Max Blumenthal critiques the US coverage of the Shalit release

I recommend Max Blumenthal's latest story. Underreported in USA media (or crucial context about the Palestine occupation not even given) about the Shalit release.

'Reports on the exchange generally did not mention the identities of the Palestinian prisoners, and if they did, they tended to only name those who had committed violence against Israelis. It is of course newsworthy that perpetrators of le...thal violence against Israeli civilians are being freed, and that many Israelis are outraged about it, but the American media made no effort to contextualize the conflict propelling the violence -- the word "occupation" was not mentioned once in today's reports on the exchange. Nor was there been any description of disproportionate Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians, including by Shalit's tank unit, or Israel's routine kidnapping of Palestinians without charges. In reporting the first major Israel-Palestine news event since the Mavi Marmara massacre in 2010, the American media produced an entirely Shalit-centric barrage of coverage that even the Israeli Foreign Ministry could not have matched.'

But it wasn't just US media. Radio Netherlands Worldwide pretty much reported the same way as the Americans. No surprise there, either... as RNW is becoming a propaganda arm of the Dutch Foreign Ministry in the right-wing government (e.g. The Netherlands is 'Israel's best friend').