Thread by @caitoz

The Israel Narrative Is Crumbling Because Of Phone Cameras And The Internet

There are only so many viral videos of unconscionable acts that can be dismissed with "Actually this is way more complicated than it looks."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-israel-n…

"Twenty-four people, including nine children, were killed in Gaza overnight, most of them in Israeli strikes," reads a new report from AP.
apnews.com/article/middle…

Nine children, killed with the help of United States funding to the tune of $3.8 billion a year.

Remember kids, the US loves Muslims and just wants to protect their human rights.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-entire-w…

The airstrikes were in response to rocket attacks by Gaza resistance groups which had reportedly injured six Israelis, and those rocket attacks were in turn were a response to a deluge of Israeli police brutality footage in Jerusalem in preceding days.
electronicintifada.net/content/israel…

The mass media are working furiously to spin this in a way that rivals my satire piece from the other day.

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1391006827970662401

https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1390843028072402944

https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1391462112950591491

The New York Times has been cartoonishly re-writing its own reporting in a desperate attempt to make Israel look like an innocent victim of unprovoked attacks instead of the obvious aggressor against people protesting a brutal apartheid regime.

https://twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/1391786657536483330

The New York Post falsely reported that the deaths on Monday were caused by "Airstrikes from Hamas militants" (when did Hamas get an air force?) when sharing an article which falsely implied that those fatalities were inflicted by both sides.

https://twitter.com/DecampDave/status/1391901676475502592?s=20

DW News framed its headline in a way that suggested the nine children killed had been involved in "fighting" against Israeli forces,

https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1391839054581272578

And of course the word "clashes" is being thrown about willy nilly to describe a very one-sided assault.

https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1391070870139899906?s=20

But it isn't working.

Social media is teeming with viral video footage of police assaulting peaceful worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound,

https://twitter.com/arwaib/status/1390800051887345669?s=20

of Israelis cheering and chanting "Yimach shemam (may their names be erased)" at the sight of a fire near the mosque,

https://twitter.com/AyOdeh/status/1391851115776466951?s=20

of Israeli soldiers arresting Palestinian protesters using the signature knee-on-neck maneuver made famous by the murder of George Floyd. Many of these videos have millions of views.

https://twitter.com/cjwerleman/status/1389728800707997697?s=20

Mainstream politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are putting out statements explicitly condemning Israel as the aggressor in these attacks,
newsweek.com/bernie-sanders…

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1392043526066774020

and the White House is facing some actual adversarial journalism for once regarding its refusal to denounce the killing of Palestinian children and its absurd position that Palestinians have no right to defend themselves.

https://twitter.com/TheNationalNews/status/1391873402709872646

This is the most mainstream that criticism of Israeli apartheid oppression has ever been in my lifetime, and as more and more mainstream human rights groups begin acknowledging the reality of that oppression it's only getting more so.
btselem.org/publications/f…

Whenever I say something critical of Israel I always get readers saying "Oh man, you're going to get attacked so bad for this, dissent on Israel is not tolerated," but quite honestly that hasn't been my experience at all and I think it's an outdated perception.

The main reason for this is very simple: there are only so many viral videos of unconscionable acts that can be dismissed with "Actually this is way more complicated than it looks."

It is not more complicated than it looks. Clearly. It looks bad because it is bad.

Israel-based journalist @Jonathan_K_Cook recently described the changes he's seen as smartphones and internet access made Palestinians less dependent on the work of sympathetic activists and gave them the ability to directly share footage of their abuse:

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1391679301628608517?s=20

Seeing is believing, and a video is difficult to narrative manage. The dominant narrative is no longer solely in the hands of MSM which can spin everything with a pro-Israel slant, it's being spread all over the internet in a medium that is far more objective than print.

This is so effective because, unlike so many other ugly aspects of the US-centralized power alliance, Israeli apartheid is not some covert government operation being run by highly trained agents and manipulators.

The apartheid oppression is being advanced by ordinary civilians who aren't acutely aware that it's bad optics to tell a Palestinian family on camera that if you don't steal their house then someone else will.

By soldiers who don't have bad PR at the forefront of their attention when they're cheering as they shoot Palestinian protesters.

By police who aren't thinking in terms of narrative management when they arrest protesters with their knees on their necks.

https://twitter.com/OrenZiv1985/status/1391131992813678602

Who just react to the racist nationalist propaganda they've been ingesting all their lives instead of considering how difficult it will be to narrative manage a video of them cheering and chanting "may their names be erased" at the sight of flames.

https://twitter.com/simonerzim/status/1391869749303316483?s=20

Awareness is spreading of Israeli apartheid brutality for the same reason awareness is spreading of US police brutality: the internet combined with smartphone cameras. Seeing is believing. Seeing brings change.

This is why the powerful are working so hard to censor the internet.

If powerful imperialists can't control what our dominant narratives are going to be, they will not be able to rule us.

Will they succeed? Jonathan Cook's aforementioned speech concludes with some words of hope and encouragement:

The Israel Narrative Is Crumbling Because Of Phone Cameras And The Internet (Audio)

Awareness is spreading of Israeli apartheid brutality for the same reason awareness is spreading of US police brutality: the internet combined with smartphone cameras.
soundcloud.com/going_rogue/th…