Genocide Blog 17 – Debunking Israeli Lies and Propaganda
13.12.2023
Since it’s the rainy season – in Bambous we had 85 mm of rain the other day – you may have time to follow up on some longer, fact-checking-type articles on the web about the Israeli genocide on Gaza.
I am suggesting, for example, you might like to follow Ali Abunimah. He is a co-founder of the beautifully-named “Electronic Intifada” site.
He and his team give a sane, humane, truthful look at Israel’s continuing bombardment, forcible removal and starvation politics against the people of Palestine, who are now being forced into a concentration camp, a tiny strip of the “Gaza Strip” from where the Israeli state intends to expel them altogether – unless we put a stop to it. The USA and Israel were, encouragingly, thoroughly trounced at the UN General Assembly last night – 153 countries voted in favour of a ceasefire. Only 8 miserable countries joined the USA and Israel. (FYI, this 8 include 2 extreme-right Governments in Latin America and 3 small US-lackeys in the Pacific.)
Anyway, to stop the massacre of children, women and old folks in Gaza, we need to be able to understand the reality there, and this means de-coding the propaganda. The Electronic Intifada helps us with this. They have a web-site that is like a newspaper as well as a daily live-stream program. LALIT member Kisna Kistnasamy met Ali Abunimah when they were both part of the Gaza Freedom march trying to visit Gaza in 2009. Both chose not to go to Gaza, when the Egyptian government would only let 100 of the 1,300 protesters, already in Egypt ready to go to Gaza, through the Rafah Crossing. To accept to be amongst that 100 meant accepting that such a condition could be imposed by Egypt on a part of Palestine. As it is, Israel did not let people enter at any other crossing, or by sea or air – even then.
Anyway, in their 4 December issue, the Electronic Intifada team analyzes the new wave of Israeli propaganda about “mass rapes” on 7 October when Hamas broke down the Israeli impregnable wall around Gaza in 29 places and Hamas, and others after them, went into Israel. You have probably heard these on mainstream TV programs. There were, at the time, allegations of rape, but now a re-newed campaign has just begun about a week ago. This new wave came after the thorough debunking of Israel’s previous “horror story” lies. Though at the UN General Assembly last night, the Israeli representative Ilan Erdan continued railing his “horror” claims with his, “Why don’t you hold the rapists and child murderers accountable?”
The two main points the Electronic Intifada makes are, first, how the false propaganda, added on to real atrocities that were committed, is designed to be so horrifying, so hideous, as to whip up enough outrage so that it somehow “justifies” the Israeli genocide in Gaza. This is in fact a settler colony trick, tried and tested for centuries, and used in Klan lynching in the South of the USA until recently, as we mentioned in a previous blog. And second, that the propaganda denies that Hamas had real war aims – to breach the wall, attack Israeli soldiers and their fortresses so as to put the Israeli military bases out of order, and to take captives, preferably military ones, so as to have a means to free all the Palestinians locked up without trial or by military courts by Israel – war aims in which they were not unsuccessful, and instead turns the Hamas attack into something irrational and even less than human, again so as to justify a totally immoral, disproportionate, and even illegal response: a genocide. In fact, nothing justifies the genocide, not even such horror stories.
In an introductory section, The Electronic Intifada outlines the initial inflammatory lies, like the now infamous “beheaded babies” lies – lies that President Biden keeps repeating. There is no evidence at all for this. It is a lie, The Electronic Intifada says rightly. Biden has been told by his advisors, as we all now know, to stop spreading this lie, but he persists. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has confirmed that there was one baby killed that day – killed, it seems, by a Hamas bullet during an exchange of fire with the Israeli army. Not 40. Not beheaded. A baby tragically killed.
Haaretz, nearly two months after 7 October, on 3 December, roundly debunks all the earlier propaganda, like the beheading of babies, and referred to by a reporter as the “iconic horror-stories”. In particular, it exposes the following stories as now known to be completely invented lies.
-- 40 babies decapitated. A lie.
-- Baby burnt in oven. This turned out to be body parts of adults probably killed by Israeli hell-fire rockets. This lie surfaced when the decapitated babies lie was debunked. Now it has been debunked.
-- A pregnant woman’s stomach was opened up and her fetus removed. This gruesome claim seems to have been a lie “Made in India”, where some Modi supporters have been turning out lies like this.
-- That children were bound together and burned. A complete invention.
-- That a pregnant “hostage” was giving birth. Another invention.
These lies, The Electronic Intifada says, were circulated by pro-Israeli individuals and the media in Israel, as one would expect, but also by the Israeli Government itself. Haaretz now concedes that these reports were fake, and it has begun to publish research as to who invented and circulated them. All this is the context behind the new series of allegations of mass rape that the Israeli state is now spreading.
In answer to a question as to the role of Western media in this, The Electronic Intifada replies: Most disturbing is that the western media amplifies this propaganda. It does not demand evidence from Israel.
The media parroted Israel’s claims that 1,400 Israelis were killed on 7 October. Then they brought their figure down to 1,200. They also admitted that two hundred of the badly burnt bodies found were actually Palestinians killed by Israeli fire – hell-fire missiles from helicopters and munitions from tanks. The figure for Israeli deaths has now been reduced again to around 1,000 – via an official Tweet.
So the mainstream western media asks no questions of Israel. Even when we get revelations from inside Israel that many of these 1,000 Israelis were in fact killed by the IDF, using the Hannibal Protocol, of killing raptors and captives when need be. (We can add that there were some 300 soldiers, i.e. non-civilians amongst the 1,000 Israelis killed. We have found no figures for how many military reservists were amongst the civilians killed. We have also heard the figure of 1,147 to include Israelis “and foreign nationals”. Western reporters should be demanding precise answers to all these questions after 8 weeks have passed by.)
Now, the big media push from the Israel authorities and lobbies is on “mass rapes”.
The pro-Israeli propagandist Bari Weiss talks of mass rapes as a supposed Hamas strategy. The Jewish Chronicle, supposedly on the basis of an eye-witness, has lurid claims about a “beautiful woman” he saw with “8-10 fighters beating and raping her”. The New York Post on 3 December makes the same allegations of rape and even photos that supposedly suggest they are proof of a rape when they are clearly not.
Gal Gadot, a Hollywood actor, has been on the media complaining about “silence” about sexually- based violence by Hamas.
The important point is that there is not any one person, not a single one, who claims to have been a victim of rape.
All we have been given, The Electronic Intifada says, are unverified claims, unnamed witnesses, or second-hand stories, except in this latest case, which we will come back to. One reason for the absence of witnesses is, as the Israeli police announced formerly, they do not have any rape victims.
On November 19, CNN has a dramatic headline, The Electronic Intifada reports, “Israel investigates sexual violence committed by Hamas as part of October 7 horror.” In the CNN article, Israeli police actually say there are no identified victims. No-one says they were sexually assaulted. So it is odd that Israeli propagandists talk about a “mass rape” phenomenon.
Not only there are no identified victims, but there is not any forensic evidence either.
The Times of Israel on 9 November claims, “Evidence of Hamas’s October rapes slips away”. The article, and many similar to it like in Washington Post and even Haaretz, start from the premise that there were a huge number of rapes and sexual assaults, but then go on to explain in detail why there is no evidence for this. The Times of Israel says, “Physical evidence of sexual assault was not collected from corpses” because the police were over-worked at the time. So, though Israeli authorities claim that some people, or bodies, looked as though they had been sexually assaulted, the police did not collect any forensic evidence from them. They also claim some bodies were too badly burnt. But most of the burned bodies were not Israeli, but were Palestinians incinerated by the IDF.
As for the claims we keep hearing that Hamas fighters supposedly made videos of themselves raping women, none have been seen. No-one has seen them – if they indeed exist.
There are many claims – various first responders saw someone with blood on them, and thought maybe someone they saw may have been raped. They are not people qualified to make such a determination. So we do not, so far, have actual forensic evidence, nor specific victims who say they were assaulted. All there is is hearsay and sensational claims. Often these stories are put out by members of IDF, those who are the very people perpetrating the genocide against the Palestinians and desperately need supposed “justification”.
So, there are no reports – and this is after 2 months.
In recent weeks, the Israeli authorities have shown 45 minute compilation of videos that it claims are atrocities committed by Palestinians on 7 October. It showed only hand-picked journalists. One was The Guardian’s Owen Jones who, though nominally left-wing, often panders to Israel. He would probably be inclined to emphasize something that incriminated Palestinians, The Electronic Intifada guesses. He attended this screening of this recent Israeli official video, and in his own video afterwards, he said: “If there was rape and sexual violence, we do not see it in the footage.” There was film of one woman, Jones says in his own video clip, who had to identify the body of a badly burnt dead relative, who was without underwear. “This is not evidence of rape”, Jones, rightly says.
So, despite the lack of any new evidence, or any evidence at all, the pro-Israeli propagandists have launched a new push to propel the “mass rape” story into the headlines. And still with no identified victims or forensic evidence.
Where does this mass rape story comes from? It seems to have originated in Israel, close to the State. The name associated most often with this story is Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy. Dr Elkayam-Levy is being presented as feminist scholar and international human rights expert, heading an independent civil Commission to investigate mass rape as an organized tactic used by Hamas fighters on 7 October. Her name is suddenly appearing everywhere. There was a big interview in Haaretz on 30 November. You see her under a shocking headline reading, “Scope of Hamas Campaign of Rape is Revealed, Testimony after Testimony”. The article says there is no doubt, there was “mass rape and sexual abuse”. But, there are no victims, and no forensic evidence. And certainly not testimony after testimony.
Who is this Dr. Elkayam-Levy?
The publication Mondoweiss on 1 December published an important investigation of her allegations. It took as starting point a Jake Tapper broadcast on CNN. The CNN report begins with Dr Elkayam-Levy being described as “expert in human rights law”. She is an expert but not in human rights law. She was in the Attorney General’s office in the Israeli Government. She did things like look for legal justification for Israeli officials infringing human rights e.g. during prisoner hunger strikes. She wrote a detailed manual for forced feeding, in other words torture. She gave the Israeli Government guidance as to how to commit torture against Palestinians.
Mondoweiss notes that CNN invites her as a “human rights expert”.
On CNN, Dr Levy presents nothing but justification for the absence of facts or evidence.
Importantly, CNN also hides connections between Dr Levy and National Security Council of Israel. She is Founder and Director of an Institute that advises National Security Council. Dr Elkayam-Levy used to work for the IDF spokesperson’s unit. She used to do propaganda for the Israeli army. All in all, she is run by close associates of the Netanyahu Prime Minister’s Office.
The Haaretz article, in fact, contains no testimony – despite its heading. It says “the commission has not taken testimony directly”. She goes on to maintain mass rape, but without any testimony.
Haaretz says that a military source says the Israeli secret service, known for using torture, has released recordings of the answers of two Hamas captives asked if they were given instructions to rape people. One said yes they had been given orders to rape and soil women, and the other said they had been given orders to behead and rape people. First, tapes from interrogation by the secret police are not evidence, and secondly, the link with the false stories about beheading are a give-away that someone was admitting to something that used to be the propaganda lie, but that has already been debunked. Third, this comes from “a military source” said. So, the army committing the genocide is offering up this “proof”.
Dr. Elkayam-Levy in the Haaretz article moans that independent journalists are demanding evidence. She refuses even to provide a rough estimate of how many cases there are that indicate “mass rape” as a tool of war. She thinks it is outrageous for journalists to ask how many cases. Hundreds, dozens, one? She also says, “In the case of October 7, we will never know the extent of the damage. We will know that the vast majority of those who were harmed were also murdered. If there are survivors, decades may go by before they muster the courage to talk about it.” So, the Israeli propagandists like Dr. Levy just claim awful “mass rape” meanwhile. “In the few cases where someone witnessed their suffering,” Dr. Levy goes on, “I assume that then two questions will arise. What he saw, and whether he is a reliable witness or not. I don’t intend to participate in that game.” That is ridiculous. You do have to ask if a witness is credible or not.
In the Mondoweiss article (the one about the CNN Report by Jake Tapper), there is a CNN report of a video of an Israeli soldier, “G”, seen only from behind, claiming to be para-medic Israeli Air Force 669 Unit, who searched houses in Kibbutz Be’eri after the Hamas incursion. He said he opened the door of a bedroom and found dead two girls aged about 13 and 15, one of them naked with semen remains on her lower back. He claims this, and says it was during combat. However, when the list of victims at that Kibbutz is examined there are no examples of Israeli teenage girls found in one house. It is just not true. There was also no evidence that Unit 669 was ever present there in Be’eri.
CNN and others say an unnamed witness that Israeli police played a recording of at a Press conference. She claims she saw with her own eyes, a group of Palestinians raping an Israeli woman, then cut off her breast, tossing it to each other like a ball. A truly horrifying story. But, CNN and the other media did NOT report another thing she said in the same recording, “I saw one of them carrying a naked girl on his shoulder, while the others were carrying decapitated heads like in a kind of demonstration of power”. So, no decapitations like this are alleged. Not even by the Israeli government. There is no credibility for such a witness.
Dr Levy is known to spread disinformation. There is a video of her presenting old photo, from May 2023, of a murdered female fighter, that had nothing to do with Palestine, and claiming the Israeli woman was assaulted at the Super Nova Rave party on October 7. It was during a talk at Harvard.
The photo is about another place and another time.
In reports circulating in last couple of days, including in the UK Sunday Times, we read quotes of an eye-witness called Yoni Saadon, the one who says he witnessed the horrible rape of beautiful woman. Before 3 December, there was no reference to this testimony. It has just popped up now, when Israel’s narrative is in trouble, when all the “iconic horror stories” have been debunked.
So, we should be wary of this violent propaganda, spread in order to incite genocide. It is designed, as in all colonial genocides, to demonize and dehumanize the oppressed, in the hope of letting the genocide continue unabated.
Sorry this blog is so long. I wanted to introduce you to the Electronic Intifada team, by showing how carefully researched and argued their work is. I had no idea it would be as exacting a task. Even then, I do not think I have done them justice in my report.
By the by, you may be interested to know that my two bespoke oval-shaped tin watering cans were ready at the tinsmith’s workshop last time I went by. They are beautiful. So, when the rain stops, I can put them to use. One of the men the IDF stripped naked as part of its degrading treatment of Palestinians was a well-known tinsmith of Gaza City. We express our solidarity with him and with all the men meted out this humiliation. The shame, we assure them, is not theirs. The shame falls squarely on the Israeli State and this kind of action will cause the downfall of the hideous Israeli regime. We need a modern secular democracy to replace this colonial Apartheid set-up, this military occupation and cruel siege. We need democracy where everyone has equal rights. It is as simple as that.
Lindsey Collen, for LALIT
