In an article titled "For German media, Gaza is not an issue" that was published in Hebrew in the website of Haaretz ( http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/962373.html this version was edited and shortend and doesn't have all original quotes) last weekend by Assaf Uni, he documented a meeting between leading German media persons and the Israeli Ambassador. May they be conservative or liberal, the German Journalists didn't raise any critical questions and one of them also said "Herr Ambassador, allow me to say that you can always feel here as between Friends".

The biased reports in German mainstream media in favor of Israel and its occupation politics, a very clear Pro-Israel line that is not to find in most European media outlets, is not a new phenomena. The Fact that also "lefty" or "alternative" media in Germany is in this sense very similar to the corporate media probably a bit less known.

The German Indymedia editors were very busy in the last two weeks, especially since the attacks on Gaza began. They were mainly busy erasing Articles that dealt with Israeli politics, hiding or erasing comments that were contributing to the articles that were luckily not erased, and letting comments like press releases from the Israeli embassy stay as "content related addition". Racist comments that compare Palestinian to Nazis or use the term "Islamofascist" are not being erased all though any comment that will compare Jews or Israelis to Nazis will be immediately erased (as it should).

The erasing of an article reporting a Demo in Berlin and in Tel Aviv in Solidarity with Gaza was canceled only by the fact that the article in German and English was published in UK-Indymedia ( http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/03/393002.html ) with an explanation about the origin of the article (that was later erased by the UK Indy moderators). The Article was back in the German Indymedia site, three days after it was originally written, in the fourth page of the openposting, it was not found to be a newswire worthy article.

To ignore is one of the best ways to censor. Not letting any article about Palestine or solidarity actions with Palestine a status of a worthy Article by putting them in the Newswire is the main tactic of silencing critics against Israel. The only article that was put in the newswire and related to Palestine was a report about a Pal. demonstration in Duesseldorf ( http://de.indymedia.org/2008/03/210049.shtml) . The report that was full with lies and racist stereotypes was written by a German "anti-german" that reported proudly how they waved Israeli and Americans flags in front of the demonstrators.

The Islamophobic and racist discourse in Germany is just a part of the mainstream society as it is a part of the "radical left". The fact that an alternative media outlet like Indymedia is silencing and censoring every critic on the state of Israel and letting racist bigots publish their filth should be know also outside of Germany, especially to other Indymedia websites.

Against Antisemitism and Islamphobia!
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