Western Media Continues Support for Israel, Apartheid
The crimes of Israel, as funded by the United States and other western powers, are allowed to continue because of the unwavering willingness of the western media to repeat their twisted words.
The authoritarian, genocidal, apartheid regime of Israel has been leading a siege against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an open-air prison, for several days. More than a hundred Palestinians have lost their lives, with a third of them being children and the vast majority being innocent civilians. Israel, backed and funded by the United States and other western powers, is continuing on with it's state-sanctioned terrorism against an oppressed and occupied population.
Israeli forces have characteristically harmed innocent people including families and children, used live rounds and tear gas drones on protestors, shot people with cameras, destroyed infrastructure, bombedpeople's homes and neighborhoods, cultivated and groomed hatred and racist mobsamong Israeli citizenswith police protection, threatened Palestinians that posted police violence online, and continued the ongoing effort to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem of Arabs through settlementorganizations that displace human beings from their homes, among other actions in a combined and sordid effort to strip Palestinians of their rights, dignity, and their very lives.
The bombs being dropped on innocent people are courtesy of us, the United States of America.
The Biden Administration has signaled no intention to withdraw the $3.8 Billion in annual military aid to Israel, and there has been no recognition of the atrocities being done by the apartheid regime. Here's this from State Department spokesperson Ned Price, choosing his words very thoughtfully to avoid saying he condemns the killing of children:
There is no sign anything will fundamentally change in the lockstep relations between the U.S. and Israel. In fact, Biden himself said Israel has "the right to defend itself."
Unfortunately, this is not surprising coming from a president who, in a long line of continuity with past presidents, is giving unconditional support to Israel's wide-scale dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism. It's a long line of the same thing: unequivocal and bipartisan support for Israel. Nothing has changed, and likely nothing will change. . .
In the last twenty years alone, the United States has continued to cultivate an Israeli regime that is a direct extension of the U.S. and therefore free to continue on with its heartless misdeeds. George W. Bush's foreign policy gave further impunity to Israel, and after merely expressing "hope" for a two-state solution, oversaw the escalation of a situation that generated the Gaza Massacre of 2008-2009. Obama, to the dismay of his activist base, conclusively showed little spine in showing solidarity with Palestine outside of meaningless words, and he proudly and notably funded the "Iron Dome" defense technology while the settlement program continued to strengthen with U.S. funding. Trump boastfully began recognizing occupied Jerusalem as Israel's capital in what is a deeply dangerous provocation, and he deceptively pushed the Abraham Accords as a "win" and a step towards peace. And Biden is keeping it all going just as it was before, covering the backs of the Israelis.
In the United Nations, the U.S. has used its veto power 43 times to throw out resolutions to protect the Israelis. On top of the responsibility for its existence and the ongoing funding, the United States and its allies have allowed Israel to act with impunity.
The worst aspect of this continuous line of neglect for human rights is that if someone halfway across the world from these atrocities, living in a country like the USA, were to listen to any of their presidents and take them at their word, they would see every Israeli action and operation as a wholly justified and necessary endeavor. And that is often the case among many citizens in the United States and the west. The massive amount of erroneous interpretations of the matter— like it being too complicated to explain— are fostered by both the media and notable establishment voices, and it is a troubling sign in a country that not only props up and supports Israeli terrorism, but one that produces mass consent among its own people for the continued support for this cruel regime.
Democrat or Republican, if you're a player in a major party it's more than likely you firmly support Israel as they go hand in hand. . . or at the very least, you tip-toe around the issue with a mere mask of solidarity with Palestine. In turn, those who trust the age-old traditions of financially corrupted, donor-run presidential elections— or who have been raised in it without a moment of rest to think otherwise— believe and repeat the same old talking points about Israel. . . that it's "complex". . . or spouting a hypocritical, one-sided critique of "terrorism"— which is a term that's use has caused more wars than the action itself has. . . or falling for every appearance of Israel's permanent association with words like defense and protective— think Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) happens to be the name of its military— you know, the one attacking the Gaza Strip.
Naturally, the brave stenographers for the powerful we all know as the media run with all of it. There are nothing but pro-Israeli voices that form the national perspective. For Americans, it's a non-stop after-school special the way the news, whenever Israel and Palestine comes up, reiterates the very same descriptions and explanations as those in power.
All week, United States outlets either misrepresented the situation or ignored it altogether. Among many American outlets, it was surprising— and also not surprising at all— that many "resistance" journalists are blind to the real resistance: resisting Israeli authoritarianism, apartheid, and terrorism.
CNN, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and Fox News all warped the story to reduce the blame on Israel. And resistance hero Rachel Maddow had nothing to say on the matter.
Alan McLeod put together a thread of misleading headlines and media mischaracterizations of Israel's assault on Gaza. Among them included instances where The New York Post flipped responsibility with a story titled "Airstrikes from Hamas militants kill 20 in Israel, including nine kids". . . The Associated Press set up a mystery novel with (emphasis my own) "Rockets kill 2 Israelis; 26 die in Gaza as Israel hits Hamas". . . Reuters called it as a boxing match between two evenly-matched opponents with "Hamas and Israel trade blows as Jerusalem unrest ignites Gaza". . . The Washington Post described the Israeli attack on worshipers at the Al Aqsa mosque during Ramadan as a "clash". . . and The New York Times published Bret Stephens' opinion piece outrageously entitled "For the Sake of Peace, Israel Must Rout Hamas" while refusing to accept those from Palestinian voices.
That's another major contributor to the massive power the propaganda machine has on the west's opinion of Israeli barbarism: the refusal to highlight Palestinian voices. Time and time again it'll be the same old legacy journalist, or establishment politician, or pro-Zionist Israeli telling people "the news."
A voice you may have heard is Mohammed El-Kurd, a resident of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Remarkably, MSNBC hosts Ayman Mohyeldin and Joy Reid have both had his voice on their shows, and, in a different tone, so did CNN.
Unlike the slivers of airtime given to El-Kurd, many Palestinian voices are ignored. Some are even regarded as vile and worthy of censorship when they speak out in complete honesty against the terrorist Israeli state.
Ali Abunimah went on Germany's DW News and the station had to apologize for it's apparently regrettable mistake of having Abunimah on. It was all because Abunimah had the balls to speak frankly about the reality regarding Israel and Germany's sense of guilt that allows the Israelis to act without consequence.
"I think it is time for the people of Germany and German elites to stop making Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip pay for the crimes of the German people against European Jews," Abunimah said. "Palestinians are sick of paying the price for guilty German consciences. So the bloodshed— the blood that is dripping in Gaza and indeed Israel now is not just at the hands of those firing rockets or dropping bombs, it is also on the hands of the German government that arms this apartheid occupation regime."
An honest and frankly appropriate thing to say proved too much for German media to allow to stand on its own in the archives of time. There is very clearly an element of strict control, or at least a significant desire to achieve it, in terms of covering how the travesties against Palestinians are being portrayed. Of course, this has to be done because if Israel's transgressions were reported as the egregious crimes that they are, and not as some defensive tactic or reaction, then the international community would be up in arms over the horrible, aggressive, and oppressive actions of the Israeli apartheid regime. How could western support continue going to Israel if all its populations knew the truth?
France took it all a bit further, choosing to be more blatant with its approach to the west's assault on any chance for a fair perception of the matter. There, the government placed a blanket ban on pro-Palestine demonstrations in a move that has since been upheld, and even as head of a French advocacy group for Palestine sought to comply with the repressive order, he was arrested by police outside the foreign ministry in Paris.
Look for this wide-scale media strategy to continue as it has for decades, and give outlets and reporters with a focus on Palestinian human rights a chance, even if just in addition to the mainstream news.
The crimes of Israel, as backed and funded by the United States and other western powers, are allowed to continue because of the unwavering willingness of the western media to repeat the twisted words of said governments word for word.
While The Huxleyan intends to remain free to the public, there are paid subscription offers (which would be more of a donation than receiving access to anything in particular) at $5/month, or $45/year. As always, donations are welcome and appreciated via Venmo (@john-pongratz). Again, as those are just options, everything remains free. Thank you for reading and be sure to subscribe, comment, and share!