Activist: Damage ‘Already Done’ by False Stories of Atrocities, Despite Media Corrections

Misconceptions about the conflict between Israel and Palestine abound, including when the conflict started and even what it’s about. One musician and activist told Sputnik that such manipulation was concealing a potent truth about the conflict: the US can no longer guarantee Israel’s safety.

Since Hamas launched a surprise sally from the Gaza Strip to attack nearby Israeli towns on Saturday, lurid reports of atrocities committed by the group have spread through the media.

While more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed, the vast majority whom were civilians, many of the most extreme claims have since been retracted, including that Hamas militants slit the throats of Jewish babies and that they raped Jewish women in the border settlements.

After repelling the Palestinian militants from Israeli territory, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have launched a massive air bombardment of the Gaza Strip aimed at destroying Hamas as an organization, which has killed more than 1,400 people so far, and is massing hundreds of thousands of troops for a likely ground assault on the densely populated territory.

American rapper and activist Immortal Technique told Sputnik on Friday that manipulation of narratives in the media has long surrounded the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including giving the public a limited understanding of the context of particular events, such as atrocities committed by one side against the other.

“Well, I mean, I think that in politics, it just goes in the direction that when a country or their satellite republics commit an atrocity, that isn't highlighted, but when the opposing side does something that is a violation of international law or commits a crime, then it becomes the headline for days. And sometimes we find out later on that that crime may or may not be true,” he said.

“For example, in Syria, there were mixed reports of who was using chemical weapons until we found out everybody was using illegal munitions. And then later on, we have this conversation about Hamas decapitating 40 babies. And just last night, the Israeli Army released a report that says they cannot confirm that and now they've backed completely off of that report.”

“Now, this doesn't mean that there haven't been atrocities, this doesn't mean that there haven't been dead people. But this definitely means that we're being manipulated, in a sense, to feel sympathy or empathy for one group of people while completely demonizing another group of people. And that's par for the course for American media,” the activist noted.

'It Didn't Start Yesterday'

The rapper and activist noted that another method of manipulation is for the media to ignore the larger context of an event, such as the history of a conflict.

“So for the past 75 years, there have been people dying in Gaza and all over Palestine. And then people want to pretend that this conflict started yesterday. It didn't start yesterday and it didn't start three days ago. This is something that has been going on for incredibly long periods of time.”

“But it's important for us to know that even though this has been going on, it's also damaging for someone to say, ‘Oh, that conflict is thousands of years old.’ Well, there's been war in that place for thousands of years. You could point to any place in Europe and say the same thing. But the difference is that this has tried to be framed as a ‘religious conflict.’ And I believe that that's wrong, because that erases the millions of Jewish people that are opposed to Zionism and that are opposed to the illegal open-air prison that is Gaza. It also erases the 20% of Palestinians that happen to be Christian - and some of them are dying in Gaza, too. So we have to be very careful about whether to label it one thing or another and to always provide some kind of historical context to all of these things that are going on.”

Some Will Repeat Misinfo 'For the Rest of Their Life'

Turning to the question of fake news reports from the conflict being spread through the media, Immortal Technique recalled the quote commonly attributed to the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”

“When a lie gets repeated enough times, the truth almost takes a backseat to what it was. So for your listeners to understand, let's take it to a context of history. After 9/11, there was a video that was circulated that was purported to be Palestinian children cheering the Twin Towers collapsing. And later on, they found out that that video was from 1992, and those children were cheering the return of [Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser] Arafat from exile. And it was a disgusting display of the type of manipulation that happens, because at that point, no one cared. Americans were furious. They felt like they had been caught off-guard. There was no conversation about whether [Al-Qaeda* leader Osama] bin Laden had ever worked for the CIA or what his job was in terms of helping toppling regimes.”

“So I think once the propaganda is out, the damage has already been done. There are people now that will repeat, ‘Oh, Hamas beheads babies’ for the rest of their life and it won't matter that the Israeli Army itself came out and said that's not true. They're going to hold on to that forever. And unfortunately, when you talk about what the long-term effects of this are, you're talking about a situation in which people who may not even have anything to do with it now become targets of retribution and all measures of violence," he said.

“So I think that that affects not just the people, but also other individuals that are in proximity as well, which I think is is another topic to bring up, because it does look like the war, if it doesn't end up being curtailed or they don't find some immediate solution, is most likely going to expand. I mean, Israel is already blaming Iran for giving drone technology to Hamas. Hezbollah has stated that if a ground invasion occurs, that it will participate in a war against Israel. That being said, that also means that Lebanon as a whole will probably be drawn into the conflict and so will the remainder of what is Syria.”

'American Can No Longer Protect Israel'

“I think that's what bothers a lot of people in the region, whether they're supporters of Palestine or even the people that support Israel that are just listening to this show rolling their eyes and saying, ‘Man, I just want to hear what the other side says.’ You know, they have to come to terms with some horrific news, not just that they were attacked. But here's the more crucial part of what we're going to say today, ma'am: they have to come to terms with the idea that America can no longer protect Israel. It can give it weapons, can ‘defend itself,’ it could even buy them a shield, but it cannot stop missiles and bombs from hitting Israel."

"The only people that seemingly can do that would be a coalition of larger states. That would have to include Russia and that would have to include China. And that's the reality that they're waking up with today: not just the fact that this war exposed 75 years of occupation, but can the United States have influence over Iran? No. Can the United States have influence over Syria, Lebanon and the rest of these places as [easily] as its other world controlling counterparts? No. So therefore, it has to expand its cooperation with the region. This is going to affect the war in Ukraine. This is going to affect the situation in Taiwan. It's going to affect every major conflict that exists.”

“And whoever creates this peace deal, if the United States is not in it and presently involved, it loses more face than if it lost a war, because the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been at the forefront of political violence, instability, and an example of an imbalanced conflict and a retribution or state for the better part of 75 years. And if the Chinese and the Russians could come solve a problem the way that they solved the Yemen war - which the United States could have stopped at any time - then it'll be the ultimate coup. It'll be worse than when they lost Cuba. It'll be such a slap in the face to the foreign policy department that they may never recover.”

“And that's just the truth, because now it needs to be said that: what is the goal here? To the Israelis, to the ones that support Israel that are listening to this show: what's the United States’ plan for you? To put you on the front lines of World War 3 like a crash test dummy? I mean, you certainly must be looking at the clock now and saying, ‘Jesus, I really have made a partnership with maybe the wrong people. Now I have to expand what I believe global partnership really looks like and I may have to declare the Palestinian territories their own state. That way they get their own airport there, their own region, and we're guaranteed security by apparently the only people that can guarantee security because the United States can send a gigantic freighter or aircraft carrier there,'" the activist said.

“But again, all it [the US] can do is the same thing it does here when it polices people: it doesn't stop crime, right? The police don't jump in front of bullets here. Rarely. What they do is they go and punish the people that do it in the hopes that they'll never do it again. And, ma'am, that has not worked since 1776, it hasn't worked since the Laws of Moses - it's never worked for human beings. So obviously, there's a lot of re-analysis that people in Palestine have to make. But also the people of Israel have to make some decisions now and say, ‘hey, we have to expand our global partnerships to include maybe the people that we didn't want to have a conversation with before. We think we can only talk to the United States. We don't have to talk to China and Russia anymore.’ Well, now you have to talk to the two of them because there's no other way to make peace now. You can't make it with only the United States.”

For more in-depth analysis on the issue, cheсk out our The Backstory podcast.

*Al-Qaeda and al-Nusra Front (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) are terrorist organizations banned in Russia and many other countries.