The Monster Returns

By Garcia Wilde, 15 July 2024

Until a year or so ago scores of books were written, countless newspaper and magazine articles published, half-a-dozen movies released, and TV documentaries telecast about the nightmarish agenda of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the decade following the Second World War.

We thought the monster had been vanquished permanently in the mid-‘50s with the toppling of drunken Senator Joseph McCarthy. But seventy years later, the monster has risen like a born-again Dracula. And it has risen without the support of a House of Un-American Activities. This time, the monster has been fabricated by amalgamating the mass media, the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, Neo-cons, and the Silicon Valley. The above cabal is intent at intimidating journalists who dare criticize Israel’s policy in Gaza and in the West Bank.

In some countries, journalists are jailed or killed (China, Turkey) while in Gaza the Israeli policy is assassination: more than 100 Palestinian journalists (wearing PRESS in bold letters on their back and chest) have been killed by Israeli assassins as official Israeli policy. Two years ago, an Israeli sharpshooter assassinated Shireen Abu Akleh, the most senior Palestinian journalist in the West Bank.

We, in the West, have a less messy solution: we don’t jail journalists. We merely take away their livelihood by firing them. The idea behind the firing of truth-telling journalists is two-fold: punish journalists who tell the truth about the West’s depredations around the globe and to discourage journalists who might consider, down the road, to expose West’s hegemonic policies.

Consider the below abbreviated list of journalists who have been deprived of their livelihood because they dared to report Israel’s depraved policies:

MARK LAMONT HILL. The long-time interviewer was fired by CNN.

OCTAVIA NASR: CNN Fired “for being pro-Arab.” She is a 20-year veteran.

BRIAHNA JOY GRAY: The TV interviewer (The Hill) was fired in early June. She said The Hill had been looking, for months, for an excuse to fire her.

EMILY WILDE: The Jewish journalist was a reporter at the Associated Press. She was fired because she had made pro-Palestinian posts as a student at Stanford U.

NADINE DORRIES: British politician and TV personality.

DAVID VELASSO: Artforum’s editor-in-chief was fired for signing an open letter calling for ceasefire in Gaza.

STEVE BELL: For sharing a drawing of President Benyamin Satanyahoo which his employer said was anti-Semitic. Of course, these days if a soccer team beats an Israeli team it would be accused of being anti-Semitic. After all, we know Christianity is anti-Semitic.

MICHAEL EISNER: Editor-in-chief of the medical academic journal eLife.

JACKSON FRANK: Philadelphia sportswriter for supporting Palestinians.

NATHAN ROBINSON: The British-American journalist was fired by Britain’s The Guardian for writing a sarcastic column about Israel and the United States. As well, two female London talk show hosts were fired for the above crimes.

KATIE HALPER: The Jewish journalist was fired by The Hill for defending pro-Palestinian Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian member of the U.S Congress.

MEHDI HASAN, English American journalist, was let go by MSNBC. No reason was given although it is widely known he was punished for highlighting what Israel was doing to the Palestinians.

By no means is the above list comprehensive.

Of course, in addition to journalists, university professors have been fired and graduating students refused diplomas. The names of some of the students have been recorded so as to deny them employment.

In Canada, Molly Schumann, former producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), wrote a detailed expose (May issue of The Breach) about the anti-Palestinian bias at the CBC. Schumann’s father is a Holocaust survivor.

Yes, the monster is back and unlike its previous reincarnation, it has a slew of supporters…from Silicon Valley (they censor pro-Palestinian messages among other nefarious pro-Israeli tactics) to Christian Zionists, the armchair warmongers better-known as Zionist Neocons, Washington think tanks which are financed by lobbies and interest groups.

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