Around 35 years ago, I was sitting in my college dorm-room closely reading the New York Times as I did each and every morning when I noticed an astonishing article about the controversial new Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir.
Back in those long-gone days, the Gray Lady was strictly a black-and-white print publication, lacking the large color photographs of rap stars and long stories about dieting techniques that fill so much of today’s news coverage, and it also seemed to have a far harder edge in its Middle East reporting. A year or so earlier, Shamir’s predecessor Menacham Begin had allowed his Defense Minister Ariel Sharon to talk him into invading Lebanon and besieging Beirut, and the subsequent massacre of Palestinian women and children in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps had outraged the world and angered America’s government. This eventually led to Begin’s resignation, with Shamir, his Foreign Minister, taking his place.
I highly recommend Ron Unz’s American Pravda series of essays, the latest installment of which is linked above. They don’t need to be read in any special order. In today’s world when so much news media has been exposed as the partisan drivel it is, wise readers understand that history as told by “the academy” is also filled with drivel and misdirection. Unz’s voice is honest and straightforward. In clear language he takes us through his own awakening to the depths of American propaganda and the distortions it has created in American society. I have no doubt that Ron is doing his level best to speak the truth about difficult subjects. I respect him greatly for that. ABN
American Buddhist Net 