by Jonathan Cook, Global Research:
Western leaders and media are helping bolster a propaganda narrative about the hostages that makes the resumption of Israel’s slaughter all but inevitable
Israel sustained the West’s support for its slaughter in Gaza for 15 months only through an intensive campaign of lies.
It invented particularly heinous Hamas war crimes, such baby beheadings and mass rape, for which no evidence has ever been produced. Conversely, it played down its own, even graver war crimes in response to Hamas’ attack on Israel.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
With Hamas’ October 2023 crimes ever-more distant in the rear-view mirror, and Israeli crimes still all too visible in Gaza’s complete destruction – amounting to a “plausible” genocide, according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – Israeli leaders have been desperately trying to shift attention to a fresh narrative battleground.
They need a new set of lies to justify resuming the slaughter. And as ever, the western establishment media are actively assisting.
Both Hamas and Israel are playing a predictable propaganda game, using the regular exchanges of Israeli and Palestinian hostages in the ceasefire’s first phase to seize the moral high ground.
Israel once again has all the cards, care of rock-solid western support, and yet once again it is failing to win the public relations war.
Which explains why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw another of his temper tantrums at the weekend, this time blaming Hamas for stage-managing the release of Israelis in what he called “demeaning” and “humiliating ceremonies”.
Israel and its supporters were particularly incensed, it seems, by one of the captives, released on Saturday, beaming on stage as he warmly kissed two of his captors on the forehead.
.
.
On his walk to the handover with Red Cross staff, he put his arm around one of the captors’ shoulders in another moment of apparent affection.
Two other Israelis- up for release in the next round – were filmed watching from a car nearby, excited at the prospect of freedom and pleading with Netanyahu not to sabotage their release.
Blow Up Ceasefire
Predictably, western media, including the BBC, echoed Israel in suggesting these were somehow far more serious violations than Israel killing over 130 Palestinians since 19 January, when the ceasefire began, in hundreds of attacks on Gaza.
The media have similarly given fleeting coverage to Israel’s new wave of destruction, this time in the Occupied West Bank. Thousands of homes have been demolished, ethnically cleansing entire communities.
Western outlets have signally failed to note that these war crimes are also gross violations of the ceasefire agreement.
Now Netanyahu has exploited the apparent cosy relations between some of the Israeli captives and Hamas as a pretext to blow up the ceasefire before the second phase can begin next week. That is when Israel is expected to fully withdraw from Gaza and allow its reconstruction.
Buses carrying hundreds of Palestinian hostages due for release on Saturday were forced to turn back, returning them to their prisons. Even according to Israel’s own assessments, the vast majority of these Palestinians have not been “involved in combat“.
