Eight years ago, on the eve of the 2016 presidential elections, the son of a poor farmer who had fought in the Iraq war as a Marine after high school, attended Yale University on a scholarship for combat soldiers, and went on to become a lawyer, was emerging on the Ohio political scene and choosing as his target the presidential candidate, New York businessman Donald Trump. “Trump, the modern-day Hitler…” he began, leaving out his stupidity, his fondness for prostitution, and the fact that he had paid off the women he raped.
This promising young senatorial candidate was none other than James Donald Bowman by his first name, James David Hamel by his second name and J.D. Vance by his current name. J.D. Vance, with whom Trump ran as his vice-presidential running mate. J.D. Vance, who rebuked the French President in Paris and all the European leaders at the Munich Security Conference for misinforming, disinforming and violating the freedom of expression of their people… Yes, not “criticizing and condemning”, but outright reprimanding, reprimanding and warning…
You can argue about freedom of expression in European countries; you can argue that it is increasingly monopolized by rich or well-organized groups. But you cannot object to the court sentencing of some members of Patriots for Europe, a group that brings together conservative, far-right and populist parties from 13 countries, including parties that nominated people who burned down foreigners’ homes as candidates for elections, and that sent Trump greetings at the “Making Europe Great Again” conference in Madrid last week. In Europe, where there is virtually unlimited freedom of expression, to consider a few decisions of the courts as a violation of the freedom of expression of the people of the entire continent is to send a greeting to the European neo-fascist and populist far-right extremists who probably sent a greeting to Trump.
If J.D. Vance and Trump, whom he once called “America’s Hitler”, are so sensitive about freedom that they would defend the rights of neo-fascists in Germany, they should look at the violations of freedom of expression in Israel by Netanyahu, officially declared a “wanted criminal” by the International Criminal Court. For at least three years, Netanyahu has used the October 7 attack by Hamas and the genocidal war in Gaza as an excuse to launch an attack on all newspapers, magazines and TV channels in Israel, religious extremist or liberal, right-wing or left-wing, that do not support him, and has been severely condemned by both the Israeli press professional associations and international non-governmental organizations. The Netanyahu government’s economic boycott of Haaretz is aimed at intimidating Israeli journalists through self-censorship.
As a result of this pressure, Israel’s Channel 13 management canceled its most popular and highly rated news and politics program, hosted by veteran investigative journalist Raviv Drucker. The International Committee to Protect Journalists reported that violence against journalists in Israel has reached an unprecedented level and that journalists are being targeted “not because they are criminals, but because they are journalists.”
Palestinian journalist Mohammed Saleh al-Sharif is the second journalist to be killed by Israel, after Palestinian-American journalist Shirin Abu Akleh, who was killed while covering an Israeli army raid in the West Bank. The closure of all Al Jazeera television offices in Israel was in reality a warning to all journalists in Israel.
J.D. Vance and American politicians who are blind to the censorship, self-censorship and murder of journalists in Israel are the last people to lecture Europeans on protecting freedoms. It is impossible to understand what freedom Trump is talking about when he refuses to let reporters from TV channels that criticize him into the White House, and when he canceled the White House subscriptions of six magazines because of their articles mocking the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
Source: milliyet.com.tr
