How Israeli war crimes and propaganda follow the US blueprint
JVL Introduction
We are all aware that the United States has given Israel unconditional support for its war on Gaza.
Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J S Davies, Code Pink activists in the US, argue that the US is a past master at meting out mass death and destruction, out of sight and out of mind for most Americans.
Israel has learned well from the US, insisting that they are interpreting the laws of war in just the same way as the US did in Iraq and elsewhere to define away its war crimes.
The failure to hold the US accountable has emboldened Israel to believe it too can kill with impunity. Israel, in attempting to rewrite international law and remove its stringent protections against targeting civilians, is building on what the States has done in the past.
But this time the world is watching.
It is surely time to hold the criminals to account.
RK
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Mon 20 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
Israel-Palestine war: How Israeli war crimes and propaganda follow the US blueprint
Like Israel, the US has systematically violated international law in its wars, manufactured political justifications to suit each case and evaded international accountability
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A much needed commentary about the endless crimes of the United States. The Palestinian delegate replying to the US statement at the UN in Geneva reminds us that there are only 15 years in the entire history of the United States when it has not been at war with another country – https://twitter.com/i/status/1725095858310349093
Benjamin and Davies remind us that one of the most effective ways of propaganda is by silence. To its credit Radio4 mentioned this on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Laos. I quote ” Between 1964 and 1973, America dropped over two million tonnes of ordnance on neutral Laos: on average, a planeload of bombs was released every eight minutes, 24 hours a day. This is more than was dropped on Germany and Japan in the entire Second World War. Laos, today a country of just 6 million people, remains the most heavily bombed country in the world per capita. ”
Think about it – under 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 and the world was turned upside down; 1,200 Israelis killed on 7th October and we are told that genocide is ‘defence’. But Laos? Only ‘gooks’ after all. No matter.
Good comment by Roshan, but Radio 4’s modus operandi in the past few years has been the apotheosis of ‘manufacturing consent’. Its preferred method, that of ‘omission’, has been extensively used to silence left-wing voices in the most obvious manner. It is so preposterously easy to defend its ‘news and current affairs’ output by NEVER HAVING TO DEFEND REPORTAGE WHICH WAS NEVER BROADCAST! It used Fleet Street’s headlines and leader columns to repeat lies about Jeremy Corbyn and by implication, us other socialists with ‘anti-Semitism’, which has still not gone away. I have complained on numerous occasions to no avail. The only effect I had was to point out that when the Board of Deputies of British Jews made a complaint, they received a full reply by ‘senior management’, the same day, yet my complaint took two months to address. I replied that, ‘Are the BoD entitled to ‘special treatment’?[Yes, of course!] The next time I complained, they replied the next day, in some sort of pretence that I actually matter!
At a recent branch Labour party meeting, I pointed out to a speaker from a ‘peace’ organisation that the USA should be the main focus of their campaigns – he disagreed! I despair…
Shockingly, it was not till last year that I registered the full conscienceless devastation of Raqqa and Mosul, through a mention that Paul Rogers gave during a talk about the invasion of Ukraine. (I did register Fallujah and earlier Chechnya, when I first remember the description ‘bombing rubble on rubble’ being used). On Question Time two weeks ago, Times journalist Juliet Samuel invoked Raqqa and Mosul as justification for Israel’s ‘difficult task’ of destroying Gaza in order to save it.. and it was worrying to see how many of the audience and even the panel members seemed to be acquiescing and nodding with serious expressions.