There have been a flood of holocaust stories during and subsequent to the formal Israeli invasion of Gaza. I have noticed quite a few holocaust stories on the BBC international service and the New York Times had two holocaust stories on the front page last week! None of these stories are particularly newsworthy compared to the many important events unfolding in the twenty-first century. Yet here they are in the wake of Israeli massacres of Palestinians in Gaza, 1300 slaughtered by Israel in the 21st century, there is late breaking news about WWII? Could there be a little bias at work in this plethora of holocaust stories?
Of course these stories play the obvious psychological warfare objective of portraying Israelis as the unqualified victims in their sixty year relationship with the Palestinian people. Of course the rational reader will note that there is no connection between the people Israel is killing, starving and collectively torturing and the Nazis who persecuted Jews more than half a century ago.
So the holocaust stories have a real psychological warfare function in this context. They are no more objective than an advertisement or any other effort to manipulate public opinion.
BBC had a row over broadcasting a humanitarian appeal for the people of Gaza immediately after the Israelis massacred 1300 Palestinians. Of course the starvation of the population is even more acute since siege is a weapon of mass destruction. Yet, refined as they are, BBC higher ups decided that the “objectivity” of the BBC would be compromised if this appeal were to be broadcast. Of course the very fact that this appeal became a controversy is the direct result of a lack of objectivity in BBC's coverage of the Israel/Palestine question over the last sixty years. This would be a big change because BBC would finally get it right about who is oppressed in Israel/Palestine. It's the people who are starving and bleeding and dying before your eyes by the thousands who are oppressed, not the people killing them! It isn't "objectivity" that makes the BBC or the United States media to look away from Palestinian suffereing and victimization; it's a "special relationship", special and wrong and very biased.
That is the objective truth!
Do we need a doctoral dissertation to show that BBC, while unlikely to fabricate stories or tell overt lies, has been a servant of the United Kingdom and an advocate, however subtle, of UK interests?
Do we need a doctoral dissertation to show that BBC has generally favored the Israeli side over that of the Palestinians?
Do we need a doctoral dissertation to show that the American media is even more successfully compromised by pro-war Israeli psychological warfare, lobbying and influence?
So let's be realistic about the political context of the discussion. Israel has powerful allies in the United States and the United Kingdom. Israel also seems to have developed a “special relationship” with a number of other countries such as Germany.
Hopefully these “special relationships” do not include a special pro-Israel bias especially regarding things Israel does and is doing to the Palestinians. Yet it may be that Israel has successfully created some very special relationships with numerous regimes. Who are these regimes and what is the content of those relationships. The special relationsip between Israel and the United States and the special relationship of Israel with the United Kingdom have led to a special biases in those nation's news reporting and worldview. Is every government to government relationship Israel has "special" or packaged as such in special of Israeli policies that oppress the Palestinians?
This is not just a matter of theoretical concern. Israel has some sort of "special relationship" with India and has reportedly shared nuclear secrets with India. Some of these nuclear secrets may be American secrets since Israel stole every secret the United States had of a nuclear weapons nature with Jonathan Pollard. Of course the United States helped Israel get nuclear weapons, but then Pollard and other Israeli spies take whatever the want and the United States did get upset about Pollard who will probably spend the remainder of his life in prison. In Israel Pollard is considered quite a hero. Of course the “special relationship” with Israel was apparently not harmed by this espionage. Somehow only Pollard pays the price.
Obviously there has to be some explanation for the flood of holocaust stories that make it into the mainstream media during Israeli aggression against Palestinians and/or its neighbors.
Has anyone documented the frequency of these stories around and about Israeli military aggression and compared it to times of less aggressive Israeli military occupation? We do need a doctoral dissertation or two about that. Certainly there is a lot of material that could be researched in the television, radio and other coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The thesis here is related but different from the one above. This is the idea that the formally oppressed become the oppressor of another group and that the nation of Israel has a collective psyche, so to speak. A popular tacit belief that suggests one should ruthlessly destroy all who oppose you, before they become like the Nazis. The holocaust story, by being constantly repeated and embellished becomes part of the American psyche and also tends to justify the crimes of Israel in American eyes.
I suppose this all is rooted in the idea that those who witness violence often tend to identify with the actions of the winner. The witness and survivor determines that it is better to be like the oppressor than the oppressed. Of course there are other factors at work here but the holocaust story paints a human face on the so-called “Jews” and by the use of that term, “Jew” and with Israel, insisting on being a religion defined nation, a so-called Jewish State we magically, and perhaps unconsciously, accept the notion that the Jews killed by Hitler are somehow the same Jews killing Palestinians and we are encouraged to accept the superimposition of the Palestinian people and their national cause with a Hitler-like threat.
It has been a remarkabley effective psychological warfare strategy no matter how absurd the parallels.
Of course it is totally irrational to be morally sympathetic to an Israeli soldier, the homicidal Rabbi that inspires him, or the Israeli Aggression Forces who command him as he systematically murders a Palestinian family because Hitler was a worse s.o.b.. The soldier is too young to have been a victim of the Holocaust, the Palestinians have nothing to do with Nazism in the 1940's and it is all one great big pack of lies that serve the cause of oppressing the Palestinians.
We must use our intelligence, not to justify militaristic foolishness but to start living in the real world. Palestinians are who they are. Palestinians are not really the people that Zionist disinformation suggests. Those Zionist lies and propaganda and harmful actions are inspired by the holocaust and the desperate delusion that a Jewish State is justified on the backs of the Palestinians. Israel needs a reality check and so do those who are Israel's obvious friends and supporters, those nations that have a “special relationship” with Israel. The Palestinians exist and need justice. That will not change, so let's get on with living in the real world.
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