The American Media Watch
Group Consortium (AMWGC)
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Invitation Text
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In my capacity as co-chair of the founding committee I am hereby inviting your organization to join the Amertican Media Watch Groups Consortium (AMWGC). Please find more information on the AMWGC at: http://64.226.129.19/pmw/amwgc/ Organizations thath have been ivited may be found at: http://64.226.129.19/pmw/amwgc/members.html MOTIVATION No doubt you agree that the one of the most important battles for a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the one vying for the hearts and minds of world opinion. This is a political and moral struggle, and it will be won or lost on the political and moral battle fields. Support for Palestinian rights is solid around the world, but it is weak here in the United States, where fundamental misconceptions and a worldview heavily steeped in myth and misinformation have been holding US public opinion hostage to unreflective support for Israel. This state of affairs is no mere accident but the result of a lot of hard work by committed, well organized pro-Israeli occupation activistS in the United States and elsewhere -- forces that are able to mobilize tens of thousands of supporters at the drop of a hat. The effect is that the US media is very mindful of what it writes about the conflict and how it writes about it (for a look at what is today commonplace in the US media, please visit http://www.pmwatch.org). Needless to say, if any progress is to be made towards changing US public opinion, and arguably US policy towards the region, a similar counter-force effort must established by the pro-Palestinian rights side, an effort that is also well entrenched in the grass-roots support movement, well-disciplined, active, and reliable. MISSION The Consortium's mission is to help mobilize massive weekly efforts to counter egregious journalistic failures in the American press. We must clearly communicate to the US media that we are no longer willing to tolerate the media's sanitization of occupation, confiscation, state terrorism of helpless civilians, twenty-four-hour town closures and curfews, uprooting trees and roads, home demolition, the killing of Palestinian children, assassination of Palestinian leaders, among other flagrant violations of basic international law. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been framed from the Israeli point of view long enough. It is high time that the media lived up to some very basic journalistic standards and began to present reality with the jealous independence of mind and spirit it brings to other stories. INVITATION The Palestinian story as it should be told to the American people has not been told, and it is our responsibility to clamor for it until it begins to be heard. Please join dozens of organizations (and we hope to make it hundreds in due time) and help us build a truly diverse and powerful action group. If you would like to participate in this effort, you have a choice
between two options: (2) Not join formally, but agree to be included in our mailing list to receive our weekly action calls (maximum of 1 email/week) If you choose option 1, please provide the following by way of an application. There is no membership fee, and no hidden obligations.
Yours, Ahmed Bouzid Co-Chair of the Founding Committee, AMWGC/President of Palestine Media Watch http://www.pmwatch.org |