Media Lens’ focus on the unapologetic savagery of Israel’s war

Summarised: MEDIA LENS’ focus on human suffering in its latest article.

No-one saw more clearly than the late John Pilger that the West’s use of ultra-violence to impose its brutal, zero-sum version of ‘international order’ is now completely out in the open. Even the blurred obfuscations of the state-corporate media lens are no longer able to hide the reality of who ‘we’ are.

Consider US Senator Lindsey Graham last month. With tens of thousands of civilians dead in Gaza, Graham dug down to some dark place and said on NBC: ‘Can I say this? Why is it OK for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it OK for us to do that? I thought it was OK.’Graham was mistaken; it wasn’t ‘OK’ at all. But anyway, his point:‘So, Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Whatever you have to do.’ (Original emphasis)

The implication was clear. Past and future massacres of civilians – notably of women and children – were declared, not just ‘OK’, but unavoidable:

‘I think it’s impossible to mitigate civilian deaths in Gaza as long as Hamas uses their own population as human shields. I’ve never seen in the history of warfare such blatant efforts by an enemy – Hamas – to put civilians at risk.’ Graham concluded: ‘The last thing you want to do is reward this behavior.’ Israel reining in its US-supplied firepower to kill fewer civilians would be a ‘reward’ for bad behaviour.

Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip

Perhaps you remember Western politicians expressing such unapologetic savagery in the face of genocidal killing. We do not.

And Graham is not alone. Also in May, US Congressman Brian Mast called on Israel to devastate Rafah, where 600,000 children were then sheltering from Israeli bombs: ‘I think Israel should go in there and kick the shit out of them, just absolutely destroy them, their infrastructure, level anything that they touch.’

Three weeks later, on 27 May, media reported that at least eight Israeli missiles had slammed into Rafah’s camp of plastic tents. Refugees, mostly women and children, were burned alive.

Many, unable to face reading the description of the carnage seen on social media in   Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, are also appalled beyond measure at the West’s open acceptance – and in some cases assistance – of this prolonged use of ultra-violence.

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