If you question any part of it, you’re an evil anti-Semite who loves terrorism and wishes Hitler had won. You should be censored, fired, kicked off campus and disappeared from polite society.
Hamas is a Terror Organization protest in front of the BBC offices in London on Oct. 18. (Nizzan Cohen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
The official story is that on Oct. 7, thousands of evil Hamas terrorists broke out of their walled-in enclave and killed approximately 1,200 Israelis for no reason other than because they were evil and wanted to kill Jews.
Nothing was done by the Israeli government to provoke this attack, and nothing of any relevance happened prior to this date.
The attack was as undefended as could possibly be; Israeli defense forces did not respond for nine hours despite having received ample warning that an attack was coming for months, from both their own intelligence services and from Egyptian intelligence.
No attempt was made to warn the Nova music festival of an impending attack despite Israeli security forces being aware the day before that an attack was coming, resulting in hundreds of deaths and captured hostages.
The attack was met with so little resistance that Hamas themselves were reportedly surprised by how many Israelis they were able to capture and kill, their surprise perhaps due to the fact that they’d spent two years training right out in the open less than a mile from the border for an air, sea and land attack using motorized paragliders, drones and motorboats. This is all perfectly normal and not suspicious at all.
?? Breaking | Walla Hebrew Agency reports that all camera recordings installed on the separation wall with the Gaza Strip, intended for the investigation committee examining the October 7 events, have mysteriously disappeared. pic.twitter.com/bpoqXqIq2G
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 3, 2023
Also not at all suspicious is that 100 percent of the 1,200 Israeli deaths on Oct. 7 are being attributed to Hamas despite Israeli media and eyewitness testimony reporting that the IDF was firing indiscriminately into areas full of Israelis.
[Related: What We’re Not Hearing About Oct 7]
You can listen to Yasmin Porat's exact words here on Israeli state radio here? pic.twitter.com/bIseSkVhp3
— Propaganda and co (@propandco) November 20, 2023
The burned bodies you see in photos of the Oct. 7 devastation were with absolute certainty burned by Hamas, despite the Israeli government’s acknowledgement that it had previously misidentified hundreds of dead Hamas fighters as Israeli because they’d been so badly burned by IDF fire that their corpses were unrecognizable.
(The official story of Oct. 7 also previously included narratives about beheaded babies, babies cooked in ovens and babies ripped from the wombs of pregnant mothers, and you were an evil, Jew-hating Holocaust denier if you doubted them, but those narratives have since been walked back and are no longer part of the official story, so belief in them is now optional.)
?Important! Haaretz definitively debunks iconic horror stories from Oct 7:
40 beheaded babies
Baby burned in oven
A pregnant woman's stomach opened & her fetus removed
Children bound together & burned
Pregnant hostage giving birthHaaretz says only 1 baby was killed on Oct 7? pic.twitter.com/pBIZAvYXIm
— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) December 3, 2023
The murder of 1,200 Israelis was so evil and egregious that it has warranted the killing of more than 16,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 7,000 children.
It will likely warrant the killing of far more, because Israeli lives are worth much, much more than Palestinian lives. Only a racist Nazi would believe that Palestinian lives matter.
The Government Media Office in Gaza: The number of martyrs due to the Israeli aggression has reached 17,177, including 7,739 children, while 7,700 are reported missing. pic.twitter.com/bz0xPrnuI7
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 7, 2023
Israel is not to blame for any of the killings in Gaza anyway, because Hamas is using civilians as human shields. It is anti-Semitic to ask how Israel has managed to kill so many human shields while killing astonishingly few Hamas fighters and dealing no meaningful damage to Hamas leadership in the process.
What an insane rate of killing, broadcast live in 4K to an uninterested world. https://t.co/VusYeYUSgW
— Mohammad Alsaafin (@malsaafin) December 2, 2023
Now that 1.7 million Gazans have been displaced and they are being shoved toward the Egyptian border, it is perfectly fine and normal to be seeing official agendas being pushed by Israeli officials and thought leaders to “thin out” Gaza’s population and relocate them to other countries. Only an evil terrorist supporter would call this ethnic cleansing; one ought to think of it more as a permanent vacation.
If you question any part of this official story, you’re an evil Jew-hating monster who loves terrorism and wishes Hitler had won. You should be censored, fired from your job, kicked off campus and disappeared from polite society, because you support genocide and you want good people to die.
Does this make you feel like you’re going crazy? Good. That means it’s working. That means the official story is taking root in your mind. Let it blossom and bloom inside of you. Stop struggling. Relax. The more you struggle, the more it will hurt. Just let your mind go blank and obey. This will be over before you know it.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Long time democratic working class, Ukraine now Gaza, Biden has lost my vote.
I tried to make some sense of what was happening at the time, but this was difficult because CNN and Fox News coverage consisted of a succession of bottle blonde bimbos with fake tits shrieking incoherently from the screen, interrupted every two minutes by commercials for rice crispies and haemorrhoids cream. Watching more than a few minutes of this would make your brain hurt.
However, the story emerged that Hamas had somehow “murdered” 1,400 Israeli civilians.
No detailed information about the course of events, however fragmentary and incomplete, was forthcoming.
Then various figures were touted for the “murdered civilians”, 1,400, 1,200, 1,100, 900, 700.
Any advance on 1,400?
You had to read between the lines and exercise such intelligence that you possess to try to work out what had occurred.
Several days later, Israel published a list of 681 named individuals supposedly killed in the Hamas operation.
This included 307 Israeli troops, 56 para military police, and 318 civilians.
(The first two figures were subsequently raised to 320 and 59.)
So over half the fatalities were not civilians.
Of course, this might not be the final total. Some people who were wounded might not recover, some bodies might be found that had previously been overlooked, some people assumed to be dead turn up safe and well, and so on.
But that suggests a very different course of events from what has been alleged.
It seems that about 200 Hamas fighters were killed in the fighting.
For quite some time, these were claimed as “murdered Israeli civilians.”
So the picture that emerges is one of a stand up fight between two heavily armed sides in which Hamas got the better of it.
They targeted and overran army bases and police stations, capturing 20 tanks at one location. They inflicted about double the losses they sustained. This was a fierce battle, not a massacre of civilians.
The Israeli response was one of blind panic, plastering anything that moved, including Israeli civilians fleeing on foot and in cars, and anything that didn’t move, including buildings with Israeli civilians cowering inside, with heavy weapons fire, artillery, 120mm tank gunfire, Apache 30mm automatic cannon, Hellfire missiles. The scores of mangled, burnt out cars and levelled buildings with bodies inside, were not the work of Hamas AK47s. Probably most Israeli civilian deaths were the result of so called friendly fire.
We are expected to believe that in the middle of a desperate firefight, Hamas fighters decided to knock off for a tea break, behead some babies, cook some babies in ovens, and amuse themselves with mass rapes. In other circumstances, this would even be quite funny. Not surprisingly, no evidence whatsoever of these supposed atrocities has been forthcoming. All we get are evidence free assertions, with anyone asking for more information instantly denounced as “anti semitic.” There are no actual victims, because it is conveniently assumed that these victims “must have” been murdered.
Nevertheless, these fairy stories about baby beheadings and cookings and rapings are constantly repeated by Zionist politicians and officials, western politicians such as Biden, and endlessly parroted by the lying corporate media, both as a means of diverting attention from the Gaza genocide, and as a justification for the slaughter.
All this is obviously a “Bayonetted Belgian Babies/ Raped Belgian Nuns/ Iraq Incubator Babies” Redux. But expect to see much more of the same, like the Mein Kampf copies fortuitously discovered and the chemical weapons handbooks, the more fantastical and ludicrous the better. All grist to the hasbara mill.
The ethnic identifiers need to be dropped…these are criminal authoritarians cynically using both the real and mythical history of the Jewish faith and people to do the bidding of a larger geopolitical enterprise. Johnstone’s outrage is understandable and cogent. It staggers the mind that her clarity is so rare; that the propaganda is so effectively making the world so much more dangerous.
James, It would be very useful to the perpetrators (who are heartless Zionists both Semits and their brainwashed Gentile affiliates including the leadership of the US government ) if we just referred to a large group of people in the Middle East waging war on another group who without any good reason invaded their territory. But that is not how it is. The oppressors( who the oppressed Palestinians were encouraged by an ‘open gate’ ie cameras switched off and vigilance inexplicably relaxed) were Zionist Jews from the Apartheid Jewish State of Israel. There are many Jews both from inside the apartheid State of Israel and world wide who oppose Jewish Zionism but that does not alter its racial identity. Any more than the lack of support from many Germans Altered the German identity of the Nazis.
To understand the Israel Problem,
might want to listen to this 2015 talk by Gideon Levy
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGO3eBxQX7Q
I too felt Caitlin’s rage because I’ve been feeling it for 2 years and it has only increased with the Israeli perpetrated genocide in Gaza and the “turn a blind eye” by the west. My own country Canada supports Israel; it sickens me. We have Palestinian- Canadians who want to bring their family from Gaza to Canada and my government is not responding. I recently wrote a (rather sarcastic) letter to Justin Trudeau asking him to not only to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza but to also allow Palestinians fleeing the genocide automatic residency status in Canada just like they did with the Ukrainians fleeing war in their country. If that is too difficult for them, I suggested he pretend the Palestinians were Ukrainians because, you know, we’re all human beings – one species and all , , ,
Thank you Caitlin for expressing in words how I am feeling about this human catastrophe.
I called my congressperson during office hours and actually spoke with someone (usually it’s a message machine). I told the young-voiced man it’s time to end our funding of genocide and that’s not anti-Semitic as the Palestinians are Semites and reiterated that Palestinians are people too. The young man responded this was just what they need to start the conversation with the congressperson. Seriously? You have to remind her that genocide is wrong? She needs a constituent to tell her? Joe Biden et al have gone off the rails into overt sociopathy. Manifest Destiny all over again? “White man’s burden”? No evolution in all this time.
What bothers me more than all of this is that the church’s union with the Sword of Constantine started centuries of persecution of the Jews culminating in the Shoah, which brought us to this state. That said, the victim of yesteryear has become the victimizer of today. Zionists have to know they are killers. Real Jews have no role in the Palestinian chaos. Zionists use the V cover. V for volubility. Don’t allow the truthers to get a word in edgewise. V for volume. If we can’t shut ’em up, we’ll shout so loud no-one can hear them. V is for the vehemence of righteous anger. That’ll intimidate them. Finally, V is for victimhood. We’ll intensify their guilt. The V defense quiets Zionist conscience and justifies all they do. Older Zionists say the Shoah could happen again, which justifies all this mayhem. It also is possible that Zionism could end in the collapse of the Zionist state. Alan Hart’s four volume series, Zionism: the Real Enemy of the Jews, says it well.
Withering, truthful retort to the madness from Caitlin Johnstone – thank you!. In the local parlance, she is a journalistic badass! My favorite Australians, besides Caitlin: Julian Assange, John Pilger, prof. Steve Keen (and I’m sure others as well)
Logic, reason, morality, the law, norms and values don’t matter anymore: we must believe what we are told and STFU, or else, as Caitlin points out, we will be canceled, ostracized, career destroyed. In the US, if you are fired, you lose health care, pension and don’t qualify for unemployment benefits. So you better do as you are told and call it “freedom and democracy”. Thank you sir, may I have another?
I heard an interview a couple of weeks ago on Democracy Now where Amy interviewed a State Dept. official who resigned over Israel policy. He stated that many of his colleagues wanted to resign as well, but can’t because they have families, and will lose health care and all other benefits. (and wont’ qualify for unemployment compensation). To buy “insurance” on the private market is unaffordable and outright extortion and kleptocracy. Another example of “do as you are told and STFU” If not, you and your family can be homeless and apply for food stamps. That’s what’s called “freedom”
Caitlin – I was not able to find the Haaretz story, even though I have a subscription. Please forward a link. Thank you.
I may come to hate Israel, I am afraid of the power in this country of the Israel loving politicians who will go to world war in order to claim Palestine, I believe they are a greedy self serving lot. I am afraid.
“Huns bayonetting Belgian babies!” (ww1)
Please–they use that one every time. I didn’t buy it right away, because what no reporters yet have mentioned is the logistical absurdity of it, and the purported rapes as well.
Let me get this straight: They want us to believe that during a very fast moving guerilla attack, the soldiers took the time to stop and do some baby roasting, beheading and raping, knowing that soon Apache helicopters would show up with 30mm cannon blasting away?
Yeah right–I was born yesterday.
I agree that it is ridiculous that a military group waging an attack meant to be fast moving against a far superior foe (with tanks, helicopter gun ships, fighter aircraft, etc) are going to stop and gang rape some Jewish women thus delaying their attack from at least 10 minutes up to an hour to give the opposing military time to respond and kill them.
Yes, many of us were born yesterday – until we saw the light that is! There is a great passage in George Orwell’s sour little novel – ”Coming up For Air” first published in 1934. One particular passage was a doozie. The main character was George Bowling – It went something like this:
”I volunteered for the Army straight away – complete idiot – but wasn’t wounded until 1916. Why had I joined the British Army? Or like all the other million other who joined up before conscription came in. It was partly for a lark and partly because of England my England and Briton’s never, never never and all that stuff. But how long did that last ? Most of the chaps I knew had forgotten about it long before they even got to France. The men in the trenches weren’t patriotic, didn’t hate the Kaiser, didn’t give a damn about gallant little Belgium and the Germans (putatively) raping nuns on tables (‘it was always ‘on tables’ – as though that made it worse) in the streets of Brussels
Like you, I recognized this as an obvious standard-issue war propaganda lie right away.
NBC or ABC is still peddling false stories about Hamas fighters raping Israelis as of last week. It is a sick society we are living in.
If, as BBC placards borne by supporters of genocidal Israel reading: Slaughtering Jewish Babies is TERROR, then NOT calling the slaughter of literally thousands of Palestinian Arab babies in a rage of irrational revenge can only be called out for what it is: (The)ERROR of immoral reasoning!
More of the “immaculate conception” view of history where, like the big bang, everything begins at specific point in time, usually chosen by a partisan, and nothing that happened before that point has any bearing on things that come after. Of course, this view is infantile and facile, and duplicitous; no cause, no effect, everything just miraculously and unexpectedly happens.
The same approach was used in Ukraine, as in “unprovoked,” which is of course nonsense. It was all provoked, just as in the 75 years of oppression and abuse in Gaza. The Palestinians in Gaza are guilty of exactly one sin, existing. Even worse, existing on land that Israel covets. For this alone they need, in Israel’s eyes, to be exterminated. Apparently, Israel has given up any hope of being a moral nation or culture. Israel is giving up its future as well. There is no coming back from this. Notably, this seems to happen whenever necons and fascists take over. What doomed Ukraine? Fascism, of the Banderas variety, urged on by America’s necons. Now Ukraine is left with nothing. In any case, partisans choose the “history begins here” approach when their own behavior is at fault. Equally true in Ukraine and in Gaza.
The tendency for violent ultra-nationalism is always with us but it escapes the cage when it is funded and supported. Unfortunately, the US (and UK) are the central funders for these sickos all over the world.
I felt Caitlin’s sarcastic rage as I read this. Yes, this is insane. We’re used to the establishment politicians and their backers being sickening hypocrites but this is at a whole new level of gob-smacking incredulity. They must not be allowed to get away with this.
Yes, Caitlin does sarcasm very well. She makes some very good points, as usual.
Good lord, what a nightmare!
I hate to say it Susan, but i believe it will only get worse from here on in. No-one is coming to help the Palestinians. At least not without it leading to WW3 or worse.
And WHERE??? is the “good lord” allowing all this to happen???
There is no such thing as a “good lord”. Humans are on their own.