Tag: palestine

Israel Uses Its Civilians As Human Shields During Its Attack On Gaza

Israel’s latest assault on the besieged Gaza Strip resulted in the murder of 33 Palestinians, a third of them women and children, in a “targeted assassination” campaign, again, with a majority of those killed being civilians. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, attempted to score a domestic political victory, however, the plot didn’t quite go to plan.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning last week, at around 2:00AM, Israeli fighter jets began bombarding the besieged Gaza Strip. Three prominent leaders of the second most powerful armed group in the territory, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement (PIJ), were killed along with their wives and children in the initial strikes. Although Western corporate media attempted to brush over this fact, it is a violation of international law to break a ceasefire agreement by murdering none-active combatants along with their families. There were no legal proceedings, no plausible threat to the Israeli side, and the regime failed to produce any evidence that killing the individuals they targeted would prevent any future threat — in fact they demonstrated the very opposite.

Tel Aviv notified the United States government about its intentions and Washington did not prevent the attack, making them complicit in the war crimes committed. The Israeli military also used American aircraft in order to carry out its assassination campaign.

In total, 33 Palestinians were killed, roughly a third of them women and children, with over 110 suffering wounds from the Israeli onslaught, 38 of whom were children. On the other side, 1 Israeli was killed by Palestinian retaliatory rocket fire, with a number of others injured. It is expected that Israel is again hiding their combatant deaths, after a gag order was placed on the destruction of military sites during the confrontation. Among the hundreds of sites bombarded by the Israelis was the Beit Lahia Cemetery, an act which was condemned by Gaza’s Ministry of Waqf and Islamic Affairs as “a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the dead”. Ninety-four Gazan families, comprising 535 people, lost their sources of livelihood in Gaza due to the bombings, a further 800 people were displaced, with 940 buildings damaged and 15 residential blocks, containing over 50 apartments, being completely destroyed.

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Israel Killed Reporter Abu Akleh—but US Media Disguised the Facts

Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known and much-loved Al Jazeera reporter who covered Palestine for two decades, was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper May 11 while documenting an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Occupied West Bank.

Footage of the moments after her death show Abu Akleh, still wearing her press vest and helmet, lying face down on the ground below a tree, as Shatha Hanaysha, another Palestinian journalist and writer for Mondoweiss, sits by her side and attempts to reach out to her. Writing for Mondoweiss (5/11/22), Yumna Patel described the video:

A young Palestinian man is then seen jumping over a wall behind Abu Akleh and Hanaysha. When he attempts to retrieve Abu Akleh’s body, another round of sniper fire can be heard, and he quickly takes cover behind the tree.

No armed combatants are there. Journalists are shouting for an ambulance. The young man tries a second time to remove Abu Akleh, but fails. He manages to help a shaken Hanaysha hide behind the tree. The footage is harrowing.

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Israel Narrative Management Is Getting Incredibly Desperate And Brazen

The National Director Emeritus for the Anti-Defamation League has announced on Twitter that he is cancelling his subscription to The New York Times, claiming that a front-page story featuring the photos of children killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza this month constitutes “blood libel” against Jews.

“I am cancelling my subscription to NYTimes,” tweeted Abraham Foxman. “I grew up in America on the NYT- I delivered the NYT to my classmates- I learned civics- democracy and all the news ‘fit to print’ for 65 years but no more. Today’s blood libel of Israel and the Jewish people on the front page is enough.”

Foxman’s statement drew criticism from all corners, including from loyal establishment pundits like Jonathan Chait, for his ridiculous assertion that merely humanizing Palestinian children killed by Israel is the same as promoting the ancient antisemitic canard known as blood libel.

Supporters of Israeli apartheid and mass murder are losing control of the narrative, which has led to redoubled perception management efforts ranging from the cringey to the iron-fisted. In the former category we’re seeing them pen entire articles attacking Seth Rogen for tweeting a fart emoji at virulent Israel apologist Eve Barlow and claiming that putting “fart” in Barlow’s name is the same as a literal pogrom. In the latter category they’re blowing up entire press offices and arresting Palestinian journalists. This is narrative management at its least subtle.

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Facebook, Social Media Giants Admit to Silencing Palestinian Voices Online

Activists reported that social media companies have been removing their content, stating it violated community guidelines or deeming it “hate speech.” Reports also included suspended and deactivated accounts and text-only content labeled “sensitive,” a designation usually reserved for photos and videos containing violence, gore or derogatory images. The “Save Sheikh Jarrah” Facebook group was also deactivated, according to Mohammed El-Kurd.

Reports were largely centered on Instagram and Twitter, with some restrictive behaviors conducted by Facebook and even TikTok.

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The Israel Narrative Is Crumbling Because Of Phone Cameras And The Internet

The mass media are working furiously to spin this in a way that rivals my satire piece from the other day. The New York Times has been cartoonishly re-writing its own reporting in a desperate attempt to make Israel look like an innocent victim of unprovoked attacks instead of the obvious aggressor against people protesting a brutal apartheid regime backed by an entire empire. The New York Post falsely reported that the deaths on Monday were caused by “Airstrikes from Hamas militants” (when did Hamas get an air force?) when sharing an article which falsely implied that those fatalities were inflicted by both sides. DW News framed its headline in a way that suggested the nine children killed had been involved in “fighting” against Israeli forces, and the word “clashes” is being thrown about willy nilly to describe a very one-sided assault.

But it isn’t working.

Social media is teeming with viral video footage of police assaulting peaceful worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, of Israelis cheering and chanting “Yimach shemam (may their names be erased)” at the sight of a fire near the mosque, of Israeli soldiers arresting Palestinian protesters using the signature knee-on-neck maneuver made famous by the murder of George Floyd, many of which have millions of views. Mainstream politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are putting out statements explicitly condemning Israel as the aggressor in these attacks, and the White House is facing some actual adversarial journalism for once regarding its refusal to denounce the killing of Palestinian children and its absurd position that Palestinians have no right to defend themselves.

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BIDEN SPOKESPERSON JEN PSAKI WORKED FOR ISRAELI SPY FIRM

President Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki worked for an Israeli firm accused of involvement in surveillance of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation.

Psaki’s public financial disclosures show that she earned at least $5,000 as a “crisis communications consultant” for AnyVision.

The disclosure forms for executive branch officials can be requested from the White House. Psaki’s disclosure obtained by The Electronic Intifada is included below this article.

The exact date of the work is not specified, but it occurred between the time Psaki left the Obama administration in 2017 and her new role in the Biden White House.

Psaki has operated a communications firm called Evergreen Consulting since a month after President Barack Obama left office.

This covers the period when AnyVision faced a public relations crisis over its alleged complicity in Israel’s abuses of Palestinian rights.

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