What did Israel do on October 7th and why is the media not covering that?
JVL Introduction
This article by Jonathan Cook highlights how mainstream media has reported “as fact” Hamas atrocities that have not been evidenced even while Israel does not allow independent verification to take place; some allegations have been dropped. This is against the most basic of journalistic codes. It has virtually if not entirely ignored how Israel’s response to the attacks led to the deaths of many living in Israel, which Cook covers in some detail here.
Hamas broke international law that day and should be accountable for that; even if the most extreme claims all turn out to be false, civilians were murdered and kidnapped as hostages. However, the media’s working from the “Israel has the right to defend itself” framework is part of what enables the pulverisation of Gaza to take place; Israel is bombing Gaza for what it says Hamas did, so that Hamas remain the terrorist “monsters” to be eradicated at any cost even killing their own citizens.
There are rarely references to the fact that Israel has been breaking international law for many decades and continues to do so. And the right of occupied people to resist not raised at all.
Reproduced with permission of Middle East Eye
LL
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Fri 15 Dec 2023. Read the original here.
Israel-Palestine war: Why is the media ignoring evidence of Israel’s own actions on 7 October?
The BBC and others keep revisiting Hamas crimes that day, but fail to report on growing evidence that Israel killed its own citizens
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Regev told MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan: “There were actually bodies that were so badly burned we thought they were ours. In the end, apparently, they were Hamas terrorists.”
If there were bodies that were so badly burned they couldn’t be identified visually, it doesn’t make sense that they – Israel – would think/assume they were theres. And they obviously knew THAT when they released the 1,400 figure, a few days after the attack. But why not inflate the figure anyway in so far as they can, and then ‘amend’ it later. Some FIVE weeks or so later, as it transpired! And I wonder how many other people were burnt and charred beyond recognition?? I think we can safely assume that we’ll never find out!
Anyway, something occurred to me yesterday: As I’m sure most people know, initially the Israeli authorities said that 280 people who attended the Nova music festival were killed, and then about six weeks later the figure suddenly went up to 360 something, without explanation (and they were obviously burnt and charred beyond recognition and had to be identified by their DNA as well, which obviously took some time to do). But WHAT occurred to me yesterday is that the additional 80+ were never added to the overall number of Israelis killed in the attack, which remained at 1,200, and still does. And the obvious reason why they ‘disappeared’ them is because they exaggerated the number killed in the initial figure they released – ie the 1,400 figure, that is.
Little chance for commentary on your comprehensive piece. However, my ancestors fled persecution in Russia and settled in Manchester. Balfour was racist, didn’t like the influx from Russia and the Aliens Act was passed to limit it. As a staunch Presbyterian he believed the Bible foretold Jewish ‘return’ to Palestine. Before 1967 I Israel had worked out an entire apartheid ‘legal’ mechanism for subjugating Palestinians and appointed staff to operate it. The eventual aim was a Greater Israel.
The mission was to attack and destroy military targets and to seize as many hostages as possible
It appears there were individual incidents of atrocities, nothing compared to the IDF deliberately slaughtering their own in far greater numbers on the day or to the Genocide unleashed since on the Palestinian people
Time to ask for a ruling from the regulators on how to deal with Israeli propaganda
Never again should anyone be allowed to dehumanise another people
None of us would like to be subjected to the type of violence that occurs during events such as these reflected on here. But the constant absenting of the provocations of colonial conquest and racism domination involved plus the hypocrisy of western hypocrites attempting to take the moral high really take the biscuit.
If Hamas were to genetically alter themselves to appear white/western, call themselves Americans, subject their captives to Nazi drowning tortures, while calling their place of victim incarceration Guantanamo Bay, the BBC et al would be spinning the Nazi torture practices, as mere ‘waterboarding’ as if it was a relatively harmless leisure activity.
And of course, as Jonathan is no doubt aware, the smearing language of ‘barbarian death cults’ to describe indigenous peoples resisting colonialism, has been used to great effect by the British in India, Malaysia, and Kenya – in the latter the people were not described as Kenyans or tribal Kikuyu but as Mau, Mau. Just as the name Hamas is used to obliterated the humanity of Palestinians.
Than for reproducing this. It should be obvious that Israel is using the Oct 7th attacks to justify its genocide in Gaza – and therefore exaggerates or invents atrocities. We must argue for a full and independent inquiry into these events but it is unlikely that Israel will agree to it.
So many official narratives are seriously misleading or downright false.
We have just passed the 35th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing. In reality, the bombing was probably done by the CIA.
The CIA has been heavily involved in drugs for a very long time and has acquired the nickname of the Cocaine Import Agency. Aboard the plane was a group of personnel from the DIA, the Pentagon’s own intelligence agency, headed by Major Charles McKee. He was staunchly anti-drugs and may well have clashed with the CIA.
The following quote comes from a Guardian article from 2001 written by John Ashton and Ian Ferguson (Flight from the Truth: Lockerbie Plane Bombing). Sadly, it is unlikely that the Guardian would publish anything like that today. Nor does it print any longer stories that contradict the official (and untrue) account of the Robert Kennedy assassination for which Sirhan Sirhan was framed.
“Among the Lockerbie victims was a party of US intelligence specialists, led by Major Charles McKee of the DIA, returning from an aborted hostage-rescue mission in Lebanon. A variety of sources have claimed that McKee, who was fiercely anti-drugs, got wind of the CIA’s deals and was returning to Washington to blow the whistle. A few months after Lockerbie, reports emerged from Lebanon that McKee’s travel plans had been leaked to the bombers. The implication was that Flight 103 was targeted, in part, because he was on board.”
Always good and informative and reasoned. Thank you Jonathan. I had a sinking heart when I first heard the news on Oct 7th but very soon, sensed that I was being fed
ridiculous propaganda. Of course, it is all tragic but painting Hamas as mad and monstrous is a futile exercise. People no longer really believe what Israeli government officials say.
Here we have an excellent fact-filled article. Thank you Jonathan Cook & JVL. Among the facts presented, one of the most disturbing is the way in which our British free press tries so hard to avoid studying the facts. In my observation, our trusted BBC, as it calls itself on its nicely oiled website, is one of the most effective at spreading politically motivated whoppers and dodging awkward facts. This in itself is a fundamental fact of modern life.
I would like to re-present an obvious fact about the Hamas day of infamy, in that the Israeli authorities must have known about it in advance. Like so much, this probability was briefly broadcast on our media – once and never again. It is well known that Israel has sophisticated listening devices that are constantly spying on the Palestinians. These are devices developed in Israel and sold around the world – to repressive regimes, that is. The allegation is shocking, one of the reasons why it is dodged by our mass media, but it is ever so obvious. As to why the Hamas incursion happened so easily, please, everyone, consider the extremist nature of the Israeli government of virulent political zionists, aggressive settler backers and politicised religious cranks, headed by a political twister who needs a deep war to keep ahead of justice.
The best way to find out what is actually happening is to watch Al Jazeera TV on Freeview 235. Their journalists and camera men and women are in Gaza, on the ground, filming what is happening live, the bombing by Israel, the rows of dead bodies being buried, interviewing people who have been made homeless and injured, showing the massive destruction and crowded refugee tents and hospitals full of thousands of people needing treatment and shelter, and reporting what the UN human rights people, the UN refugee people, the World Food Programme people, the World Health Organization people, the Red Cross people, the ambulance medics, the hospital medics, the grandmothers, the pregnant women and even the children who have lost their families are all saying. As well as a few Hamas spokespeople. Straight to the cameras. Israel has been committing genocide daily, massacring mostly women and children, and violating every human right and humanitarian law known to humankind. And the US government is supporting it, making it possible, supplying the bombs and all the other military death instruments.
What a very ‘Western Liberal Right v Wrong’ article. With Guilty and Innocent and Rationality… What no one gets is that… this is a Holy War by the Islamists against Israel and by the Israeli Right against Gaza. It’s a war that goes back to the Crusades and to the Bible. All the talk of ‘consideration ‘is so much PC ‘blather’. This is the ME, where Egyptians kill Egyptians, where Syrians and Iraqis kill Syrians and Iraqis, and where Sunni Kills Shia. So Israel kills Gazans and flattens Gaza using AI planning just as Hamas kills Israelis after raping them… This is a return to medieval ancient holy war by both sides. Haven’t you understood that yet? Ever since Khomeini started the Islamic Revolution it’s been Holy War. Ever since 1947 its been Holy War. The Allies bombing Germany and Japan was Holy War. There is no legality here except for lawyers and academics. Israel wants Hamas out of Gaza and Gaza Israeli. Hamas wants Israel destroyed and Palestine liberated. Then Egyptians and Syrians would occupy Palestine in place of Israelis. Because Hamas Palestine would threaten both Egypt and Syria. This is The Middle East… Not Western Europe or the Western civilisation.