Mainstream Media Kills Truth
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 13 Nov 2023
Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service
7 Nov 2023 – What happened October 7 and after as UN Chief Guterres said “did not happen in a vacuum”. Palestinians endured ethnic cleansing and racist onslaught daily for 75 years (that is over 27325 days). That left 8 million Palestinians refugees or displaced people and the rest stored in disconnected concentration camps (Gaza, Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah etc). There is deepening crime of apartheid and racial discrimination in the West Bank while genocide goes on in Gaza. Israel’s ongoing horrors are a mockery of international law. Today the situation in Gaza is catastrophic as it shifts to a higher stage of carnage: from sudden death and injury of civilians by bombing them without warning to ADD death by thirst, starvation, lack of hygiene, and collapse of health care services (Israeli policies of mass murder by denial of basics of life).
We in the West Bank (as Palestinians everywhere in the world) witness this genocide and ethnic cleansing of a captive population in Gaza and know we are next. Already 163 Palestinians were murdered by the occupation army and settlers in the West Bank since 7 October and we expect the worse. Israel blocked our cantons and arrested/kidnapped over 2500 more Palestinians in the West Bank. And they are torturing these political prisoners (now over 11,000 by direct physical abuse and denial of food and medicine. See example here https://twitter.com/Issaamro/status/1719332892608753828 The mood is somber and angry. We just can’t believe how the US government and its western allies colluded and collaborated and funded this carnage for 75 years.
But we remain focused for now on Gaza where relentless bombing of residential buildings and of even people on the streets, bakeries and schools meant hundreds of civilians die daily. Over 10,000 are registered now as civilians killed with some 2500 missing presumed dead under the rubble. Half the population in Gaza are Children and 42% of those killed are children.. But this pales compared to denial of water, food, medicines and fuel (babies and patients on dialysis die with lack of fuel for generators for the remaining devastated hospitals).
Health care system completely collapsed and Israel refuses even to pause or to allow humanitarian aid. Several countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Jordan, South Africa) suspended diplomatic ties with Israel but this is not sufficient to deter this genocidal regime. People around the world are mobilizing and the gap between the Western Governments and their citizens grow wider daily. But people are also still being murdered daily despite the millions on the streets. More pressure is needed. Palestinians will continue to resist even as we say the governments of both the West and the many Arab countries take a stand of collusion, aiding and abetting genocide while issuing vague statements of “concern.”
There are many battles going on simultaneously: 1) A genocidal slaughter of the civilian population of Gaza, 2) a battle against the civilian population in the West Bank and 1948 areas of Palestine (intensified colonization and persecution), 3) a battle between Israel on the one hand and and resistance forces of Hamas and Hizbollah, and 4) the battle to destroy truth waged by Zionists and their arms globally. As Israel is losing the battles with the resistance despite massive air power, the occupying army is intensifying the battles on the other fronts including the slaughter of civilians (intensifying genocide) while the US administration and its allies try to throw sand in the face of the world via the mainstream media (MSM). They even claim they seek peace AFTER Israel finishes off preplanned ethnic cleansing and genocide. Civilians die but colonialism/apartheid/ genocide (US/Israel) will not continue if we grow our marches and pressures around the world (a global uprising).
Activists just demonstrated for the first time at the Statue of Liberty (see https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/07/wire-statue-of-liberty/ and https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-protests-2666166026). We live in a historic moment where we can see and act on genocide in real time and we need better and bigger organizing to change the course of this rotten old world order in which might be made right and people’s lives were dispensable for greed while the Zionist lobby machine works feverishly to lie and pressure and buy politicians and media. The western politicians support Israel because they are bribed and lobbied to do so. Here is an example from the UK https://www.declassifieduk.org/two-fifths-of-keir-starmers-cabinet-have-been-funded-by-pro-israel-lobbyists/
But the media is an integral part of this war https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/29/western-coverage-of-israels-war-on-gaza-bias-or-unprofessionalism
The MSM are complicit in genocide by regurgitating Zionist talking points. Ignoring UN reports, human rights reports, the carnage and massacres committed, the MSM sometimes state that civilians are killed “in fighting”. No civilians are being bombed and obliterated in large numbers without any “fighting”. The fighting is happening with advancing Israeli tanks away from civilians and the evidence shows the Israeli army not doing well there and maybe that is why they intensified bombing civilians. Gaza health officials invited any International fact finding missions to visit them to prove the lies that hospitals house Hamas fighters (in them or under them). Israel’s lies that they are targeting fighters in civilian areas are disproved even by current staff and reports from a number of international organizations. Lying and killing are not restricted to the military and government. The MSM kills the truth. See this excellent Jonathan Cook’s analysis of BBC’s complicity https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-11-02/bbc-october-7/
MSM is not only guilty of lying but also of intentionally hiding important facts. For examples:
1) How many western MSM outlets covered this unprecedented report from UN Chiefs dubbed “Enough is enough” https://www.arabnews.com/node/2403981/middle-east
2) How many MSM covered this leaked memo shows there is mutiny within the US State Department against the Zionist Blinken/Biden foreign policy that supports genocide of Gaza population
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/06/u-s-diplomats-slam-israel-policy-in-leaked-memo-00125538 or for that matter interviewed Josh Paul who resigned (only Democracy Now interviewed him and it is a must see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w9fAgaUBrw). Also how bout interviewing Craig Mokhiber who resigned from the UN (see https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24103463-craig-mokhiber-resignation-letter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvm0HYvPJu4 )
3) Did the MSM cover the plummeting public support for Biden? Just among Arab Americans it declined from 59% to 17%!
https://www.aaiusa.org/library/arab-americans-special-poll-domestic-implications-of-the-most-recent-outbreak-of-violence-in-palestineisrael
4) Did the MSM report on Delta force members working on the ground with Israelis or the expansion of the US military base in Israel
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/27/secret-military-base-israel-gaza-site-512/
How about polls that show the US public does not want to arm apartheid and genocidal regimes?
5) Did the MSM cover the massive rallies to end the genocide in Gaza that show the government is disconnected from the . Here is Democracy Now coverage which is rare among media outlets.
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/6/dc_march_for_palestine_nov_2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/6/alice_rothchild_gaza_healthcare_crisis
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/6/shibley_telhami_israel_palestine_one_state
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/6/ahmed_abu_artemahttps://www.democracynow.org
6) Why does the MSM fail to highlight the growing rift between political elites and the people. Here are two examples from Frankfort and 11-12 November mobilizing at the upcoming APEC summit in San Francisco
https://criticalresistance.org/event/no-apec-summit-2023/
https://bnn.network/breaking-news/protests/frankfurt-protests-shine-light-on-german-cancel-culture-silencing-palestinian-support/
7) Why is the MSM not ciovering Jewish pogroms against Arabs even those who ar Israeli citizens? See examples here https://www.972mag.com/palestinian-citizens-gaza-war-enemies/
8) Context is not given in MSM making it look like Israel is a legitimate state “defending itself”. But the facts are so obvious, Israel is a colonial entity that stripped Palestinians from their land, made them refugees, and those who remained are kept in ghettos/concentration areas like the Gaza strip. Here are the conditions in Gaza in 2019 (before this latest prison outbreak and genocidal actions): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZSaKYmP2s For background on Gaza see http://ongaza.org
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Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East. Qumsiyeh is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, author of Sharing the Land of Canaan and Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem. http://palestinenature.org
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Tags: Antonio Guterres, Biden, Crimes against Humanity, Cultural violence, Direct violence, Gaza, Genocide, Hamas, Israel, Israeli occupation, Massacre, Netanyahu, Palestine, Sociocide, State Terrorism, Structural violence, USA, United Nations, Violent conflict, War crimes, Zionism
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