The lethal hypocrisy of imperial propaganda
A comparison between Western positions on the Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Hamas war
So I guess somebody has to come and point this out.
Russia and Israel play by entirely different rules.
The West’s responses to these two state actors are utterly disproportionate, and clearly manifest the interests and priorities of the underlying power structure rather than any moral principles or adherence to the truth.
The media reporting, the political posturing, and the actions by our governing institutions are an expression of power and class interest, and the narratives now being activated and reproduced in the popular response to these events should be critically and carefully approached as deliberate programming with the purpose of strategic opinion formation (and to foment social division).
But this is how propaganda works in the modern context, no matter who produces it, so we shouldn’t be surprised, and we would do well to learn from this unusually revealing example of contrasting stances.
Russia and Israel in comparison
So where should be begin?
Let’s first disregard the historical background of these two situations, just like how Western media generally prefers to frame things.
So we forget about the Western involvement in the Ukrainian coups and our explicit intention to destabilize Russia by all means necessary, as well as the Israeli violence against the Palestinian population since 1948 and the tens of thousands of resulting civilian casualties.
Then we get an immediate and decontextualized situation which all parties more or less agree upon, i.e. Russia and Israel responding to military violence targeting and threatening its population, territory and strategic interests coming from a minor and ostensibly weaker polity on its borders.
In Russia’s case, this would refer to the War in Donbas with its some 14 000 casualties, and the push to arm and integrate a hostile Ukraine into NATO, putting a knife at Russia’s throat closely patterned on the old Western strategy of destabilizing and partitioning.
In Israel’s case, we’re obviously talking about Hamas’ limited incursions into Israeli territory and its attacks on civilian and military targets, as well as the minor military responses from Syria and Lebanon.
Initially, this rendered around 400 casualties, police, military and civilian, and after about a week of low-intensity conflict, the Israeli death toll sits at about 1 400 people. The broader context involves Israel’s overarching threat in terms of the ongoing proxy war with Iran and the plausible suggestions that Iran and other associated parties took part in planning and executing Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge that kicked off everything.
Balance of power
Now Russia is obviously the stronger party in the Ukraine conflict, but if we consider initial troop numbers and the level of international support at the outset of the war, the situation here is much, much closer to parity in comparison to the relative balance of power between Hamas and the state of Israel.
The Gaza Strip is a tiny patch of geography de facto occupied by Israel. It’s a stretch of land 40 kilometres long, and just about 10 kilometres wide with more than two million people packed into it. One of the most densely populated areas on the planet.
The Palestinians in Gaza have no proper regular military force. No armor or AFVs. No regular artillery, no real air defenses and no air force. Their communications and surveillance apparatus is primitive and subject to being entirely circumscribed by Israel (and now its telecommunications infrastructure is basically gone).
And as an immediate response to the attacks, Israel cuts of food, water, gas and electricity from Gaza.
They’re literally cutting off food and water.
The simple fact that Israel is in a position to actually strangle the supply of these fundamental necessities tells you everything you need to know about the balance of power.
As a knee-jerk response to all of this, on top of everything, many Western states, including Sweden, are dropping Palestine from their list of foreign aid recipients.
Initially, the European Commission as such even announced a decision for the EU to collectively cancel aid to Palestine, but they were forced to backpedal on this, I guess, since it looked a bit too much like actual murder.
Edit: EU now commendably instead significantly increases aid to Gaza and the West Bank.
Sweden, Denmark and Austria are among a few brave actors who valiantly stand by the European Commission’s initial decision, however.
This is not a limited response. Russia’s attack on Ukraine, by comparison, did not entail cutting off the country’s food and water. Moreover, the attacks on civilian infrastructure have been deliberately minimized which is blatantly obvious if you look at the death toll. About 9 300 civilian Ukrainian casualties have been registered so far, while the number of Ukrainian military deaths are massive, possibly even approaching 400 000.
These numbers, whatever your position on the involved parties happen to be, are clear evidence that the Russians have done a pretty good job of keeping civilian casualties down. Sure, maybe they were just incredibly lucky.
In contrast, Israel’s retaliation has already killed 2 600 Palestinians. More than 700 of these were children. Israel has hit Gaza, this tiny patch of land packed with human beings, with more than 3 000 air strikes, so of course you’re gonna break a few eggs.
Whole neighbourhoods, such as Rimal in Gaza City, have been razed. Іsrael’s air force said it had dropped 6,000 bombs on Hamas targets by Thursday, and it hit 750 more targets the following morning. A former UN war crimes investigator, Marc Galasco, noted that was nearly equivalent to the most bombs dropped in a year by Nato forces in Afghanistan: 7,423.
(The Guardian.)
Many respond to these numbers by trying to play the definitions game, arguing that the line between civilians and combatants is pretty blurry when it comes to Palestinians. For one, they’re not allowed to have a regular army, so whatever forces they manage to field are sort of semi-civilians. This is then used to legitimize attacks on the general population.
But let’s just try to summarize a bit. These limited points are far from comprehensive, but cover certain basic facts about the initital situation Israel and Russia found themselves in, respectively, and of the character of their response. And the obvious conclusion to draw, is that if the actions of the Russian state were worthy of condemnation, so would be those of Israel.
The only thing that really stands in favor of Israel in this comparison is the fact that Russia faced no initial attack on its own de jure territory, but this pales in relation to the immense power imbalance between Israel and the population of Gaza, Israel’s extreme response and the terribly dangerous blockade that cuts of food and water.
Russia
14 000 casualties suffered in protected or annexed territories
No initial attack on the state’s own territory
Overarching threat against the security or integrity of the state
Limited military response intended to minimize civilian casualties
Some power parity, while Russia is significantly stronger
Israel
1 400 casualties suffered in protected or annexed territories
Initial direct attack on the state’s own territory
Overarching threat against the security or integrity of the state
Broad-scope military response and blockade with disregard for civilian casualties
No power parity, Israel effectively occupies Gaza and is overwhelmingly stronger
Oh yeah, on top of all of this, Israel announced an evacuation order for northern Gaza in preparation for their imminent ground invasion. One million people have to evacuate in a very short time span, under extreme duress and an ongoing aerial bombardment.
The order has been strongly criticized by the UN:
“We are horrified at the prospect of an additional 1 million Palestinians joining the over 423,000 people already forcibly driven from their homes by the violence over the past week,” she said.
“It is inconceivable that more than half of Gaza’s population could traverse an active war zone, without devastating humanitarian consequences, particularly while deprived of essential supplies and basic services,” said Gaviria Betancur.
(OHCHR.)
On every conceivable variable, the Israeli response is indeed incredibly severe in comparison to the Russian one.
The Western response
But the fascinating thing here is that our Western media, our politicians, our governing institutions and then finally the people in general, almost unanimously condemn the latter party while wholeheartedly supporting the other.
And it doesn’t stop there. Swedish state TV hosted a (Swedish-speaking) Israeli officer to comment on the events, who compared the Palestinians to animals and addressed them in the most dehumanizing language.
Along the same lines, John Kirby, the White House National Security spokesman, basically stated that you’re an idiot if you would even consider that Hamas has any humanitarian reasons for opposing the forced evacuation of its people, any other reasons than the fact that they “want to use them as human shields”.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” [Israeli Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant says following an assessment at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”
This is incredibly dangerous rhetoric. Netanyahu’s equivalent juxtaposition of civilization and the barbarians is echoed throughout the Western media and political institutions in response to the situation.
The above is the introduction to a debate piece from the major Swedish daily published two days ago. In this example, there’s a call for denunciation and measures taken against Muslims who refuse to condemn Hamas’ incursion. The lede argues that there are no nuances here, that we have clear-cut murderers and victims.
Good and evil.
But by that very same date, Israeli bombardment of Gaza had killed twice as many children as the total civilian death toll of Hamas’ initial attack.
Isn’t that then equally devoid of nuance, equally deserving of unequivocal condemnation?
But Hamas’, those “human animals”, were of course complicit since all of the Palestinian civilians happen to function as human shields, either potentially or actually.
Decontextualize enough, and you’ll find that the 12-year old child who throws a rock against an IDF soldier is actually the aggressor.
I’ll say it again. This rhetoric is profoundly dangerous. This rhetoric, and the almost unanimous backing of the Western media, political institutions and consent-nudged population, is a recipe for genocide.
This is how the stops are pulled out for something really vile to happen.
And this article’s comparison of the West’s respective responses to the actions of Russia and Israel, especially how the media narratives are shaped and framed, intends to illustrate how our institutions serve vested interests rather than the truth or any moral principles.
Their actions and their communications are first and foremost an expression of the interests and priorities of capital and the political power structure, particularly when it comes to matters of any geopolitical importance.
This is especially obvious in the one-sided demonization and criminalization of dissent, thoroughly prepared during the covid period and the Ukraine spectacle, which is now rolled out immediately and as a matter of course. France and parts of Germany literally ban pro-Palestinian protests. The European Union threatens to sue Facebook if it doesn’t crack down on dissenting perspectives on the Israel-Hamas conflict, and puts legal pressure on Twitter for the very same reason.
A free media should naturally be able to report anything and everything on these issues, with the background assumption that the sovereign, rational citizen is fully capable of making up her own mind in relation to the information she receives.
Yet our MSM, and the very fact that there exists something accurately described by the concept “mainsteam media” is structurally opposed to actual popular sovereignty. Our media is thoroughly tethered to class interests, to the priorities of Western states and capital and thus effectively undercut the supply of information needed for a meaningful deliberative democracy.
And this is precisely why they engage in narrative formation rather than actual reporting. This is why the interested public is teased into an overly emotional response, likening failure to condemn Hamas to Holocaust denial and if they are mustering an outcry, it’s not over the escalation of violence but because we didn’t put Israeli flags on our profile pictures quickly enough.
This is how stunted we are. This is what we think political and civic agency looks like.
At this very moment, the forces of Israel, almost unanimously supported by the West, are poised to liquidate a significant portion of the population of its occupied territories. The process has already begun. The water and food is cut off, and the Gaza Strip is currently being hit by some of the most intense bombing raids history has ever seen.
And what’s worst of all, the yellow press has tricked us to consider this the good and proper response of civilization in the face of barbarism.
Let’s just do what we can to keep the situation from escalating.
Let’s not feed the frenzy any further.
You might be too young to remember that time. I remember it vividly. I remember it in detail. I remember how the nation “came together.” I remember how the Western world “stood with America.” I remember how we declared a “Global War on Terror,” how we “took the gloves off,” both at home and abroad, how the government and the media whipped the public up into a bloodthirsty, jingoistic frenzy.
I remember being called a “traitor,” a “Saddam apologist,” a “terrorist sympathizer,” because I wouldn’t wave the flag, and “stand with America,” and get on board with murdering hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children.
Evil is loose upon the land and insists it has God on it's side...
is this article by "laughlyn" & is only the last paragraph by CJ Hopkins.?