Thread: Israel’s Lie Machine is Working Flat Out

Israel’s Lie Machine is Working Flat Out

by Stuart Littlewood

Global Research, December 31, 2008
Middle East Online


The core issue in this struggle is the illegality of Israel’s brutal occupation. Israel goes to great lengths to avoid and suppress all mention of it and play-acts the pathetic victim, notes Stuart Littlewood.

While the murderous assault on Gaza continues, I notice there's a briefing document on the website of the Israeli Embassy in London which has a lie in every line. The West's mainstream media repeat them, and even the most senior TV and radio interviewers don’t bother to challenge them.

The document is a transcript of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's statement to the Israeli press dated 27 December 2008 – a day that will live in infamy. It is a perfect example of the falsehoods used to dupe not only us westerners but Israel’s own people. The statement shows how the regime's view of itself is constructed on a web of dishonesty and self-delusion.

For example:

- "Israeli citizens have been under the threat of daily attack from Gaza for years."

Palestinians have been under harsh Israeli occupation for 60 years.

- "Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortars shells were fired at Israeli civilian communities."

Only one in 500 Qassam rockets causes a fatality. How many thousands of Israeli bombs, missiles, rockets, grenades and tank-shells have been blasted into the crowded city and towns of the Gaza Strip by Israel’s high-tech weaponry?

- "Until now we have shown restraint. But today there is no other option than a military operation."

The only legitimate option for Israel is to end the occupation and withdraw behind its 1967 border, as required under international law and UN resolution. Israel has been killing Palestinians at the rate of 8 to 1 since 2000, and children at the rate of nearly 12 to 1 (B’Tselem figures). This is somebody’s idea of restraint?

- "We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza."

Self defence is not a right exclusive to Israel. Palestinians have an equal right to protect their citizens from the terror tactics of Israel.

- "Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace."

Israel never left Gaza. It still occupies Gaza's airspace and coastal waters and controls all entrances and exits.

- "In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace."

Hamas was voted into power as the legitimate government of Palestine. Israel chose not to accept the people's choice, which amounted to a denial of their human rights, and immediately set about obliterating it.

- "We have tried everything to reach calm without using force. We agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which continued to target Israel, hold Gilad Shalit and build up its arms."

Try talking. The Israelis' ongoing siege and economic blockade, begun shortly after Hamas was elected early in 2006, was never going to generate calm. And why is Shalit considered more important than the 9,000 Palestinians abducted and held prisoner by Israel? As soon as a Hamas government was formed Israeli troops arrested 8 Hamas ministers and 20 other parliamentarians, making the work of government impossible.

- "Israel continues to act to prevent humanitarian crisis and to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians."

Every agency operating in Gaza has warned of the deepening humanitarian crisis and protested about the starvation and suffering, especially of children many of whom show evidence of stunted growth.

- "The responsibility for harm to civilians lies with Hamas."

Not according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

- "Hamas is a terrorist organization, supported by Iran, that does not represent the legitimate national interests of the Palestinian people but a radical Islamist agenda that seeks to deny peace for the peoples of this region."

Hamas was the popular choice of Palestinians at the last election. It is entitled under international law to take up arms against an illegal occupier and invader. If it is supported by Iran, so what? Israel receives mega-support from the US. When it comes to terror, it is Israel's conduct which fits the US definition of terrorism so perfectly - see Bush's Executive Order 13224, Section 3 - http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcemen ... terror.pdf

- "While confronting Hamas, Israel continues to believe in the two State solution and remains committed to negotiations with the legitimate Palestinian Authority in the context of the peace process, launched at Annapolis."

Israel is busy establishing irreversible facts on the ground that make a viable Palestinian state impossible. As everyone knows, the regime has reneged on the peace process and carries on building illegal settlements and the illegal Wall, and demolishing Palestinian homes. Months ago Hamas accepted a Palestinian state based on internationally recognized (pre-1967) borders, in accordance with UN resolutions, with full sovereignty and its capital in Jerusalem, but this has been ignored. Hamas also offered a 10-year truce, also ignored. Earlier, Arafat and the PLO recognized the State of Israel in the Oslo agreement but what good did it do? Today’s US-backed, Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority is not representative of the Palestinian people.

- "Israel expects the support and understanding of the international community, as it confronts terror, and advances the interest of all those who wish the forces of peace and co existence to determine the agenda of this region."

Israel, next to the US, is the biggest purveyor of terror in the region and only advances its own interests. It may get the support of Israel lobby stooges in other western governments but is rapidly earning the contempt of everybody else.

From a statement dated 22 December 2008:

- "Hamas, backed by Iran, has regularly stated its desire to see the complete destruction of Israel."

Israel is itself a leading destroyer and currently engaged in trying to wipe out Hamas and the Gazans. Iran’s Ahmadinajad quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini as saying that "this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - fair comment considering Jerusalem, with Bethlehem, was designated an 'international city' under the UN Partition Plan. Israeli propaganda twisted the Iranian’s words to read “Israel must be wiped off the mapâ€

The world has managed to work out by now that Israel doesn't want peace until it has stolen all the land and water it needs to expand its racist state into a ‘Greater Israel’. It is well on the way to achieving this and won’t be thwarted.

This is pure BS. Every time Israel has given up land, they just moved the rockets closer and resumed firing. Anybody that witnessed Israeli soldiers literally dragging Israeli people from their homes so the land could be turned over to the Palestinians would never make such an absurd observation. THere were beautiful lush greenhouses all over the land they ceded and the Palestinians went in and destroyed them. For Israel to cede more land and give them a military advantage with the Golan Heights is pure insanity. I followed the '67 war straight off the wire services when I worked at a radio station. They want ALL of Israel and the end goal is the destruction. This has been going on for THOUSANDS of years and it will NEVER stop.

It's ironic that no Arab country will accept the Palestinians. Nobody wants them. After Israel was established, no Arab country would accept these people. It's U.S. dollars that support the Palestinian govt and Israel supplies them with goods and services. They put up a fence and control the exits to stop suicide bombers. It used to be a daily occurrence before those actions.