Manufacturing Consent for Genocide

The US is complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity

The US government and mainstream news media have repeated lies in an attempt to justify Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Instead of calling for an end to the fighting, the war mongers are egging Israel on as they openly murder civilians in Gaza.

Immediately following the Palestinian attacks on Israel, the media bombarded us with horrific tales. One of these was so appalling that it made it all the way to the president of the United States - the story of 40 beheaded Israeli babies. It turns out it was not true and the White House had to walk back President Biden’s lies that he had seen pictures. The Grayzone traced the source of these lies back to David Ben Zion, an Israeli soldier and “an extremist settler leader who incited violent riots against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank earlier this year.” Any competent journalist knows to verify sources before publishing, but CNN reported: “Babies and toddlers were found with their “heads decapitated” in Kfar Aza in southern Israel after Hamas’ attacks in the kibbutz over the weekend, Tal Heinrich, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Wednesday.” This was not news, it was hearsay being reported as news. Truth is the first casualty of war and US media outlets are simply reporting propaganda.

The same was true of allegations of rape. President Biden said in a speech that there had been “Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.” However, the LA Times was forced to retract their claims of rapes as there was no supporting evidence. As media critic Sana Saeed told the Intercept:

“It’s been about four days since this incredible and tragic escalation of violence and the level of misinformation — even disinformation — seems near unprecedented,”

“We have seen journalists, in particular, spread unverified information that is being used to justify Israeli and even American calls and actions to annihilate an entire population.” 

“From unsubstantiated accusations of Palestinian fighters raping Israeli women to unsubstantiated accusations of Palestinian fighters beheading babies: These claims have spread like wildfire especially thanks to many journalists who are repeating things without any semblance of critical thinking or journalistic caution.” 

This same pattern was seen in the Ukraine conflict. From stories of the Ghost of Kiev and Snake Island to the rehabilitation of Nazis, mainstream journalists showed themselves to have no credibility. The media industrial complex works hand in hand with the military industrial complex to manufacture consent for US imperialism. It took investigative journalist Seymour Hersh posting on Substack to reveal that the US blew up the Nordstream pipeline, something that the US said was going to happen themselves.

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

The demonization of Russia and Palestine are two sides of the same coin. The US has a narrative that needs enemies so they can continue to funnel money to Ukraine and Israel and drive up profits for the military industrial complex. The media happily obliges in creating these enemies. I have written about this before for Real Progressives in my article Capitalism Loves Fake News.

Today we are seeing the same pattern with Israel - every article that condemns the attacks on Israel but ignores the ongoing genocide in Gaza is manufacturing consent for that genocide. Progressive author Naomi Klein wrote an article for The Guardian that was originally titled “Why are some of the left celebrating the killings of Israeli Jews?” This was then renamed “In Gaza and Israel, side with the child over the gun” but the focus of the article remained the same. Rather than focusing on the Israeli war crimes and genocide, she decided to open up with “those massacred in Israel” and saves the condemnation of Israel’s “murderous leveling of Gaza” for the fifth paragraph. The deaths of children are horrible, but the violence of the oppressed is not the same as the violence of the oppressor.

We were told that violence in itself is evil, and that, whatever the cause, it is unjustified morally. By what standard of morality can the violence used by a slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave master? By what standards can we equate the violence of blacks who have been oppressed, suppressed, depressed and repressed for four centuries with the violence of white fascists. Violence aimed at the recovery of human dignity and at equality cannot be judged by the same yardstick as violence aimed at maintenance of discrimination and oppression. - Walter Rodney, The Groundings With My Brothers

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-67096754

The Times of the UK published the above edition with the headline Israel Shows Mutilated Baby. However, the photograph posted alongside it clearly shows Palestinian children who were wounded in airstrikes by Israel on civilians in Gaza. This is blatant propaganda - a sensational headline, a gruesome photo, but the photo does not match the headline. Israel did release some images on Twitter. The problem is that the image of the charred baby may have been generated by AI and can’t be verified. As Reuters reported:

There were no images to suggest militants had beheaded babies -- a particularly explosive accusation that first emerged in Israel's media and initially confirmed by Israeli officials.

U.S. President Joseph Biden had suggested on Wednesday that he had seen images of children beheaded by militants. The White House later clarified that U.S. officials had not seen any evidence of this.

No doubt civilians were killed during the attacks by Hamas. But instead of reporting the facts, the media had to run with sensationalist baby killer headlines. And they are still focusing on this, while Israel has murdered over 500 children in Gaza since then. Even if the unverified reports of Hamas killing babies are true, this does not justify murdering 500 children in response. And Israel has been murdering children consistently since before the attacks. In September, it was reported that “At least 38 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank so far in 2023, making it the deadliest year since records began, said Save the Children.” Where was the outrage then? It was nonexistent. Biden did not give a speech saying this was “an act of sheer evil.” When Israel attacked the refugee camp in Jenin, killing ten Palestinians, the US did not pledge unconditional support for Palestine.

Israel has just told 1.1 million residents of Gaza to flee for their lives in the next 24 hours. In a press briefing on October 10, US Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about a ceasefire:

Q Well, there have been some members of Congress who have called for a ceasefire, and they have not gone as far as backing the administration’s call for support for Israel.

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, look, I’ve seen some of those statements this weekend. And we’re going to continue to be very clear: We believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful.

Our — our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds — hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here. There are not two sides.

Where is the condemnation of Israel for their years of brutal murder, rape, and kidnapping? Nowhere to be seen. And now that Israel has murdered over 1,000 civilians in Gaza and is preparing an unprecedented assault, the US remains silent and is against a ceasefire. There are two sides - one side is the oppressed Palestinian people who have every right to resist Israeli occupation and the other side is a brutal apartheid regime led by fascist Netanyahu. In 2018, Israeli General Zvika Fogel admitted that Israel deliberately targets small children in a radio interview:

It is not the whim of one or the other sniper who identifies the small body of a child now and decides he’ll shoot. Someone marks the target for him very well and tells him exactly why one has to shoot and what the threat is from that individual. And to my great sorrow, sometimes when you shoot at a small body and you intended to hit his arm or shoulder it goes even higher.

His only regret was that when they target extremities, sometimes they miss and hit them in the head. This deliberate targeting of children, journalists, and medics was confirmed in a report by the UN Human Rights Council released in 2019. According to the findings of this report, “Victims who were hundreds of metres away from the Israeli forces and visibly engaged in civilian activities were shot, as shown by eyewitness accounts, video footage and medical records. Journalists and medical personnel who were clearly marked as such were shot, as were children, women and persons with disabilities.” These people were all deliberately targeted by Israeli snipers.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

―J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Israel does not have a right to carry out war crimes, but the US media and government are fully behind the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians. Unfortunately we were born into late stage capitalism and US imperialism has led to untold horrors like the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We must oppose the root cause of the horrors of war - the capitalism system that encourages and enables it. Only socialism can begin to cure the injuries inflicted by the capitalist system. Until then, we must stand with the oppressed people of Palestine as the US backed fascist regime in Israel slaughters them without mercy. Free Palestine!