Caitlin Johnstone: However bad you think Israel is, it’s actually worse

Date:

Share post:

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

So it turns out the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) has been running a Telegram channel featuring homemade snuff films in which Gazans are brutally murdered by Israeli forces, captioned with celebrations of the gore and pain therein like “Burning their mother . . . You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear their bones crunch.”

The IDF had previously denied any association with the channel, 72 Virgins – Uncensored, but Haaretz now reports that it was directly run by an IDF psychological warfare unit.

This is one of those many, many times where Israel is so awful that at first you’re not sure what you’re looking at. You think you must be misreading the report. Then you read it again and go, “Oh wow, that’s SO much worse than I would have guessed.”

However bad you think Israel is, you can always be sure that information will come out later that proves it’s even worse.

Tucker Carlson has been spotted in Moscow, generating speculation that he’s there to interview President Vladimir Putin, and the liberal commentariat are losing their minds about it.

There’s no valid basis for Westerners to object to Putin being interviewed by a Western pundit. There’s no moral basis because Israeli officials have had unfettered access to a wildly sympathetic Western press throughout four months of administering an active genocide.

There’s no basis on the grounds that it hurts US information interests, because that would be admitting that US information interests depend on hiding information from the public about matters as basic as what a foreign leader thinks about his own actions, and essentially acknowledging that the Western media are supposed to function as propaganda services for US military and intelligence agencies.

Every possible objection is also a confession about what the US empire and its media actually are.

Americans: healthcare please

US government: Sorry did you say bomb Syria, Iraq and Yemen in facilitation of an active genocide?

Americans: no, healthcare

US government: Alright you drive a hard bargain but let’s go bomb Syria, Iraq and Yemen in facilitation of an active genocide.

Biden isn’t technically lying when he says the US does not seek conflict in the Middle East. The US seeks DOMINATION in the middle east, and would prefer to receive that domination willingly from submissive subjects. Only when Middle Easterners refuse to submit is there conflict.

The US has never done anything good for the Middle East. All it’s brought to the region is a bunch of murderous military operations and the nonstop murderous military operation that is the state of Israel.

Setting up a bunch of military bases in countries on the other side of the planet and then going to war with anyone who tries to kick them out is pretty much the exact opposite of how a sane and ethical military would be used.

US foreign policy is essentially one big long war against disobedience. Bombing, regime changing, starving and destabilising any population anywhere on earth who dares to insist on its own self-sovereignty instead of letting itself be absorbed into the folds of the global empire.

They call different parts of it the Israel-Hamas War, the Iraq War, the War on Terror, but really it’s all the same war: the war on disobedience. One long operation to brutalise the global population into obedience and submission, year after year, decade after decade.

When it comes to Israel the main difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives support Israel because they like it when Muslims get murdered while liberals support Israel because mumble mumble something something antisemitism Israel has a right to defend itself but we have serious concerns about the humanitarian, HEY LOOK OVER THERE IT’S TRUMP!

If the Gaza genocide had happened pre-internet it would’ve been a fringe issue hardly anyone knew about. The Western press would have been able to get away with exponentially more cover-ups of Israeli crimes, Western politicians would’ve been able to get away with way more lies about what’s really happening, Israeli officials would have been far less careful about their statements of genocidal intent in their own media, and the IDF would’ve been vastly more blatant and obvious about its extermination campaign.

It’s only because normal people are getting eyes into what’s really happening that this issue is subject to worldwide outcry and condemnation that has placed the empire on the back foot.

The political/media class never does the right thing because it wants to, it does the right thing when it is forced to by normal human beings with healthy consciences. The fate of humanity rests on the ability of ordinary people to freely circulate truth.

Caitlin Johnstone is an independent Australian journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished from Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix with permission.

Cafe Pacific Publisher
Cafe Pacific Publisher
Café Pacific's duty editor.
- advertisement -

Related articles

Behind settler colonial NZ’s paranoia about dissident ‘persons of interest’

COMMENTARY: By Robert Reid The Enemy Within, by Maire Leadbeater is many things. It is: • A family history • A...

Kamala Harris’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza ‘betrayal of true feminism’

Democracy Now! AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. NERMEEN...

Chris Hedges: The politics of cultural despair – and the American nightmare

ANALYSIS: By Chris Hedges In the end, the US election was about despair. Despair over futures that evaporated with...

New survey finds an alarming tolerance for attacks on the press in the US – particularly among white, Republican men

ANALYSIS: By Julie Posetti and Waqas Ejaz Press freedom is a pillar of American democracy. But political attacks on...