How the Media Slanders People

Little is unknown in what follows below, but I can benefit from terrible reminders of what I know.

From Elazar Stern’s autobiography, “Struggling over Israel’s Soul: An IDF General Speaks of His Controversial Moral Decisions” p. 302-306.

In March 2001 Yediot Aharonot made up a false quote from Elazar Stern in a Knesset committee that “more than 50 percent of all young immigrants who serve in the army are not Jewish and therefore their motivation to enlist into field units of the army is naturally weaker”.

True or not, I have no idea, but Stern was furious. Two weeks later he got a meeting with the newspaper’s editor at the time, Moshe Vardi.

Quoting:

… I told the people in the room that I heard that this was the room where prime ministers were crowned, but, since I had no intention to become one, I intended to see this matter through till the end, and I explained why. My wife, Dorit, was the director of a retirement home in the town of Tivon at the time, and most of her staff consisted of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. They were very fond of her and many of them had visited our home more than once. But ever since the newspaper had published my false quote, they hardly gave her the time of day. “Even if it means a five-year-long battle in court,” I said, “I am determined to do what must be done!”

…

I demanded that they publish an article on the same page and of the same size that would make it clear to everyone that I never said the things that were published under my name. I said that I realize that it might be too much to expect that an apology headline be the same size as that of the original offensive article. Instead, I suggested that they send a correspondent to the Knesset right away. The chief of staff was scheduled to appear in front of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and I knew that he was going to say some things about this issue. If this happened and the chief of staff was asked a direct question on what the newspaper published, he might supply them with a headline that I would regard as sufficient.

Why did they do it in the first place? Why can’t they retract?

His friends didn’t believe even this much would happen, but after a few hours’ consideration, the liars agreed and even allowed him to see the corrective article before it was published.

Of interest, Stern needed a personal favor from then-Knesset chairman, Avraham Burg (an old school friend of his) just to get the full, official transcript of the Knesset committee session as evidence in time for the meeting!

And Stern arranged the meeting through the army spokesman; perhaps civilians would need a lawyer to get even that much.

Story conclusion:

Two years later, I was appointed the commander of the Human Resources Directorate. In honor of the nomination, Yediot Aharonot published several controversial sentences that I had said on various occasions. One of the quotations was the same false quote for which they had already apologized. This time I did not bother demanding a correction.

Surprise, surprise!

Again, a regular person could hardly arrange even this. (To understand Stern’s military rank at the time, see Wikipedia.)

As I said at the start, we all know what journalists are like, but we still should keep their crimes in mind.

Chol Hamo’ed Pesach on the Temple Mount – SHORT CLIP (Some Women)

עליה לרגל, פסח תשפ”ב Pilgrimage to the Temple Mount, JERUSALEM. Passover 2022

Premiered Apr 24, 2022

#עליה_להר_הבית #עליה_לרגל #הר_הבית #Temple_Mount# JERUSALEM
עליה לרגל להרב הבית בחול המועד פסח תשפ”ב.

Pilgrimage to the Temple Mount, JERUSALEM. Passover 2022

From YouTube, here.

It’s NOT Military Aid to Ukraine, It’s Subsidies for Weapon Makers!

The Ukraine War Is a Racket

By Ron Paul

Ron Paul Institute

April 26, 2022

“War is a racket, wrote US Maj. General Smedley Butler in 1935. He explained: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

Gen. Butler’s observation describes the US/NATO response to the Ukraine war perfectly.

The propaganda continues to portray the war in Ukraine as that of an unprovoked Goliath out to decimate an innocent David unless we in the US and NATO contribute massive amounts of military equipment to Ukraine to defeat Russia. As is always the case with propaganda, this version of events is manipulated to bring an emotional response to the benefit of special interests.

One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that ‘s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually, we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”

He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The US has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.

By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.

Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They’ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the US and other western NATO countries.

While many who sympathize with Ukraine are cheering, this multi-billion dollar weapons package will make little difference. As former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on the Ron Paul Liberty Report last week, “I can say with absolute certainty that even if this aid makes it to the battlefield, it will have zero impact on the battle. And Joe Biden knows it.”

What we do see is that Russians are capturing modern US and NATO weapons by the ton and even using them to kill more Ukrainians. What irony. Also, what kinds of opportunities will be provided to terrorists, with thousands of tons of deadly high-tech weapons floating around Europe? Washington has admitted that it has no way of tracking the weapons it is sending to Ukraine and no way to keep them out of the hands of the bad guys.

War is a racket, to be sure. The US has been meddling in Ukraine since the end of the Cold War, going so far as overthrowing the government in 2014 and planting the seeds of the war we are witnessing today. The only way out of a hole is to stop digging. Don’t expect that any time soon. War is too profitable.

From RPI, here.