Stop Giving Israeli Officials A Media Platform To Spout Lies
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Australia’s state broadcaster the ABC gave extensive airtime to Israeli deputy foreign affairs minister Sharren Haskel on Friday, allowing her to voice her objections to Australian demonstrations against the very genocide that she and her government are presently committing in Gaza.
Haskel’s statements were then picked up and printed in outlets like The Guardian, quoting at length her lies denying Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians and her assertion that anti-genocide protesters are “useful idiots” who fell for “terrorist propaganda”.
In an effort to give equal weight to both sides of the issue, The Guardian also quotes a response from a spokesperson for the Palestine Action Group, which helped coordinate the massive march over the Sydney Harbour Bridge earlier this month.
“The only useful idiots here are those in the media who continue to print Israeli propaganda despite two years of being consistently lied to,” the spokesperson said.
I don’t know how anyone could possibly disagree with this. It’s absolutely ridiculous to be giving these freaks a platform to spout lies in the latter half of the year 2025.
Stop platforming Israeli government officials and professional genocide apologists. Stop asking them what they think. Stop presenting their lies and manipulations as news stories. Stop asking them if they agree with their critics. Stop doing it. Stop.
Who cares if the government official who is perpetrating a genocide is offended by people saying she’s committing genocide? Who cares if a murderer dislikes being called a murderer while in the middle of an act of murder? Who cares if it hurts their feelings to be told they’re doing the thing that they are doing? Who gives a single solitary fuck?
Of course the people committing the genocide don’t want people saying they’re committing genocide. Of course they don’t. It does not matter. It’s completely irrelevant. Stop treating that like it’s a news story.
Every major human rights group on earth says this is a genocide, including Israeli groups. Genocide scholars and human rights experts around the world are in overwhelming in agreement on this. Once a consensus has been reached on that scale, there is no longer any journalistic obligation to keep asking the people doing the genocide whether they agree that it’s a genocide or how it makes their feelings feel to hear people say that it is.
The facts at this point are so well-established that continuing to give them a broad platform and report on what they say is the same as platforming people who believe Hitler was a good guy who should have finished the job. The only moral difference is that Hitler’s genocide is over so news outlets wouldn’t be actively helping him perpetrate an active genocide like they are in the case of Israel.
We need to make Israel and its supporters own the shame of their lies. When you’ve got Netanyahu telling Fox News that Gaza looks the way it looks because Hamas put explosives inside “every single building”, that’s the kind of lie that’s meant to humiliate you. It’s commanding a slave to believe two plus two equals five just to demonstrate how completely dominated they are.
It’s a public humiliation ritual, and they should be the ones who are humiliated. In a normal situation, someone saying that Gaza looks like a gravel parking lot because Hamas put explosives in all the buildings would be looked at like they were wearing a gimp mask while covered in bodily fluids in public.
It’s just so submissive and cucky. The hospitals are all Hamas bases. UNRWA is a Hamas stronghold. The journalists are all terrorists. The starving civilians aren’t really starving. Civilians are dying in such high numbers because there are Hamas members hiding behind all the civilians. The UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and all major human rights groups all say the things they say because they secretly hate Jews. This obvious land grab is actually about hostages and October 7. Stating self-evident facts is antisemitic blood libel.
These aren’t just lies, they are insults to our intelligence. They are intended to degrade and humiliate us. To believe them is an exercise in self-debasement. They may as well be literally urinating on us and demanding that we say it’s raining.
This is backwards. We’re not the ones who should feel humiliated. We’re not the ones presenting these ridiculous fairytales as true. We’re not the ones committing genocide. This is their shame. It belongs to them. And we will know we’ve won when this is how their lies and atrocities get treated in mainstream discourse. The shame will be placed directly where it belongs.
We will know things have moved toward health when the standard response to an Israel apologist telling obvious lies is a knee-jerk “How embarrassing for you to have to say that like you think it’s true. You’re either a liar or a sucker, and either way, shame on you. You’re either a deceitful freak trying to psychologically manipulate me into supporting the worst things in the world, or you’re a moronic dupe who’s debased themselves by swallowing obvious lies. Either way it’s a pathetic, disgusting, shameful way to live.”
When we’ve moved toward health this will be the standard response, whether it’s in day to day conversation, online interactions, or someone spouting lies on a mainstream punditry show. This is the healthy response to atrociously shameful behavior.
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Feature image is a screen grab from Fox News (Fair Use).
Today I was at a pot banging demo to oppose Canada selling arms to Israel. A man turned up with an Israeli flag draped over his back. He had 2 children with him, both with flags draped over them. He just stood there and kept saying to everyone "you love Hamas". I felt a rage come up in me and I yelled in his face that Israel just murdered 6 journalists a couple of days ago. I yelled that they were murdering children. He just kept this stupid smile on his face and kept saying over and over "you love Hamas". The Zionist MP, whose office we were in front of, apparently didn't "feel safe" when confronted non violently, but loudly by her constituents, so she had 2 cops standing in front of her door to ensure her safety. Maybe Zionism causes people to go insane. I am grateful to be able to come home and read something like Caitlin's newsletter, that is sane.
Thank You Caitlin