As Lupe Fiasco said in Words I Never Said “Gaza Strip Was Gettin Bombed, Obama Didn’t Say Shit…” Well, actually he has. The White House has fully endorsed Israel’s bombing campaign against the Gaza strip. Press Secretary Jay Carney, speaking for the Obama Administration, stated “there is no justification for rockets from Gaza.” I guess stealing land, destroying homes, drone bombing campaigns and creating an updated American style reservation that amounts to the largest prison in the world would not be justifiable for those not living in it.
The taking of land, homes and lives by the European settlement project called “Israel” is continually supported by the US and corporate western media. The continued hardships suffered by Palestinians are rarely reported on; the day-to-day misery is both downplayed and justified in the United States corporate media. The military occupation of Palestine that controls where Palestinians live, where they travel, their access to daily goods, water and other resources does not receive much coverage. If you only receive news from U.S. corporate media you would not hear about legalized apartheid laws; military check points, demolished homes or racist policies for the deportation of Africans. Interior Minister Eli Yishai without concern over any western or US condemnation stated, “The infiltrators along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream,” that “Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man.” Furthermore, the the most obvious fact that seems to escape the corporate media scrutiny is Israel’s possession of an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Corporate media trips over itself to turn a blind eye to this obvious fact as it reports on Iran’s “suspected” nuclear ambitions and lays the ground work for the ideological support needed for the next U.S. war in the middle east.
This is obviously not done by mistake. There is no lack of information flow to the white house or to corporate media. Sides were chosen long ago. The British led a European sponsored taking of historic Palestine via diplomacy and colonialism at gun point was the start of this current battle. The relationship between the US, apartheid South Africa and Israel is well documented. What is relatively new is that now the face of the U.S. support for the oppression of other people is Black. The soon to be Secretary of State will probably be Black. The Congressional Black Caucus will no longer speak out against injustices. Black organizations with an internationalist perspective are inconsequential. As for the collective Black voice (yes sometimes we are monolithic check out the vote for Obama) we have at best collectively picked and or backed “leaders” to represent us based on symbolism without any real study into their political beliefs. We have instead allowed those so-called leaders to dictate an agenda to us. At worse, we have given up our historic role in the United States as the people who will speak truth to power. In the grasp for acceptance, for celebrity, for money, for positions within existing corporate and or government structures many of us have left our moral compass behind. We will not put any pressure on corporate and or government structures to stop supporting the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, because we will not put any pressure on any government or corporate structure to stop the “soft” bombing of our own communities. How many of us can finish that Lupe Fiasco lyric, “That’s why I didn’t vote him next one either” and be willing to sustain the wrath of negative responses from the guardians of the Presidents image but with little concern about his policies.