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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNETANYAHU'S WAR ON TRUTH Israel's Ruthless Propaganda Campaign to Dehumanize Palestinians
https://theintercept.com/2024/02/07/gaza-israel-netanyahu-propaganda-lies-palestinians/TWO WEEKS BEFORE Hamas commandos led a series of raids into Israel on October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu stood before an empty chamber at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The Israeli prime minister brandished a map of what he promised could be the New Middle East. It depicted a state of Israel that stretched continuously from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. On this map, Gaza and the West Bank were erased. Palestinians did not exist.
What a historic change for my country! You see, the land of Israel is situated on the crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe, Netanyahu bellowed at a handful of spectators in the large hall, nearly all of whom were his loyalists or underlings. For centuries, my country was repeatedly invaded by empires passing through it in their campaigns of plunder and conquest elsewhere. But today, as we tear down walls of enmity, Israel can become a bridge of peace and prosperity between these continents.
Just as the Bush administration exploited the 9/11 attacks to justify a sweeping war in which it declared the world a battlefield, Netanyahu is using the horrors of October 7 to wage the crusade hes been preparing for his entire political career. With his grip on power fading last fall, the October 7 attacks provided him with just the opportunity he needed, and he hitched his political survival to the war on Gaza and what could be his last chance to eliminate Israels Palestinian problem once and for all.
MMBeilis
(351 posts)......return to their ancestral homeland after suffering the atrocities of the Second World War. The return of my people to their land, making the desert bloom, creating democracy in a part of the world that didn't know it. A new generation of Sabras, born in Israel and forging a new life alongside people of other faiths in a new spirit of tolerance, born of the horrors of a world at war.
Middle school social studies and history classes seem to have underestimated human beings capacity for hatred of "the other", particularly when steeped in religion. I don't think that it's too much to say that Netanyahu's government is looking for a "final solution" to this Palestinian Problem, if not killing all of them, at least getting them to go elsewhere.
Yes, believe me, I know what this loaded language means.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)Israel is not trying to eliminate Palestinians. 2 million Palestinians live in Israel, including every openly gay Palestinian. Hamas kills gay people; they executed one of their own commanders when they discovered he was gay.
Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas, not Palestinians.
Dave Bowman
(3,552 posts)So they have killed over 35,000 peoples, mostly non-combatants, destroyed the vast majority of the buildings in Gaza and are also starving the Palestinian population by mistake then?
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)The U.N. nearly halved its estimate of women and children killed in Gaza after relying on figures from Hamas-controlled organizations.
The U.N. offered no explanation for the sudden change. On May 6, the bodys Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released an infographic showing that more than 9,500 women and 14,500 children had been killed in Gaza. Two days later, OCHAs updated graphic cut those numbers nearly in half, showing that 4,959 women and 7,797 children had actually lost their lives a combined reduction of more than 11,000.
When a reporter pressed U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq to explain the revision, all he received was a standard disclaimer that in the fog of war, its difficult to come up with numbers.
Translation: a completely unethical terrorist organization invented numbers to advance their false narrative and we accepted them and splashed them all over the media, no questions asked, until it was glaringly obvious Hamass numbers were complete fabrications.
Of course theres nary a mention of the revised numbers in the media since rather than proving the false narrative that Israel is wantonly killing civilians and committing genocide, these numbers show that, in fighting a defensive war that Israel was dragged into on Oct 7 when Hamas broke the existing ceasefire and invaded Israel, killing over 1200 civilians and raping, torturing, and kidnapping hundreds more, Israel has avoided killing Palestinian civilians, used by Hamas as human shields, at a ratio lower than any other nation has ever achieved in urban warfare. https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286
While every civilian death in war is a great tragedy, each of these deaths is unequivocally the fault of Hamas, which sought and benefits from the death and suffering of its own people.
betsuni
(27,255 posts)TeamProg
(6,630 posts)group' unlike Hamas, should be held to a higher standard, esp since Israelis using OUR WEAPONS.
History will not be kind.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)TeamProg
(6,630 posts)SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)Rob H.
(5,563 posts)FALSE. That claim has been debunked numerous times over the past few days but here's one more.
{...}
"The overall number of fatalities that's been tallied by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, which is our counterpart on dealing with the death tolls, that number remains unchanged and it's at more than 35,000 people since October 7," (U.N. spokesperson Faran) Haq said.
"What's changed is the Ministry of Health in Gaza has updated the breakdown of fatalities for whom full details have been documented.
"So what they recently published was that they gave figures for 24,686 out of 34,622 overall fatalities recorded in Gaza, and those 24,686 people are the ones for whom full details have been documented. In other words, people who have been fully identified.
{...}
The number of deaths in Gaza reported by the U.N. has not been halved.
New figures, that broke down the number of fully identified and documented deaths, were published by the U.N. on May 8 along with the number of reported fatalities from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, whose figures the U.N. says are proven to be "generally accurate."
The smaller number of fully identified deaths was thought by some to mean the total figure had been revised, in some cases by half, which the U.N. has denied and clarified.
All emphases added by me.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)I never said the TOTAL figure, WHICH INCLUDES HAMAS COMBATANTS, was halved.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)Ponietz
(3,273 posts)[https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2024/05/16/amanpour-grossman.cnn
If the Palestinians dont have a home Israel wont have a home.
Butterflylady
(3,966 posts)SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)And it was Hamas that stopped the air drops of food.
Hamas is causing the starvation.
AloeVera
(1,861 posts)Hamas Hamas Hamas.
No.
Israel.
Collective punishment, starvation as a tool of war, destruction of the medical system as a tool of war, destruction of all civilian infrastructure as a tool for ethnic cleansing and massive suffering, manipulation of humanitarian laws protecting civilians to justify high civilian casualties, flouting of laws of war on distinction, proportionality, sniping at mothers and their children fleeing, executing hospital staff and patients.....on and on, Israel has done it all.
And all of it is on Israel.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)AloeVera
(1,861 posts)Wash, rinse and repeat. This is MAGA logic.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)MAGAts don't want to hear anything that goes against their narrative, let alone discuss it.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)This is who you want to hand "Free Free Palestine" over to.
Some people are determined to defend the indefensible at all cost.
dutch777
(3,447 posts)They keep thinking the Palestinians will somehow drift a way or become compliant to Israeli apartheid. Given no one is offering Palestinians sanctuary elsewhere, it is hard to imagine any scenario that allows this settlement plan that does not de facto mean endless, at least low intensity, military action between Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas being truly eliminated seems to be increasingly doubtful in the current version of what seems to be military whack a mole. Maybe they cannot mount another October 7th scale attack and may just become some newly adapted Hamas 2.0 by maybe some other name, but that surely does not bring peace to Israel. Bibi's defense minister made a speech in just the last couple of days saying if there is not a plan to put a peaceful Palestinian administration in place in Gaza the only alternative is endless Israeli occupation with all its inherent risks on the ground, to the economy and to Israel's standing in the world. Bibi has Israel between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Ponietz
(3,273 posts)Religious fundamentalists control Israel now. The settlers are destabilizing Israels security.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)If Hamas would surrender, the war would end, and Netanyahu would be pushed out, like he was about to be before 10/7 happened.
Old Crank
(4,586 posts)And his deliberate working against the Palestinian elected officials he is partly responsible for the massacre that triggered this current war.
We can never know if working with the Palestinians and working towards a just solution would have helped, but we do know that arming a bunch of radical terrorists didn't. Countries around Israel were beginning to have closer relationships. I think that slow progress has been destroyed.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)Hamas is funded by Iran. And Hamas steals aid meant for civilians, aid that we all fund. It is wrong to blame Israel for what Hamas did. Hamas is responsible for Hamas' atrocities on 10/7.
Old Crank
(4,586 posts)SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)It blames Bibi for giving work permits to Palestinians and not stopping foreign money going to Hamas.
Mountainguy
(976 posts)and I'm fairly sure nobody posting it ever reads past the title.
The article literally blasts BN for not making Gaza an open-air prison in reality.
"Propping up" is defined in the article as things like allowing NGOs to work in Gaza, allowing Gazans to enter Israel for work, etc.
Posting that article is a ridiculous attempt at victim blaming. Even more ridiculous when the people posting it are also saying things like that Israel needs to allow more aide in or that the US should resume funding UNWRA.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)Putin loves him some Intercept.
betsuni
(27,255 posts)also give this word a new definition, but it means what it means.
Mosby
(17,393 posts)Seems like most of their front page is posted here every day.
PufPuf23
(9,233 posts)SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)PufPuf23
(9,233 posts)SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)Bamford's earlier writings on the NSA were good, particularly The Puzzle Palace, which came out in 1982, as well as his follow up works on the NSA in the early and mid 2000s.
But his recent writings have taken a sharp turn away from his prior objective reporting. His 2023 book on foreign spies has been criticized as "the most venomous anti-Israel polemic published since Mearsheimer and Walts The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in 2007."
He seems to have lost it, much like his old friend at the Nation, Christopher Hitchens, ended up losing it and endorsing George W. Bush for President in 2004.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)to destroy me and my family", "If they can do this to me, thay can do it to you."
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)A bit of projection there.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)NickB79
(19,604 posts)For example, their insane attempt to whitewash the systematic raping that Hamas carried out on 10/7:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/1/nyt_anat_schwartz
If that isn't propaganda, I don't know what is.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)I'm not convinced.
NickB79
(19,604 posts)Despite the overwhelming evidence available? The videos and pictures we all saw of hostages bleeding from their crotches while being dragged away?
The Intercept pushes straight-up anti-Semitism at this point. But feel free to keep citing it.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)and settler land invasions / murder of Palestinians.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)is cleared away.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)Its paranoid nonsense to think that a hard-right authoritarian like Vladimir Putin would be a fan of a firmly left-wing website.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)That's why he has been stirring the pot on Gaza with his troll farm.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/russia-trying-exploit-americas-divisions-war-gaza-rcna149759
Mountainguy
(976 posts)and The Intercept has carried his water before.
JohnSJ
(96,436 posts)also a producer for Democracy Now.
Both which do not interview opposing points of view.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/24/the-intercept-greenwald-grim-profile-media-politics-left-liberal-226710/
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,748 posts)Lonestarblue
(11,745 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,748 posts)Each side seeking its own one-state solution?
Interesting.
AloeVera
(1,861 posts)It ain't Likud or the settlers.
obamanut2012
(27,771 posts)Bibi and his buddies have used it for years.
Celerity
(46,154 posts)From Likud (and other smaller radical RW parties) all the way back to the early 20th century Revisionist Zionists led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, there has been constant advocation for taking all of what they call Eretz Israel, using a 'from the river to the sea' motif.
It is hypocrisy for people to only come down hard on one side and not the other for using that motif, as you have millions of displaced Palestinians since 1947/48, whilst the Jewish Israelis continue to grow in number and Israel, as official state policy, has been illegally grabbing West Bank land and ethnically cleansing it of the Palestinians for ages.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party
snip
...................According to American historian Robin D. G. Kelley, the phrase "began as a Zionist slogan signifying the boundaries of Eretz Israel." Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov notes that Zionist usage of such language predates the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and began with the Revisionist movement of Zionism led by Vladimir Jabotinski, which spoke of establishing a Jewish state in all of Palestine and had a song with the slogan: "The Jordan has two banks; this one is ours, and the other one too," suggesting a Jewish state extending even beyond the Jordan River.
Revisionist Zionism is a form of Zionism characterized by territorial maximalism. Revisionist Zionism promoted expansionism and the establishment of a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan River.
Developed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, this ideology advocated a "revision" of the "practical Zionism" of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann which was focused on the settling of Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) by independent individuals. Differing from other types of Zionism, Revisionists insisted upon the Jewish right to sovereignty over the whole of Eretz Yisrael, which they equated to Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. It was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism.
Revisionist Zionism directly opposed Labor Zionism within the general Zionist movement. Revisionist Zionism had its own paramilitary group called the Irgun, out of which another organization known as the Stern Gang emerged. Both the Irgun and the Stern Gang were responsible for several attacks against the British to try to expel them from Palestine.
Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun, was the founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
The Irgun (Hebrew: ארגון; full title: Hebrew: הארגון הצבאי הלאומי בארץ ישראל Hā-ʾIrgun Ha-Tzvaʾī Ha-Leūmī b-Ērētz Yiśrāʾel, lit. "The National Military Organization in the Land of Israel" ), or Etzel (Hebrew: אצ"ל ) (sometimes abbreviated IZL), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandate Palestine and then Israel between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah (Hebrew: Hebrew: הגנה, Defence).
The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts. The Irgun policy was based on what was then called Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. According to Howard Sachar, "The policy of the new organization was based squarely on Jabotinsky's teachings: every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state".
King David Hotel bombing. 91 people of various nationalities were killed, including Arabs, Britons and Jews, and 46 were injured.
The organization committed acts of terrorism against the British, whom it regarded as illegal occupiers, and against Arabs. In particular the Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, British, and United States governments; in media such as The New York Times newspaper; as well as by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the 1946 Zionist Congress and the Jewish Agency. However, academics such as Bruce Hoffman and Max Abrahms have written that the Irgun went to considerable lengths to avoid harming civilians, such as issuing pre-attack warnings; according to Hoffman, Irgun leadership urged "targeting the physical manifestations of British rule while avoiding the deliberate infliction of bloodshed."
Irgun's tactics appealed to many Jews who believed that any action taken in the cause of the creation of a Jewish state was justified, including terrorism. Irgun members were absorbed into the Israel Defense Forces at the start of the 1948 ArabIsraeli war. The Irgun was a political predecessor to Israel's right-wing Herut (or "Freedom" ) party, which led to today's Likud party. Likud has led or been part of most Israeli governments since 1977.
Italy and Mussolini were a source of ideological, historical and cultural inspiration for the Zionist Revisionists of the 1920s and 1930s. From the early 1930s onwards Jabotinsky believed that the United Kingdom could no longer be trusted to advance the Zionist cause and that Italy, as a growing power capable of challenging Britain for dominance in the region, was a natural ally.
Jabotinsky set up the Betar Naval Academy, a Zionist naval training school established in Civitavecchia, Italy in 1934 with the agreement of Benito Mussolini.
That all gave birth to things like this:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/03/20/bezalel-smotrich-israeli-ultra-nationalist-minister-delivers-anti-palestinian-diatribe-in-paris_6020081_4.html
https://archive.ph/TVsfb
The Israeli ultranationalist Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister in Netanyahu's government and open Jewish supremacist, participated on Sunday, March 19, in a gala evening in Paris, organized by "Israel is Forever," a French Jewish association close to the far right.
Although it had been announced 10 days beforehand, Smotrich's arrival on the banks of the Seine was a surprise. In the middle of the previous week, following protests from pro-Palestinian movements and human rights organizations, Israeli media reported that the 43-year-old leader of the Religious Zionist Party had given up on the trip.
snip
He gave a speech in which he urged French Jews to settle in Israel, a common call from Israeli leaders visiting France. But Smotrich (who recently called for the Palestinian village of Huwara in the West Bank to be "wiped out" in retaliation for the murder of two Jewish settlers) also made remarks full of contempt for the Palestinians.
"Do you know who the Palestinians are?" Smotrich asked at the start of his diatribe, which was streamed live on Facebook. "I am Palestinian," he replied to the cheers of the audience, about 100 people, judging by the images on Facebook. "My grandfather, a 13th-generation Jerusalemite, was Palestinian. The Palestinian people are an invention of less than a hundred years. Do they have a history, a culture? No, they do not. There are no Palestinians, there are just Arabs."
snip
Passages
(944 posts)With exceptions such as Ukraine, of course. There you have a little Cesar playing monster-minded war games to fulfill his lunatic vision for Russia.
There is a reason why Obama went on the record here, because it is for one, undeniable and two, a hideous mess in Gaza and ludicrous not to examine all the players who have political power.
If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth. And you then have to admit nobodys hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree, he said in an excerpted interview with Pod Save America released Saturday.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/04/obama-all-of-us-are-complicit-00125395#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIf%20you%20want%20to%20solve,Pod%20Save%20America%20released%20Saturday.
The truth
David__77
(23,863 posts)Children, in particular, are perceived as a threat, given the racist demographic panic.
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)obamanut2012
(27,771 posts)SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)They even insisted that Jewish graves in Gaza be moved out.
Nanjeanne
(5,436 posts)From 2005 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-aug-11-fg-graves11-story.html]
The graves must be moved if Jews will no longer be there, Amar told Israel Radio.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)The families of the Jewish dead did not want to move the graves.
How can I leave without him? said Yulis, who moved to Gaza 23 years ago. He wanted to be buried here, and I told him I would stay with him always.
The disposition of the graves of Gush Katif, Gazas main settlement block, has become one of the most wrenching questions surrounding the evacuation of nearly 9,000 Jewish settlers, which is set to begin Wednesday. The bodies of 48 people are buried in the cemetery, where blue-and-white Israeli flags flap in the searing summer wind and an electrified fence carries a warning sign to keep away.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-aug-11-fg-graves11-story.html
Nanjeanne
(5,436 posts)official saying they cant leave their dead in Gaza if Israelis arent there. No argumemt from me about the families not wanting to remove them. But it wasnt the Palestinians who demanded they be moved.
SunSeeker
(53,608 posts)That is what the Rabbi acknowledged in the article.
The Gaza Jews had to guard the graves and fence the graves off, as your article notes, even when they were living there. Once they left, the graves would be immediately attacked. The Rabbis and Israeli government didn't want the graves desecrated and they couldn't stay to guard them; they had no choice but to move them. They didn't do it just for shits and giggles.
The Palestinians celebrated as they watched the removal trucks go by. The Palestinians wore T-shirts bearing the legend "Today Gaza, tomorrow Jerusalem." 55,000 such t-shirts had been distributed as part of their celebration.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070930221143/http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article306176.ece
There were no Christians left in Gaza. There were no Jews left in Gaza. Not even dead ones. And Palestinians hoped to continue that ethnic cleansing to Jerusalem.
Nanjeanne
(5,436 posts)David__77
(23,863 posts)Nanjeanne
(5,436 posts)Rec
EX500rider
(11,438 posts)Is that what we are calling murdering rapists kidnapping terrorists now?
TeamProg
(6,630 posts)EX500rider
(11,438 posts)NickB79
(19,604 posts)You're conflating Hamas in Gaza with the PA in the West Bank. Hell, there aren't even any PA in Gaza; Hamas killed them all as well.
Again.
CoopersDad
(2,834 posts)Settlers, or invaders?
As a species, we don't seem to be advancing at all toward being peaceful or civilized.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,654 posts)Hate him!
Dave Bowman
(3,552 posts)Stalin, Trump, Putin, just to name a few. He would be in good company.