Israeli soldiers raiding the offices of Defense for Children International/Palestine.
This week on CounterSpin: Corporate news media have a particularly frozen narrative on Palestine and Israel. You could recite it: Palestinians act violently; Israel responds in self defense. There are "clashes" of implicitly equally empowered forces. Palestinians have squandered their opportunities for autonomy because they overreach. And, finally: if you have any problem with the actions of the state of Israel, you must hate Jewish people. That whole narrative not only summarily erases the millions of Jewish people who support the human rights of Palestinians, it also makes it hard for anyone to make sense of, for example, the recent assault by Israeli forces on the Gaza Strip, reported as by AP as a "flare up" that—passive voice—"left 49 Palestinians dead." The account notes that "no one on the Israeli side was killed or seriously wounded," but instructs us to see it as a "battle" between Israel and "militant" Palestinians, who remain "defiant." Ahmad Abuznaid is executive director at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. He joins us to talk about the reality that formulaic rhetoric obscures.
Billionaire Barre Seid
Also on the show: Andrew Perez covers money and influence as senior editor and reporter at the Lever. He talks about what we should know about the unprecedentedly enormous donation—some $1.6 billion—that just went from a Chicago mogul to a deeply conservative group that is, among other things, reshaping the Supreme Court. It's the sort of news that changes your life, whether you know it's happening or not. Which, yeah, you would think would be where a free press would come in.
