This is about as blatant as war propaganda gets.
Caitlin Johnstone | October 20, 2023
One thing I’ve been meaning to highlight for the last few days is the way US warmongers have been forcefully pushing the propaganda narrative that Hamas bears 100 percent responsibility for all deaths in Gaza, and Israel bears zero percent, as Israel ramps up its mass slaughter of Palestinians.
In a New York Times article titled “Hamas Bears the Blame for Every Death in This War,” notorious neoconservative war propagandist Bret Stephens argues that no blame whatsoever should be placed on Israel for the thousands of civilians it has killed in its latest Gaza operation and the thousands more it will continue to kill.
“The central cause of Gaza’s misery is Hamas,” Stephens writes. “It alone bears the blame for the suffering it has inflicted on Israel and knowingly invited against Palestinians. The best way to end the misery is to remove the cause, not stay the hand of the remover.”
Lindsey Graham (who is such a bloodthirsty psychopath that he recently called on Israel to “level” Gaza because “we’re in a religious war here” and said the US should bomb Iran any time Hamas executes any prisoners) echoed Bret Stephens’ sentiments during an interview on Monday.
“Every death going forward I blame on Hamas, not Israel,” Graham said.
Graham’s senatorial colleague Mitt Romney was even more direct.
“You are going to see pictures of Palestinian civilians that are going to be injured, killed by virtue of the conflict, which is ongoing,” Romney said during an appearance in Tel Aviv. “I hope you recognize that those individuals are being killed because of Hamas, not because of Israel.”
“They are using Palestinians to protect Hamas lives,” Romney added. “Therefore, when Israel takes action to try and go after Hamas and take out its leadership, there will be civilians and innocents that will be killed. They will parade that as if this is some horror perpetrated by Israel.”
“Do not forget the lives that you will see lost on TV… Israeli lives and Palestinian lives [lost] are all the result of Hamas,” Romney continued.
Fox News war slut Sean Hannity shares the same opinion, surprise surprise.
“Every single death in this conflict can be blamed on Hamas and their supporters in Iran,” Hannity told his audience. “Because of last week’s brutal terror attack, Israel has no choice. They must defend their country.”
https://x.com/FoxNews/status/1714232306309709887?s=20
This is about as blatant as war propaganda gets. These imperial narrative managers are using their massive platforms and influence to tell everyone “Remember kids, you’re going to see a whole bunch of innocent civilians get killed, and it’s going to look a lot like those civilians are being killed by Israel. But don’t you believe your lying eyes! They’re really being killed by Hamas. Just because the people dropping military explosives in areas known to be packed full of children are wearing Israeli badges and operating Israeli war machinery doesn’t mean Israel is involved in this butchery in any way. It’s really Hamas doing all that.”
And what’s great about this narrative is that there’s no upper limit on the extent to which it can be applied. If they wind up killing twenty thousand Gazans, then Hamas killed twenty thousand Gazans. If they wind up killing a hundred thousand Gazans, then Hamas killed a hundred thousand Gazans. If they wind up driving all Palestinians out of Gaza into refugee camps in the Sinai desert and seizing that territory as their own, then God damn you for ethnic cleansing the Gaza Strip, Hamas.
No matter how far they extend the bloodshed and abuse, they can still blame it all on Hamas. Per this logic there is therefore no limit on how far things can be taken before the cost of human life and suffering outweighs Israel’s strategic objectives and ceasefire negotiations become necessary. It’s a catch-all innoculation against peace.
And to be honest it seems to be working; I get a constant barrage of “Hamas is to blame for this” comments on social media whenever talking about Israel’s obvious criminality in this current crisis.
https://x.com/nytopinion/status/1713429635583606894?s=20
“You are going to see pictures of Palestinian civilians that are going to be injured, killed by virtue of the conflict, which is ongoing,” Romney said during an appearance in Tel Aviv. “I hope you recognize that those individuals are being killed because of Hamas, not because of Israel.”
“They are using Palestinians to protect Hamas lives,” Romney added. “Therefore, when Israel takes action to try and go after Hamas and take out its leadership, there will be civilians and innocents that will be killed. They will parade that as if this is some horror perpetrated by Israel.”
“Do not forget the lives that you will see lost on TV… Israeli lives and Palestinian lives [lost] are all the result of Hamas,” Romney continued.
Fox News war slut Sean Hannity shares the same opinion, surprise surprise.
“Every single death in this conflict can be blamed on Hamas and their supporters in Iran,” Hannity told his audience. “Because of last week’s brutal terror attack, Israel has no choice. They must defend their country.”
https://x.com/FoxNews/status/1714232306309709887?s=20
This is about as blatant as war propaganda gets. These imperial narrative managers are using their massive platforms and influence to tell everyone “Remember kids, you’re going to see a whole bunch of innocent civilians get killed, and it’s going to look a lot like those civilians are being killed by Israel. But don’t you believe your lying eyes! They’re really being killed by Hamas. Just because the people dropping military explosives in areas known to be packed full of children are wearing Israeli badges and operating Israeli war machinery doesn’t mean Israel is involved in this butchery in any way. It’s really Hamas doing all that.”
And what’s great about this narrative is that there’s no upper limit on the extent to which it can be applied. If they wind up killing twenty thousand Gazans, then Hamas killed twenty thousand Gazans. If they wind up killing a hundred thousand Gazans, then Hamas killed a hundred thousand Gazans. If they wind up driving all Palestinians out of Gaza into refugee camps in the Sinai desert and seizing that territory as their own, then God damn you for ethnic cleansing the Gaza Strip, Hamas.
No matter how far they extend the bloodshed and abuse, they can still blame it all on Hamas. Per this logic there is therefore no limit on how far things can be taken before the cost of human life and suffering outweighs Israel’s strategic objectives and ceasefire negotiations become necessary. It’s a catch-all innoculation against peace.
And to be honest it seems to be working; I get a constant barrage of “Hamas is to blame for this” comments on social media whenever talking about Israel’s obvious criminality in this current crisis.
https://x.com/nytopinion/status/1713429635583606894?s=20
This propaganda is being pushed as President Biden vows to support Israel’s ongoing Gaza massacre and tells Netanyahu the US is fully behind Israel’s planned Gaza ground invasion.
Not only is Israel absolutely responsible for the bloodshed it chooses to inflict on the people of Gaza, the United States is too. These crimes are being perpetrated with US weapons, US funding and US consent, and backed by the full might of the US propaganda machine. The US is just as responsible for the destruction of Gaza as Israel is.
All this propaganda is designed to keep people from assigning any blame or responsibility to those who are most guilty in this onslaught, because if everyone clearly understood what’s being done in their name, all that carefully manufactured consent would rapidly disintegrate.
Caitlin Johnstone
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Also see: Horrific Scenes from a Gaza Hospital after Israel's bombing of the city and flattening their houses: (not for the faint hearted - please be warned!)
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