[Blog] Whitewashing Genocide

It is a well-known fact that Israel keeps in its pockets most of the American politicians on all sides of the political spectrum. This is done through the inordinately powerful lobby called AIPAC which, through billions of dollars, fund their campaigns to ensure or reensure their election. Those who happen to criticise Israel are usually victims of smears, blackmail, false flag and adverse publicity on the media. This grip is not limited only to politicians but to media people as well.

One of the multifarious ways by which the control is done is by organizing and funding guided tours to Israel where the journalists are given special treatment and made to visit places which show a glowing image of the country. Recently, one such guided tour was organized for journalists from some francophone African countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Senegal, Togo, Benin , Cameroon, Burundi, Madagascar and so on. This group included a journalist from a local paper from Mauritius as well. The result was an idyllic article on Israel as if in a paid advertisement. It paints Tel Aviv as a place of vivacity, brimming with life and people going along with their daily routine without any worries. No attempt is made to interview Israeli Arabs, both Muslims and Christians, who lead a segregated life as second-class citizens in a country where reigns apartheid as per Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. There is no attempt to find out what is going on in the occupied West Bank throttled by hundreds of checkpoints and where daily acts of vandalism, land grabbing, destruction of agriculture, houses, including violence and murder are being committed against the Palestinians with the complicity of the Israeli soldiers. 

The visit to Kibbutz Be'eri, supposed to be the culminating point of the tour, has yielded stories that simply serve to consolidate the Israeli narrative of so- called Hamas brutality and savagery. Yes, there were acts of violence and brutality as in any war but there was also the Hannibal directive as confirmed later by Yoav Gallant and Yasmin Porat, a survivor. In fact, a number of houses in which Israeli civilians were kept as hostages by Hamas fighters, were attacked by Israeli forces to prevent them from being used as bargaining chips by Hamas. These houses were shelled by tanks. This was the cause of the burnt bodies found inside.

What is really shocking with the article of the journalist who went on the guided tour is the nonchalance with which an IDF soldier is described after his retorn from his stint in Gaza . Here was a man who has just returned from Gaza where a genocide is taking place. This soldier might have participated in the killing of women and children in Gaza. He might be one of the snipers who had blown the skull of children there. He could have personally participated in increasing the number of Gaza'n victims to 100, 000 as per the figures released by the Israeli paper Haaretz. The same paper, in its edition of 27 June, reports that the soldiers have received orders to shoot at unarmed civilians coming to fetch food at so called distribution centres. It is not a surprise, therefore, to see more than a hundred victims in some days. According to Haaretz, Gaza has become "a killing field". Hence , instead of being appalled, our journalist jokes about the Israeli soldier by writing that he carries his gun "like his girlfriend". Whitewashing genocide is equivalent to being indirectly complicit to genocide. 

Azize Bankur