one of my current frustrations right now is the knowledge that because there is such third-world levels of censorship in US and western media all of the usual avenues of "trustworthy" sources are nigh unusable, and so in the war of disinformation and misinformation you do have to rely on tweets, on-the-ground NGOs, aljazeera, primary sources, your odd substack, largely because it takes traditional western media approximately 8 months to 10 years to put together a comprehensive report before they'll admit the idf lied or acknowledge palestinian suffering
like right now we're in a place where no outlet wants to admit the idf deliberately targets civilians, even though they are killing journalists and doctors alongside their entire families, targeting bakeries, water tanks, solar panels, hospitals, ambulances, and covoys of aid, all of which depict a picture of genocide and align perfectly with all the genocidal statements israeli politicians have already made
and so no outlet wants to admit that the ground invasion is looking closer and closer to a systemic massacre, and nobody wants to admit that the only thing standing between palestinian civilians and their impending and merciless death is a group they have designated as terrorists
everyone is writing about how hamas should release hostages, about how hamas should surrender, about how israel will save palestinians (however many are left after the airstrikes) from hamas, about a potential peace
but nobody is writing about the time when israel negotiated for the PLO (then also designated a terrorist group) to disarm and leave lebanon, only to break the diplomatic agreements and orchestrate a massacre so bloody of an undefended refugee camp that even americans were horrified
a hundred years of war on palestine - rashid khalidi
the israelis & americans who greenlit and orchestrated this massacre received no consequences and two of them went on to become the prime ministers of israel
nobody is writing about the on the record statements from israeli soldiers in 2014 from operation protective edge where they admitted they destroyed houses for destruction's sake, were not asked to check if these were civilians before shooting, and did not care whether they were. anyone found in a zone they had warned to "clear" was assumed to be a terrorist.
all of north gaza is currently designated an area to be cleared. it includes hospitals that cannot be evacuated, elderly and disabled people who cannot evacuate, and the doctors and medical staff who stayed behind to help them and refused to leave
nobody is writing about how israel actually increases the levels of violence up until the last second before a ceasefire
nobody is writing about how israel has violated more ceasefires than hamas anyway, that they have violated ceasefires, betrayed agreements, broken un resolutions, ignored international law all in the pursuit of killing a few more palestinians and are unlikely to stop now
no outlet is really talking about the fact that asking for a ceasefire has become politically fraught when it was already rock bottom
no outlet is really talking about how palestinian death has become easier and more politically expedient to justify than palestinian life
but im sure they will when it's far too late, as they always do
