Haaretz has published a Hebrew-only attack on my investigation into Israeli friendly fire deaths on October 7. It calls my article the "cornerstone of the massacre denial conspiracy" and predictably accuses me of "'journalism' worthy of Der Sturmer."
Haaretz proceeds to accuse me of "manipulation" by quoting a wide variety of Israeli media sources detailing how Israeli forces fired on Israeli noncombatants on 10/7, often with orders from the top, but does not explain how these quotes were incorrect. In fact, it does not accuse of a single factual error.
It even references the Israeli police investigation (reported by Haaretz) acknowledging that helicopter pilots killed Israelis at or near the Nova music festival. And it concedes that an Israeli tank killed 12 Israelis in just one home in Kibbutz Be'eri.
Where I went wrong, according to the liberal paper, is by refusing to dismiss the preponderance of friendly fire incidents as a scattershot of isolated killings that were absolutely unrepresentative of the Israeli military's conduct on October 7. Further, I dared to describe the Hamas/PIJ attack as an military operation with clearly articulated political goals, and not as an orgiastic outburst of Islamo-Nazi savagery aimed exclusively at cannibalizing Jews.
So what can we deduce from the central organ of Israel's "enlightened society" running such a breathless attempt at undermining my reporting (and that of many others in alternative media) about October 7?
First, the Israeli information war is failing. While the initial phase of its shock-and-awe propaganda campaign manipulated CNN and Joe Biden into publicizing lurid lies about piles of dead babies beheaded by Hamas, thus guaranteeing the political space it needed to launch its genocidal blitzkreig on Gaza, it is running out of steam on the international stage and is increasingly focused on holding the line domestically.
Second, critical reporting by independent media on October 7 has broken through across the world, and now threatens Israel's propaganda campaign in its Hebrew language stronghold, particularly within Israel's metropolitan anti-Netanyahu sector. If enough Israelis publicly question the official narrative of the day that has been marketed to them as their 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the second coming of the Shoah, and then clamor for an independent investigation which probes friendly fire killings, public morale will begin to collapse.
The antiwar leftists I know inside Israel have told me they are keeping a low profile and constantly looking over their shoulders. They describe the country as a dictatorial police state that no longer needs its democratic mask to maintain legitimacy. But the most paranoid elements in Israeli society seem to be in leadership positions – in the Defense Ministry, the Shin Bet, and PM's office. Even slight cracks in their shoddily constructed narrative about 10/7 could soon lead to a political dam burst.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten