Host: STEVE SCULLY
Guest: JOHN DAVID DYCHE, author of a biography of Senator Mitch McConnell.
Caller: Rachel from Recida, California (frequent female caller).
Caller: “Good morning. First of all, in reference, nobody has not mentioned that Rand, Ron Paul’s son, is running for the Senate in Kentucky. And first of all, I’m a Republican, I’ve been a Republican all my life, but I’m a real Republican. Okay? Senator McConnell has been sold, bought and paid for by AIPAC. Okay? And also that he is a corporate-bought hack that who supports the neocon war for Israel – in Iraq, as well.”
Guest: “I would say that if everyone had bought and paid for Senator McConnell that people say had bought and paid for Senator McConnell, Senator McConnell would not be able to get up out of bed in the morning. He is anything but bought and paid for by any group as best as I can tell now. He is strongly supported by AIPAC. He’s been a strong and steadfast supporter of Israel throughout his political career, but he had that position when he first began. It wasn’t something that anyone has purchased for him. And yes, Rand Paul is running for the Senate in Kentucky (etc.)”
NOTE: Host neither interrupted the call nor disassociated himself from the caller’s slanderous anti-McConnell, anti-AIPAC, anti-Israel rhetoric. Guest appropriately responded. Caller was allowed to violate the 30-day rule yet again (“Allow 30 days between calls.”) This caller was aired on August 10, August 16 as well as August 30.
• August 24, 2009 – 9:29 AM
Host: BILL SCANLAN
Guest: MIKE EVANS, author of Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos.
Caller: James from Washington, D.C.
Caller: “Good morning, sir. Thank you for taking my call. Mr. Evans is the first person that’s ever caused me to stay on line long enough to get on line. I’m a first-time caller. Thank you very much. I am an ex-Navy man, and Jimmy Carter is one of the reasons I joined the Navy in ’78. He was a wonderful man, and the things that he spoke about, the things that he felt about people are totally anathema to what this man is saying. He just upsets me so much. The first thing he did was to dehumanize Ayatollah Khomenei who did nothing but try to protect his country. If I’m an American and you put the Shah of Iran in charge of my country, I would hope that I would have the guts to fight him back. The center of gravity is still Israel. You don’t have to be anti-Semitic to disagree with the treatment of the Palestinians. You don’t have to be anti-Semitic to disagree with the fact that one small country has hegemony over an entire region.”
Host: “Ken. Thanks for your input. His views are echoed by a viewer who writes us on twitter dot com: “The Palestinians have had their nation occupied for sixty years, oppressed and held in refugee status – and they are the terrorists?”
NOTE: Host not only failed to interrupt or challenge caller’s false, anti-American, anti-Israel claims, he bolstered them by reading a tweet from a like-minded propagandist.
• August 24, 2009 – 9:40 AM
Host: BILL SCANLAN
Guest: MIKE EVANS, author of Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos.
Caller: Gene from Dublin, Virginia.
Caller: “Good morning. I hear a lots of discussion here about Carter’ s relationship with AIPAC and the Israeli lobby. I worked on Carter’ s 1980 Pennsylvania primary campaign. In fact, it was the first time I ever worked on the campaign at that level. It was fascinating to watch what happened, because about two or three days before the Pennsylvania primary, a vote came up in the U.N. Security Council. Our then-representative Donald McHenry did as ordered and abstained. Literally, within hours, the AIPAC groups and all the other Jewish groups, especially up in northeast Philadelphia, just mobilized, and we were hearing some of the stuff they were calling Carter on phone calls, and the rabbis, what they were telling the Jewish vote, and literally, that’s why we lost the Pennsylvania primary to Kennedy. It all happened literally in less than hours. For me, who had never never worked on a campaign at that level, it was a real eye opener to see the kind of power AIPAC has. Later on…”
Host (interrupting): “Gene, was AIPAC in existence? Are you are talking about 1976?”
Caller: “No. This would be the 1980 campaign.”
Host: “1980 – okay.”
Caller: “I don’t know if it was AIPAC at the time but it certainly was the groups that would come together to become AIPAC. It was unbelievable what they were able to crank up in less than six hours. And literally the whole – what we used to jokingly call – I’m from Philadelphia originally – “little Israel,” the great Jewish northeast – all went for Kennedy. The phone calls they were making, what they were calling Carter, in a sense from my point of view later on, you find out – no wonder every politician on the hill is scared to death of AIPAC. They are amazing what they can crank up.”
Host (addressing the guest): “Does that correspond to the research you’ve done on that?”
NOTE: Host facilitated an anecdotal recollection of an episode in the 1980 Pennsylvania Democratic Presidential primary. Supposedly showing the power of “the Jewish lobby.” Host did not point out that AIPAC is bipartisan, does not get involved in election campaigns, or that while Kennedy defeated Carter in Pennsylvania, he lost to him in Florida, another state with significant numbers of Jewish Democrats, or that Kennedy defeated Carter in North and South Dakota, where, foe example, the Jewish vote is negligible. Nor, of course, is there a hint that millions of Americans lobby for myriad causes, generate phone calls and letters, meet with Members of Congress and promote their views. Supporters of Israel of all faiths are as entitled to argue their case with elected officials as any other group.
• August 24, 2009 – 9:52 AM
Host: BILL SCANLAN
Guest: MIKE EVANS, author of Jimmy Carter: The Liberal Left and World Chaos.
Caller: “Good morning. Can I – Can I talk?”
Host: “You sure can. Go ahead. You’re on the air.”
Caller: “Thank you. I have three points – quick points. Three quick points. Number one, the “anti-Semitic” does not apply only to the Jews. It applies to all the Middle Eastern people, not the Jews of this country. Only the Middle East people. Number two, what Harry Truman did, he wanted to get rid of the Jews from here to put them in Palestine. Number three, why Hitler hated the Jews? What did they do in Europe to be hated that much? And they come to this country and they wanted to get rid of them so they sent them to Palestine. And I want to tell you again, somebody who lives in the house, if somebody come and kick him out of the house, what would he do? He would never sleep at night until he gets his house back. That’s what Hitler did to the Jews. They did it to the Palestinians. They kick them out of their homeland. And now the Palestinians have to get their homeland back. And no justice, no peace – never going to be peace in the Middle East until the Palestinian people get back their homeland.”
NOTE: Host failed to interrupt or disassociate himself from the caller’s lengthy, nonsensical anti-Semitic, anti-Israel rhetoric. Anti-Semitism described bigotry against Jews, wherever it occurs. The Jews were an ancient Middle East people returning to their ancient homeland. The Palestinian Arabs rejected a Palestinian Arab state and became refugees only when they went to war against the U.N. supported new Jewish State. The conflict continues because the Palestinians so far reject a two-state solution. Host appears uninformed at best. Guest’s response was accurate but not comprehensive.
• August 23, 2009 – 8:51 AM
Host: PAUL ORGEL
Caller: Identified as from Encino, California (frequent male caller attempting to disguise his voice).
Caller: “Yeah, I just want to say that – Hillary Clinton – she’s nothing but an AIPAC toadie and you’ve got Dennis Ross over there – they both want a war with Iran. At least Dennis Ross did. He’s got a book out about that. And he’s now with the National Security Council and I suggest that anybody who wants to know about what’s really going on here – we’re going to be in a war with Iran by Christmas. Former CIA analyst or field officer, Philip Geraldi in anti-war dot com, says General James Jones, the National Security advisor, has already signed off on a war with Iran so Netanyahu can do it in eight weeks. Go to america-hijacked dot com for more. Wake up America.”
NOTE: Host failed to interrupt or comment on the sweeping, off-the-wall and incendiary accusations. Caller was yet again allowed to violate the 30-day rule (“Allow 30 days between calls.”) This caller was aired on July 29, August 8, as well as August 23 .
• August 23, 2009 – 9:18 AM
Host: PAUL ORGEL
Guest: ROBERT BAER (CIA formerly), author of The Devil We Know
Caller identified as from Boston.
Caller: “Yeah, I’m here. Yes, shortly after 9/11, Iran reached out to the United States. They were going to help the United States but it was vetoed by Israeli interests within the United States administration. Until the Congress – which is bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby – before these people are expunged, there’s not gonna be any movement forward for peace in that part of the world and I think that’s mighty obvious. Thanks.”
Host: “Robert Baer, any thought?”
Guest: “Yes, I think we can address one point. When we went into Afghanistan in October 2001 there was a General called (indistinct) there who is still in Afghan politics – he is – I wouldn’t call him an Iranian asset, but he certainly answers to Tehran in many ways. He’s a Tajik. He speaks Persian. It was his troops that we marched into Kabul with – the Special Forces from the CIA. That was thanks to the green light from Tehran. So, Iran was completely on our side when we got rid of the Taliban in 2001, but it remained because of Washington politics as part of the “axis of evil.” Again, this goes back to the Middle East – people, it seems to me, cannot look at this rationally and just calculate. This is a very emotional issue – Iran. Because, what for Israelis, and the pro-Israel lobby in this country, is that Iran is an existential threat and that we were not going to have a second Holocaust. This is a message that stresses many Americans’ emotions and sentiments as well as politics in Washington. You know, it is a tough issue to deal with. I do feel sympathy for this White House. We simply cannot say we will give this five more years and see what happens but we’re going to wait until the nuclear bomb and deal with it at that time. There is a movement on the Hill to impose an embargo on gasoline, other embargos, that could very well touch off a war.”
NOTE: The caller claims that Congress “is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby” and that this blocks Middle East peace. Neither host nor guest rebut these obvious falsehoods.
• August 18, 2009 – 8:22 AM
Host: SUSAN DAVIS, Wall Street Journal.
Guest: THOMAS SCHATZ (President, Citizens Against Government Waste)
Caller: Patrick from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Caller: “Yes, the President, in order to push his agenda, needs to get rid of Rahm Emanuel who is probably the weakest representation of any President in U.S. history. And by the way, I don’t see you questioning – the United States – Israel turning America into its own proverbial ATM machine. Talk about waste. Isn’t it convenient – you’re talking about these issues and you never talk about what the American people are really concerned about – and that is – our country being turned into a defacto ATM machine of Israel.”
Guest: “Well, first of all, Israel is the most reliable democratic ally the United States has in the Middle East. I don’t think that the American people would support changing that relationship. Certainly, not a majority. Over the years, there’s been bipartisan support of Israel. Foreign aid in general, which seems to get a lot of people upset, is about 1% of federal spending, about 30 billion dollars. So, we can argue whether or not it is successful, but it is not a huge amount of money. If we cut it all out, there isn’t much to save of the taxpayers money.”
NOTE: The guest rebuffed the caller’s distortions. The host, through silence and failure to cut off the caller, tacitly accepted the anti-Israel diatribe.
•
August 16, 2009 – 8:56 AMHost: LIBBY CASEY, Alaska Public Radio.
NOTE: This anti-Jewish, anti-Israel rant went uninterrupted and un-rebutted by the host who maintained a placid expression throughout. The C-SPAN host allowed promotion of propagandistic Web sites including one controlled by the Iranian government. This call from a frequent female caller was in violation of C-SPAN’s policy reiterated by an on-screen message displayed approximately once every 30 minutes: “Allow 30 days between calls.” This caller was aired on August 10 and July 23 before her August 16 tirade.
•
August 16, 2009 – 9:26 AMHost: LIBBY CASEY, Alaska Public Radio.
Guests: MARTIN and ANNELISE ANDERSON, authors of a book about Ronald Reagan’s Presidency.
Caller: John from San Francisco.
Caller: “I wanted to ask the authors about Ronald Reagan’ s policies in Lebanon. I have been reading a book about it by George Ball. He is highly critical of Ronald Reagan’ s actions, especially with the way they seemingly caved in to the government of Israel. They kept telling us one thing and doing another and basically making us look like fools. That was until the Marines were sent in. We all know there were hundreds of casualties of Marines. I would like to hear if you can shed some light on what Ronald Reagan was thinking? If he was in charge then what was Alexander Haig seemingly going about doing the foreign policy at the time?”
NOTE: Neither guests nor host comment on the unfounded anti-Israel accusation.
•
August 14, 2009 – 8:28 AMHost: STEVEN SCULLY
Guest: ERICK ERICKSON, Managing Editor of RedState (blog Web site), discussing Conservative blogging.
Caller: Curt from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The caller rambles for two minutes (8:28:10 to 8:30:25) about domestic politics, health-care, and foreign policy. He mentions (at 8:29:28) only one foreign leader, slurring a former Israeli leader: “Cheney tells us how Ariel Sharon was a peacemaker. That was the last straw. Any Republican that wants to take these lies has something going for them. Maybe they want to be a Republican blogger thing.”
NOTE: Neither host nor guest commented on the anti-Sharon remark.
•
August 14, 2009 – 9:51 AMHost: STEVEN SCULLY
Caller: Tim from Macon, Georgia.
Caller: “Good morning. I’m going to be honest. This segment doesn’t make a lot of sense to me but I notice one other thing – for a group that makes up about 1% of the population, there’s always one, two, or three Jews on the show every day. I mean – it’s a shame (indistinct).”
Guest (sarcastically): “Yes, it’s a real shame. Real shame.”
Host: “Let me go back to one of the photographs in the book. Miles Davis ..”
NOTE: Although C-SPAN hosts sometimes belatedly cut off anti-Semitic callers, as was the case here, the hosts rarely if ever voice an objection to the caller’s anti-Jewish attacks.
• August 10, 2009 – 8:39 AM
Host: BILL SCANLAN
Guest: BRAD SHERMAN (D-CA, U.S. House of Representatives).
Caller: Sally from Encino, California (frequent female caller).
Host: “Encino in the Congressman’s district, Sally on our Republican line. Go ahead.”
Caller: “Yes. Hello, Congressman Sherman, I’ve been trying to get to you for the longest time. First of all, you are on the Foreign Affairs Committee, okay. First of all, look what motivated the 9/11 hijackers. You can look up neoconzionistthreat.com, america-hijacked.com and you’ll see it’s our support for Israel and their brutal oppression of the Palestinians which got us attacked. You could also look on James Bamford’s book, The Pretext for War.”
Host: “Congressman, do you put credence into her argument?”
Guest: “Sally, you could have come to our town hall we had on June 3rd. We had almost 500 people from the Valley. I’m not hard to talk to. Of course, I will be at Warner Center with the concerts in the park a couple of Sundays this month. As to the idea that Bin Laden would be satisfied if we just countenanced his goal with regard to Israel, which of course is the expulsion of all Jews, ethnic cleansing and perhaps their murder, that would certainly not satisfy Bin Laden, that would whet his appetite. If you look on his Web page he claims Spain, as well, so if you are ready to ethnically cleanse Israel, and every ethnic cleansing we’ve seen recently is accompanied by genocide, in order to buy off bin Laden, think again because he wants Spain and then he refers to the battle in which Islamic forces were prevented from conquering France. He wants to reverse the outcome of that battle. So you better be prepared to give up most of the Old World and then hope that doesn’t just whet Bin Laden’s appetite for the New World as well.”
• August 10, 2009 – 8:54 AM
Host: BILL SCANLAN
Guest: BRAD SHERMAN (D-CA, U.S. House of Representatives).
Caller: Frank from Long Beach, California.
Caller: “Good morning. I just want to say that I really have one fear and trepidation or whatever it is that Israel is going to attack Iran and then run behind our skirts and get us caught up in it. We pay 2.5 billion dollars to Israel every year. We give Egypt a billion and a half. We give Jordan a billion or billion and a half not to attack Israel and yet all they’re doing is telling us is that we should – don’t expand your settlements. They are saying go to hell with you. Just give us our money. We have people in Sherman Oaks, we’ve got people in Moscow who need a place to live…”
Host: “Okay, Frank. Are there concerns about Israel taking a preemptive strike against Iran?”
Guest: “Well, I’ve been working for my entire career in Congress to try and put economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran so Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons. I’d have to say I’ve been unsuccessful until recently and perhaps unsuccessful would even cover recent events. We are not putting economic pressure on Iran. The World Bank is loaning money to Iran, including our money. The IMF – we recently put 100 million dollars into the IMF. They provide about 2 billion dollars of special drawing rights to Iran. So, the Israelis are put in a circumstance of where we don’t do what we should do. And Iran is within a year or so of having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Israel then will have to decide what to do. Had we enforced the Iran sanctions act which we deliberately refused to enforce and had we gone further with other economic sanctions, we wouldn’t be in this circumstance.”
• August 8, 2009 – 8:09 AM
Host: ROBB HARLESTON
Guest: JENDAYI FRAZER, Assistant Secretary (Former) Department of State, African Affairs.
Caller identified as from Los Angeles, California (frequent male caller). Caller tried to disguise his voice and refused to give his name when asked.
Host: “Next up, Los Angeles, California on our line for Republicans. Your name and your question or comment.”
Caller: “Yah. He said I don’t have to leave my name if that’s possible.”
Host: “Okay.”
Caller: “Yah, I’m just calling – I wanted to let you know that Hillary Clinton met with Nelson Mandela, and he is the leader and hero of South Africa and he was right on when he called the Israeli Zionists, ‘racists’. And also, we are trying to put a base into South Africa. Where the hell do we have the money? If you read Arnaud de Borchgrave’s article – he’s over at UPI and you can see it over at America-hijacked.com He says we are going broke and here we are talking about the economy getting better – we are coming up with another crash with regard to jobs. Instead of spending all this money on our empire, we’ve got to bring the men home and stop these wars for Israel and cut the money to Israel too. Kudos to Nelson Mandela. They are Zionist-racists. Thanks.”
NOTE: Neither host nor guest dissociated themselves from this anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist screed. Note the somewhat peculiar follow-up comments by host and guest. Among other things, the remarks seem implicitly to accept that Zionism, the modern Jewish national liberation movement, is racist, in the terms of the subsequently revoked 1975 Arab-Soviet U.N. General Assembly resolution falsely equating Zionism and racism.
Guest: “Well, the only comment I have on that is we aren’t trying to put a base in South Africa. We are not. We have a base in Djibouti right now and we have what is called, ‘Africa Command,’ which is actually based out of Germany and there’s never been any discussion about the United States trying to put any type of military base in South Africa.”
Host: “And – there is nothing in our Africa policy – in the Obama administration’s Africa policy – that ties either directly or indirectly to our relationship with Israel, is there?”
Guest: “No, there is not on the Africa policy, but in South Africa, the South Africans are very interested in the Middle East peace process. They constantly want to become engaged. I think that is because of their own population. They have both Arabs and Israelis – or, you know, Jewish people – in their country, so this is a big domestic issue for the South Africans. They also feel themselves as having been more aligned with the Palestinians given their own history of liberation. I think that the subject will come up in South Africa because they always want to engage us on the Middle East, but there is not from the U.S. position an interest, necessarily, in reaching out to any African country or South Africa, for that matter, to try to resolve the crisis in Palestine-Israel.”
Host: “If we see, as the caller says, President Mandela and subsequent South African administrations, if they insist on using the Zionist label, referring to Israel, will the Obama administration try and distance themselves from that?”
Guest: “Well, they certainly would, but I was ambassador to South Africa – U.S. ambassador – from 2004 to 2005, and I never heard President Mandela – former President Mandela – or President Umbecke or any other officials – refer to Israel in Zionist terms. I think that they tend to be more sympathetic to the Palestinians, but I think that is because of their history. But I have not heard that terminology used by officials in South Africa.”
NOTE: Caller was yet again allowed to violate the 30-day rule (“Allow 30 days between calls.”).This caller was aired on July 29 as well as August 8.
• August 7, 2009 – 7:37 AM
HOST: PAUL ORGEL.
Guest: JOEL SIMON, Committee to Protect Journalists.
Caller: Beverly from Washington D.C.
Caller: “Hi, how are you guys? I wanted to say you mentioned a lot of countries. I think you would have to be illiterate or uninformed not to know that there are American (indistinct) being held in Israel including journalists who we can’t get any word on, and why is nothing ever done when someone is held or mistreated by the Israelis? “
Host: “Caller, let me ask you before we get an answer, where do you get your information on all of this?”
Caller: “Well, I did get it right through callers on C-SPAN, and then I looked it u p on the Internet and it was true. So, your callers are a lifeline for us. The BBC, sometimes we get things too.”
Host: “Let’s hear from Joel Simon. The caller’s point about Israel?”
Guest: “Well, I am afraid I have to plead ignorance – uninformed – about that because I am not aware of that.”
NOTE: Thus, the host mildly scrutinized the caller’s unfounded claim that Israel had jailed incommunicado American journalists and others. Prior to this call, the discussion concerned journalists held prisoner in Cuba, China, Canada and before that – Iran and North Korea. No instance involving Israel was cited.
• August 7, 2009 – 7:19 AM
Host: PAUL ORGEL
Caller: Andrew from Annandale, Virginia.
Host: “Andrew from Alexandria/Annandale, Virginia, back to this question on language – ‘war on terrorism’ being dropped. What do you make of the verbiage here?”
Caller: “Well, first of all, I’d like to say that if the first two callers were a professor and a writer, I’ll eat my hat. Secondly, I’d like to say, we have word this morning that Baitullah Mehsud may have been killed by the U.S. That’s a good thing. But I would like to point out that the term ‘war on terrorism’ is a lot different from the phrase used by George Bush, ‘war on terror.’ If you want to fight the ‘war on terror,’ you had better look within because the first thing you are going to do when you are terrified is attack people right in front of you. You know, countries like the U.S. and Israel have certainly participated in terrorism. I might cite the use of the atomic bomb, the only country that has used the atomic bomb is our own. We have a lot to answer for there. And Israel certainly conducts a lot of violence to achieve political change.”
NOTE: The host, ignoring the caller’s accusation of state terrorism against the United States and Israel, followed up the call with mention of the Senate’s “clunkers bill.” The host had been discussing the Judge Sonia Sotomayor confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court prior to this call in the non-guest segment.
• July 29, 2009 – 9:21 AM
Guest Host: LIBBY CASEY, Alaska Public Radio.
Caller: Tony from North Hills, California (frequent male caller).
Caller: “Hello, I’d like to say: The reason we have a real big problem – you can go to america-hijacked.com – on 9/11 we were hit and what happened is that the bankers started printing out money. George Bush said go out and buy a home and they made money easily available and yet these crooked bankers that basically didn’t care and they made tons of money – Goldman Sachs, who is now financing Obama as well. It all goes back to 9/11 and our support for Israel which made 9/11. Again, you can go to america-hijacked,com and look up what motivated the 9/11 hijackers – what motivated the 9/11 hijackers at neoconzionistthreat.com. Thank you.”
NOTE: Again, a C-SPAN host allowed a propagandistic, anti-Zionist rant promoting anti-Jewish, anti-Israel Web sites. Caller was yet again allowed to violate the 30-day rule (“Allow 30 days between calls.”).This caller was aired on July 13 as well as July 29.
•
July 27, 2009 – 7:47 AMHost: BILL SCANLAN
Guest: MATTHEW LEE, Correspondent Associated Press.
Caller: Irv from Middlesex, Connecticut.
Caller: “The commentator, there along with you, mentioned that common quote that everybody seems to use about Iran, saying they’re going to wipe Israel off the map. Well, that’s been gone through over and over and the text of that speech that he gave- it has been translated from Farsi to English, and the common knowledge is that is not what he said. What he said was that the Zionist regime would fall more or less like the Communist regime, on its own. He never said that. That is something that the Zionist media seems to be pushing because it sounds good. Another point, when Netanyahu was over here and President Obama talked to him about the settlements, that the settlements had to stop, the building has to stop, the land grabbing had to stop, borders have to be initiated, I sat back and laughed just uncontrollably. And Israel, when Netanyahu came back, he immediately decided they were going to build more settlements and he made that known, even after sitting there. It has been happening with President after President after President and Israel continues to slap the American taxpayer and the President at the time, in the face. It happened with Bush. I remember Bush standing in the rose garden with Ariel Sharon and said that the settlements have to stop. Ariel Sharon was on the tarmac in Tel Aviv, the minute he walked off the plane, he said he was going to make 2500 more settlements.”
Host: “Irv, a lot to react to there.”
Guest: “On the caller’s first point, I don’ t think that anyone out there thinks that President Ahmadinejad is a fan of Israel. No matter what he said or didn’t say back in his speech that the Israelis talk about all the time. Iran’s current leadership is no friend of Israel at all. And the second point, settlements is a huge issue, it is a huge problem and the subject of a big, major dispute right now between the U.S. and the Israelis in trying to get Israel to freeze its settlement activities so that they can get the Palestinians can get back to the peace talks.”
• July 27, 2009 – 7:52 AM
Host: BILL SCANLAN
Guest: MATTHEW LEE, Correspondent Associated Press State Department.
Caller: Mark from Ramona, California.
Caller: “Yes. I just don’ t understand why it is that Israel is allowed to have a nuclear weapon whereas the neighbors are not allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Israel from the time it was created in 1948 has been a terrorist nation in that region and basically they started out committing the same kind of crimes that the Serbs were committing in the Balkans.”
Host: “In nuclear discussions with President Obama, has Secretary of State Clinton talked about the Israeli nuclear program?”
LEE: “This is something the Americans don’ t talk about. They don’ t acknowledge publicly. The Israelis also don’t acknowledge publicly that they have but it is widely assumed that they do. Again, it is something I think politicians find better left unsaid.”
NOTE: Neither host nor guest rebuts the slander that Israel has always been a “terrorist nation.”
•
July 23, 2009 — 9:43 AMHost: SUSAN SWAIN
Guests: Congressmen BILL CASSIDY (R-La.), JIM HIMES (D-Conn.).
Caller: (indistinct name) from California (frequent female caller).
Caller: “First of all, I’m a Ron Paul Republican. Okay? I know you two are freshmen members of Congress. I jus t want to say – I want to suggest two books for you to read, since you’re freshmen members of Congress. One is Dare to Speak Out by former Representative Paul Finley, and the other one is The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt. I want to know how much money AIPAC has given you to get on these committees. They are very powerful. They are a very dangerous Jewish lobby. We are fighting wars for Israel and now they are trying to push us into war with Iran and I want to know, are you beholden to them at all?”
NOTE: Guests reply directly to charge of Jewish manipulation, host remains silent.
Host: “Thank you for the call. Mr. Himes, our Homeland Security committee member so let’s start with you.”
HIMES: “Okay. First of all, AIPAC doesn’t give money to individual members. They are an effective lobby for Israeli interests. I’ve gotten to know them. And I guess I would take issue with some of the points that were made. The reality is, and I spent time living in the Middle East, is that we’ve got one sure ally in the region. We’ve got friends but we’ve got one sure ally with whom our values and our security interests are aligned and that is Israel. So, I, for one, tend to lean in to our one sure ally in the region and feel an obligation to make sure that partnership is a good partnership. That doesn’t mean that we don’t act fairly abroad and don’t work very hard to do something that I think this President is serious about doing, which is taking up once again the terribly important work of trying to find a solution to the broader problems in the Middle East, but in particular, to the Israeli-Palestinian challenge.”
CASSIDY: “Jim and I are going to agree on the Israeli issue, Sharon. I do think they are a sure ally. But there is common ground that you and I must have. That is if you’re a Ron Paul person, that means you actually believe in the importance of the individual, and when I – so let’s go back to healthcare (etc.)”
• July 13, 2009 – 8:43 AM
Host: STEVE SCULLY
Guest: SHANE HARRIS, correspondent for National Journal.
NOTE: Caller’s accusation melding an old and new version of the “Jewish cabal” conspiracy theory – Bolsheviks with neo-conservatives – was ignored by both host and guest.
•
July 12, 2009 – 9:55 AMHost: PAUL ORGEL
Guest: Guest: JONATHAN MORGENSTEIN, Senior National Security Policy Adviser.
Caller: Ann from Kansas City, Kansas.
Caller: “… Israelis want us there ( Afghanistan )…so they can continue getting their $20 to $30 billion a year…”
NOTE: Caller’s falsehoods, exaggerating U.S. aid to Israel by a factor of 10, and blaming the Jewish state for the presence of American troops in Afghanistan, were ignored by both host and guest.
• July 11, 2009 – 9:21 AM
Host: LIBBY CASEY, Alaska Public Radio.
Guest: TODD TOLSON, Member Young Republicans.
Caller: Sherri from Dallas , TX (frequent female caller).
Caller: “Yes. Hello. First of all, I’ve been a life-long Republican. I changed at one time and declined to state party because I’m in Dallas, Texas and that way you can vote, you know, in an open primary, because our party, let’s face it, I’ve registered, planning to vote for Ron Paul who was the only Republican running for President, and he got a bum rap. You know, our party has been totally neocon-ed and bought off by AIPAC, the AIPAC lobby – the most dangerous Jewish lobby. I’m really upset about it. I’ll never vote Democrat but when someone says they are running as a Republican, I really question how they believe..”
NOTE: Caller’s false claims regarding the Republican party, AIPAC and the “Jewish lobby” were ignored by both host and guest. It’s possible that the host finally terminated the call but this is not clear.
• July 6, 2009 – 8:27 AMHost: SUE DAVIS, Wall Street Journal.
Guest: HELLE DALE of Heritage Foundation.
Caller: Mike from Goose Creek , South Carolina .
Caller: “Yes. Good morning ladies. First, I’d like to say about the Heritage Foundation – they don’t just put information out – they push agendas. Weren’t your members not the people that had the Twenty-First Century Project for the Twenty-First Century? And also the … Century. And also, you always talk about everyone in the Middle East having nuclear weapons, except Israel . And why, If I was a country next to Israel , would I not want to have nuclear weapons to protect myself? Because Israel has been the aggressor in the Middle East more than most of the other countries. And that’s about all I have to say. Thank you.”
NOTE: The guest vigorously responded:
DALE: “As far as Israel is concerned, yes, it is widely known that Israel may have nuclear capability. Israel, however, has been surrounded by enemies since the day of its founding, and has not been the aggressor – in fact, they have been attacked by their neighbors in two wars, the second of which established its current borders including the West Bank and Gaza Strip from its enemies. Israel has had to defend its existence almost from the day that it was created after World War II as a refuge for the Jewish people after the extermination was attempted by the Germany and the Nazi regime. Israel has plenty of reasons to want to defend itself. It has not been an aggressor, it has not used its nuclear weapons, nor is it ever likely to, unless its existence is threatened. It lives however with neighboring countries, with a Palestinian population on its borders, led by a government that does not believe in its right to exist. Iran , through its government and President Ahmadinejad, has repeatedly said that Israel has no right to exist as a nation and would like to see it disappear from the map of the Middle East . If that was you, if that was your home, wouldn’t you want to establish some defensive parameters? And Israel has had to do that. Were Israel’s neighbors to accept its right to exist, for the Palestinians to do the same, establish diplomatic relations, I am sure Israel would look at the world a different way, but right now I do not think Israel is the problem in the Middle East.”
NOTE: While the guest responded forcefully, the host said nothing.
• July 6, 2009 – 8:48 AM
Host: SUE DAVIS, Wall Street Journal.
Caller: Maitsor from Orlando , Florida .
Caller: “Yes. Good morning. Thank g-d for C-SPAN. I’d like to – please give me the opportunity to say something about the 1967 War. I am 72 years old. Now, two weeks after the War, the defense minister of Israel , Moshe Dayan, was asked two questions in an interview which was never again given on TV. The first question was: how is it possible for Israel to say that they were attacked by the Arab countries, when during the first hour of the war, 95% of the Arab countries airplanes had been destroyed at the airports, he smiled and said they were threatening to attack us so we launched a pre-emptive strike. The second question was, when do you think you’ll withdraw from all of the occupied 1967 territories? He said when all Arab countries decide not to attack Israel and recognize Israel as a state. That happened in March of 2001 with George Bush when he asked the late King of Saudi Arabia to do that. When he was able to accomplish that, to the opposition of some of the Arab countries, Israel denied and said that they wanted at least 3% of the land that they were entitled to..” (Finally interrupted by host).
Host: “Maitsor, do you have another question or comment?”
Caller: “No, I just wanted to correct that lady from before.”
NOTE: Host allowed without comment this misleading, erroneous anti-Israel diatribe.
• July 5, 2009 – 7:29 AM
Host: ROBB HARLESTON.
Caller: Jimmy from Columbia South Carolina.
Caller: “Good morning Sir. I find it strange that you or none of the media is reporting Cynthia McKinney being held hostage in Israel . See, I want to find out about Russia but, how come there’s no coverage of this? A former U.S. Congresswoman being held in jail in Israel. Cynthia says all they got in jail there is black Ethiopians. Don’t you find that strangely interesting?”
Host: “Is she still in jail?”
Caller: “Yes, and she’s been there nearly four, five days now. No coverage in this Jewish-controlled media. None at all – even C-SPAN – would never talk about Israel or nuclear weapons – you will not broadcast one report on the air…” (interrupted by host).
Host: “Have you got anything to say about the President’ s trip to Russia ? No, then we will move on …”
NOTE: Host tacitly accepted caller’s anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli falsehoods.
• July 5, 2009 – 7:39 AM
Host: ROBB HARLESTON.
Guest: ALEX HAFFNER, editor of Scoop44 on-line.
Caller: Nancy from Indiana.
Caller: “Caller: the morning. I have a comment for the young man representing the Democrats. I have been really disappointed in Obama so far. It is like we are deeper into Afghanistan . He has really not done anything to reverse Bush policies on spying on Americans. I’ m really concerned about all of this. I heard the gentleman calling about Cynthia McKinney and her being held in Israel as a prisoner. There has been nothing in the mainstream media. I like our President to comment on what is going on with this former congresswoman being held in Israel as a prisoner.”
NOTE: Neither host nor guest challenged or scrutinized caller’s false accusation.
• July 5, 2009 – 8:39 AM
Host: ROBB HARLESTON.
Caller: Laura, Baltimore Maryland.
Caller: “Hi. I have like four points. I’ll try to keep it really brief. I’m sorry. Thank you for taking my call. One is, I didn’t hear anyone mention that Israel – and to a lesser extent Hamas – have been found guilty of crimes against humanity. But primarily Israel . I didn’t hear anyone mention that. And this representative..” (host interrupts).
Host: “What kind of crimes against humanity are you talking about, Laura?”
Caller: “Firing, I think it’s phosphorous, into large crowds of Palestinians. I don’t know if they were accused ..” (interrupted).
Host: “Are they really doing that? Have you seen that in print?”
Caller: “I’ve heard that… “[interrupted]
Host: “You’ve heard it. Have you seen it in print?”
Caller: “I haven’t seen it in print.”
Host: “Okay, let’s move on to your next topic.”
Caller: “My next topic is: Mossad has released a statement saying they don’t expect Iran to have nuclear weapons until 2014 which .. .”
NOTE: This time the host repeatedly challenged caller’s unwarranted anti-Israel allegations.
• July 5, 2009 – 8:50 AM
Host: ROBB HARLESTON.
Caller: Robert, New London Connecticut.
Caller: “The Middle East . I’ve been studying this for a long time. I’m reading an Israeli human rights group, Bet’selem, urges Hamas to investigate war criminals. Do you believe using white phosphorous on civilians is an act of war criminals? Of war crimes? And I would like to plug, if people want to understand Americans, www.Ameu.Org.”
NOTE: Host lets caller’s vague “war crimes” insinuation pass unchallenged.
• July 5, 2009 – 9:58 AM
Host: ROBB HARLESTON
Guest: Iraqi ambassador to U.S., SAMIR SUMAIDA’IE.
Caller: Benning from Enisberg Falls, Vermont.
Caller: “Good morning to you both. Robb, by the way, if you google Amnesty International you will satisfy your curiosity about Israeli war crimes. Ambassador, a pleasure to speak with you. I wonder if you could discuss installing the Shah in Iran and the U.S. installing Saddam Hussein in Iraq . Thank you.”
NOTE: Neither host nor guest challenged the caller’s anti-Israel comments or noted Amnesty International’s anti-Israel bias.
• July 4, 2009 – 9:54 AM
Host: ROBB HARLESTON
Guest: RICHARD MINITER, editorial page editor for Washington Times.
Caller: Sheila from Redondo Beach , California (frequent male caller ).
Caller: “Good, thanks for taking my call. Your guest is nothing but a neocon propagandist. You can go to neoconzionistthreat.com for more. He basically has said that ..” ..(apparently cut-off).
• July 3, 2009 – 9:01 AM
Host: STEVE SCULLY
Guest: JASON MOTLAGH, correspondent for the Washington Times.
MOTLAGH: Would you describe it as a genocide against the Afghan people?”
Host: “Caller, is that what you’re referring to?”
Caller: “Against the Afghan people, against the Palestinians and Africa, Darfur . The term is genocide.”
MOTLAGH: “I would make some distinctions. I would not say it is genocide in Afghanistan .”
NOTE: Neither host nor guest disassociated themselves from the baseless charge that Palestinian Arabs are victims of genocide by Israel.
• July 2, 2009 – 8:44 AM
Host: SUSAN SWAIN
Guest: Publisher/Editor MORT ZUCKERMAN.
Caller identified as from Chelsea , Massachusetts.
Caller: “Good morning, C-SPAN, I was listening to how the type of mess we got in to the Middle East there with Iraq. And it looks like we don’t learn from our history. I’m relating to the situation when the Soviets were in Afghanistan . But besides that, we all talk about the nuclear free zone in that area and obviously everybody agrees we don’t want no more nuclear weapons around. If I was the leader of Iran or some other country up there and I had a neighbor like Israel in that region that possesses nuclear weapons, you know, how is it going to be a zone-free area if you have a nuclear weapon? We don’t know how they got it. There’s no inspections being taken place. So how could you blame these other countries for wanting to have nuclear weapons, not that it’s the right thing, but, shouldn’t Israel be disarmed if we want this nuclear-free zone? That’s my question.”
NOTE: Host ignores caller’s false equation of threatened Iranian nuclear aggression with defensive Israeli nuclear policy. Guest points out that Israel, like the United States, has no intention of using nuclear weapons in aggression.