{"id":257633,"date":"2024-03-25T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=257633"},"modified":"2024-03-21T04:45:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T04:45:37","slug":"how-the-western-media-helped-build-the-case-for-genocide-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/03\/how-the-western-media-helped-build-the-case-for-genocide-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Western Media Helped Build the Case for Genocide in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

From obscuring the West\u2019s role in starving Gaza to sensationalised accounts of mass rape by Hamas, journalists are playing the role of propagandists, not reporters.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

20 Mar 2024<\/em> – The past five months have been clarifying. What was supposed to be hidden has been thrust into the light. What was supposed to be obscured has come sharply into focus.<\/p>\n

Liberal democracy is not what it seems.<\/p>\n

It has always defined itself in contrast to what it says it is not. Where other regimes are savage, it is humanitarian. Where others are authoritarian, it is open and tolerant. Where others are criminal, it is law-abiding. When others are belligerent, it seeks peace. Or so the manuals of liberal democracy argue.<\/p>\n

But how to keep the faith when the world\u2019s leading liberal democracies \u2013 invariably referred to as \u201cthe West\u201d \u2013 are complicit in the crime of crimes: genocide?<\/p>\n

Not just law-breaking or a misdemeanour, but the extermination of a people. And not just quickly, before the mind has time to absorb and weigh the gravity and extent of the crime, but in slow motion, day after day, week after week, month after month.<\/p>\n

What kind of system of values can allow for five months the crushing of children under rubble, the detonation of fragile bodies, the wasting away of babies, while still claiming to be humanitarian, tolerant, peace-seeking?<\/p>\n

And not just allow all this, but actively assist in it. Supply the bombs that blow those children to pieces or bring houses down on them, and sever ties to the only aid agency that can hope to keep them alive.<\/p>\n

The answer, it seems, is the West\u2019s system of values.<\/p>\n

The mask has not just slipped, it has been ripped off. What lies beneath is ugly indeed.<\/p>\n

Depravity on show<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The West is desperately trying to cope. When Western depravity is fully on show, the public\u2019s gaze has to be firmly directed elsewhere: to the truly evil ones.<\/p>\n

They are given a name. It is Russia. It is Al Qaeda, and Islamic State. It is China. And right now, it is Hamas.<\/p>\n

There must be an enemy. But this time, the West\u2019s own evil is so hard to disguise, and the enemy so paltry \u2013 a few thousand fighters underground inside a prison besieged for 17 years \u2013 that the asymmetry is difficult to ignore. The excuses are hard to swallow.<\/p>\n

Is Hamas really so evil, so cunning, so much of a threat that it requires mass slaughter? Does the West really believe that the attack of 7 October warrants the killing, maiming and orphaning of many, many tens of thousands of children as a response?<\/p>\n

To stamp out such thoughts, Western elites have had to do two things. First, they have tried to persuade their publics that the acts they collude in are not as bad as they look. And then that the evil perpetrated by the enemy is so exceptional, so unconscionable it justifies a response in kind.<\/p>\n

Which is exactly the role Western media has played over the past five months.<\/p>\n

Starved by Israel<\/strong><\/h3>\n

To understand how Western publics are being manipulated, just look to the coverage \u2013 especially from those outlets most closely aligned not with the right but with supposedly liberal values.<\/p>\n

How have the media dealt with the 2.3 million Palestinians of Gaza being gradually starved to death by an Israeli aid blockade, an action that lacks any obvious military purpose beyond inflicting a savage vengeance on Palestinian civilians? After all, Hamas fighters will outlast the young, the sick and the elderly in any mediaeval-style, attritional war denying Gaza food, water and medicines.<\/p>\n

A headline<\/a> in the New York Times<\/em>, for example, told readers last month, \u201cStarvation is stalking Gaza\u2019s children\u201d, as if this were a famine in Africa \u2013 a natural disaster, or an unexpected humanitarian catastrophe \u2013 rather than a policy declared in advance and carefully orchestrated by Israel\u2019s top echelons.<\/p>\n

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No, NYT, starvation isn't stalking Gaza's children, like some weird, abstract predator. Israel is choosing to starve Gaza's children by blocking aid.<\/p>\n

Starvation isn't committing genocide. Israel is. pic.twitter.com\/T9hkxUsSRk<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) March 1, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n