Israel's Apocalypse Now

Down The River We Float Into Netanyahu's Heart of Madness

[Above] Aid drops and bombing, simultaneously, over Northern Gaza ^

When men believe absurdities they commit atrocities, said Voltaire. But as we commit atrocities, so too will the absurdities grow - would you like to hear some?

In March, the US dropped aid packages in parachutes in Gaza. One failed to open so plummeted to the earth, killing five people - like throwing an apple at a hungry beggar and accidentally breaking his skull. In a hundred years, maybe historians will see the funny side. Right now, our efforts to “help” seem like a sadistic taunt. No apology, you’ll note, from the Americans. Just an unexplained denial of responsibility. Two kids were among the dead - little boys no doubt excited to see the airdrop and running to it, undignified, with tiny hearts of hope.  

At the same time, the US has decided to build a “temporary port” on Gaza’s coast to receive ships carrying food, water, and so on. The absurdities abound - people are starving now, so the last thing they need is a lengthy building project. Plus, in practice, the port will no doubt be used by the Israeli military at least as much as aid suppliers. Finally, and most starkly, there would be no need for such a port if President Biden simply did what his predecessor did and called Israel to say the bloodshed must stop. “I didn’t know I had that kind of power,” a seemingly bemused President Reagan said in 1982 when he ended the Lebanon war with such a phone call. Biden will know - he has been conducting foreign policy for over 50 years.

In the 1960s, it was an article of faith that American troops had been deployed to “defend South Vietnam” against “aggression” by communists from the North. By the end of the war, though, the US had dropped two-thirds of its bombs on the South. “We had to destroy the village to save it [from Communism]” became understood as an ironic cipher or phrase for the counter-productive nature of US policy, but it applied to whole countries.

It reminds me that just after the invasion of Iraq, the US imposed a new law that Iraqis could be shot for stealing oil. Yes, that Iraqis could be shot for stealing oil.

New media analysis examines over a hundred thousand TV clips from 13 broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4 and news articles from 28 UK online media websites including the Guardian, Times, Express and Telegraph. 76% of online articles frame Israel’s aggression as the “Israel-Hamas war” – rather than a war on Gaza – and over 70% of the terms atrocities, slaughter and massacre in broadcast media were used exclusively in reference to attacks against Israelis. In TV reporting, Israeli perspectives have been referenced almost three times more than Palestinian ones. Israel’s “right” to self defence is mentioned at least five times more than the Palestinians’. Out of nearly 100,000 mentions of the term “Gaza”, there were only 26 instances of the phrase “occupied Gaza” on TV. There were about twice as many references to Israeli deaths, despite the Palestinian deaths being in five digits. 

An example that captures this contrast is found in The Times: “Israelis marked a month since Hamas killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 240, starting a war in which 10,300 Palestinians are said to have died”. Again downplaying Israel’s active role, an article by The Guardian explained that Palestinians were beginning to “dehydrate to death”. 

As Declassified UK has reported, Israel’s fake news about Hamas beheading babies was widely reported as fact in the mainstream media. But the report finds that, of the 361 TV clips where the term “beheaded” and “babies” was found, only 52 were subject to rebuttals or questioning. 

A smaller study late last year found that major American network news aired 105 segments on Gaza but only included the word “ceasefire” or “de-escalate” eight times. Fox News actually mentioned “ceasefire” twice as often but only to ridicule people who wanted one. Somebody should give Fox News the Nobel Peace Prize.

Maybe we all have fixed a political ideology. The difference is that mine is that everyone should be okay. We don't want people dying, do we? The media’s fixed ideology is to take a side in every factional dispute, always favouring all the wars - from nuclear to culture. As such, the absurdities during this year of war will only continue to grow in scale.

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