For more than 21 months, a large part of the international media danced around the truth about the War of Israel against Gaza. The former shot of the editorial hall – “if he bleeds, he leads” – seemed to apply, for the Western media editorial rooms, more in Ukraine than Gaza. When Palestinian civilians have been bombed at home, when whole families were buried under rubble, the blanket came slowly, cautiously and often buried in “two sides”.
But when images of hungry Palestinian children have started to emerge – haunting faces, skeletal members, vacant looks – something has changed. The photographs were too visceral, too undeniable. The Western public has been faced with what Gaza’s headquarters really mean. And for once, the media guards could not look away.
The attention of the world, however, alerted Israel and a new “Hasbara” operation was deployed. Hasbara means “explaining”, but in practice, it is a question of erasing. With the advice of Tel Aviv, pro-Israeli media agents decided to “demystify” proof of famine. The method was entirely Orwellian: not only dispute the facts. Contesses the eyes that see them.
We were told that there was no famine in Gaza. It does not matter that Israeli ministers have publicly sworn to block food, fuel and medication. It does not matter that the trucks were arrested for months, sometimes vandalized by Israeli settlers in broad daylight.
Israeli officials, speaking in English polished in the Western media, assured the public that all of this was a manufacture of Hamas, as if Hamas had managed to deceive the aid agencies, foreign doctors and all Gaza journalists to stage hunger.
The propaganda machine thought that she had struck gold with a single photo. An image of the New York Times showed a skeletal boy, Mohammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq. Israeli intelligence sources whispered to friendly media: he will not die. He has a medical condition. As if it made its situation horrible acceptable.
Times went forward and added a note from an editor to “correct” the recording.
This is how Hasbara works – not by persuading people but by exhausting them. By transforming each fact into a dispute, each online image. By pushing publishers to “balance” a photograph of an emaciated child with a government press release denying that he was hungry.
Imagine a weather report where a source says: “It rains”, and another insists: “No, the weather is nice”, while everyone stands outside, soaked from the attachment. Gaza is this wet truth, and yet a large part of the western information media has always been forced to quote the Meteorologist of Tel Aviv.
Each honest report is satisfied with an email dam, telephone calls and smear on social networks, all designed to create just enough doubt to have the publishers removed.
But the assertion “he will not die. He’s just sick ”is not an exemption. It is an admission.
A child with a preexisting medical condition which is brought to the point of resembling a skeleton means that it has been deprived not only of the nutrition he needs, but medical care. This is forced famine and health insurance side by side.
Palestinian journalists inside Gaza, the only ones who have come since Israel prohibited all foreign media and killed more than 200 Palestinian journalists, samples the people to which they report. In a rare joint declaration, BBC, AFP and Associated Press warned that their own staff members face “the same disastrous circumstances as those they cover”.
At the height of the indignation of these photos last week, Israel allowed a help net – certain parachts of 30 to 50 trucks per day where the United Nations say that 500 to 600 are necessary. Some trucks have never arrived, blocked by Jewish extremists.
Meanwhile, a parallel mechanism for the distribution of aid has been channeled by American entrepreneurs approved by Israel, who deliberately create dangerous and chaotic conditions which lead to daily killings of aid seekers. Creams of hungry Palestinians meet, only to be slaughtered by Israeli soldiers.
And yet, the refusals persist. The official line is that it is not famine. It’s something else – indefinite but certainly not a war crime.
The world has already seen famine – in Ethiopia, in Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan. Gaza’s photographs belong to the same category. The difference is that here, a powerful state causing famine actively tries to convince ourselves that our own eyes are lying to us.
The objective is not to convince the public that there is no hunger to plant enough doubt to paralyze indignation. If the facts can be made trouble, the pressure on Israel decreases. This is why each editorial room that avoids the word “famine” becomes an involuntary accomplice.
Famine in Gaza is not collateral damage. It is an instrument of war, measurable in refused calories, blocked trucks and destroyed fields.
Israel’s strategy depends on the control of the objective as well as the border. This will notify that journalists are authorized for planes that have disseminated food to film the devastation below.
For a brief moment, the publication of these featured Palestinian photos crossed the propaganda wall, which caused a minimum of concessions. But the seat continues, hunger is deepened and the mass murder is developing. Now, the Israeli government has decided to launch another offensive on the ground to occupy the city of Gaza, and with it, the genocide will only get worse.
History will record famine in Gaza. It will remember the prices of flour and sugar, the names of children and aid trucks have turned around. And he will remember how the world allowed himself to be told, in the middle of a downpour, that the sky was clear.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.