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If the Israeli government was really the victim of widespread lying, it wouldn’t be killing and arresting the brave journalists who are there to reveal the truth.
Journalists are the world’s witnesses. The only people who kill witnesses are criminals.
Somebody should tell AIPAC. At its recent conference, the pro-Israel lobbying group gave 1,600 lobbyists their marching orders. Those lobbyists descended on Capitol Hill the following week, making sure that the beneficiaries of the group’s lavish campaign spending understood what was expected of them. To make sure politicians got the point, the group pointed out that, “dollar for dollar,” it was “the largest contributor to candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.”
A lot of them got the point. Elected officials from both parties paid obeisance to the group at its conference, including the Democratic and Republican leadership of both houses of Congress and politicians like Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA).
Luke Goldstein of the American Prospect obtained a copy of the talking points AIPAC gave its lobbyists. The message? Israel is an innocent and well-meaning country that’s been slandered in the court of public opinion. AIPAC and Israel insist that the world has been told one lie after another. According to them, this is the real story:
“Israel does not target civilians.”
“Hamas weaponizes civilians as human shields.”
“Israel is not blocking the delivery of aid to Gaza.”
“... reports that people are starving in Gaza are false.”
If these statements were true, Israel would be the victim of global mendacity on a scale rarely seen in world history. And what’s the best way to fight lying? By welcoming and protecting the people who can tell the truth in words and images.
But Israel isn’t welcoming or protecting journalists. It’s killing them.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) keeps a running tally of journalists killed by Israeli forces. As of March 28, 95 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead, 16 journalists were injured, 4 were reported missing, and 25 journalists had been arrested. As the CPJ also notes, journalists have also faced multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.
Israel clearly doesn’t want witnesses. Why else would reporters be rounded up as they covered Israel’s March 18 assault on the Al-Shifa hospital complex? As CPJ observes, one of them
“recounted how he and several other journalists were assaulted by IDF soldiers, whom he said destroyed the journalists’ tent and damaged their equipment and press vehicles ... the journalists were ordered to strip off their clothes in the cold weather, and were kept blindfolded and handcuffed in a room at Al-Shifa hospital.”
Even before October 7th, 20 journalists had been killed by the Israeli military, including an American citizen killed by an American bullet in what appeared to be a targeted attack.
Now, journalists are being targeted in their homes, often alongside their families. Others have been killed in bombing attacks on refugee camps. Still others have had their cars destroyed by missile strikes, despite being clearly identifiable as press. (See above picture.) Some have been shot by snipers despite wearing the distinctive blue vests of the media.
The death toll from six and a half months of war in Gaza far exceeds the average number of journalist deaths in a typical year. I created the attached chart from CPJ’s data:
Journalists are being singled out for being journalists. This is a longstanding Israeli practice. It is also a war crime. The Rome State of the International Criminal Court states that “journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians” and given protected status. Instead, the IDF is systematically killing reporters, the world’s professional witnesses.
Innocent people don’t kill witnesses. Who does? Gangsters. Consider the sordid history of gang violence against witnesses in the US alone, as told in a few selected headlines and clips:
Israel isn’t the only government to engage in the gangster-like assassination of journalists, of course. Many authoritarian governments do – including the United States.* Maybe that’s why the United States government doesn’t seem very outraged by these killings.
Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza. That has left Palestinians to shoulder the responsibility, and the risk, alone. It also means that Israel has something like a free hand to kill them, since the deaths of Palestinians don’t seem to attract as much world sympathy.
Here’s a sampling from the list of victims:
There are many more, but you get the idea. If the Israeli government was really the victim of widespread lying, it wouldn’t be killing and arresting the brave journalists who are there to reveal the truth.
I’m not comparing the IDF to M-13 or the Gangster Disciples, of course. That would be unfair — to MS-13 and the Gangster Disciples. Those gangs haven’t accomplished anything like the killing wave now underway in Gaza, especially of children.
But then, they’ve never had the weaponry and patronage of the United States of America.
*Under the leadership of George W. Bush, US forces killed thirteen journalists in Iraq in the years 2003-2005. They include two journalists who died when a US tank shelled the hotel where most foreign journalists were staying, a staffer who died when an American missile struck Al Jazeera’s Baghdad bureau, and a cameraman who was killed without warning by machine gun as he filmed a US tank.
It is not surprising that politicians in power do not want to encourage whistleblowers and autonomous journalists. Those who rule the world prefer to indulge in their power games in secrecy.
In the late evening of February 16, I was standing on the other side of the iron fence that surrounds the imposing white building of the Russian embassy in The Hague. Abundantly illuminated by the spotlights, the house resembles an expensive film set that has been abandoned for the night.
But the last people who arrived with flowers that night did not look like fans waiting for movie stars. They were silent mourners paying their respects to a person they held in high esteem. The flowers were for Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died that morning thousands of kilometers away, in the Arctic Circle.
In the Hague, the spotlights shone brightly on the golden double-headed eagle on the Russian embassy’s facade. Since the Bronze Age, the double-headed eagle has symbolized power. Used by the mighty Byzantine dynasty, the eagle is the oldest royal emblem representing both physical and spiritual power. The eagle has survived up to our times, even in countries without royal families. Russia abandoned its royal eagle following the 1917 revolution but resurrected its glory in 1993. The double-headed eagle on the Russian flag sports a red shield depicting a horseman slaying a black dragon.
Alexei Navalny challenged the Russian political system and lost his life. Julian Assange believed that the public has every right to know what their democratically elected representatives and their armies are doing. For now, he has lost his freedom and health.
On the western shores of Europe lies Belmarsh prison, which is known as Britain’s Guantanamo because of its torturous conditions as well as its population of mostly alleged murderers and terrorists. Near it and in front of the High Court in London, another group of people gathered four days after Navalny’s death, in the hopes that they could stop an extradition and stand up for press freedom. Too unwell to appear in court, Julian Assange was waiting for the decision in his cell. As expected, the judges decided to announce their verdict at some later date. It remains to be seen if Assange will be put on a plane to America, where he could face up to 175 years in prison.
On the American emblem, the eagle has a single head, like any normal bird of prey. Its only shield is a flag, not a mighty horseman with a sword. It carries 13 arrows in its left talon and an olive branch in its right talon, which denote the power of peace and war. The one-headed eagle eagerly awaits Assange. At most of the demonstrations against his extradition around the world, protesters have held up a photograph of his face with the lower part covered by the American flag, similar to the one on the breast of the emblematic eagle.
People formulate laws and can change them. The Russian administration is demonstrating great flexibility in introducing new laws that further limit freedom of expression and all other actions that the state doesn’t approve of. Those who would like to democratize the system do not stand a chance. On the other hand, Western countries are unreasonably slow in widening the scope of freedom by changing laws that are too rigid, overly general, or simply unjust. If the rule of law cannot be improved, then what is the sense of law in the ever-changing world?
Alexei Navalny challenged the Russian political system and lost his life. Julian Assange believed that the public has every right to know what their democratically elected representatives and their armies are doing. For now, he has lost his freedom and health. The authenticity of the thousands of confidential documents revealed through WikiLeaks has never been questioned. By revealing them, Assange allegedly broke the law, the Espionage Act of 1917. Since 1919, beginning with Schenck v. United States, the constitutionality of that law and its relationship to free speech have been contested in the courts multiple times. As Karen Sharpe writes in Counterpunch:
The Espionage Act, under which a journalist or publisher has heretofore never been prosecuted, was designed, as its name suggests, to prosecute those Americans working to undermine the U.S. war efforts by delivering national defense information to the enemy. Not only is Julian not an American citizen, and he was in Europe when he was publishing WikiLeaks, but the “enemy” to whom he was meant to have supplied classified information—information in the public interest—must ipso facto be any member of the general public anywhere in the world!
The same law can be used to hide atrocities and war crimes behind a wall of secrecy that protects guilty. None of those linked to the atrocities identified in the Wikileaks documents have been prosecuted. Only Assange is behind bars. In the United States, he is charged with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. As Christophe Deloire and Rebecca Vincent of Reporters Without Borders put it:
Of course, Assange should not be in prison anywhere – not in the UK, nor the US, nor Australia… No one, anywhere, should be targeted for publishing information in the public interest. Assange should be immediately released – perhaps through a political solution if not the courts, given the political nature of the case against him.
In some cases, secrets must be respected and confidentiality is in order. But when crimes are committed, they must be revealed and not hidden, which is the purpose of any legal system. The only reasonable question is: are the laws that protect crimes acceptable or not in a democratic society? If they’re not acceptable, then Assange is a victim and not a culprit. As one of the posters held by a protester in London stressed: “Justice is locking up war criminals, not shooting the messenger!”
The two brave men are the martyrs of very different political realities and imperfect legal systems. Navalny fought for the freedom of his country, Assange for the transparency, freedom of information and press. One way or another, Navalny received the death penalty, delivered by the horseman shielded by two-headed eagle. Assange must wait in Belmarsh prison for the decision on his fate.
There is a clear and striking difference in the response of world leaders concerning these two men. In the case of Navalny, besides his supporters in Russia and around the world, politicians of the West are unanimously voicing their consternation. With indignation, trembling voices, and outrage, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Jens Stoltenberg, Ursula von der Leyen, and Mark Rutte, as well as Rishi Sunak, David Cameron, and many others are condemning the autocratic and murderous Russian regime and Vladimir Putin’s brutality. They are eager to demonize their proven enemy one more time.
In the case of Assange, the most vocal dissenters are Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation of Journalists, DiEM25, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and recently the Australian government. In the United Kingdom, where the proceedings are taking place, there was no major political pressure to block the extradition. Only a handful of British parliamentarians signed a petition calling for Assange’s release.
As for world leaders, they are mostly staying silent. Some, however, are not. Those calling on the UK government to block extradition include Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Argentina Alberto Fernández, former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Spanish prime minister José Luis Zapatero, and some former heads of state from Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
It is not surprising that politicians in power do not want to encourage whistleblowers and autonomous journalists. A free press can be a serious inconvenience. Those who rule the world prefer to indulge in their power games in secrecy. The will to power prevents Western democracies from improving their laws and strengthening the pursuit of democracy and freedom. It would be surprising and welcome if some of them manage to radically change their attitudes and behaviors.
Prosecuting the Wikileaks founder gives a green light to countries around the world that it is possible to protect their government secrets by charging international reporters or editors with crimes.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is perilously close to extradition to the United States from Belmarsh Prison in London. He has one final opportunity on February 20 to persuade the British High Court of Justice that his rights would be violated if the appeals court allows the U.S. government to put him on trial.
The case has been widely condemned by civil liberties, human rights, and press freedom organizations because the allegations against Assange criminalize him for engaging in standard news gathering activities. Yet the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) under President Joe Biden has refused to heed calls, including from members of Congress, to drop the charges.
In 2010, Assange received hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents from U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. They were published on WikiLeaks, exposing torture, war crimes, and unreported civilian deaths. Leaked State Department cables revealed the stark gap between what U.S. ambassadors say in public and do in private.
Manning was charged with Espionage Act-related offenses and prosecuted in a military court-martial. She received a thirty-five-year sentence that President Barack Obama later commuted. But Assange was not indicted for publishing documents. As The Washington Postreported in 2013, the DOJ determined there was no way to prosecute Assange without having to also prosecute The New York Times.
Such First Amendment concerns were not a problem for the DOJ once President Donald Trump was elected. Following WikiLeaks’ publication of materials on the CIA’s hacking capabilities, CIA Director Mike Pompeo sought revenge. Attorney General Jeff Sessions made arresting Assange a priority.
Assange was charged with seventeen counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and one count of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.” Prosecutors accused Assange of soliciting information that he was not authorized to receive because he did not possess a U.S. security clearance. They maintained that Assange should have destroyed the documents he obtained from Manning and others or “returned” them to the U.S. government.
Prosecuting Assange gives a green light to countries around the world that it is possible to protect their government secrets by charging international reporters or editors with crimes.
Journalists and media organizations throughout the world routinely ask potential sources to leak information that is in the public interest. At least seventy-five news gathering organizations operate a submission system called SecureDrop developed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation that is similar to the submission system which WikiLeaks initially pioneered.
Imagine the uproar if any U.S. prosecutor ever asked The Washington Post, ProPublica, or NBC News to destroy documents, or their staff would face criminal charges.
Assange is an Australian citizen. The Espionage Act has never been extraterritorially applied against anyone outside the United States before. By prosecuting Assange with the Espionage Act, the U.S. government has mounted an unprecedented attack on global press freedom that puts investigative journalism at risk.
Prosecuting Assange gives a green light to countries around the world that it is possible to protect their government secrets by charging international reporters or editors with crimes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently justified the detention of Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, telling Tucker Carlson: “If a person gets secret information and does that in a conspiratorial manner, then this is qualified as espionage.”
Although what Putin said is authoritarian, this is not far off from the logic that underpins the U.S. case against Assange. Putin believes that Gershkovich was collecting secrets and should be jailed. The U.S. government believes that Assange was collecting secrets and should be jailed. Both are wrong. Both are fueling a race to the bottom that endangers journalism.
There is no U.S. law against publishing classified information, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect a person’s right to publish information, even if the material was hacked or stolen.
There is no U.S. law against publishing classified information, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect a person’s right to publish information, even if the material was hacked or stolen.
The British legal system is unlikely to spare Assange. If the High Court rules against Assange, he could petition the European Court of Human Rights to hear an appeal. Or he could be extradited within days. If extradited, his wife Stella Assange says the WikiLeaks founder will die due to his poor mental and physical health.
Only a political solution can end this case and prevent the U.S. government from doing further damage to the freedom of the press. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Parliament have passed a motion demanding the United States and United Kingdom free Assange and allow him to return home to Australia.
A similar resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. It states that “regular journalistic activities are protected under the First Amendment,” and that the United States ought to drop all charges and abandon all efforts to extradite Assange.
Groups around the world are calling on the United States government to immediately drop its charges against Assange and cease all efforts to extradite him from Britain. More information can be found at the website freedom.press/assange/.