Wednesday, October 11: Collective Punishment & Propaganda
It's easy to believe the worst when there's no fact-checking involved
At some point we have to talk about the rampant misinformation and endless propaganda coming out of apartheid Israel.
Here’s a look into the mind of the average western reporter: “An IDF soldier just told me that Palestinians are savage cannibals who feast on human flesh as part of satanic rituals, he gave no evidence and the claim couldn’t be verified, but I will immediately share it publicly with my tens of thousands of followers anyway.”
These folks are one fake news report away from saying Palestinians magically shape shift into demons at night and devour souls. If tomorrow the IDF declared that the moon was green, most of the TV talking heads and western politicians wouldn’t even bother lifting their heads to see for themselves, they’d simply take their word for it.
In times of war, the Israeli military is often cited as a source for western media reports, but this army of apartheid defenders is far from reliable. These are the same murderous soldiers who have been caught repeatedly lying about the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh’s murder last year. The same military that has openly admitted to misleading journalists in 2021, when it claimed it was going to conduct a ground invasion into Gaza. The list of lies goes on, but hopefully you begin to understand how intentionally deceitful these IDF sources are, but journalists continue to gobble up and shamelessly spread their propaganda.
The truth is Israel has declared total war on Gaza, but what is it they’re going to war against? Gaza has no airbases, no army bases, no tank battalions, no air defense systems, no naval ports, no oil refineries, no rail system, no troop barracks, no armored personnel carriers, no howitzers, no satellite systems, no attack helicopters, no fighter jets, no anti-tank weaponry, no submarines, no command centers. It’s an open-air prison full of people, most of them women and children, and it’s being carpet bombed endlessly and without warning. That’s why the entire Palestinian population is being dehumanized, turned into "human animals" whose lives don't matter.
If stories like the unverified claims of Hamas militants raping Israeli hostages or the recent outrageous claim of Israeli babies being beheaded are as fake as they appear, we have to ask why the apartheid state invents such atrocities. As if the reality isn’t bad enough?
The answers is simple: These atrocities are meant to justify the ongoing, proven and documented murder of Palestinians. The very fact that this kind of propaganda is spread and believed so quickly and uncritically is deeply-rooted in long held Orientalist tropes of Arabs and Muslims. This is how they already see us: hyper criminalized, hyper aggressive, hyper sexualized savages.
Wolf Blitzer, a mainstay on American television for decades, was interviewing an American doctor trapped in Gaza when the sound of explosions startled his guest. Blitzer asked if the doctor needed to leave the interview to enter a bomb shelter, to which the doctor simply replied, “There are no bomb shelters here (in Gaza).” You’d think someone who has covered Israeli airstrikes and war crimes on Palestine for decades would know this by now.
The situation in Gaza is beyond words, as they are cut off from the rest of the world. Hospitals are quickly running out of supplies to treat the critically wounded, with no hope of treating the climbing number of injured Palestinians. Families are sheltering in place together, so that if they go, they all go together. Yesterday my wife learned that her cousin’s home was bombed, and the only thing worse than learning of the devastation is the continued knowledge that our government and elected representatives are endorsing it.
Side Items
Congressman Scamtos: In a new 23-count indictment, George Santos, the scam queen representing the state of New York, is being charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements, falsification of records, aggravated identity theft, and credit card fraud. This man has committed more crimes than he has supporters, with details emerging that he stole the identities of his campaign donors and then used their credit cards. Prosecutors said some of the stolen money even ended up in Santos’ own bank account
Hurricane Lidia: Hurricane Lidia made landfall yesterday as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm with winds of ~140 mph. The devastating storm hit near Mexico’s Pacific coast town of Puerto Vallarta and was expected to drench the region with heavy rain, with the hurricane center warning of possible flash flooding