“Israel at the end of the day are very good at playing a media game. And when it comes to lying about their actions in Palestine, whilst also successfully marginalising the ability of Palestinians to get their narrative out, it just means that Western media ultimately relies heavily on what Israel is saying.”
It’s one rule for Israel and her allies—another for everyone else.
Israel’s allies can turn a blind eye to its genocide of Palestine—as long as some of the war crimes are denied. The settler state received unequivocal backing from the vast majority of Western leaders whilst it committed war crimes under the Geneva Convention, including cutting off electricity, water and food—everything the EU decried as war crimes when committed by Russia.
On Tuesday night, a spokesperson for the Israeli government confirmed an Israeli airstrike hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza, killing 500 sick, wounded and refugees. But hours later, the statement was retracted and Israel began sowing doubt about the origins of the strike, pointing the finger at Palestinian Jihadis. Hamas denied the claim. Israel released footage showing the “misfiring rocket” but Twitter users pointed out the videos either had the wrong time stamp, or were clips from 2022. But by Thursday morning, Western journalists were running with the story that both sides were blaming the other—despite the fact that Israel had called the hospital and ordered it to evacuate because of planned strikes.
Marc Owen Jones, Associate Professor at HBKU researching disinformation and digital authoritarianism joins me to explain how Israel weaponises doubt to allow its Western allies enough plausible deniability to continue staunchly supporting the regime, the West’s closest stronghold to the largest oil reserves in the world. Marc also explains the relationship between Israeli propaganda and Western media, revealing why so much coverage of what campaigners are calling a genocide against Palestinians only portrays Israel as the victim.
Watch Bassem Youssef's amazing interview.
Doubt as a Weapon of War | Marc Owen Jones