Palestine Blog 7 - Israeli State Relies on Lies to Hide Genocide
19.11.2023
Israel, as a State, has so long benefitted from impunity that Bibi Netanyahu is used to lying. He lies blatantly now. Never mind, he thinks, Biden and Blinken back me. Their arms back me. I can tell all the lies I want.
But, the lies begin to collapse. Israel is now exposed. It is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinian people live. This must stop. CEASEFIRE NOW!
The Israeli argument is that it can kill as many Palestinians as it wants to because Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis. The figure is somewhat rounded off when the IDF is counting dead bodies, but “les tonbe”. Now, the Israeli army comes and says, no, Hamas did not kill 1,400 Israelis. It killed 1,200. The other 200 bodies, they say, were dead Hamas men. (In addition to the 1,500 the Israelis claim they killed that day.) So, who shot the 200 people that turned out to be Hamas men? Presumably, the Israeli army. And if they could not tell the difference, how many of the 1,200 Israelis killed were actually killed by the Israeli army in its counter-attack on 7 October? One would guess maybe another few hundred. Yesterday, the mainstream Israeli newspaper Haaretz confirms another alarming possibility: “Israeli investigation reveals that Israeli military helicopters may have been responsible for killing some Israelis at the music rave.” People shot at with heavy weapons from a military helicopter would indeed be mutilated.
But, whatever the figure, it does not, it cannot, excuse Israeli army committing genocide. It does not excuse retaliation against women and children, people in hospitals and UN schools. Nor does it justify killing 12,000 civilians. Nor does it justify mass forcible removals. Nor does it justify the siege, nor the bombing, nor the policy of intentional starvation of the people of Gaza. How could it?
I do not know about other people, but when I watch Al Jazeera and see the gentle men of Gaza taking care of the injured children and of the dying grannies in Gaza, I am touched by their tenderness. I am moved by their humanity, their dignity in their hour of truly unbearable suffering. They are an inspiration.
Their actions, and their caring for those who are suffering, defy the Israeli propaganda.
The example of the Palestinians dignity in their pain make the whole world cry out for a ceasefire. Just the world’s psychopaths and sociopaths go on with the bombing, and the supplying of bombs. They have lost all respect.
The propaganda put out by Israel and the USA is now increasingly seen as the lies it is.
Lies
At the Al Shifa hospital, as sick and injured Palestinians’ bodies have piled up, so have Israeli lies.
Now, even the BBC is exposing Israel’s lies. Ross Atkins, in an excellent BBC piece, says Israel has produced a drawing of the tunnels under the hospital that are supposed to be a Hamas HQ but no evidence. Atkins shows the IDF video clip allegedly filmed while BBC and Fox news reporters were present at the hospital alongside the IDF, also filming. But the watch on the IDF man’s arm in the IDF’s published footage shows a time that is a few hours before the reporters’ embedded visit. The BBC also noted that the IDF video was posted, deleted and then re-posted, in edited form. In addition, the MRI machine they look into in the IDF footage shows a single gun supposedly found in situ there, but the gun has become two guns by the time of the BBC footage, which was supposed to have been simultaneous. Israel shows more weapons that were discovered but it is not clear where they came from. The IDF claims their film is “one uninterrupted take”. But Ross Atkins shows an apparent edit. The IDF certainly does not show what it claims, i.e. “an operational command centre for Hamas”, which Biden says he knows is true. The US has since down-graded it to a “command-and-control node”. Israel and the USA need this “proof” they are inventing in order for the bombing of the hospital and its evacuation by ground troops not to be a war crime. It is a war crime to attack a hospital. Israel thus badly needs proof that justifies its atrocities at the hospital. So, it makes up lies.
People do not believe the lies
And whatever Bibi Netanyahu, Biden and Blinken may blather, one thousand lawyers have put in a case at the International Criminal Court against the Israeli state for genocide against the Palestinian people. They are led by Maitre Gilles Devers, and the Belgian Government has offered to contribute funds to the ICC for the investigation. They call for a ceasefire, meanwhile. Stop the genocide!
Whatever Bibi, Biden and Blinken blather, thousands of people of Jewish faith hold demonstrations all over the USA saying “not in our name”. This is so brave, so bold, so dedicated, coming from ordinary American people. They get arrested by the hundred as they do sit-ins in train stations and in the Congress, itself. They call for an immediate ceasefire. Stop the genocide!
Whatever their leaders do – supplying arms and ammunition to the IDF for the genocide – pro-Palestinian protesters in Australia prevent Israeli cargo ships from docking in Sydney, and in Melbourne. They follow the dock workers in Barcelona in Spain who have stopped loading or unloading any military material going to Israel, just like their co-workers in Genoa, in Italy. They call for a ceasefire. Stop the genocide!
Whatever sacked UK Interior Minister Suella Braverman (a shining example of the Mauritian diaspora) threatened protestors with in the UK, it did not stop 600,000 people last Saturday coming out on to the streets of London with Palestinian flags and singing “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free”, the cry from the heart for peace for all those living in Palestine and Israel. Nor did she stop protestors closing an arms factory in Kent that supplies the IDF. They call for a ceasefire. Stop the genocide!
When a retired British news editor’s grandson from Australia came to visit, he requested they go watch a Celtic football match live, this way to hear in person their supporters sing for the Palestinians. Listen to it now on our site and fb, in todays’ posts. They want a ceasefire.
We do, too. Now! Stop the genocide!
Lindsey Collen
for LALIT.
