Daily protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza continue. In Washington, D.C., human rights activists gathered in front of the White House for a vigil calling on President Biden to back an immediate ceasefire. Body bags were laid out on the ground to represent the more than 11,500 Palestinians killed by the U.S.-backed Israeli assault.
Later in the evening, activists blocked the entrance of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters before police violently removed them. Lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, were gathered for a campaign event. This is Eva Borgwardt of the Jewish peace group IfNotNow.
Eva Borgwardt: “We’re outside the Democratic Party headquarters because this party claims to be on the side of life and peace and equality, and we’re saying that we want them to live up to their values and oppose this horrific war and call for a ceasefire now. And we’re being responded to by the police shoving antiwar activists down the stairs, shoving peaceful protesters back with their bikes. And because our party, our party that 80% of us want a ceasefire, would rather beat up protesters than” —
Chuck Modi: “Hold on. To be continued. One second. One second. One second.”
The interview was interrupted when police resumed beating protesters, spraying them with chemical agents and arresting them.
In Los Angeles, over 1,000 American Jews and others held an emergency sit-in on one of Hollywood’s busiest streets to demand an immediate ceasefire. Earlier this week, over 700 Jewish activists and their allies shut down Oakland’s federal building. Hundreds of people were arrested in the action.
FOX News and other outlets, following massive pro-Palestine demonstrations across the US, claim demonstrators are driven by foreign funds not “organic rage”
On November 4, 300,000 people took to the streets in Washington DC to protest US funding of Israel and to call for a ceasefire (Photo: Sofia Perez)
As pro-Palestine demonstrations grow in size and stakes in cities across the United States, the mainstream media machine is working overtime to claim that demonstrators are being manipulated by wealthy donors abroad. Stemming from a Free Pressarticle written on November 14, right-wing outlets have alleged that the People’s Forum, a socialist community space in New York, is bankrolling the Palestine solidarity movement, claiming that the organization has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
On November 4, more than 300,000 people took to the streets in Washington DC to protest US funding of Israel and to call for a ceasefire. A week later, a much smaller number, between 5,000 and 20,000 descended upon Washington to “march for Israel,” although mainstream outlets such as the New York Post claimed to see a crowd of 300,000 as well.
The huge disparity in turnout for both DC events and the massive movement for Palestine cannot be due to “organic rage,” claims the mainstream media. In a November 15 segment, FOX News anchors express disbelief at the sheer scale of support for Palestine across the US, and try desperately to pin the success of the movement on outside forces.
Socialists once again accused of foreign influence
FOX News is referencing the article written in The Free Press, a media company founded by notorious Zionist Bari Weiss, which claims that two of the People’s Forum’s donors, Jodie Evans and Neville Roy Singham, are “Chinese propagandists.” The article implies, much like a long New York Times so-called investigation from August, that because Evans and Singham fund projects that do not parrot State Department talking points on China, they are being somehow influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.
This Times investigation provided the cover necessary for the Indian government to continue its attacks on left-wing media outlet Newsclick, which was accused in the Times article of “[sprinkling] its coverage with Chinese government talking points.” On October 3, Indian authorities raided the homes and offices of over 100 journalists, contractors, and former employees associated with the progressive news outlets Newsclick and Peoples Dispatch, as well as Tricontinental Research Services. Newsclick editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and administrator Amit Chakraborty continue to languish in prison on draconian anti-terrorism charges. Prior to the raid, an Indian official had directly cited the New York Times article.
“The Chinese Communist Party uses tools like Confucius Institutes on college campuses, TikTok’s addictive algorithm, and organizations like those that Mr. Singham funds to divide and weaken America,” US Representative Mike Gallagher, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told The Free Press. Gallagher is rapidly anti-China, even for a US congress member, not only openly admitting that there is a “New Cold War” against China, but that the United States must win it.
Palestine solidarity movement accused of “dividing America”
FOX News anchors used these baseless accusations of Chinese funding and influence to attack the popular, dynamic, and youthful Palestine solidarity movement in the United States. As Israel continues it’s genocide in the Gaza Strip, its policies of raiding and bombing hospitals, schools, and mosques are becoming unpopular worldwide. But it is not the genocide that makes Zionism unpopular, claim the anchors, it’s Chinese foreign influence.
“You look at this, and you think, these kids are being used as pawns,” said FOX Business anchor Jackie DeAngelis about recent protests, which have been majority youth.
“It’s so obvious that there’s an element of just wanting to create chaos, taking over streets, dividing America. It’s very consistent I think with what the Chinese Communist Party would like to see in America, a divided America. A ruined America,” added FOX Business anchor Brian Brenberg.
Brenberg claimed that a high school demonstration he witnessed for Palestine “was being controlled by somebody else, who was very much not a high school audience.”
“It sounds like it might be this group behind it,” he said, referring to the People’s Forum specifically.
Protestors as “outside agitators”
There is a long history of mass protest movements receiving these sorts of allegations. Claims that popular discontent is influenced by nefarious outside agents is a way to delegitimize those movements. Socialists in the 20th century were driven out of the public sphere due to accusations that they were “Russian agents” in the McCarthy era. Just a few years ago, the George Floyd uprisings were plagued by accusations of “outside agitators” coming to cities and stirring up riots, rather than what demonstrators were expressing, that millions of people hit the streets because they were tired of police brutality.
In a clip from a May 2020 demonstration Minneapolis, BreakThrough News anchor Eugene Puryear asks a protester, “What do you say to the governor who’s saying, it’s people coming from outside [that are driving the protests?]” The woman, a mother of three sons, responds, “No. It’s tired people.”
“We’ve been quiet for too long,” she said. “I mean this from my heart. Tear it down!”
Organizations plan mass day of action
The People’s Forum issued a response to the right-wing media accusations. “We affirm our right to gather, rally, and protest to defend Palestine. This is as much a moral right as it is a legal one. Efforts to smear and defame supporters of Palestinian liberation will enter the ledgers of history as shameful,” read their statement.
Alongside Palestinian groups, the People’s Forum is continuing to lead and organize protests. “History has shown us that those who stand on the sidelines and remain silent in the face of injustice are often judged harshly,” stated the organization.
On November 17, the People’s Forum alongside the Palestinian Youth Movement, the ANSWER Coalition, and several other organizations are calling for another international shut down of “business as usual” to protest Israel’s genocide. There is a planned mass rally on the steps of the New York Public Library, planned closings by small business owners, student walkouts, and mass actions around the world.
Pro-Palestinian supporters demonstrate at the entrance to the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, on Oct. 20, 2023.
SOUTH AFRICA has referred Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Gaza, President Cyril Ramaphosa said today.
This comes as the illegal Israeli assault on the largest hospital in Gaza failed to reveal the Hamas command centre that Israeli authorities had said was on the premises.
South African lawmakers were set to agree to a motion tabled by the Economic Freedom Fighters opposition party and supported by the ruling African National Congress on Thursday calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy in South Africa and the cutting of all diplomatic ties with the country until it agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
President Ramaphosa said: “We have put through a referral because we believe that war crimes are being committed there.
“And of course we do not condone the actions that were taken by Hamas earlier, but similarly we condemn the actions that are currently underway and believe that they warrant an investigation by the ICC.”
Ten frontbenchers among 56 Labour MPs to defy Starmer and back immediate ceasefire
… KEIR STARMER was reeling today after facing the biggest rebellion of his leadership over his backing for Israel’s continuing war on Gaza.
Ten frontbenchers were among 56 Labour MPs backing a Commons amendment urging an immediate ceasefire, nearly a third of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
The front-bench rebels who did not resign were immediately sacked by the vindictive Sir Keir, as 15,000 peace demonstrators rallied outside the Commons chanting “No ceasefire, no vote,” in a warning to politicians.
Prominent among those voting for peace was Jess Phillips, an MP on the right of the party who stood for the leadership in 2020.
She wrote to Sir Keir explaining that continuing war puts “at risk the hope of peace and security for anyone in the region now and in the future” and added on local radio today that she had voted with “my heart, my head and my constituents.”
The other shadow ministers who either quit or were sacked were Paula Barker, Rachel Hopkins, Afzal Khan, Sarah Owen, Yasmin Qureshi, Naz Shah and Andy Slaughter.
Two parliamentary private secretaries, Dan Carden and Mary Foy also resigned. Shadow minister Imran Hussain resigned last week.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
A whole generation, if not more, has already built a perception of Israel as a genocidal regime and no number of future lies, Hollywood movies or Maxim Magazine spreads will ever lessen that in any way.
On Saturday, November 11, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari claimed in a press conference that Israel had killed a “terrorist” who had prevented 1,000 civilians from escaping the Shifa Hospital.
The allegations made little sense. Even by the standards of Israeli propaganda, falsifying such a piece of information while providing no context and no evidence, further contributes to the deteriorating credibility of Israel in international media and image worldwide.
Just one day earlier, an unnamed US official was cited by CNN as saying, in a diplomatic cable, “we are losing badly on the messaging battlespace”.
The diplomat was referring to American reputation in the Middle East—in fact, worldwide—which now lies in tatters due to blind American support for Israel.
Roles Reversed
This credibility deficit can be witnessed in Israel itself. Not only is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu losing credibility among Israelis, according to various public opinion polls, but the entire Israeli political establishment seems to be losing the trust of ordinary Israelis as well.
A common joke among Palestinians these days is that Israeli leaders are emulating Arab leaders in previous Arab-Israeli wars, in terms of language, phony victories and unsubstantiated gains on the military front.
For example, while Israel was quickly pushing Arab militaries back on all fronts in June 1967, with full US-Western backing, of course, the leadership of Arab armies were declaring through radio that they had arrived at the ‘gates of Tel Aviv’.
Fortunes seem to have been reversed. Abu Obeida and Abu Hamza, military spokesmen for the Al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades respectively, provide very careful accounts of the nature of the battle and the losses of advancing Israeli military forces in their regular, much-anticipated statements.
The Israeli military, on the other hand, speaks of impending victories, killing of unnamed ‘terrorists’, and the destruction of countless tunnels, while rarely providing any evidence. The only ‘evidence’ provided is the intentional targeting of hospitals, schools, and civilian homes.
And, while Abu Obeida’s statements are almost always followed by well-produced videos, documenting the systematic destruction of Israeli tanks, no such documentation substantiates Israeli military claims.
Beyond the Battlefield
But the issue of Israeli credibility, or rather, the lack of credibility, is not only taking place on the battlefield.
From the first day of the war, Palestinian doctors, civil defense workers, journalists, bloggers, and even ordinary people filmed or recorded every Israeli war crime anywhere and everywhere in the besieged Strip. And, despite the continuous shutting down of the internet and electricity in Gaza by the Israeli military, somehow, Palestinians kept track of every aspect of the ongoing Israeli genocide.
The precision of the Palestinian narrative even forced US officials, who initially doubted Palestinian numbers, to finally admit that Palestinians were telling the truth, after all.
Barbara Leaf, assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, told a US House panel on November 9 that those killed by Israel in the war are likely “higher than is being cited.”
Indeed, every day, Israel loses credibility to the point that the initial Israeli lies of what had taken place on October 7, eventually proved disastrous to Israel’s overall image and credibility on the international stage.
Rape, ISIS, and Mein Kampf
In the euphoria of demonizing the Palestinian Resistance—as a way to justify Israel’s forthcoming genocide in Gaza—the Israeli government and military, then journalists and even ordinary people, were all recruited in an unprecedented hasbara campaign aimed at painting Palestinians as “human animals”—per the words of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Within hours of the events and, before any investigation was conducted, Netanyahu spoke of “decapitated babies,” supposedly mutilated at the hands of the Resistance; Gallant claimed that “young girls were raped violently”; even former military chief rabbi, Israel Weiss, said he had “seen a pregnant woman with her belly torn open and the baby cut out.”
Even the supposedly ‘moderate’ Israeli President Isaac Herzog made ludicrous statements on the BBC on November 12. When asked about Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Herzog claimed that the book Mein Kampf, written by Adolf Hitler in 1925, was found “in a children’s living room” in northern Gaza.
And, of course, there were the repeated references to the ISIS flags that, for some reason, were carried by Hamas fighters as they entered southern Israel on October 7, among other fairy tales.
The fact that ISIS is a sworn enemy of Hamas and that the Palestinian Movement has done everything in its power to eradicate any possibility for ISIS to extend its roots in the besieged Gaza Strip seemed irrelevant to Israel’s unhinged propaganda.
Expectedly, Israeli, US and European media repeated the claim of the Hamas-ISIS connection, with no rational discussion or the minimally-required fact-checking.
But, with time, Israeli lies were no longer able to withstand the pressure of the truth emanating from Gaza, documenting every atrocity and every battle, and obfuscating any drummed-up Israeli allegations.
Perhaps, the turning point of the relentless series of Israeli lies was the attack on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on October 17. Though many adopted, and still, sadly, defend the Israeli lie—that a Resistance rocket fell on the hospital—the sheer bloodiness of that massacre, which killed hundreds, was, for many, a wake-up call.
One of the many questions that arose following the Baptist Hospital massacre is: If Israel was, indeed, honest about its version of events regarding what took place at the hospital, why did it bomb every other hospital in Gaza and continues to do so for weeks?
Israeli Hasbara Canceled
There are reasons why Israeli propaganda is no longer able to effectively influence public opinion even though mainstream media continues to side with Israel, even when the latter is committing a genocide.
Firstly, is that Palestinians and their supporters have managed to ‘cancel’ Israel using social media which, for the first time, overwhelmed the organized propaganda campaigns often engineered on behalf of Israel in corporate media.
An analysis of online content on popular social media platforms was conducted by the Israeli influencer marketing platform, Humanz. The study, published in November, admitted that “while 7.39 billion posts with pro-Israeli tags were published on Instagram and TikTok last month, in the same period 109.61 billion posts with pro-Palestinian tags were published on the platforms.” This, according to the company, means that pro-Palestinian views are 15 times more popular than pro-Israeli views.
Secondly, independent media, Palestinian and others, offered alternatives to those seeking a different version of events to what is taking place in Gaza.
A single Palestinian freelance journalist in Gaza, Motaz Azaiza, has managed to acquire more than 14 million followers on Instagram over the course of a single month because of his reporting from the ground.
Thirdly, the ‘surprise attack’ of October 7 has deprived Israel of the initiative, not only regarding the war itself, but also the justification for the war. Indeed, their genocidal war on Gaza has no specific objectives, but also has no precise media campaign to defend or rationalize these unspecified objectives. Therefore, the Israeli media narrative appears disconnected, haphazard and, at times, even self-damaging.
And, finally, the sheer brutality of the Israeli genocide in Gaza. If one is to juxtapose Israeli media lies with the horrific Israeli crimes committed in Gaza, one would find no plausible logic that could convincingly justify mass murder, displacement, starvation and genocide of a defenseless population.
Never has Israeli propaganda failed so astoundingly and never has the mainstream media failed to shield Israel from the global anger—in fact, seething hatred—for Israel’s ugly apartheid regime.
The repercussions of all of this will most certainly impact the way that history will remember the Israeli war on Gaza, which has, so far, killed, and wounded tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
A whole generation, if not more, has already built a perception of Israel as a genocidal regime and no number of future lies, Hollywood movies or Maxim Magazine spreads will ever lessen that in any way.
More importantly, this new perception is likely to compel people, not only to re-examine their views of Israel’s present and future, but of the past as well – the very foundation of the Zionist regime, itself predicated on nothing but lies.
