{"id":185838,"date":"2021-05-31T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=185838"},"modified":"2021-05-31T12:50:49","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T11:50:49","slug":"the-savage-punishment-of-gaza-israels-latest-assault-on-palestines-open-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/05\/the-savage-punishment-of-gaza-israels-latest-assault-on-palestines-open-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Savage Punishment of Gaza\u2019: Israel\u2019s Latest Assault on Palestine\u2019s Open Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

25 May 2021 – <\/em>Recent media coverage of Israel and Palestine, not least by BBC News, has been full of the usual deceptive propaganda tropes: Israel is \u2018responding\u2019 or \u2018reacting\u2019 to Palestinian \u2018provocation\u2019 and \u2018escalation\u2019; Palestinian rockets \u2018killed\u2019 Israelis, but Palestinians \u2018have died\u2019 from unnamed causes; Israel has \u2018armed forces\u2019 and \u2018security forces\u2019, but Hamas has \u2018militants\u2019. And, as ever, Palestinians were killed in far greater numbers than Israelis. At least 248 Palestinians were killed<\/a> by Israeli bombardment in Gaza, including 66 children. Palestinian rocket fire killed 12<\/a> in Israel, including one child<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Imagine if the BBC reported:<\/p>\n

\u2018Palestinian security forces responded after Israeli militants enforcing the apartheid occupation attacked and injured Palestinian worshippers.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen referred night after night on BBC News at Ten to \u2018a war between Israel and Hamas\u2019, a version of events pushed hard by Israel. As John Pilger said<\/a> in a recent interview, \u2018Bowen knows that\u2019s wrong\u2019. This is no war. In fact, the world has witnessed a massive attack by one of the world\u2019s most powerful, lethal militaries, armed and supported to the hilt by the US (which sends $3.8 billion<\/a> in military aid to Israel each year) and western allies, imposing a brutal occupation and deliberately subjecting the Palestinian civilian population to death, violence, terror and appalling hardship.<\/p>\n

M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) warned<\/a> early on that heavy Israeli bombing was pushing Gaza to the edge of catastrophe:<\/p>\n

\u2018The Israeli bombing is incredibly heavy and stronger than previous bombing campaigns. Relentless bombing has destroyed many homes and buildings all around us. It\u2019s not safe to go outside, and no one is safe inside, people are trapped. Emergency health workers are taking incredible but necessary risks to move around.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On 19 May, the 10th<\/sup> day of intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza, the BBC News website carried headlines:<\/p>\n

\u2018Israel targets Hamas chiefs\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And:<\/p>\n

\u2018Israel targets Gaza militants\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, why was Israel killing so many noncombatants, including children? Why were residences being flattened? The United Nations estimated<\/a> that Israel had demolished 94 buildings in Gaza, comprising 461 housing and commercial units. Why were hospitals and clinics suffering so much damage? And buildings where media organisations were based?<\/p>\n

Why were there Israeli airstrikes in the area of the MSF clinic in Gaza City, killing at least 42 people including 10 children? An orphanage was also destroyed.<\/p>\n

The massacre was \u2018one of the most horrific crimes\u2019 Israel has committed during its ongoing war against the people of Gaza, according<\/a> to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor who added that:<\/p>\n

\u2018the attack was not an isolated incident, but another example of Israel\u2019s systematic policy that we have witnessed over the past six days.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Tamara Nasser observed in a piece on the Electronic Intifada<\/a> website, Israel was unable to substantiate its claim that \u2018Hamas military intelligence were using the building\u2019 when pressed<\/a> to do so by US public radio network NPR.<\/p>\n

Nasser added:<\/p>\n

\u2018Even if that Israeli claim were true, under the laws of war, Israel\u2019s destruction of entire buildings would be wholly disproportionate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Rather, Israel\u2019s mass destruction of buildings and infrastructure appears to fit the pattern<\/a> of the Dahiya Doctrine<\/a> \u2013 named after its 2006 destruction of the southern suburb of Beirut.<\/p>\n

\u2018The goal is to deliberately inflict such pain and suffering on the civilian population and society at large as to deter anyone from resisting against Israel\u2019s occupation. This can be prosecuted as a war crime<\/a>.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It also serves as a useful definition of terrorism.<\/p>\n

Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said<\/a> via Twitter:<\/p>\n

\u2018What the Israeli army asserts, namely that the alleged presence of Hamas in the buildings would make them legitimate military objectives is absolutely false from a legal point of view, since they also house civilians, such as the media.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He added<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Even assuming that the Israeli fire was necessary (which is absolutely not proven), the total destruction of the buildings demonstrates that the principles of distinction and proportionality have been flagrantly violated.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, RSF sent a letter<\/a> to Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, urging an investigation of Israel\u2019s targeting of the offices of 23 media organizations in Gaza during Israel\u2019s bombardment.<\/p>\n

\u2018False Equivalence Between Occupier And Occupied\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gregory Shupak wrote in a piece<\/a> for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, the US-based media watchdog, that corporate media coverage presented a \u2018false equivalence between occupier and occupied\u2019. He continued:<\/p>\n

\u2018The fatal flaw in the \u201cboth sides\u201d narrative is that only the Israeli side has ethnically cleansed<\/a> and turned millions<\/a> on<\/a> the Palestinians\u2019 side into refugees by preventing them from exercising their right<\/a> to return to their homes. Israel is the only side subjecting anyone to apartheid and military occupation<\/a>. It is only the Palestinian side\u2014including those living inside of what is presently called Israel\u2014that has been made to live as second-class citizens<\/a> in their own land. That\u2019s to say nothing of the lopsided scale<\/a> of the death, injury and damage to infrastructure that Palestinians have experienced as compared to Israelis, both during the present offensive and in the longer term.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When last week\u2019s truce \u2018between Israel and Hamas\u2019 was imminent, Jeremy Bowen told BBC viewers:<\/p>\n

\u2018Now, the essentials of that conflict are not going to change. Until they do, there will be more trouble in the future.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Israeli settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing, lethal sanctions maintained by a brutal military occupation, apartheid, the killing and imprisonment of Palestinian children, Israel\u2019s constant trampling of international law, and the daily humiliation of Palestinians constitute \u2018trouble\u2019 right now<\/em> regardless of what happens \u2018in the future\u2019. These essential truths are regularly unmentioned or glossed over by Bowen, the BBC and the rest of a \u2018mainstream\u2019 media trying to \u2018normalise the unthinkable\u2019, by presenting violent occupation as a \u2018clash\u2019 between two sides competing for legitimacy.<\/p>\n

As Abby Martin noted<\/a> in a video powerfully rebutting the Israeli claim that Hamas uses \u2018human shields\u2019 in Gaza:<\/p>\n

\u2018Israel has intentionally made Gaza unliveable. The only way Gaza is able to exert pressure on Israel is by firing rockets. If they peacefully protest their conditions, they\u2019re massacred just the same. If they do nothing, Israel continues to blockade them, erode their living conditions while ethnically cleansing the rest of their land.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This perspective \u2013 the Palestinian perspective \u2013 is almost entirely absent from news coverage. Moreover, WikiLeaks has revealed<\/a> that when Israel\u2019s forces invaded Gaza in 2009\u2019s \u2018Operation Cast Lead\u2019, they<\/em> \u00a0\u2013 Israel \u2013 did actually use Gazans as human shields. A classified US cable reported<\/a> that Israeli soldiers:<\/p>\n

\u2018testified to instances where Gazans were used as human shields, incendiary phosphorous shells were fired over civilian population areas, and other examples of excessive firepower that caused unnecessary fatalities and destruction of property.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

During the latest phase of Israeli aggression, Israel\u2019s Minister of Defence Benny Gantz warned<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018No person, neighbourhood or area in Gaza is immune [from airstrikes]\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a grotesque justification for war crimes. Where was the headlined outrage in response from \u2018mainstream\u2019 media that regularly cite defence of human rights as justification for war on countries like Iraq, Syria and Libya?<\/p>\n

Hamas: A \u2018Convenient Monster\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hamas is regularly presented by corporate media as some kind of monster, a terrorist organisation with a declared intention of destroying Israel. This is a \u2018convenient\u2019 misrepresentation, as explained cogently in a recent interview<\/a> with Frank Barat by Imad Alsoos, a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute, who is an expert on Hamas.<\/p>\n

Likewise, in an interview with Afshin Rattansi on RT\u2019s \u2018Going Underground\u2019, John Pilger commented<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s been a whole attempt to make Hamas the centre of the reporting. And that\u2019s nonsense. As if Hamas is a peculiar demon. In fact, Hamas and its military wing are part of a resistance; a resistance that was provoked by the Israelis. The real demon in this is Israel. But it\u2019s not simply Israel. I mean, this is as much a British and American war against Palestine, as it is an Israeli one.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pilger added<\/a> that this is a war:<\/p>\n

\u2018against the people of Palestine who are doing one thing \u2013 and that is exercising their moral and legal right to resist a brutal occupation.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is rarely mentioned in the \u2018mainstream\u2019 media that Hamas is, as Pilger pointed out, the legitimately elected government of Gaza.\u00a0Moreover, Hamas has repeatedly declared its readiness to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with the Jewish state within its pre-1967 borders. But Israel has always rejected the offer, just as it rejected the Arab League peace plan of 2002; and just as it has always rejected the international consensus for a peaceful solution in the Middle East. Why? Because the threat of such \u2018peace offensives\u2019 would involve unacceptable concessions and compromises. Israeli writer Amos Elon has written of the \u2018panic and unease among our political leadership\u2019 caused by Arab peace proposals. (Cited, Noam Chomsky, \u2018Fateful Triangle,\u2019 Pluto Press, London, 1999, p.75)<\/p>\n

The Palestinians are seen as an obstacle by Israel\u2019s leaders; an irritant to be subjugated. Noam Chomsky commented<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Traditionally over the years, Israel has sought to crush any resistance to its programs of takeover of the parts of Palestine it regards as valuable, while eliminating any hope for the indigenous population to have a decent existence enjoying national rights.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, as Chomsky noted:<\/p>\n

\u2018The key feature of the occupation has always been humiliation: they [the Palestinians] must not be allowed to raise their heads. The basic principle, often openly expressed, is that the \u201cAraboushim\u201d \u2013 a term that belongs with \u201cnigger\u201d or \u201ckike\u201d \u2013 must understand who rules this land and who walks in it with head lowered and eyes averted.\u2019 (Chomsky, op. cit., p. 489)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2018, when Palestinians were being shot dead<\/a> by Israeli soldiers in peaceful weekly \u2018Great March of Return\u2019 protests near Gaza\u2019s border, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy observed<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

\u2018the killing of Palestinians is accepted in Israel more lightly than the killing of mosquitoes\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given all of the above context, it is criminal that, day after day, BBC News presented a false balance between a powerful Israeli state-occupier and a brutalised, ethnically cleansed, apartheid-suffering Palestinian people. This systematic misrepresentation of reality amounts to complicity in Israel\u2019s vast PR campaign to \u2018justify\u2019 its war crimes, brutality and repression of Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

As well as Bowen\u2019s wilfully distorted reporting for BBC News, and the biased coverage by corporate media generally, Pilger pointed to the lack of dissent in the UK Parliament in the face of atrocities being committed once again by Israel. He focused<\/a> particular attention on:<\/p>\n

\u2018Starmer\u2019s Labour party which allowed pro-Israel groups to direct the policies of the Labour party, that, in effect, support this attack. When you have the Shadow Foreign Secretary saying that to criticise Israeli atrocities is antisemitic, then we\u2019re in Lewis Carroll world, really.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Concluding Remarks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chomsky once wrote<\/a> of an elderly Palestinian man demonstrating in Gaza with a placard that read:<\/p>\n

\u2018You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This simple but devastating message, said Chomsky, is \u2018the proper context\u2019 for \u2018the savage punishment of Gaza.\u2019<\/p>\n

It is a context that is almost entirely missing from corporate media coverage of Israel and Palestine, not least by BBC News.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. <\/em>In 2007,<\/em> Media Lens was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Prize<\/a>.\u00a0We have written three co-authored books<\/em>:\u00a0Guardians of Power-The Myth of the Liberal Media <\/a>(Pluto Press, 2006),<\/em> Newspeak-In the 21st Century<\/a> (Pluto Press, 2009), and<\/em> Propaganda Blitz<\/a> (Pluto Press, 2018)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 medialens.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 May 2021 – Recent media coverage of Israel incursions into Gaza has been full of the usual deceptions: Israel is \u2018responding\u2019 or \u2018reacting\u2019 to Palestinian \u2018provocation\u2019 and \u2018escalation\u2019; Palestinian rockets \u2018killed\u2019 Israelis, but Palestinians \u2018have died\u2019 from unnamed causes; Israel has \u2018armed forces\u2019 and \u2018security forces\u2019, but Hamas has \u2018militants\u2019. Reality: 248 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza, including 66 children. Palestinian rocket fire killed 12 in Israel, including one child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":121823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[2314,87,2415,2416,378,1855,715,234,85,1365],"class_list":["post-185838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-corporate-media","tag-gaza","tag-israeli-army","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-journalism","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-massacre","tag-media","tag-palestine-israel","tag-war-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}