Studies show that US coverage is Israeli-centric. The main bureaus for CNN, Associated Press, Time, etc. are located in Israel and often staffed by Israelis. The son of the NY Times bureau chief is in the Israeli army;"pundit" Jeffrey Goldberg served in the IDF; Wolf Blitzer worked for AIPAC. Because the U.S. gives Israel over $8 million/day - more than to any other nation - we feel it is essential that we be fully informed on this region. Below are news reports to augment mainstream coverage.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Israel, Google and the internet advertising war of deception

Salem News- OK, this advertising game with Israel is getting really weird! It begins with the fact that almost all Websites contain Google Ads.

We put a code in and Google's robots run through the story and assign particular advertisements to stories based on keywords. In this case we're talking about the banner ads which are horizontal, roughly 720 x 120 pixels wide. Our banners are color ads, but Google often uses that same space for three individual line ads.

A few months ago, pro-Israel ads began showing up in stories we were carrying that were critical of Israel's status as a government suspected by United Nations officials of war crimes and serious Human Rights violations.



This seemed improper to us as one story now both criticized these suspected crimes, and contained ads suggesting Israel has a right to defend itself, which is a separate issue.

Veterans Today and other groups that print articles generally unpopular with Israeli officials and supporters, also were troubled by this strange unnatural merging of thoughts critical of Israel, with ads blatantly supportive and dismissive of any wrongdoing.

Of course we could see this was Google's quiet method of keeping us dancing on puppet strings. Google is a pro-Israel organization. YouTube is a pro-Israel organization. We talk about how their interests control Washington D.C. and national media, but they also really are fully integrated online every step of the way.

So, John Allen and the crew at Veterans Today created an ad that closely resembled the pro-Israel banners but, (after Congress awarded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with almost 30 standing ovations a few weeks ago) began with the words 'Screw America' because that really is the read between the lines message of Congress, in the opinions of millions.

I went ahead and wrote a story about this reverse meaning ad because I wanted those who click the banner to see why such a silly thing is there in the first place. (see: New Slogan Makes Showing Screw America, I Stand by Israel)

My view is that if Israel insists on clogging our stories with their ads, it's only fitting that we include our version because all is fair in love and war.

So it only takes about two weeks from the time we started this game for something new to begin. As unlikely as it seemed, this is what showed for the first time in a Google ad, theoretically the first time in history that anything purporting to suggest negativity toward Israel ever appeared in that format: