{"id":139750,"date":"2023-11-25T17:53:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-25T17:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=139750"},"modified":"2023-11-25T17:53:41","modified_gmt":"2023-11-25T17:53:41","slug":"seven-ways-israel-controls-the-news-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/seven-ways-israel-controls-the-news-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Ways Israel Controls the News Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday 11th November, The Guardian<\/em> was editorialising on the Israel-Hamas war. \u201cFake news thrives on poorly regulated online platforms<\/em>\u201d, it warned. Well, yes, that\u2019s true and it does, alongside a lot of accurate and sometimes courageous reporting. However, even 50 years after a war, historians will still argue about key aspects. What we should be more worried about is what the mainstream media present as the impartial, background truth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the point Rami Ruhayem, a BBC<\/em> correspondent based in Beirut, recently underlined when he wrote a public letter warning that the corporation was \u201ccomplicit<\/em>\u201d in Israel\u2019s recent bombing of Gaza, rather than being neutral. The same charge can be made of many other outlets.<\/p>\n

Here are seven examples of how the media has, in large part, propagandised in support of what looks like a 21st century genocide.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Israel is at war with Hamas and is trying to minimise civilian casualties<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    NBC News<\/em> on Nov 8, 2023 wrote: \u201cThousands of civilians headed towards southern Gaza after Israel warned residents to leave the north of the enclave, particularly Gaza City, which the IDF says it has encircled. The UN estimates that at least 15,000 people have heeded the Israeli military\u2019s warnings<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Note the language! It sounds like Israel is some kind of helpful observer. The BBC<\/em> too talks of Palestinians \u201cheeding Israel\u2019s warnings<\/em>\u201d, rather than of them fleeing Israel\u2019s bombing campaign \u2013 a campaign that has already killed over 10,000 civilians.<\/p>\n

    REALITY CHECK:<\/p>\n

    \u201cWar<\/em>\u201d is a flexible term, but really applies to conflicts between states. Hamas is, as we are constantly told, \u201ca terrorist organisation<\/em>\u201d. If, in a real war, total war, bombs are dropped on cities, in conflicts between terrorists and governments they are not. At least, that is, until now. The result is that recently the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled enclave said at least 10,022 people in Gaza have been killed, including 4,104 children.<\/p>\n

    No wonder that the order Israel issued for more than 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip to flee to the south has been said by Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, to \u201camount to the war crime of forcible transfer<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

    The mass exodus comes amid ongoing bombardment and a dire shortage of water, food, and fuel. Photo journalist Mohammed Zaanoun described frantic civilians carrying what they could on foot, in cars, or huddled in trucks along Gaza\u2019s central highway, which was targeted by an Israeli airstrike that killed 70 people.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Israel has no plans to stay in Gaza<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      November 10, 2023. Netanyahu announces that Israel has no plans to stay in Gaza \u2013 in the long term: \u201cWe do not seek to govern Gaza<\/em>. We don\u2019t seek to occupy it, but we seek to give it and us a better future<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

      REALITY CHECK:<\/p>\n

      Speaking to Al Jazeera\u2019s Marc Lamont Hill, mere hours after the evacuation order was broadcast, Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli deputy foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, pointed to \u201ca huge expanse, almost endless space in the Sinai desert<\/em>,\u201d where, he said, Israel and the international community could prepare \u201ctent cities, just like for the refugees of Syria<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Minister of Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen also alluded to partial annexation. \u201cAt the end of this war<\/em>,\u201d said Cohen, \u201cnot only will Hamas no longer be in Gaza, the territory of Gaza will also decrease<\/em>\u201d. As Harvard professor Sara Roy has documented, Israeli-imposed buffer zones has long absorbed \u201cnearly 14% of Gaza\u2019s total land and at least 48% of [its] total arable land.<\/em>\u201d Israel\u2019s refusal to allow the right of return for millions of other refugees, including the nearly 1.5 million registered in Gaza, is proof enough for Palestinians that any \u201crelocation<\/em>\u201d is likely to be permanent.<\/p>\n

      972 Magazine<\/em> adds extra context on the methods Israel has long used for clearing the land of Palestinians. Irgun commander Ben-Zion Cohen, who oversaw an \u201coperation<\/em>\u201d in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, which saw more than 100 Palestinians executed in April 1948, later said that its intent was to spread terror among Palestine\u2019s indigenous population, pushing them to leave. \u201cThree or four more Deir Yassins<\/em>,\u201d Cohen boasted back then, \u201cand not a single Arab would have remained in the country<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Palestinians are \u201canimals\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        The Israeli Minister of Defense has said, \u201cWe are fighting human animals and we act accordingly<\/em>.\u201d Another high-ranking officer has said, \u201cHuman animals should be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction<\/em>.\u201d An army spokesperson said \u201cthe emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/p>\n

        Such hate speech and incitement have spilled over into the West. One example is US Senator Lindsey Graham\u2019s call for Israel to \u201clevel the place<\/em>.\u201d He also said the conflict is a \u201creligious war<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

        Yet perhaps the most horrifying image of the conflict so far has been that of babies beheaded by the Hamas insurgents. The story went swiftly around world, propelled by no less a source than President Joe Biden who told journalists during a White House press conference that he had seen photographs adding: \u201cI never really thought that I would see and have confirmed, pictures of terrorists beheading children<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

        This too, is a form of hate speech. Later, the White House would issue a \u201ccorrection<\/em>\u201d stating that Biden did not actually see \u201cconfirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children<\/em>\u201d. However, Biden\u2019s original horrific claim continued to circulate while the \u201cwalking back\u201d obtained little prominence \u2013 even though when the names and ages of victims were released in Israel media, no children under 5 years old appeared on the list.<\/p>\n

        Nevertheless, as early as October 11, journalists like Le Monde<\/em>\u2019s Samuel Forey had already noted that the story had no basis, adding: \u201cno one spoke to me about beheadings, let alone beheadings of children, let alone beheadings of forty children<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

        None of this mattered because the Israeli narrative was intended to play on existing emotions, not to say prejudices. Which is why the IDF continued to press the story, telling journalist Ragip Soylu: \u201cWe cannot confirm any numbers. What occurred in Kibbutz Kfar Azza is a massacre in which women, children, toddlers and elderly were brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

        REALITY CHECK:<\/p>\n

        Awful acts do take place in wars, but atrocity stories like these are simply propaganda. As International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan said, standing at the Rafah Border Crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip:<\/p>\n

        \u201cWe\u2019re going to need the determination, the stamina and the professionalism to make sure that we separate allegation from fact, that we can look at the evidence, investigate incriminating and exonerating evidence equally, and most fundamentally, at this moment, to underline that there should not be any impediment to humanitarian supplies. This needs to be a moment when we find our shared humanity<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

        The political reality of inflammatory tales is that, as the old saying of Mark Twain goes, a lie can be halfway round the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.<\/p>\n

        In this case, the horror of the \u201cbeheaded babies<\/em>\u201d gave the US the political space to green-light Israel\u2019s bombing campaign of Gaza, with its waves of destruction that would really kill many babies and young infants. By the 9th November, the Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas but generally accepted as reliable, estimated that the Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip had climbed to 10,812. \u201cThe victims include 4,412 children, 2,918 women and 676 elders, while more than 26,000 people were injured<\/em>.\u201d Another 2,650 people, including 1,400 children, were also reported to be trapped under the rubble.<\/p>\n

        And yet, as Rami Ruhayem also says in his public letter, words like \u201cmassacre<\/em>\u201d, \u201cslaughter<\/em>\u201d, and \u201catrocities<\/em>\u201d are used prominently by the media in reference to actions by Hamas, but hardly, if at all, in reference to actions by Israel.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. The US is trying to do \u201cwhat is right\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          October 12, 2023. White House officials announce: \u201cWe are having conversations with Israeli officials about the continued need for humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people, who are victims here as well<\/em>,\u201d said John Kirby, director of strategic communications for the National Security Council. \u201cThis is what is right<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

          Leave aside whether Palestine is being ethnically cleansed in plain sight \u2013 a powerless and impoverished city is being ruthlessly destroyed and yet the West seems indifferent. Why is this? Wherever you start, the trail soon leads back to US politics. Here, Muslim votes count for nothing and the Jewish lobby makes or breaks governments.<\/p>\n

          Consider for example how close the current U.S. President, Joe Biden is to Israel. In 2010, in the middle of the then Vice President\u2019s trip to Israel, the \u2018Bibi\u2019 Netanyahu government embarrassed Biden by announcing 1,600 new homes for Jews were built in East Jerusalem, despite it being supposed to be the future capital of a future Palestinian rump state.<\/p>\n

          \"\"<\/p>\n

          Biden is notoriously intolerant of disagreement, and the media called the Israeli move humiliating. However, Uzi Arad, one of Netanyahu\u2019s advisors, later revealed that when Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Biden, Biden threw his arm around \u201cBibi\u201d and said with a smile, \u201cJust remember that I am your best f***ing friend<\/em>\u201d. A moment recalling how, in 2012, Biden publicly declaring to Netanyahu: \u201cBibi, I don\u2019t agree with a damn word you say, but I love you<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

          REALITY CHECK:<\/p>\n

          Today, the politics of Americans \u2013 and many other countries too, including the U.K \u2013 with respect to Israel is characterised by prejudice against Arabs \u2013 who are seen as various kinds of \u201cterrorist\u201d and ignorance (and indifference) to the history of the region. This indifference even lends itself to the irrational conviction in US political circles that the Bible<\/em> predicts the Second Coming of the Messiah \u2013 but only once the Holy Land is wholly reunited under Israeli control. \u201cGather all the Jews back to the land of Israel<\/em>\u201d as it says in Isiah<\/em> verse 43.<\/p>\n

          It has even been suggested that Joe Biden is part of this, though we have no way of knowing if this rumour is true. However, this ridiculous and irrational view feeds into a political consensus that, one way or bloody another, Palestine needs to become \u201cIsrael\u201d.<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Palestinians only have themselves to blame. After all, they voted for Hamas!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Human rights groups have described Gaza, surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire fences, as \u201cthe world\u2019s largest open-air prison<\/em>.\u201d Since 2007, Israel has imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, crippling the economy, saying to do so was necessary to safeguard the country from Hamas\u2019 attacks.<\/p>\n

            Today, due to Israel\u2019s siege of Gaza, the majority of Palestinians there no longer have access to basic needs such as healthcare, water, sanitation services, and electricity. Even prior to the latest siege, their situation was already pretty desperate: according to the UN, 63% of the population was dependent on international aid; 80% lived in poverty and 95% did not have access to clean water. All this is clearly collective punishment as well as a violation of Israel\u2019s responsibilities as the occupying power.<\/p>\n

            Experts in international law have argued that the siege of Gaza may amount to \u201ca slow-motion genocide<\/em>.\u201d Key here is the fact that the Genocide Convention<\/em> of 1948 lists, among the elements of the crime of genocide, the act of \u201cDeliberately inflicting on the (national, ethnical, racial or religious) group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part<\/em>.\u201d And yet, despite this, the media talk is about how Israel \u201cwithdrew\u201d from the Strip in 2005 and how badly Hamas has run it since then.<\/p>\n

            Linked to this is another much parroted Israeli line to the effect that Israel withdrew completely from Gaza but Hamas kept attacking it. In reality, Israel has launched missile strikes at will on the territory. Between 2008 and 2023, before the current conflict, Israeli airstrikes had killed 6,407 Palestinians in the occupied territories, 5,360 of whom were in Gaza, according to the U.N. Over the same period, 308 Israelis were killed.<\/p>\n

            REALITY CHECK:<\/p>\n

            Today, most of the inhabitants of Gaza are refugees or descendants of refugees from the original 1948 Nakba<\/em>, or \u201cCatastrophe<\/em>\u201d or from the 1967 war, and more than half are under the age of 18. They haven\u2019t voted for anyone, not that voting for Hamas actually makes you responsible for everything Hamas does any more than voting for Biden makes you responsible for his continued support for the war in Yemen \u2013 another war that has caused over ten thousand civilian deaths. Actually, Biden\u2019s political platform included a commitment to end that support, but you could still blame citizens for not seeing through him \u2013 or indeed for not taking to the streets to overthrow him. Such ridiculous arguments are regularly used to justify killing Palestinians.<\/p>\n

            Rather than blame the Palestinians for Hamas, maybe it makes more sense to blame Israel. Because Israel carefully nurtured Hamas in the early days to undermine the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n

            Ironically, for all his rhetoric now, in the past Netanyahu has spoken openly of supporting Hamas as a way to deepen political and socio-economic divisions between the West Bank and Gaza with the aim of fracturing the Palestinian national movement and preventing the emergence of a viable Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Unlike the Arabs, the Jews have nowhere else to go<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              Alla Umanskiy, a \u201cwriter and Jewish mother<\/em>\u201d, based in the United States recently recalled Golda Meir, the fourth Prime Minster of Israel\u2019s, words, adding:<\/p>\n

              \u201cThe Jewish diaspora exists all over the world, but there\u2019s only one place that welcomes Jews unconditionally and always has, since its inception. For as long as Israel exists, Jews have a home. Even Jews who, like me, don\u2019t live there; even Jews who have never been there; even Jews who find Israel uncomfortable due to its location among Arab nations<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

              \"\"<\/p>\n

              REALITY CHECK:<\/p>\n

              Actually, Israel is the one place in the world where Jews feel under constant threat. The reason lies in the history of Israel, and it is not that complicated. Following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war, Israel seized land from the Palestinian Arab-allocated state and ended up with 77% of the total territory. More than half of the Palestinian Arab population was expelled or fled as refugees to Gaza, the West Bank and neighbouring countries. And since 1967, as Amnesty calculates, more than 100,000 hectares (that\u2019s an area three times the entire Gaza strip) of Palestinian land has been appropriated by Israel.<\/p>\n

              Yet today many American voters have been encouraged to feel indifference to Palestinian suffering for decades, and instead have passively accepted an alternative reality in which the Jewish people not only there \u2013 but worldwide \u2013 are a persecuted but courageous minority. Nearly six million Americans are Jewish and live pretty safely in America, just as they do in Europe, in Russia, and even in Israel\u2019s favourite political target, Iran.<\/p>\n

                \n
              1. You just can\u2019t negotiate with terrorists<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                In 2017, Israel declared that it would not \u201cconduct diplomatic negotiations with a Palestinian government that relies on Hamas<\/em>\u201d. A cabinet statement said it \u201cunanimously decided that Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas, a terrorist organization that calls for Israel\u2019s destruction<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

                To be clear, on October 7, Hamas certainly did launch an unexpected attack that killed many Israelis, men women and some children too. There was the bloodshed at the music festival, and at the various \u201ckibbutz\u201d, as Israel calls its well-defended advance settlements (or \u201ccolonies\u201d). However, the methodical killing of the defenceless is not evidenced, it seems at least possible that the raids largely followed a haphazard military strategy in which \u201ccombatants\u201d (including armed settlers) were killed but civilians for preference kidnapped. (There is now much evidence that Israel was firing on its own kibbutz and citizens at the music festival.)<\/p>\n

                REALITY CHECK:<\/p>\n

                It all contributes to a theme of how it is impossible to \u201cdeal\u201d with Hamas, or indeed the Palestinians more generally, as they tend to be dominated by radical groups.<\/p>\n

                As Anthony Cordesman has put it, in an article for the Center for Strategic and International Studies called The War in Gaza and the Death of the Two-State Solution<\/em>:<\/p>\n

                \u201cThis series of \u2018wars to end all peace\u2019 has now gone on for nearly half a century, and every effort to negotiate a real two-state solution has ended in failure, a new round of fighting or Intifadas, and more tension between Israel and the Palestinians<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

                This narrative belies certain facts. Firstly, that it is Israel who in fact does not wish to negotiate. There is a covertly filmed video of Netanyahu talking to settlers in which he explains how he derailed just such a negotiation \u2013 the Oslo Accords <\/em>\u2013 by redefining military facilities as whole regions \u2013 like the Jordan Valley.<\/p>\n

                \n

                next time they tell you that the Palestinians never accepted "peace" (i.e. the peace of the stronger) show them this secretly filmed video in which Netanyahu explains the techniques to sabotage any accord. pic.twitter.com\/gMi53mUvbc<\/a><\/p>\n

                — Lorenzo Kamel (@lorenzokamel) August 11, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n