Germany confirms its collaboration with genocide
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | April 15, 2024
A three day Palestine conference in Berlin was forcibly shut down after three hours on Friday. Electricity was abruptly terminated in the midst of the presentation by Salman Abu Sitta, the 87 year old author of the authoritative “Atlas of Palestine”.
Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of DIEM25, Yanis Varoufakis, was prevented from entering Germany to attend the conference. He went on Twitter/X to send a message:
Do you know that the German Interior Ministry has just banned me from entering Germany? Indeed if that were not enough, I have been banned from talking to you via zoom, or indeed through a video message like this, exactly like this. The threat being that I will be tried in Germany for breaking German law. Why? Because of a speech that I published yesterday on my blog calling for universal human rights in Israel- Palestine …. So my question to my German friends, to Germans in general whether you agree with me or not doesn’t matter. … Is this (banning) in your name? Is it something that you feel comfortable happening in your democracy? From my perspective this is essentially the death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Another banned guest speaker was UK citizen Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. He reported on Twitter/X:
I have just returned from Germany where I was prevented from entering the country for attending a conference in Germany to give evidence on the war in Gaza and my witness statement as a doctor working in its hospitals. This morning at 10 I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine where I had been asked … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both Shifa and al-Ahli Hospital. Upon arrival I was stopped at the passport office. I was then escorted down to the basement of the airport where I was questioned for around 3.5 hours. At the end of 3.5 hours I was told that I will not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April. Not just that … if I were to try to link up by Zoom or Facetime with the conference even if I were outside Germany or if I were to send a video of my lecture to the conference in Berlin, then that would constitute a breach of German law and that I would endanger myself to have a fine or even up to a year in prison.
Dr. Abu Sitta further commented:
Germany is defending itself against Nicaraguan charges that it is an accomplice to genocidal war as described by the International Court of Justice. This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do. They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses. …. This crackdown on free speech is a dangerous precedent… We are watching the first genocide unfold in the 21st Century and for Germany to become implicated as an accomplice in silencing the witnesses of this genocide does not bode well for the rest of the century.
A large contingent of police invaded the conference and shut off the electricity. Organizers told the reported 250 conference attendees to not provoke the police to violence. Afterward, organizers held a press conference reporting on the behaviour of police before and during the crackdown. Even before the conference, police tried to intimidate supporters of the conference and the owner of the conference venue. They threatened the venue owner might not be able to hold events in future if the conference went ahead. An organizer asked, “Are these the methods of the mafia or democracy?”
Western and Israeli media reported the closure was to prevent “anti semitism” or “hatred of Israel”. On this dubious and hypothetical basis, public education about a real ongoing massacre and mass starvation was made illegal.
US-NATO: The Cost of War in Occupied Europe
By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | April 15, 2024
NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine involves increasing military spending. According to official data, Italy’s military spending has increased from 21 billion euros in 2019 to more than 30 billion euros in 2023, equivalent to an annual daily average of more than 80 million euros, in public money diverted from social spending. According to the NATO commitment, Italy will have to increase this spending to about 100 million euros per day. Since 2014, NATO-member Europe’s military spending has soared, exceeding the level of the last phase of the Cold War.
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg emphasizes,
“The Allies are providing Ukraine with unprecedented military and financial aid. France will soon send more Caesar howitzers, and several Allies have joined the Czech Republic’s initiative to procure 800,000 additional artillery shells.”
Italy, which has already also supplied Kiev with heavy artillery pieces, is participating in the purchase of these additional 800,000 shells, with an additional outlay of public money paid by us citizens.
A further aggravation comes from the fact that Italy shares in the expenses of U.S.-NATO bases that, from Italian territory, play primary roles in supporting war operations, from Ukraine to the Middle East. Of particular importance is the role of Camp Darby, the largest U.S. arsenal outside U.S. territory. These days, new and more powerful armored vehicles are arriving from the United States at this base, located between Pisa and Livorno, which will be sent from Camp Darby, via the port of Livorno, to Ukraine.
The U.S. bases at Camp Darby, Sigonella and others on Italian soil also support war operations in the Middle East, where the United States continues to arm Israel under an agreement, entered into by President Obama and his deputy Biden, to supply Israel with $38 billion worth of weapons, including the bombs with which Israel is exterminating Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli minister calls for full seizure of Gaza Strip
MEMO | April 14, 2024
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Sunday for imposing a full control over the entire Gaza Strip, Anadolu Agency reports.
Smotrich’s remarks came following an announcement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office that Hamas’ response to mediators’ proposals for a prisoner exchange deal was negative.
“Giving up on Israel’s red lines and chasing after Hamas for a deal only makes the chance of bringing everyone (hostages) home further away,” the leader of the Religious Zionism party wrote on X.
“It’s time to learn lessons, change direction, … and restore full Israeli control all over the Gaza Strip,” he added.
On Sunday morning, Netanyahu’s office called Hamas’ response to the broad outlines presented by mediators regarding a proposal for a cease-fire with Israel as negative.
“It has been over a week since the Cairo meeting – Hamas has rejected the outline that was tabled by the mediators,” Netanyahu’s office wrote on X.
Hamas is estimated to be holding more than 130 Israeli hostages, while Tel Aviv is holding more than 9,100 Palestinians in its jails.
Hamas demands an end to Israel’s deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the territory for any hostage-prisoner swap deal with Tel Aviv.
Israel has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians since an Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by Hamas in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed and around 250 hostages taken.
A previous deal in November saw the release of 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners in exchange for 240 Palestinians, including 71 women and 169 children.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have tried to broker an agreement to release the remaining Israeli captives.
The conflict has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Global calls for a cease-fire have been growing as the war has entered its seventh month.
Israeli army shells hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Gaza
Press TV – April 14, 2024
The Israeli army has shelled hundreds of displaced Palestinians trying to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, as the Tel Aviv regime presses ahead with its genocidal war in the besieged Palestinian territory.
At least five Palestinians, including a woman, were killed and several others injured in Israeli artillery shelling on Sunday.
“Five fatalities, including a woman, and a number of injured people arrived at Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip,” media outlets quoted medical sources as saying.
The casualties occurred among “the displaced Palestinians who tried to return to the northern Strip via al-Rashid Street,” they added.
Palestinians gathered at al-Rashid Street to cross to the north of Gaza after rumors spread that children and women under the age of 14 were allowed to cross the north in Gaza City.
The Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said the regime had warned the Palestinians against approaching the Israeli forces invading the northern Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli army does not allow the return of residents, neither through Salah al-Din Street nor through Al-Rashid Street,” he said, “The northern Gaza Strip is still a war zone and we will not allow a return to it.”
Witnesses confirmed that the Israeli army asked them to return to the southern Gaza Strip and fired smoke bombs at them to prevent them from reaching the north.
Israel waged the genocidal war on Gaza after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Israeli aggression has so far killed at least 33,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
In January, an interim ruling by the International Court of Justice ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Ottawa fails to condemn Israeli damage to Canadian embassy
By Yves Engler | The Canada Files | April 13, 2024
An apartheid state committing genocide damaged a Canadian embassy while conducting a flagrant war crime. But Ottawa has remained silent about an incident designed to ignite a regional war.
Two weeks ago, the Israeli Air Force murdered 16 people in strikes on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus. They reportedly killed two top Iranian generals, two civilians and a dozen militants. The illegal strikes obviously impinged on Syrian sovereignty and contravene multiple conventions such as the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Dozens of governments condemned Israel’s violation of international law. The European Union criticized the strikes and a senior United Nations official told an emergency meeting of the Security Council that the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises and personnel must be respected. The Coordinating Bureau of the 120 nation Non-Aligned Movement released a statement that “strongly condemns the heinous attack conducted by Israel against Iranian diplomatic premises and representatives in Damascus.”
For its part, Ottawa failed to criticize Israel’s actions even as it has emerged that Israel’s strike destroyed a number of windows in the Canadian embassy, which is located next to Iran’s. While formally closed since 2012, the damaged embassy remains Canadian property.
Ottawa was also mum when Israel killed over 50 people in Syria, 72 hours earlier. To the best of this author’s knowledge, the Trudeau government hasn’t criticized any of Israel’s innumerable — 33 times since the start of this year — illegal strikes in that country. Nor has Ottawa criticized a series of (presumed) Israeli killings in Iran though they regularly criticize that country’s actions.
As Israel has bombed Lebanon, Syria and Palestine in recent years, Ottawa has sold it arms and maintained a multitude of bilateral and multilateral military ties. Additionally, the Trudeau government has turned a blind eye to the inducement of Canadians to join or assist the Israeli military in violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act and to registered charities fundraising for the Israeli military in contravention of Canada Revenue Agency rules.
Israel’s attack on Iran’s diplomatic outpost in Syria is a major escalation. The Iranians have said they will respond with a significant assault (reportedly Tehran told Washington that if they impose a ceasefire in Gaza, they will hold back). Israel has responded to Iranian threats by claiming it will further escalate the conflict. On Wednesday Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, posted to X, “If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran.” President Joe Biden said the US will support Israel.
As has been speculated for some time, Benjamin Netanyahu wants to draw the US into a war with Iran. Netanyahu has long hyped the Iranian threat and wants to have the US weaken the only power in the region that hasn’t been cowed by Israel/US dictates.
Netanyahu has a personal interest to continue fighting. He’s likely going to be ousted as prime minister and may even end up in jail on corruption charges when the fighting stops. Additionally, Israel has failed in its bid to liquidate Hamas in Gaza, Palestine. After six months of Israeli-perpetrated horrors, most of Hamas’ top leaders are alive, uncaptured, and Israel hasn’t even recovered those kidnapped on October 7.
More generally, instigating wars is a national pastime for Israel. (“Israel is an army with a state” goes the saying). Israel has bombed Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia and Iraq. Fifteen years ago, Israeli military historian Zeev Maoz explained in Defending The Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security & Foreign Policy:
“Between 1948 and 2004, Israel fought six interstate wars, fought two (some say three) civil wars, and engaged in over 144 dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) that involved the threat, the display, or the use of military force against another state. Israel is by far the most conflict prone state in modern history. It has averaged nearly four MIDS every year. It has fought an interstate war every nine years. Israel appears on top of the list of the most intense international rivalries in the last 200-year period.”
Later in the book, Moaz said:
“There was only one year out of 56 years of history in which Israel did not engage in acts involving the threat, display, or limited use of force with its neighbors. The only year in which Israel did not engage in a militarized conflict was 1988, when Israel was deeply immersed in fighting the Palestinian uprising, the intifada. So, it is fair to say that during each and every year of its history Israel was engaged in violent military actions of some magnitude.”
Maoz concludes (describing the Nakba as a “war of independence”):
“None of the wars — with a possible exception of the 1948 war of Independence — was what Israel refers to as Milhemet Ein Brerah (‘war of necessity’). They were all wars of choice or wars of folly.”
For its size, Israel may be the most violent state in the history of humanity. Canada has seldom criticized and in fact enabled this rogue state, as it unleashes ever more death and destruction.
Yves Engler is the author of 13 books. His latest book, available now, is “Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy”.
WHEN IT’S OKAY TO NUKE A COUNTRY
By Norman Finkelstein | April 12, 2024
Historian Benny Morris supports Prime Minister Netanyahu’s resolve to attack Rafah (“Israel’s Security Depends on Rafah,” NY Times, 11 April 2024). Normally home to 280,000 Gazans, Rafah now also contains 1.2 million internal refugees swept into the city during Israel’s massive ethnic cleansing the past six months. It’s probably the most densely populated spot on God’s earth. In a disingenuous wordplay, Morris designates these 1.5 million Gazans a “human shield.” This locution denotes the involuntary conscription by an armed force of civilians to protect itself. But Hamas didn’t conscript these forsaken souls as shields; it was Israel that drove them there while now purporting that it must kill them to get at Hamas. Morris’s article is couched in this propagandistic idiom. He still refers to the casualty figures as based on the “Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” even as independent professional studies have confirmed these figures, and they are almost certainly an underestimate. He states that the current 33,000 figure “includes the more than 12,000 Hamas fighters the Israeli military claims to have killed these past six months.” In fact, the casualty figures Israel alleged in its previous “operations”—dutifully repeated by Morris in his books—wildly differed from the findings of human rights groups, while Israel has bandied about a mass of wildly discrepant figures of militants killed during the past six months. The IDF hasn’t even a clue how many Hamas combatants have been killed: it’s almost certain that most militants have fallen victim anonymously alongside civilians in the course of Israel’s deliberately indiscriminate terror assault on Gazan society; there have only been a handful of “battles” where Hamas corpses can ultimately be counted while, judging by previous Israeli operations—in which its “crazy” and “insane” firepower overwhelmed Hamas fighters and thus they rarely made it to actual combat—there cannot have been many Hamas battlefield corpses in the latest round to add up; the IDF doesn’t usually enter the Hamas tunnels it discovers but just explodes the shafts; Israel routinely classifies any dead adult male it stumbles upon during its “operations” as a Hamas “terrorist.” Meanwhile, Israel’s prime minister recently avowed that the IDF has killed only one civilian for every Hamas militant it killed. Does Morris believe this?
Morris justified an Israeli assault on the grounds that Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza; that an “expansive Hamas tunnel system” lies beneath Rafah; and that the “Hamas battalions” numbering “thousands of its fighters” ensconced in these tunnels must be “obliterated.” How does he know all this? Yes, Israel alleges that Hamas has built 450 miles of tunnels beneath Gaza. But that figure exceeds in length the famed sprawling, ramified New York City subway system (430 miles of tunnels), and, if true, every 1,200 hundred feet along minuscule Gaza’s 5-mile-long width, there is yet another 25-mile-long tunnel stretching its full length. Is that credible? It’s also anyone’s guess whether “Hamas battalions” are hiding in Rafah. Just a few months ago Israel alleged that Hamas’s command-and-control center lurked beneath al-Shifa hospital. Then it alleged that Hamas’s leaders had fled to Khan Younis. And on and on. Even as each claim proved to be false, they did nonetheless serve as a useful pretext to pulverize the infrastructure of another parcel of land as Israel proceeded to make Gaza uninhabitable. It seems that—with an assist from Morris—that fate now awaits Rafah.
Morris’s admonition that Hamas must suffer total defeat places him squarely within the consensus of Israeli politics. But the Israeli political spectrum is off the spectrum. There’s no center let alone left in Israeli politics: there’s only a right, a far right, and an ultra right. On the US political spectrum Morris’s opinion is echoed in a new publication by the neocon Jewish Institute for National Security of America: Hamas must be “effectively destroyed”; Israel must inflict a “visible and overwhelming defeat of Hamas.” (JINSA, “The Day After: A Plan for Gaza,” March 2024) The lead authors of this report are John Hannah, Elliott Abrams, and Lewis Libby. This trio was last heard from when they played crucial roles in the George W. Bush administration’s decision to unseat Saddam Hussain. So if you’re curious where Morris is coming from, think of the—crazed—mindset that brought us Iraq.
Morris anticipates that if the attack on Rafah goes ahead, “the additional civilian casualties and the attendant further disruption of humanitarian aid … will ratchet up condemnation of Israel’s conduct by its Western allies, led by the United States.” Notice his one and only concern is that the assault won’t go over well in the West. A just-released report by the respected International Crisis Group observes that Israel’s “stated goals of destroying Hamas and toppling the government” cannot be reconciled with “saving what remains of Gaza and preventing mass death from starvation and disease.” It’s one or the other. The report concludes that “The goal of toppling Hamas cannot justify abetting a famine that could claim tens of thousands of lives.” (“Stopping Famine in Gaza,” April 2024) But the moral dilemma of pursuing an assault that could result in a hecatomb doesn’t even register for Morris. His moral calculus only reckons the diplomatic fallout. Here again, he is an Everyman Israeli.
Professor Morris was once a serious historian. Like everyone else, he had his biases, but his books were replete with rich archival findings. But, per the generality of Israelis, he has in recent decades become so consumed by hatred and contempt of Palestinians, so given to bile-filled rants, that not a word he says can any longer be trusted. (I publicly challenged Morris during a debate to answer my stringent parsing of his recent scholarly output. Morris agreed—but then abruptly, albeit predictably, backed out after reading my analysis.) He has exploited his deserved past reputation to disseminate Israeli state propaganda. Like the JINSA neocons, he has been repeatedly exhorting the US to join Israel in an attack on Iran. What’s more, he has even rattled the threat that, if Israel has to go it alone, it will have no recourse except to nuke Iran:
“Realistic leaders in Washington and Jerusalem cannot allow Teheran to have the Bomb. And, in the coming months or year, must do what is necessary to halt and destroy the Iranian nuclear project. And if this involves a protracted, conventional air assault on the Iranian nuclear facilities—then so be it. The Iranians will have brought that assault on their own heads. And, if conventional weapons cannot do the job—and if Israel is forced to go the course alone, it is doubtful that its conventional capabilities will be sufficient to destroy the Iranian nuclear project. Then non-conventional weaponry will have to be used to stymie the project. And many innocent Iranians will die. But the Iranians will have brought this upon themselves by bringing to power and leaving in power a leadership that will have forced Israelis to do what was necessary in order to survive.” (“A Second Holocaust?: The threat to Israel” (2 May 2008; www.mideastfreedomforum.org/de/node/66)
It’s a most intriguing proposition. If the Iranian people elected their current government, then, if they are wiped out in a nuclear attack, “they will have brought this upon themselves.” Doesn’t it then follow that, if the Israeli people elected their current genocidal government—indeed, according to polls, overwhelmingly support the genocide—then “they will have brought this upon themselves” if …?
‘Silencing a witness to genocide’: Germany detains Gaza war surgeon
Press TV – April 12, 2024
Germany has detained Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah who was invited to attend a Palestinian conference in the capital Berlin.
Abu Sittah took to X on Friday, saying that he was being held at a Berlin airport and would not be able to attend the conference, to which he was invited to speak “about my work in Gaza hospitals.”
“The German government has forcibly prevented me from entering the country.”
Abu Sittah was set to address ‘The Palestine Conference. We will put you on trial,’ that was due to start at noon, with over 800 tickets sold.
German police, however, said only 250 people would be allowed to attend.
“Silencing a witness to genocide before the ICJ adds to Germany’s complicity in the ongoing massacre,” said Abu Sittah, referring to a legal case filed against Germany over its arms supplies to Israel.
Abu Sittah, also a British citizen, returned to Gaza immediately after Israel started its relentless bombardment of the besieged territory in October.
The surgeon became one of the most high-profile and respected medical professionals who highlighted the devastating medical shortages faced by doctors in hospitals across the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to media about the challenges, he once said that doctors resorted to vinegar and other household items to conduct surgery.
After more than six relentless months of Israel’s bombardment, full-scale ground offensive and blockade on fuel, water, and humanitarian aid, the Gaza Strip has been turned into an uninhabitable place that lacks the most basic components of life and basic medical services.
The Israeli attacks have killed at least 33,634 Palestinians and injured 76,214 more, mostly women and children, since October 7.
Ukrainian Defector’s Car Explodes in Moscow, Owner Sustains Minor Injuries – Assistant
Sputnik – 12.04.2024
MOSCOW – A car belonging to Vasily Prozorov, former lieutenant colonel of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), has exploded in Moscow while he was inside the vehicle, Prozorov’s assistant told Sputnik on Friday.
Earlier in the day, a source in the city’s emergency services told Sputnik that an unidentified explosive device had gone off on Friday under a Toyota Land Cruiser in northern Moscow, injuring the owner. A criminal case has been opened in connection with the incident, the source added.
“Don’t worry. He is alive and fine. He will continue his work. No matter how hard they tried [to kill him], they failed,” the assistant said, when asked about the circumstances of the incident.
The assistant confirmed that Prozorov was admitted to a medical facility and was receiving treatment.
“He has been injured, but fortunately not severely, so he is now conscious and able to communicate,” the assistant said, adding that Prozorov was waiting for investigators to be questioned in connection with the incident.
Prior to fleeing to Russia, Prozorov worked in the SBU department for the Zaporozhye Region. After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, he moved to Kiev to serve in the so-called Anti-Terrorism Center of the SBU and has been commandeered to the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone in Donbass several times.
In 2018, Prozorov moved to Russia and has since participated in investigating crimes believed to have been committed by the Ukrainian government. He has recently been working on a documentary about the events of May 2, 2014, in Odessa.
Hamas adhering to its conditions for prisoner deal: Haniyeh
Al Mayadeen | April 12, 2024
The head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, told Al Mayadeen that the Palestinian Resistance group is adhering to its conditions in negotiations and will not engage in any deal with “Israel” without their fulfillment.
Haniyeh emphasized the Resistance’s insistence on the necessity of declaring a permanent and clear ceasefire in Gaza.
He made it clear that the Israeli occupation has not eliminated Hamas, and shall not eliminate it, pointing out that the Israeli government has not retrieved its captives held in Gaza and shall not retrieve them except through “an honorable deal.”
The Palestinian leader affirmed the Resistance’s insistence on the complete withdrawal and the return of the displaced people to Gaza without any conditions or barriers, in addition to the conditions regarding relief and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, leading to a prisoner exchange deal.
Haniyeh touched on Israeli media’s speculations that the Israeli assassination of his sons and grandchildren is aimed at pressuring Hamas to ease its demands during ceasefire negotiations, underlining that “this will not happen.”
The Hamas chief indicated that the massacres and crimes committed by the Israeli occupation in Gaza reflect its strategic failure after not achieving its declared goals of the war.
“Israel, the spoiled child of the West, is no longer as it once was, and its image has been shattered,” he told Al Mayadeen, adding that what is happening in the “corridors of diplomacy” indicates an unprecedented isolation for the Israeli occupation entity.
Addressing the entire nation, Haniyeh highlighted that the ongoing genocide in Gaza requires a different stance from the past six months.
‘Israel’ has conclusively lost the debate in Western popular culture
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | April 10, 2024
As the Israeli regime pursues a policy of inflicting mass starvation inside the Gaza Strip, after having failed to defeat any of the Palestinian Resistance factions in battle, it can now be stated with confidence that they have lost the public relations battle decisively.
At the beginning of “Israel’s” genocidal assault on the people of the Gaza Strip, a large portion of the Western public was in some way convinced by the Israeli propaganda. The Zionist entity worked overtime to ensure that all the context necessary to understanding why Hamas launched its offensive operation, on October 7, was irrelevant and that history started on that day. As the Israeli counterattack began to inflict much larger civilian death tolls in Gaza, compared to the initial Zionist claim that some 1,400 Israelis were killed on October 7 [later lowered to just under 1,200], they quickly realized that the reality of what happened on that day would pale in comparison to what the Israeli military was on route to inflicting in Gaza.
Hence, when Israeli spokespeople and government officials in the West spoke of October 7, they refused to even acknowledge the fact that the Israeli military in the south of occupied Palestine had collapsed. The Western media also joined in on attempting to frame Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as a “terrorist” attack that was aimed at targeting civilians solely, with no mention of any military goals. Up until this moment, Western corporate media and government officials call the ongoing genocide a Hamas-“Israel” war, refusing to acknowledge that all Palestinian factions from across the political spectrum are at war with the occupation, not just Hamas.
False Israeli atrocity propaganda, such as that “40 beheaded babies” were ruthlessly murdered by Hamas fighters, was spread even by US President Joe Biden himself. Other gruesome lies, which were quickly debunked, were also spread, with Israeli propaganda attempting to assert that October 7 was “Israel’s 9/11”. Ultimately, with the aid of activists and journalists on social media, these pernicious lies were revealed to be part of a disinformation campaign. In fact, the sheer volume of lies that continue to be spread about October 7 has only enraged the general public further and inspired them to work harder in a bid to fight back against what many see as sheer gas-lighting.
Whether it be the claim by Israeli President Isaac Herzog that Hamas was carrying Daesh/Al-Qaeda documents or that Al-Shifa Hospital was a “Hamas HQ”, the lies were ineffective, and, in some cases, led to popular internet memes mocking the Zionist propaganda. In the case of Israeli military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, he was transformed into the “there is a list guy,” after attempting to say that a list written in Arabic, naming the days of the week, was actually the naming of “khamas terrorists”.
With the International Court of Justice (ICJ), having ruled in South Africa’s favor and accepting that the Zionist Entity is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, along with the insane levels of death and destruction that have been caused in the besieged territory, the general public in the West is clearly appalled at this point. People are seeing horrifying war crimes committed mainly against women and children, on a daily basis, and the most horrifying footage of children, elderly individuals, women, and other vulnerable groups, being murdered. The stream of videos, photos, and reports of Israeli crimes from human rights groups are being spread around the clock and are unignorable.
That being said, social apps like TikTok have played a crucial role in the dissemination of information to young people throughout the West. Countless young influencers have proven successful at spreading the facts surrounding the oppression of the Palestinian people, leading to the ADL chief, Jonathan Greenblatt, stating that “this is not a left-right gap” in support of “Israel”, instead, he continued, “it is young and old.” He also went on to say, “We have a major Tiktok problem”.
Earlier on during the war, various prominent actors, singers, and rappers spoke out in favor of a ceasefire and preached for there to be a free Palestine. We saw the likes of singer Kehlani and rapper Macklemore make their pro-Palestine sentiments clear. As time went on, it became abundantly clear that mainstream podcasters, news show hosts, and figures in independent media were all turning on the Israelis. While most prominent left-wing public figures were quick to side with the suffering people of Gaza, lately we have seen traditional Zionist allies and well-known right-wing commentators turn on the Israelis and their October 7 narrative. We are at the point where the likes of Candace Owens and Alex Jones have turned against the Israeli regime’s propaganda.
The world’s most popular podcaster, Joe Rogan, also recently made a number of remarks on Gaza and called the Israeli military’s assault a genocide, comparing it to the Holocaust, and wondered how a people who suffered historically in a similar way could be doing the same thing to others.
It is not just that the Zionist entity has inflicted such a high child death toll in Gaza, for example, that has made it untenable for almost anyone to sustain their defense of their [Israeli] actions, it is rather the scale on which they have committed their unthinkable crimes. Whether we look at the numbers of hospitals destroyed, healthcare workers and UN employees killed, the scale of destruction to civilian infrastructure, or the speed at which mass famine has been manufactured, there is no conflict in recorded modern history that properly compares. Rape, torture, the deliberate shooting of children, the murder of women and children in front of their families, stuffing civilians’ bodies into garbage bags, blowing up homes for fun, destroying mosques, hospital massacres, school massacres, massacres committed against starving people attempting to reach food aid, and the release of snuff films by Israeli soldiers where they wear women’s clothing in invaded homes for fun or for humiliating civilians, pretty much any crime the mind can conjure up has been committed.
It is in this light that despite the Western corporate media having been staunch supporters of the Zionist narrative, even outlets like CNN and MSNBC have begun to change the style of their coverage and publish openly critical stories about the Israeli regime. Even Western government officials are having a difficult time defending the Zionist entity at this point, with various European nations cutting off arms sales and recognizing the State of Palestine at the United Nations. Even the staunchest allies of the Israelis, like the German, British, and American governments, are having to alter their language slowly on the issue and feign ignorance of well-known atrocities in order to limit the criticism, coming from an overwhelming public demand to force the Zionists to end their genocide.
The pro-Palestine anti-war movement is perhaps the biggest of any cause on earth, with mass demonstrations occurring on a weekly basis, while boycotts of pro-Israeli companies have not ceased. The resilience of the people of Gaza has even driven a new-found interest in the Islamic faith. In protest of his government’s policy on the Gaza war, Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty Air Force service member, lit himself on fire while screaming “free Palestine” until his dying breath.
Whether on the left or the right, in the independent media or the mainstream media, the Israeli regime has completely lost the public relations war. The Western public, especially the young, are becoming more educated, more outraged, and less scared of speaking up in favor of Palestinian liberation. “Israel” has lost the media war and the world now sees this apartheid regime for what it truly is.
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From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
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Aletho News- Turkish parliament to review Saudi-Pakistan defense pact next month
- DEATH SPIKES & RISING CANCER IN OUR YOUTH EXPLAINED
- Iran offers Trump deal before US election
- Merz regime wants ‘secret police’ – opposition
- Israeli settlers terrorize West Bank Palestinians with state-provided drones: Report
- They see them, then kill them: Israeli quadcopters track, deliberately target civilians in Gaza
- Debunked: Trump’s egregious UNGA claims on war against Iran crumble under scrutiny
- Europe was part of the infrastructure of US aggression against Iran: Deputy FM
- New evidence on the Bucha Massacre
- Italy and France debunk reports CIA issued ‘Russian drone threat’ warning
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
