Anomie: Enabled by Western media, Israel's lies have become a galloping cancer

International relations, Israel, Media, Politics

Anomie: Enabled by Western media, Israel’s lies have become a galloping cancer

Nov 4, 2024

Cinema clapper Shooting an Israeli film Background film reels

Israel’s unholy policy trinity – destroy, kill, lie – has been underway for decades. But since October 2023 it has reached horrific levels. The horror of Israeli destruction, torture and slaughter is apparently taken for granted by Israeli citizens and by supporters in western countries, largely because telling lies as a feature of warfare is not challenged.

Israeli military spokespersons, the Israeli ambassador to the UN and Prime Minister Netanyahu express outrage if anyone dares question their claims, hence a genocide legitimised by western politicians’ and journalists’ refusal to respond to Israeli spokespersons by saying, ‘You lie, you are deceiving yourselves, why don’t you try telling the truth, at least occasionally.’

The schoolboy who tells lies gets that sort of reprimand, so why not Israeli leaders who have been charged with war crimes, why not military spokespersons who speak proudly of successful assassinations – the kill kill syndrome – and their slaughter of thousands of children?

Before examining the consequences of failure to challenge liars, consider the false claims about two sides in a so called war. The notion ‘war’ is central to hasbara propaganda but conceals a different judgement. A well resourced military’s technical killing machine has produced a one sided, well organised slaughter of civilians. That is not a war.

The list of other lies has become familiar. There’s the usual, Israel has the most moral army in the world. When did you hear a western political leader scorning that claim?

Then there’s the precise targeted killing aimed only at terrorists, a claim shown nightly on television against a background of destroyed buildings, children badly injured and corpses wrapped in bundles on what is left of a hospital floor. The pictures are shown. We do not hear immediate denunciation of the latest Israeli brutality.

The repeated ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ is churned out uncritically by politicians, Murdoch style media and by fervent Zionist supporters. Paul Heywood-Smith has shown Israel has no right to defend itself against resistance to occupation (P&I of Oct 11), but his judgement is never repeated by Labor & Coalition politicians; and the media is usually ready with the same ‘right to defend’ cliché in response to pictures of the next slaughter.

Israel allows humanitarian aid to be delivered unhindered into Gaza. Really ? Even as hundreds of unloaded trucks park outside the Rafah crossing, even as humanitarian aid workers are deliberately killed, even as doctors despair because of lack of medical supplies, the world is told that Israel abides by international humanitarian law and would never hold up supplies essential to prevent people starving. No-one hears Biden, Starmer or Albanese say ‘Israel, you are lying.’ These leaders could at least recall Defence Minister Gallant’s proud declaration that he would cut off food, water and medical supplies to Gaza because all their citizens were terrorists.

In Gaza, no foreign journalists are allowed to test the Israeli lies. At least in Lebanon, a BBC correspondent has witnessed and refuted Israeli assertions that a destroyed hospital had contained gold and every kind of weapon. On that occasion the world is spared the sight of heavily armed Israeli soldiers pointing to what they claim to have found.

Metaphorically in common with Israeli/US bombs raining down on women and children who had taken refuge in alleged safe houses, the Israeli lies are repeated so continuously that it’s difficult to reject the latest deceit before the next one arrives. This lie upon lie technique, known as Gish-Gallop, is attributed to a creationist who liked to present an excessive number of arguments with no regard for accuracy or truth. Following that tradition, Israeli spokespersons confront the world with a rapid series of specious claims – critics are anti Semites, hospitals are terrorist bases, slaughtered women were hiding Hamas – each statement bolstered by outright lies. Media oxygen for this technique allows it to continue. In the thrall of the assumption that Israel is their ally, really?, cowardly politicians allow lies to continue unhindered.

As with a cancer which is ignored, a life destroying disease spreads. French sociologist Emile Durkheim called the outcome ‘anomie’, a state of norm less ness, disorder and confusion.

In 2024, anomie is evident in Israel’s total disregard for international humanitarian law and for the rulings of the International Court of Justice. Governments tut tut but do not expel Israeli ambassadors or recall their own from Israel. No sanctions are imposed. There is no intervention. The cancer spreads. The Macbethian notion that it is ok to live a life of deceit has taken hold.