From: eastsidetraks@soothpark.net   
      
   US media widely and repeatedly reported on the horrific March 11th   
   murder of three small Israeli children and their parents. While no one   
   yet knows who committed this grotesque act, reports presume that the   
   murderers were Palestinian, and for this reason the incident is   
   receiving major attention. Various heads of state, including President   
   Obama, have condemned it.   
      
   If it turns out that the murderer or murderers were Israeli, as some   
   previously presumed "terrorists" have turned out to be, or a foreign   
   worker who had previously threatened the family over unpaid wages, as   
   some reports from the area suggest, it is likely that coverage of the   
   tragic incident will quickly vanish from U.S. headlines.   
      
   For now, however, American news reports continue to provide   
   excruciating details about the atrocity. Given the amount of   
   reportage, it is surprising how much significant information is   
   omitted.   
      
   For example, none of these reports mention that the location of the   
   murders, Itamar (near Nablus), is an illegal Jewish-only settlement on   
   stolen Palestinian land in the midst of refugees whom Israel pushed   
   off their ancestral land through massacres and ruthless military   
   actions.   
      
   Nor do reports mention the frequency with which Israeli settlers beat,   
   occasionally torture, and sometimes murder Palestinians of all ages,   
   burn their crops, and hack down their groves of olive trees, the   
   livelihood of many Palestinian villagers; hundreds, at least, of these   
   trees, have been destroyed by rampaging Israeli settlers.   
      
   Religious extremism   
      
   Even lengthy articles on the tragic incident fail to mention the   
   extremely relevant and chillingly ironic fact that Itamar was founded   
   and is largely populated by fanatic Jewish extremists, many of whom   
   believe that the killing of non-Jewish infants is religiously   
   permitted, and sometimes mandated, as discussed in a best-selling book   
   The King's Torah, which was written by authors from the area and   
   endorsed by numerous rabbis and religious schools (but opposed by most   
   Israelis).   
      
   In their elaborate descriptions of the murder scene, U.S. articles   
   neglect to mention that the building next door is the house of Chabad   
   Lubavitch emissaries, a Hassidic movement in Orthodox Judaism, and   
   features a photo of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel   
   Schneerson, known for his astoundingly supremacist teachings.   
      
   Schneerson is widely revered by such settlers (and his followers in   
   the U.S.); many believed him to have been the messiah. In their book   
   Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, professors Israel Shahak and Norton   
   Mezvinsky quote Schneerson's teachings about the differences between   
   Jews and non-Jews:   
      
       " . . . we do not have a case of profound change in which a person   
   is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of 'let us   
   differentiate' between totally different species. This is what needs   
   to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally   
   different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the   
   world . . . A non-Jew's entire reality is only vanity . . . The entire   
   creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews . . ."   
      
   Which children matter?   
      
   Finally, news reports on the abhorrent Itamar murders fail to mention   
   the frequent, tragic, and equally abhorrent killing of massive numbers   
   of Palestinian children by Israelis.   
      
   For example, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Itamar incident   
   was "the deadliest such attack against Jewish settlers in the area   
   since 2002", but didn't bother to report that there have been numerous   
   deadly attacks on Palestinians in the area in the intervening years,   
   that dozens of Palestinian minors have been killed, many more injured   
   and maimed, and even more Palestinian mothers, fathers, and   
   grandparents killed.   
      
   This viewpoint is typical of U.S. media. Statistical studies show that   
   primetime network news shows report on Israeli children's deaths at   
   rates up to 14 times greater than they report on Palestinian   
   children's deaths; regional newspapers report Israeli deaths at even   
   more disproportionate rates.   
      
   Palestinian deaths are therefore often virtually invisible to American   
   news consumers, even though they occurred first and are far greater in   
   number.   
      
   In the round of violence that began in fall 2000, over 90 Palestinian   
   children were killed before a single Israeli child; in total,   
   approximately 1,500 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis,   
   and approximately 130 Israeli children have been killed by   
   Palestinians during this period.   
      
   Since American media, in stark contrast to coverage of the Itamar   
   victims, so rarely report on Palestinian victims and their weeping   
   families, or provide details of their grisly deaths, at the end of   
   this article is a partial list of these young, largely disappeared   
   victims.   
      
   While this very incomplete list does little to balance the moving,   
   detailed reporting on Israeli children's deaths found in U.S. news   
   media, and completely ignores the even greater number of children   
   grieving for parents killed by Israeli forces, publishing it here at   
   least provides the names of Palestinian victims, a rarity in American   
   media coverage.   
      
   A few years ago an Israeli army officer emptied, at close range, the   
   entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian   
   girl. Afterward he said he would have done the same even if she had   
   been three years old. Because so many of his underlings reported this   
   particular incident, he was eventually tried in an Israeli military   
   court - but on minor offenses, not murder. He was acquitted of all   
   charges.   
      
   It is hard to imagine the feelings of Americans if these were our   
   children and if we were suffering this degree of unbearable loss. The   
   population in the Palestinian Territories is less than 1/90th the   
   population of the U.S.; there is hardly a Palestinian family that has   
   not experienced tragedy.   
      
   Because Israel partisans consistently screen out the mass of   
   significant information on this issue, and other editors, perhaps   
   through ignorance, negligence, and/or timidity, go along, Americans   
   receive the kind of highly filtered, lying-through-omission   
   "journalism" that is so effectively creating fear, hatred, and   
   ignorance of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims - and that perpetuates   
   the uniquely massive flow of American money to Israel, currently over   
   $8 million per day. Israel, with a population of seven million, is   
   reportedly about to ask for an additional $20 billion.   
      
   Regarding the as-yet unsolved murder of three children in Itamar,   
   President Obama pronounced: "There is no justification and there can   
   be neither excuse nor forgiveness for the murder of children. I expect   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)