Bush’s authoritarianism to beat down the middle class and poor. He did nothing for Blacks.
Obama went from bombing three countries to bombing seven. He made Bush’s tax-cuts for the oligarchs permanent. He continued the programs of assassinations, extraordinary-renditions, secret prisons, secret terrorist mercenaries, secret wars and regime-change projects.
Obama turned the New Cold War into a hotter war with Russia and China. He overthrew elected governments in Ukraine, Egypt, and Honduras. He pivoted to Asia. He destroyed the welfare state in Libya. Even Obama could not keep a straight face when he declared Venezuela a threat to the U.S. national security.
Obama is a war criminal. He committed crimes against humanity, and he killed and destroyed millions of lives. GITMO still stands as an avatar to his lies. He illegally prosecuted more whistleblowers, deported more undocumented immigrants, transferred more wealth to the rich, and militarized the police more than all previous presidents combined. Obama is the reason Trump was elected in 2016. Still, the Liberal Class adored him.
Conclusion
The Liberal Class died from irrelevance— a disease from the 1960s that afflicted liberals then over the age of 30. Dementia set in during the 1990s. The Liberal Class became brain dead in 2008. Trump-Derangement Syndrome took over its subconscious mind in 2016. Russiagate brought on a near-fatal attack of hysteria. Paralysis set in when Joe Biden became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. Covid-19 caused Liberalism’s internal organs to start shutting down. The Liberal Class died because it had no purpose in life, lost the will to live, and just faded away.
Funeral services will NOT be held since The Liberal Class’s friends and relatives have prior commitments with Democratic Talking Points. The Liberal Class left a note asking that instead of flowers, contributions be sent to Bernie or Bust 2024.
Links:
[1]. You might also enjoy reading on VT “Martial Law was Liberalism’s Final Capitulation”, May 19,2020.
[2]. Comment, Toni Morrison, The New Yorker, September 28, 1998. (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/05/comment-6543)
[3]. “The Crime-Bill Debate Shows How Short Americans’ Memories Are”, The Atlantic, September 12, 2019. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/joe-biden-crime-bill-and-americans-short-memory/597547/).
[4]. “The Racist Filibuster We Can’t Afford to Forget”, The Takaway Podcast, New York Public Radio, WNYC Studios, August 29, 2016. (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/racist-filibuster-we-cant-afford-forget).
[5]. The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness , by Michelle Alexander. Website https://newjimcrow.com/.
[6]. “Three Strikes Basics”, Stanford Law School. (https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-justice-advocacy-project/three-strikes-basics/)
[7]. “How Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Changed America”, History.com, August 29, 2019. (https://www.history.com/news/clinton-1990s-welfare-reform-facts).
[8]. “Hanging Chads: As the Florida Recount Implodes, the Supreme Court Decides Bush v. Gore”, U.S. News and World Report, January 17, 2008. (https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/the-legacy-of-hanging-chads).
[9]. H.J.Res. 64 (107th): Authorization for Use of Military Force, GovTrac, September 14, 2001. (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2001/h342).
Bio :
David William Pear is a Senior Editor for OpEdNews.com, and a Senior Contributing Editor for The Greanville Post. David is a journalist, columnist, and commentator for TV and radio. His articles, essays and interviews have an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy, and he also focuses on economic and social issues. He is an advocate for peace, ending US wars of aggression, and promoting economic, political and social justice. He has been writing for The Real News Network, OpEdNews, The Greanville Post, American Herald Tribune, and other publications since 2009, after he retired as a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). He is a member of Veterans for Peace, Saint Pete (Florida) for Peace, CodePink and the Palestinian-led non-violent organization International Solidarity Movement. His articles are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, and they may be republished as such without obtaining any other or prior permission.


veteranstoday--2020-06-17--Watch Gaza IDF slaughter documentary banned by PBS

View the Frontline Documentary on Gaza that PBS pulled Jim 's Editor ’ s Notes are solely crowdfunded via PayPal Jim 's work includes research , field trips , Heritage TV Legacy archiving & more .
Thanks for helping .
Click to donate > > By Alison Weir , ..with the Council of National Interests ( CNI ) PBS stations around the U.S. were scheduled to show a riveting new Frontline documentary , “ One Day in Gaza , ” but at the last minute PBS pulled it .
The film is missing important context about the issue , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel ’ s top funders , should see – including a young , unarmed teen being shot in her head .
BBC , the coproducer of the film , broadcast it to British viewers .
We are posting it below so that Americans can also view it .
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew , president of the Council for the National Interest , and author of Against Our Better Judgment : The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel .
Recently , hundreds of PBS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to broadcast a powerful new Frontline documentary : One Day in Gaza .
But viewers tuning in found that it had been replaced by a slightly updated Frontline report on Robert Mueller that had been broadcast two months before and had been streaming online ever since .
PBS no longer has the Gaza film listed on its schedule .
The documentary was to be aired on the one-year anniversary of events that took place on May 14 , 2018 , when tens of thousands of men , women , and children in Gaza @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tactics Gandhi had used in freeing India from British control .
Palestinians in Gaza carry an injured girl on March 31 , 2018 .
The demonstration that day was the 8th march in what Gazans named the Great March of Return .
Palestinians months earlier had announced their plan for a mass , peaceful demonstration in which Gazans would march for an end to Israel ’ s crippling 12-year blockade and , especially , for their right to return to homes stolen by Israel in order to create a Jewish state .
Palestinians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ancestral land is well established in international law .
This fundamental right , affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , is at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
Israel had responded by immediately deploying a hundred snipers .
In the first seven weekly marches , Israeli forces killed about 50 of the marchers and injured over 7,000 .
During the 8th march on May 14 , the day depicted in the film , Israeli forces killed 60 more and shot 1,000 – an average of one person every 30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a glittering Israeli celebration was taking place as a new , transplanted U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem , a city that Israel illegally annexed following the Six-Day War that Israel launched in 1967. Who were the protesters ?
Over 70 percent of Gazans are from families that Israel forced out in its founding war to establish “ the Jewish state.
” Israel confiscated their homes and land and has prevented them from returning ever since .
This violates international law .
For 12 years Israel has perpetrated a strangling blockade of Gaza @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the kind of malnutrition that causes growth stunting in children , and increasing hopelessness .
And this blockade is just the most recent one .
On April 15 , 2002 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported “ The total blockade has paralysed the Palestinian economy… it is now in a deep recession , with millions of people severely impoverished and extremely food insecure.
” For many years it has been tremendously difficult , sometimes impossible , for Gazans to leave Gaza , and for others to enter it .
As a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the largest open-air prison on earth .
While U.S. news coverage in general , and the Frontline documentary in particular , emphasize the rockets fired by Gaza ’ s diverse resistance groups , the fact is that Israeli violence preceded the rockets and has greatly exceeded their impact .
In the past year alone , Israeli forces have killed at least 293 Gazans , while Gazans have killed 6 Israelis .
Palestinian rockets from Gaza , which are largely homemade , have killed a total of about 40 Israelis in the whole time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while during the same time period Israeli forces have killed over 6,000 Gazans .
( See this Timeline of deaths and this Israeli source for more info . )
The film says that Israel “ fought three major conflicts with Hamas , ” but doesn ’ t mention that during these , Israeli forces killed about 3,600 Gazans ( many of them women and children ) , while Gazan fighters killed approximately 80 Israelis , the large majority of them soldiers .
The Frontline documentary One Day in Gaza is an extremely powerful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ events of May 14 , 2018 .
It provides Israeli views , Palestinian views , and riveting , often tragic footage of the day ’ s events .
However , perhaps because of its striving to be “ balanced , ” or due to constraints imposed by Israel ’ s powerful lobbies in England and the U.S. , the film often leans toward the Israeli narrative and obscures some important points .
The Israeli interviewees in the film are calm , articulate , and seem well-trained in presenting their talking points .
Perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is an army spokesman , a second is a high-ranking officer , and two are Americans who immigrated to Israel ( although this fact is not revealed in the film ) .
Not interviewed in the film are any of the members of the Israeli group , Breaking the Silence , composed of former Israeli soldiers who describe widespread military practices of gratuitous violence and cruelty .
Below is some background on two of the Israelis featured in the film : Perhaps because of time constraints , Col. Heller ’ s , background @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the film .
While Heller comes across as reasonable , professional , and reluctant to commit the murders we see from his troops , his resumé suggests that there is more to his story .
Heller is a member of Israel ’ s Religious Zionist movement , a group that has become known for its zealotry and sometimes extremist views of Jewish supremacy .
He is called a “ kippa shruga , ” a term for the type of Jewish fundamentalist known for believing that Arabs should be expelled from Israel and for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ matter how small .
It turns out that he has a previous connection to Gaza .
Heller is a settler who studied at a religious Zionist yeshiva in a Gaza settlement that combined religious studies with military training .
In 2005 the yeshiva was moved to Israel when the Israeli government forcibly expelled the settlers .
This caused fierce objections in the settler movement .
Many in the army were outraged at this action .
Heller is from Israel ’ s notorious Golani brigade , increasingly a bastion of the Israeli far right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The officer corps of the elite Golani Brigade is now heavily populated by religious right-wing graduates of the preparatory academies.
” The New York Times reports that many Israelis are concerned at this development , particularly since a booklet was handed out to soldiers during Israel ’ s 2009 assault on Gaza that contained a rabbinical edict against showing the enemy mercy .
The Times reports : “ The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles and their message was very clear : We are the Jewish people , we came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land.
” An Israeli woman featured in the film is Adele Raemer .
She is described as an “ Israeli grandmother ” who lives two kilometers from the Gaza fence .
In the film she describes her fear of Gazans who wish to return to their homes in Israel .
The film does not mention that Raemer is originally an American from the Bronx .
In 1975 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ residency in the Nirim kibbutz on the border with Gaza .
Since the area had originally possessed no history of Jewish habitation , the Zionist movement had established it in 1946 to create a Jewish presence in the Negev in order to claim it as part of a future Jewish state .
Raemer has written that her life in the kibbutz is “ 95 percent heaven.
” Despite being located in a desert , it has green grass and a swimming pool .
A little over a mile away , Gazans are enduring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children to suffer from diarrhea , kidney disease , and impaired IQ .
The film shows the the flaws and sometimes fatal logistical failures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders during the Great March and says that Hamas has “ refused to recognize Israel.
” However , the film doesn ’ t include the fact that Hamas has offered Israel a decade-long truce , that it is Israel that breaks the truces , and that Hamas has said it was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders .
In reporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the film fails to mention the extreme difficulties Gaza ’ s leaders face , including the fact that by assuming this role they face very possible assassination by Israel .
Many resistance members have been blown to pieces by Israeli drones .
Those who survive are trying to run a resistance movement , deploy efficient logistical support , and make wise decisions during chaotic conditions in one of the world ’ s most isolated and longest-besieged enclaves .
Most important , the Palestinian journalist and peace activist who originated the march and is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Artema , says that the film attributed far too much significance to Hamas , and neglected the “ primary role played by civil society activists in Gaza.
” In a detailed critique of the film , he writes : “ The documentary did not show the reality of the prison that Gaza has become .
One shot of the cattle market that exists at the Erez crossing would have been enough to convey the reality of this cage , where there is no freedom of movement , no economic growth , no future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also fails to inform American viewers of our connection to Israeli actions – that the U.S. gives Israel over $ 10 million per day .
( The U.S. has given Israel on average 7,000 times more per capita than it has given other people around the world . )
And in its framing , the film neglects the fact that a prime driver of Trump ’ s decision to move the U.S. embassy is billionaire campaign donor Sheldon Adelson , who attended the celebration with his Israeli wife Miriam .
( Adelson once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. army rather than the Israeli one – video here . )
Despite its flaws , Americans should see it But the film can not do everything , and it does some things extremely well .
Overall , it ’ s not difficult to see why Israel partisans would not wish it broadcast to Americans .
It shows footage that the American public almost never sees .
It was this kind of footage that eventually led to Americans ending the Vietnam war .
One of the main take-aways from the film is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armed Israeli soldiers from one of the most powerful armies on earth are seen targeting multitudes of thin , unarmed men , women , and children .
The film shows Israeli snipers shooting people in the head , in the back , in the legs .
It shows a youth whose leg was amputated and reports that many of the demonstrators lost limbs that day .
( The UN recently reported that 1,700 Gazans shot by Israeli snipers are currently at risk of amputations . )
While U.S. news reports often downplay these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all their tragic and horrific reality .
The film shows people who are just standing there suddenly being picked off by snipers .
It shows a 14-year-old girl chatting with a friend , then suddenly being shot in the head .
And it shows her little brother , who had been with her , later describing how his sister had been killed .
This is not footage that Israeli hawks wish American audiences to view .
Another takeaway from the film is the poverty of Gaza ’ s imprisoned population , particularly compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem .
Amid the expensive suits and fashionable dresses , American-born Israeli official Michael Oren bemoans the fact that the situation in Gaza has blemished his enjoyment of the festive occasion .
This contrast with Gaza is stark .
With no powerful lobby to represent them and little clout in U.S. media , Palestinians are at the mercy of Israel .
The film shows that many in Gaza feel they have little to lose after years of escalating oppression .
Some voice impossible dreams that had motivated them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ homes .
Some simply hoped to see them .
A few voice the fury that results from dispossession , imprisonment , and brutalization .
While this goes unremarked in the film , there are indications that the “ tear gas ” Israeli drones poured on people may have been particularly virulent .
In the film we see some people convulsing , and one man is delirious .
This seems reminiscent of a mysterious gas used in Gaza in early 2001 that caused similar symptoms ( reported in the James Longley documentary Gaza Strip @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diverse barriers , armed with advanced weaponry and guided by female soldiers watching it all on TV screens in a remote bunker , it is the Palestinians who demonstrate incredible , sometimes tragic courage .
We see them without weapons , without body armor , without helmets , without uniforms .
Old and young , men and women , strong and disabled , they wield slingshots , wave flags .
They ’ re out in an open field , Israeli forces in front of them , drones overhead .
When yet another demonstrator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they run to rescue him or her , and then sometimes they , too , are shot .
Yet they continue .
The contrast between the Israeli and Palestinian women taking part in the day ’ s hostilities is acute .
Israeli female soldiers are far away , watching the action on computer monitors , telling soldiers when and where to shoot .
Their faces are blurred to keep their identities secret .
One seems to question what she ’ s doing , but there ’ s no indication that she stops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They ’ re out are in the open field , marching , carrying flags , helping the injured… and getting shot .
For over 70 years , Israel has gotten away with its astoundingly massive theft of the land and homes of the non-Jews it dispossessed to create an ethnically defined nation , and its decades of violence to maintain this ethnic cleansing .
A Palestinian historian has validly termed this the Palestinian Holocaust .
Palestinians expelled by Israel , 1948 .
The right to return to one ’ s land is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regardless of race , religion , or ethnicity .
One Day in Gaza shows some of Israel ’ s millions of victims , their attempt to be free , and what ’ s being done to them .
Americans are not supposed to see that .
While Artema ’ s biting critique of the film is valid and necessary , it is useful to be aware that for many Americans much of the film will be revelatory .
PBS ’ s cancellation , however , has prevented Frontline ’ s more than 4.6 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PBS calls itself “ a trusted window to the world , ” someone at PBS shuttered the window on One Day in Gaza .
PBS spokespeople state that Gaza will be broadcast at some point in the coming months , but say they don ’ t know when .
Since the film ’ s scheduled broadcast date was specifically focused on the one-year anniversary of the day it depicts , it seems odd for PBS to be so unconcerned about broadcasting it in a timely manner .
BBC , on the other hand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
According to a Frontline statement , One Day In Gaza was pulled because Frontline “ decided to air a timely update to our documentary on the Mueller investigation.
” The Mueller investigation report had been broadcast on March 16 and 17 and has been available online ever since .
It can be viewed here .
The updated version that bumped One Day in Gaza can be seen here .
The update consists of a few minutes added at the end of the report .
This new information had already been reported widely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s own primetime news program News Hour .
PBS wields considerable power .
A national study rated PBS “ the most-trusted institution in America.
” Its Frontline program claims to be “ American television ’ s top long-form news and current affairs series.
” According to its website , PBS is a “ near-universal media service , available in 9-of-10 U.S. television households .
For many Americans , public television is their connection to the world.
” PBS emphasizes the alleged independence of its nearly 350 television and radio stations , stating they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media organizations in the country.
” However , in reality it appears that local stations have less control than this implies .
When someone at PBS prevented the broadcast of Gaza , that decision prevented all the local stations around the country from airing it .
The fact is that local PBS stations do not have independent access to the film – even though it received funding from the stations .
While most Americans may think that PBS is a public institution , given its name – Public Broadcasting Service ” – it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its own words , “ a private , nonprofit media enterprise.
” One that is , however , largely funded by American taxpayers .
Its ownership is a bit convoluted and multi-layered .
While it says it is “ owned by its 350 member stations , ” its funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting .
CPB is another private nonprofit , but 95 percent of CPB ’ s funding comes from the federal government .
Most of this money is then given to the member stations .
Phone calls to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , revealed that KQED had received many calls complaining about the cancellation and asking when Gaza would be shown .
KQED ’ s customer service representative explained that none of this is in KQED ’ s hands .
Frontline has refused to divulge who was involved in the decision to pull Gaza .
It seems likely that its Senior Editorial Team – consisting of Raney Aronson-Rath , Executive Producer ; David Fanning , Founder and Executive Producer at Large ; and Andrew Metz , Managing Editor – would have been involved .
Fanning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regarding Israel/Palestine , a charge he denies .
Frontline ’ s website announces : “ We answer to no one but you.
” It ’ s unclear who the “ you ” is .
It does not appear to be the member stations who fund it , or the many people whose federal dollars financed the film and wish to see it .
While PBS holds on to the film and fails to release it , people in Gaza continue their David against Goliath struggle .
On May 15th , Gazan men , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Israel again unleashed its heavily armed military , injuring 144 , including 49 children .
The same day , Israeli soldiers also fired at fishermen who were fishing off the coast of Gaza , injuring one of them – a frequent occurrence that Americans rarely , if ever , see on the News Hour .
And so it goes .
Perhaps at some point PBS/Frontline management will decide that the massacre of 60 people and the shooting of a thousand others in a single day is important enough to merit scheduling the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received more U.S. tax money than any other nation in the world .
This post will be updated if PBS schedules a new broadcast date .
It will be updated again if PBS actually shows it .
WATCH : One Day in Gaza below .
( Also available on Youtube . )
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew , president of the Council for the National Interest , and author of Against Our Better Judgment : The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel .

View the Frontline Documentary on Gaza that PBS pulled
by Alison Weir, …with the Council of National Interest (CNI)
[ Editor’s Note: The Council of the National Interest is similar to VT with its deep bench of ex-diplomats, military and intelligence people, but with a narrower focus, US foreign policy in the MidEast.
Younger people may not remember some of its major players like Congressmen and Navy veteran Paul Findley. His best selling The Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby (1985), updated in 2002.
The ‘Lobby’ went after him for questioning US blind support of Israel and the Illinois Congressman lost his seat. This gave him time to write his expose on the Lobby, followed by Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts about the US-Israeli Relationship.
Co-Founder Congressman Pete McCloskey, cofounder, attorney, law professor, was a decorated Marine veteran, Navy Cross, Silver Star, and two Purple Hearts as a rifle platoon leader in the Korean War. He later fought to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1969.
Alison Weir and Phil Giraldi are president and executive director, respectively, followed my diplomat Edwark Peck and Senator James Abourezk, also a Korean War vet.
As VT has so often stated, without good people you are severely limited in what you can know about what’s really going on, and hence what you can do about it. When you have key people who bring their own lifetime networks into the fold with them you now have a support tree that can withstand the pushback that always comes from challenging power.
The video link to the documentary was a BBC one that is not working, surprise, surprise. but it does play on the CNI website. While I try to get in on VT you can view at this CNI link at the bottom of the article... Jim W. Dean ]
Jim's Editor’s Notes are solely crowdfunded via PayPal
Jim's work includes research, field trips, Heritage TV Legacy archiving & more. Thanks for helping. Click to donate >>
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
PBS stations around the U.S. were scheduled to show a riveting new Frontline documentary, “One Day in Gaza,” but at the last minute PBS pulled it.
The film is missing important context about the issue, but it includes footage that Americans, as Israel’s top funders, should see – including a young, unarmed teen being shot in her head.
BBC, the coproducer of the film, broadcast it to British viewers. We are posting it below so that Americans can also view it.
~
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
Recently, hundreds of PBS stations around the United States were scheduled to broadcast a powerful new Frontline documentary: One Day in Gaza. But viewers tuning in found that it had been replaced by a slightly updated Frontline report on Robert Mueller that had been broadcast two months before and had been streaming online ever since. PBS no longer has the Gaza film listed on its schedule.
The documentary was to be aired on the one-year anniversary of events that took place on May 14, 2018, when tens of thousands of men, women, and children in Gaza gathered with the intention of deploying the tactics Gandhi had used in freeing India from British control.
Palestinians in Gaza carry an injured girl on March 31, 2018. The demonstration that day was the 8th march in what Gazans named the Great March of Return.
Palestinians months earlier had announced their plan for a mass, peaceful demonstration in which Gazans would march for an end to Israel’s crippling 12-year blockade and, especially, for their right to return to homes stolen by Israel in order to create a Jewish state.
Palestinians’ right to return to their homes and ancestral land is well established in international law. This fundamental right, affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel had responded by immediately deploying a hundred snipers. In the first seven weekly marches, Israeli forces killed about 50 of the marchers and injured over 7,000. During the 8th march on May 14, the day depicted in the film, Israeli forces killed 60 more and shot 1,000 – an average of one person every 30 seconds.
While this was going on, a glittering Israeli celebration was taking place as a new, transplanted U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem, a city that Israel illegally annexed following the Six-Day War that Israel launched in 1967.
Who were the protesters?
Over 70 percent of Gazans are from families that Israel forced out in its founding war to establish “the Jewish state.” Israel confiscated their homes and land and has prevented them from returning ever since. This violates international law.
For 12 years Israel has perpetrated a strangling blockade of Gaza, causing 52 percent unemployment, hunger, the kind of malnutrition that causes growth stunting in children, and increasing hopelessness. And this blockade is just the most recent one.
On April 15, 2002 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported “The total blockade has paralyzed the Palestinian economy… it is now in a deep recession, with millions of people severely impoverished and extremely food insecure.”
For many years it has been tremendously difficult, sometimes impossible, for Gazans to leave Gaza, and for others to enter it. As a result, many people describe Gaza as the largest open-air prison on earth.
While U.S. news coverage in general, and the Frontline documentary in particular, emphasize the rockets fired by Gaza’s diverse resistance groups, the fact is that Israeli violence preceded the rockets and has greatly exceeded their impact.
In the past year alone, Israeli forces have killed at least 293 Gazans, while Gazans have killed 6 Israelis. Palestinian rockets from Gaza, which are largely homemade, have killed a total of about 40 Israelis in the whole time they’ve been being shot, while during the same time period Israeli forces have killed over 6,000 Gazans. (See this Timeline of deaths and this Israeli source for more info.)
The film says that Israel “fought three major conflicts with Hamas,” but doesn’t mention that during these, Israeli forces killed about 3,600 Gazans (many of them women and children), while Gazan fighters killed approximately 80 Israelis, the large majority of them soldiers.
Powerful but flawed
The Frontline documentary One Day in Gaza is an extremely powerful, if flawed, record of the events of May 14, 2018.
It provides Israeli views, Palestinian views, and riveting, often tragic footage of the day’s events. However, perhaps because of its striving to be “balanced,” or due to constraints imposed by Israel’s powerful lobbies in England and the U.S., the film often leans toward the Israeli narrative and obscures some important points.
The Israeli interviewees in the film are calm, articulate, and seem well-trained in presenting their talking points. Perhaps this is not surprising given that one is an army spokesman, a second is a high-ranking officer, and two are Americans who immigrated to Israel (although this fact is not revealed in the film).
Not interviewed in the film are any of the members of the Israeli group, Breaking the Silence, composed of former Israeli soldiers who describe widespread military practices of gratuitous violence and cruelty. Below is some background on two of the Israelis featured in the film:
Perhaps because of time constraints, Col. Heller’s, background and political persuasion are left out of the film.
While Heller comes across as reasonable, professional, and reluctant to commit the murders we see from his troops, his resumé suggests that there is more to his story.
Heller is a member of Israel’s Religious Zionist movement, a group that has become known for its zealotry and sometimes extremist views of Jewish supremacy. He is called a “kippa shruga,” a term for the type of Jewish fundamentalist known for believing that Arabs should be expelled from Israel and for opposition to any Palestinian state, no matter how small.
It turns out that he has a previous connection to Gaza. Heller is a settler who studied at a religious Zionist yeshiva in a Gaza settlement that combined religious studies with military training. In 2005 the yeshiva was moved to Israel when the Israeli government forcibly expelled the settlers. This caused fierce objections in the settler movement. Many in the army were outraged at this action.
Heller is from Israel’s notorious Golani brigade, increasingly a bastion of the Israeli far right. An Israeli professor states: “The officer corps of the elite Golani Brigade is now heavily populated by religious right-wing graduates of the preparatory academies.”
The New York Times reports that many Israelis are concerned at this development, particularly since a booklet was handed out to soldiers during Israel’s 2009 assault on Gaza that contained a rabbinical edict against showing the enemy mercy.
The Times reports:“The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles and their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land.”
An Israeli woman featured in the film is Adele Raemer. She is described as an “Israeli grandmother” who lives two kilometers from the Gaza fence.
In the film she describes her fear of Gazans who wish to return to their homes in Israel. The film does not mention that Raemer is originally an American from the Bronx.
In 1975 she immigrated to Israel and took up residency in the Nirim kibbutz on the border with Gaza. Since the area had originally possessed no history of Jewish habitation, the Zionist movement had established it in 1946 to create a Jewish presence in the Negev in order to claim it as part of a future Jewish state.
Raemer has written that her life in the kibbutz is “95 percent heaven.” Despite being located in a desert, it has green grass and a swimming pool. A little over a mile away, Gazans are enduring a water crisis that has caused Gazan children to suffer from diarrhea, kidney disease, and impaired IQ.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders
The film shows the the flaws and sometimes fatal logistical failures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders during the Great March and says that Hamas has “refused to recognize Israel.”
However, the film doesn’t include the fact that Hamas has offered Israel a decade-long truce, that it is Israel that breaks the truces, and that Hamas has said it was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
In reporting these leaders’ flaws and mistakes, the film fails to mention the extreme difficulties Gaza’s leaders face, including the fact that by assuming this role they face very possible assassination by Israel. Many resistance members have been blown to pieces by Israeli drones.
Those who survive are trying to run a resistance movement, deploy efficient logistical support, and make wise decisions during chaotic conditions in one of the world’s most isolated and longest-besieged enclaves.
Most important, the Palestinian journalist and peace activist who originated the march and is interviewed in the film, Ahmed Abu Artema, says that the film attributed far too much significance to Hamas, and neglected the “primary role played by civil society activists in Gaza.”
In a detailed critique of the film, he writes: “The documentary did not show the reality of the prison that Gaza has become. One shot of the cattle market that exists at the Erez crossing would have been enough to convey the reality of this cage, where there is no freedom of movement, no economic growth, no future prospects – no hope.”
The U.S. connection
The film also fails to inform American viewers of our connection to Israeli actions – that the U.S. gives Israel over $10 million per day. (The U.S. has given Israel on average 7,000 times more per capita than it has given other people around the world.)
And in its framing, the film neglects the fact that a prime driver of Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy is billionaire campaign donor Sheldon Adelson, who attended the celebration with his Israeli wife Miriam. (Adelson once said that he regretted serving in the U.S. army rather than the Israeli one – video here.)
Despite its flaws, Americans should see it
But the film cannot do everything, and it does some things extremely well. Overall, it’s not difficult to see why Israel partisans would not wish it broadcast to Americans.
It shows footage that the American public almost never sees. It was this kind of footage that eventually led to Americans ending the Vietnam war. One of the main take-aways from the film is the extreme ruthlessness of Israeli forces.
Fully armed Israeli soldiers from one of the most powerful armies on earth are seen targeting multitudes of thin, unarmed men, women, and children. The film shows Israeli snipers shooting people in the head, in the back, in the legs.
It shows a youth whose leg was amputated and reports that many of the demonstrators lost limbs that day. (The UN recently reported that 1,700 Gazans shot by Israeli snipers are currently at risk of amputations.) While U.S. news reports often downplay these actions, the film shows them in all their tragic and horrific reality.
The film shows people who are just standing there suddenly being picked off by snipers. It shows a 14-year-old girl chatting with a friend, then suddenly being shot in the head. And it shows her little brother, who had been with her, later describing how his sister had been killed. This is not footage that Israeli hawks wish American audiences to view.
Another takeaway from the film is the poverty of Gaza’s imprisoned population, particularly compared to the gathering in Israel to celebrate the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem.
Amid the expensive suits and fashionable dresses, American-born Israeli official Michael Oren bemoans the fact that the situation in Gaza has blemished his enjoyment of the festive occasion.
This contrast with Gaza is stark.
With no powerful lobby to represent them and little clout in U.S. media, Palestinians are at the mercy of Israel. The film shows that many in Gaza feel they have little to lose after years of escalating oppression.
Some voice impossible dreams that had motivated them, that they could recover their lost homes. Some simply hoped to see them. A few voice the fury that results from dispossession, imprisonment, and brutalization.
While this goes unremarked in the film, there are indications that the “tear gas” Israeli drones poured on people may have been particularly virulent. In the film we see some people convulsing, and one man is delirious. This seems reminiscent of a mysterious gas used in Gaza in early 2001 that caused similar symptoms (reported in the James Longley documentary Gaza Strip).
Courage
While Israeli soldiers shelter behind diverse barriers, armed with advanced weaponry and guided by female soldiers watching it all on TV screens in a remote bunker, it is the Palestinians who demonstrate incredible, sometimes tragic courage.
We see them without weapons, without body armor, without helmets, without uniforms. Old and young, men and women, strong and disabled, they wield slingshots, wave flags.
They’re out in an open field, Israeli forces in front of them, drones overhead. When yet another demonstrator is shot, the blood pouring out, they run to rescue him or her, and then sometimes they, too, are shot. Yet they continue.
The contrast between the Israeli and Palestinian women taking part in the day’s hostilities is acute. Israeli female soldiers are far away, watching the action on computer monitors, telling soldiers when and where to shoot. Their faces are blurred to keep their identities secret. One seems to question what she’s doing, but there’s no indication that she stops.
Gazan women join the mass gathering. They’re out are in the open field, marching, carrying flags, helping the injured… and getting shot.
Theft of a nation
For over 70 years, Israel has gotten away with its astoundingly massive theft of the land and homes of the non-Jews it dispossessed to create an ethnically defined nation, and its decades of violence to maintain this ethnic cleansing. A Palestinian historian has validly termed this the Palestinian Holocaust.
Palestinians expelled by Israel, 1948. The right to return to one’s land is a fundamental right for all human beings regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity. One Day in Gaza shows some of Israel’s millions of victims, their attempt to be free, and what’s being done to them. Americans are not supposed to see that.
While Artema’s biting critique of the film is valid and necessary, it is useful to be aware that for many Americans much of the film will be revelatory.
PBS’s action
PBS’s cancellation, however, has prevented Frontline’s more than 4.6 million viewers from seeing it. While PBS calls itself “a trusted window to the world,” someone at PBS shuttered the window on One Day in Gaza.
PBS spokespeople state that Gaza will be broadcast at some point in the coming months, but say they don’t know when. Since the film’s scheduled broadcast date was specifically focused on the one-year anniversary of the day it depicts, it seems odd for PBS to be so unconcerned about broadcasting it in a timely manner. BBC, on the other hand, aired the film on May 13.
According to a Frontline statement, One Day In Gaza was pulled because Frontline “decided to air a timely update to our documentary on the Mueller investigation.” The Mueller investigation report had been broadcast on March 16 and 17 and has been available online ever since. It can be viewed here.
The updated version that bumped One Day in Gaza can be seen here. The update consists of a few minutes added at the end of the report. This new information had already been reported widely in U.S. media, including PBS’s own primetime news program News Hour.
PBS vs local stations
PBS wields considerable power. A national study rated PBS “the most-trusted institution in America.” Its Frontline program claims to be “American television’s top long-form news and current affairs series.”
According to its website, PBS is a “near-universal media service, available in 9-of-10 U.S. television households. For many Americans, public television is their connection to the world.” PBS emphasizes the alleged independence of its nearly 350 television and radio stations, stating they are among “the last locally owned media organizations in the country.”
However, in reality it appears that local stations have less control than this implies. When someone at PBS prevented the broadcast of Gaza, that decision prevented all the local stations around the country from airing it.
The fact is that local PBS stations do not have independent access to the film – even though it received funding from the stations.
While most Americans may think that PBS is a public institution, given its name – Public Broadcasting Service” – it is not. It is, in its own words, “a private, nonprofit media enterprise.” One that is, however, largely funded by American taxpayers.
Its ownership is a bit convoluted and multi-layered. While it says it is “owned by its 350 member stations,” its funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB is another private nonprofit, but 95 percent of CPB’s funding comes from the federal government. Most of this money is then given to the member stations.
Phone calls to a PBS station, KQED in San Francisco, revealed that KQED had received many calls complaining about the cancellation and asking when Gaza would be shown. KQED’s customer service representative explained that none of this is in KQED’s hands.
“We Answer to You”
Frontline has refused to divulge who was involved in the decision to pull Gaza. It seems likely that its Senior Editorial Team – consisting of Raney Aronson-Rath, Executive Producer; David Fanning, Founder and Executive Producer at Large; and Andrew Metz, Managing Editor – would have been involved. Fanning has previously been accused of censoring content regarding Israel/Palestine, a charge he denies.
Frontline’s website announces: “We answer to no one but you.” It’s unclear who the “you” is. It does not appear to be the member stations who fund it, or the many people whose federal dollars financed the film and wish to see it. While PBS holds on to the film and fails to release it, people in Gaza continue their David against Goliath struggle.
On May 15th, Gazan men, women, and children again protested, and Israel again unleashed its heavily armed military, injuring 144, including 49 children. The same day, Israeli soldiers also fired at fishermen who were fishing off the coast of Gaza, injuring one of them – a frequent occurrence that Americans rarely, if ever, see on the News Hour. And so it goes.
Perhaps at some point PBS/Frontline management will decide that the massacre of 60 people and the shooting of a thousand others in a single day is important enough to merit scheduling the film – particularly when the perpetrator has received more U.S. tax money than any other nation in the world.
This post will be updated if PBS schedules a new broadcast date. It will be updated again if PBS actually shows it.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.