June 14/2025 by BNimri Aziz.
If it would help awaken others to end atrocities and extinguish your own fear of being personally slandered, would you speak out like this journalist dares?
Take for example, “Sorry if this is antisemitic, but…” It’s Caitlin Johnstone’s May 27th post in Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix (carried by a few independent sites). Commentators frequently quote one another or hyperlink to each other’s work; but we don’t often devote a full article to advocate for a fellow journalist. I decided it was worth putting aside my own commentary to direct you to Johnstone. I find her to be one of the most clear-headed, fearless English writers in the world today.
Johnstone’s work may be new to you, and although her positions are even controversial within the established ‘Left’, she survives the corporate knife that has cut down so many in recent years. Like other forthright, no-nonsense critics of Israeli and U.S. policies, her writing lies on the far margin of political reviews. Even so, she’s prolific, determined to share her voice. Take her commentary: “Offending Zionists is …” Unapologetic as ever.
Be prepared. She’ll frighten you. Anger you, or embolden you. She may write what you feel, but dare not utter.
Caitlin speaks directly to the reader. No grandstanding. She doesn’t use her space to show off a mastery of global affairs; although she knows her stuff. Why waste words on common empirical facts or review tired arguments her readers will already know. So, like other subscribers, I don’t read her for news or for background to any current issue. She knows we possess the bare facts—on surveillance, police brutality, corruption, daily accounts of Palestinians massacred, on modern weaponry, or the maleficence and cowardice by elected leaders.
Caitlin candidly displays her convictions and admits her determination to write as ‘witness’, especially to Israel’s wars. ‘I won’t turn away’, she asserts. Take her “Sorry if this is antisemitic…” She dispenses with caveats and equivocation offered by others who judiciously temper their condemnations. Too often to avoid or hedge around the egregious, alarming and career-destroying charge of antisemitism, some critics preface their remarks with quotes from early Hebrew philosophers or Jewish Human Rights lawyers, or begin their critique demanding Hamas release Israeli hostages. It’s hard not to reach for a shield, when increasingly, spurious charges are leveled at groups and individuals of purported antisemitism – eclipsing worldwide condemnation over Israel’s genocide itself!
How significant Johnstone’s following is, I don’t know. But her forthrightness may be one reason she’s rarely quoted, even by other ‘radical/progressive’ thinkers. Look at her recent piece: This is Israel.
Johnstone is based in Australia. Although however many thousands of miles she is from Washington, London or Tel Aviv, she is not beyond the reach of those forces engaged, openly and clandestinely, in shutting down news sources, whistleblowers, celebrities or investigative journalists who dare to counter the dominant narrative. I first found Johnstone’s work on Consortium News when she joined in attacks on UK and American authorities for their mean persecution of Julian Assange. Writers like Caitlin Johnstone who dare to go deeper than progressive, independent media, are increasingly threatened or detained by authorities or find their subscriber system deactivated (de-banked). Their voices have become weaker, especially in the last two years when European and American powers tolerate little dissent outside the bigoted ‘liberal press’. One has to respect (and support) the skill of those critics who survive and persist: notwithstanding Counterpunch itself, we have Greenwald’s System Update, Blumenthal on TheGrayzone, Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo, Consortium News launched 30 years ago by Robert Parry, and Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill and others on Dropsite. Caitlin Johnstone stands firm at a time when only the most courageous journalists manage to survive in this vulnerable time of eroding press and civil liberties.