The ‘beheaded babies’ allegation
JVL Introduction
Evidence that atrocities are often committed in war abounds and there is no a priori reason to disbelieve them.
But at least some evidence is required. Not it turns out for the lurid claim, made within days of October 7, that “40 babies/children were beheaded”.
Broadcast by an Israeli channel, it was echoed by Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as media worldwide but none more enthusiastically than those in Britain which first amplified the story.
It was immediately sanctified as “the truth” about Hamas’s irrational cruelty.
There was no evidence to support the claim. What stands out is the media’s enthusiasm to believe it without even attempting to verify it.
Jewdas has commented: “We actually have a handy phrase for false accusations of ritualised infanticide to justify violence and dispossession: Blood Libel.”
RK
PS: Al Jazeera posted a Fact Check on this story soon after it appeared which we missed at the time. We link to its video below.
This article was originally published by Declassified UK on Thu 4 Jan 2024. Read the original here.
‘Beheaded babies’ – How UK media reported Israel’s fake news as fact
Britain’s national press have been indispensable allies of Israel throughout its brutal war on Gaza.
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The 84 page South Africa genocide case against Israel highlights a consistent pattern over more than 10 years of Israel making broadly similar claims recklessly or in a deliberately untruthful way to “excuse” its attacks on protected facilities and people (hospitals, civilians, etc). The text quotes a long trail of evidence, witness statements and official judgements disproving a number of Israel’s claims.
If South Africa wins its case (next week?) then Western media will be forced to recognise they cannot trust ANYTHING the Israeli government, IDF or settlers say without fact checking it rigorously, at the time the allegation is made. The scope for deceit will be much more limited.
You could also highlight this appalling information from Middle East Eyehttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-survivors-recount-harrowing-israeli-field-executions. Several separate incidents are described, each of which are as heinous as the actions of Hamas on October 7.
IDF soldiers shot at point blank range 7 members of one family, including an elderly man and a pregnant woman in their home.
A six year old describes the gunning down of his mother and father in front of him. He was hit as well.
Another man was shot in front of his severely disabled adult children (one of whom was Deaf) as he tried to explain they did not understand the soldiers commands.
Two girls aged 8 and 15 were shot dead as they tried to flee a building under attack.
Whole families have been shot (not bombed) Executed at close quarters.
The British mainstream media have not picked up on this report, which is eye witness testimony.
Because the Israeli army is doing all it can to minimise civilian casualties….
The sad fact is, that once a part of the information – used by the ultra-right, ultra-racist and ultra-fascist ultra-Eretz-Israel settler colonial Zionist Netanyahu cabinet, to start off an unprecedented genocidal ethnic cleansing (Nakba 3.0) of the Gazan Ghetto – has been falsified as untrue, the immediate question should arise, what else of the initial information provided for by the very same source, can be considered valid.
I am of course referring to the claims by many media-outlets of mass-rapes and decapacitating breasts by Hamas from the alleged women-victims. No one seemed to have come up with the idea, of actually filming the bodies of those women, and nobody seems to have been prepared of actually registering the details of the alleged crimes, such as collecting the semen of the rapists.
We might then as well mention the claims about mass-killings of Hamas among the Rave-festival goers : What part of the dead youngsters had been killed by members of Hamas, and what part had been killed by the IDF helicopter-gunships, that allegedly had been shooting indiscriminately members of Hamas and the youngsters fleeing the festival alike. Apparently none of the bodies had been examined by certified medical personal / coroners, and all the bodies have been buried as soon as possible, and so has the incriminating evidence (*).
Do remember in the very same context – of the art of manufacturing content in order to manufacture consent – that shortly after the reported 10/7 occurrences, official representatives of the Israeli government at the UN had taken a picture of themselves, waring the so-called Judenstern (Davidstar), that had been used by the criminal nazi’s during 1933-1945, in order to distinguish, the Jewish prisoners of their concentration / death-camps, from other categories of prisoners (**).
(*) https://www.liberationnews.org/evidence-shows-israel-killed-many-of-its-own-citizens-on-oct-7-then-blamed-hamas/
(**) https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/classification-system-in-nazi-concentration-camps
@ Robert Bleeker (and anyone else interested!)
I use the simple “Gaza news” search term, setting Tools to searching for information within the last 24 hours. That approach has helped me find a series of information sources (mainstream media and specialist ones too) less gullible and better informed than much of UK media coverage. One still needs to be very wary and prepared to read between the lines …
I often find media coverage and links from the following sources illuminating:-
Al Jazeera (generally very good)
Haaretz (braver and more wide-ranging than the UK’s “Guardian” in what it’s prepared to cover)
Middle East Monitor
Sky
Swawkbox (and Canary)
The Israeli equivalents to the UK’s “Daily Telegraph” (titles may be mis-remembered – the “Jerusalem Post” and “Jerusalem Times”?) seem well informed on the difficult relationships within the Netanyahu government and between it and the IDF and public. As a “house divided against itself cannot stand” (particularly when pressures are extreme), reports from these media will be especially worth reading now.