Stephen Lendman

The Yiddish word derives from the Hebrew hutspa. It means insolence or audacity. The Urban Dictionary adds "unmitigated effrontery or impudence." Leo Rosten's "The Joys of Yiddish” calls it "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible guts, presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to." Rosten said it embraces "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan."

Israeli extremism matches these definitions and then some. For decades, it's been the tail wagging the US dog. The so-called special relationship is more liability than benefit. Rights afforded Israel do more harm than good. US interests are sacrificed. America loses more than it gains. World peace is threatened. Both countries threaten humanity. Serious reassessment of this hellish relationship is long overdue. Washington does more than let Israel get away with murder. It actively aids and abets it. It concurs on virtually everything Israel wants. Media scoundrels approve. They turn a blind eye to Israel's worst crimes.

Rare criticisms are muted. A December 3 New York Times editorial headlined "Mr. Netanyahu's Strategic Mistake," saying:

He "dug in" his heels. He's "escalat(ing) a crisis." He's increasing settlement construction and withholding tax revenues collected for Palestine. He threatened more punitive measures. He "ma(de) it nearly impossible to restart peace negotiations." He "threaten(s) to crush the Palestinian Authority, and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, who….represents the only credible peace negotiator."

Chris Floyd

On Thursday, Bradley Manning, one of the foremost prisoners of conscience in the world today, testified in open court -- the first time his voice has been heard since he was arrested, confined and subjected to psychological torture by the U.S. government.

An event of some newsworthiness, you might think. Manning has admitted leaking documents that detailed American war crimes in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He has been held incommunicado for more than 900 days by the Obama administration. Reports of his treatment at the hands of his captors have sparked outrage, protests and concern around the world. He was now going to speak openly in a pre-trial hearing on a motion to dismiss his case because of that treatment. Surely such a moment of high courtroom drama would draw heavy media coverage, if only for its sensationalistic aspects.

But if you relied on the nation's pre-eminent journal of news reportage, the New York Times, you could have easily missed notice of the event altogether, much less learned any details of what transpired in the courtroom. The Times sent no reporter to the hearing, but contented itself with a brief bit of wire copy from AP, tucked away on Page 3, to note the occasion.

That story -- itself considered of such little importance by AP that it didn't even by-line the piece (perhaps the agency didn't send a reporter either, but simply picked up snippets from other sources) -- reduced the entire motion, and the long, intricate, systematic government attack on Manning's psyche, to a matter of petty petulance on Manning's part, a whiner's attempt to weasel out of what's coming to him.