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Israel resumed its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza following the end of a seven-day ceasefire on December 1, after talks to extend a week long truce with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas collapsed. But the US corporate media sees it differently as reflected in the coverage of the Israeli aggression against Gaza by CBS which said "Israel accused Hamas, which the US and Israel consider a terror organisation, of violating the terms of the truce as it was set to expire." A clear example of how the corporate media in the US has become a conduit for carrying out Israeli propaganda.
As the events unfold in Gaza, the corporate media continues to publish inaccurate, prejudicial and harmful misinformation aimed at tarnishing Palestinian resistance and demonising the Arabs. The New York Times, the leading mouthpiece of the US corporate media, continues to publish misleading information on Israeli invasion of Gaza. Its current reporting on Gaza echoes the prior engagement in misinformation campaign preceding the US invasion leading to the occupation and pillaging of Iraq.
The Western media in the post-1948 era has always portrayed Palestinian resistance against the Zionist colonial settler state as terrorism. It also does not publish materials critical of Israel's aggression against Palestinians in Gaza, and in some cases, directly target journalists who dare to violate such injunctions.
On Friday (December 8) the US vetoed a United Nations Security council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, against the vote of every other member of the Security Council except the UK, which abstained. US ambassador to the UN told "Any ceasefire that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza" is unacceptable to the US.
It is quite delusional for the US to think that the situation will return to the pre-October 7 status quo. That status quo was the problem and Hamas destroyed that on October 7. Palestinians have always been a problem for the Zionist project. The Palestinians are fighting for survival and their quest for freedom and self-determination can no longer be thwarted as the Hamas spokesperson clearly said that the solution to the current crisis is the end of Israeli occupation not ceasefire.
The UK abstention was defended by the UK ambassador to the UN, who said the UK "cannot vote in favour of a resolution which does not condemn the atrocities Hamas committed against innocent Israeli civilians" on October 7. The abstention on such an occasion in effect is a no vote against the resolution and in support of Israel to continue with its genocidal war against Palestinians. In fact, The Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising a Jewish homeland in Arab Palestine for Europe's persecuted Jews, constituted the first step toward the creation of the Zionist colonial settler apartheid state in Palestine. Arthur Balfour was the British foreign secretary at that time.
This "abstention" decision by the British is a continuation of that policy. The British not only played the pivotal role in creating this Zionist colonial settler apartheid state in Palestine but is also continuing with its long practised anti-Arab and anti- Muslim policy dating back for a long time.
The British with the active collaboration of Hussain bin Ali Hashimi, the Sharif of Mecca colonised Palestine, thus paving the way for the creation of the Zionist colonial settler state. During the British colonial rule from 1917 to 1948 in Palestine, the colonial rulers actively fostered Jewish immigration from Europe in the 1930s.
To settle the Jewish immigration, the British had confiscated land from Palestinians to give to Jewish immigrants and violently supressed incipient Palestinian nationalism. This British fostered Jewish immigration to Palestine led to the size of Jewish population to rise from 11 per cent in 1922 to 17 per cent in 1931 to 30 per cent in 1939. Finally in 1948, with the blessings of the British rulers Palestine was formally partitioned establishing a Zionist colonial settler state leading to the Nakba (catastrophe) to befall the Palestinians.
The policy of ignoring the historical context by the West in general and the US and Britain in particular has given rise to the current phase of the conflict. In fact, when the UN secretary general recently pointed out that the October 7 attacks had an historical background which is a demonstrably true statement, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN demanded that he be sacked immediately.
Two million Palestinians, of which an overwhelming majority are refugees have lived under violent occupation and surveillance in an open-air prison for 16 years, in poverty and without any dignity or freedom in Gaza. The UN Security Council resolution came in response to the situation in Gaza, which UN Secretary General Antonion Guterres called it a "humanitarian catastrophe". Mr Guterres emphasised the imminent threat of starvation and potential for mass displacement in Gaza.
The US vote against the UN resolution clearly tells us that the US is an active participant in this Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and Biden is no less culpable than Netanyahu in this crime. Biden again reiterated that he is a Zionist at the White House Hanukkah event held last week. Over the last two months Israel has killed more than 18,000 Palestinians. Half of them are women and children and another about 8000 missing, making the toll more than 26,000 and so far, with 85 per cent of the population displaced.
Israel in fact has set a practical example of what "de-development" is all about in Gaza over more than a decade and a half by cutting it off from the rest of the world. Now the Israeli war machine aided by the US and its European allies not only pulverised residential neighbourhoods and destroyed all types of infrastructure but also bombed hospitals and schools with the intention to make Gaza uninhabitable. In fact, On December 14, Philippe Lazzarini, the Head of the UN's Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) also stated that Israel's assault on Gaza had left the enclave unfit for human habitation.
The US has already sent two aircraft career strike group, a Marine Expeditionary Unit and 1200 extra troops to support the Israeli military in its war of aggression and genocide in Gaza. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the US has also shipped approximately 15,000 bombs, including 100 of its 2000 pound bunker buster bombs following the Hamas attack on Israel in early October this year. These were specifically designed to penetrate concrete shelters and were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan during the US war of occupation and destruction in those two countries.
Apart from supplying murderous arms to Israel to kill Arab Palestinians and other Arabs like in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, the US military involvement in the Arab Middle East continues to be widespread with military bases located in several Arab countries.
The US policy is fundamentally geared to totally crush Palestinian resistance. Even the people of the US variety of left like Bernie Sanders echoed almost the similar sentiment and said, "I do not know how you could have a permanent ceasefire with Hamas." Such statements on the part of Sanders and Robert Wood (US ambassador to the UN) testify to a very deeply embedded anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim mindset that pervades in the US political establishment. This mindset then permeated through the media, educational institutions, banking and finance and other areas.
A clear public demonstration of this mindset was displayed in New York on November 22 this year. Stuart Seldowitz, a former deputy director of the US State Department's Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs (1999-2003), who also worked for the National Security Council under the Obama administration following a State Department career that spanned five presidencies holding high positions, harassed in public an Egyptian Muslim food cart vendor in New York. He also called the vendor a "terrorist" and said that the death of 4,000 Palestinian children in Gaza "wasn't enough." During Seldowitz's time at the State Department, he was a three-time recipient of the Department's "Superior Honour Award,"
Edward Said in an article titled "Dignity and Solidarity" wrote "the vicious media, and government campaign against Arab Society, culture, history, and mentality that has been led by Neanderthal publicists and orientalists like Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes, has cowed far too many of us into believing that Arabs really are an underdeveloped, incompetent and doomed people, and that with all the failures in democracy and development, Arabs are alone in this world for being retarded, behind the times, unmodernised, and deeply reactionary."
In fact, Winston Churchill, then the British Colonial Secretary had a meeting with the local Palestinian leaders in April 1921 in Jerusalem and told them that the Zionist colonisation of Palestine "would enrich the country and they (the Arabs) shall share the progress". Strangely enough, very similar logic was used by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to accord recognition to the colonial settler state Israel on May 17, 1948, three days after Israel declared its independence. Stalin's support for Zionism was vital in consolidating the state of Israel in the current form. In fact, one could say that Israel might not exist in its current form had the Soviet Union not offered its backing.
The Palestinian authority in Ramallah headed by Mahmoud Abbas only controls 39 per cent of West Bank and the remaining 61 per cent is under the full control of Israeli army and Jewish settlers. Abbas and his cohorts are so thoroughly discredited that Abbas is considered as a person who will do Israel's bidding.
Said also pointed out in his article that a very small group of people comprising kings, emirs, sultans, presidents and generals who now rule various Arab countries not just underestimate themselves but also their people's ability. No Arab leader had the self-dignity and confidence to say even something let alone denounce the US invasion leading to the occupation and pillaging of Iraq including the looting of Baghdad Museum in the presence of the US occupation army or the destruction of Libya.
Nothing much have changed since then as reflected in the current Arab leaders' response to the US supported and facilitated ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. No wonder Hamas now has emerged as the most credible Palestinian resistance movement against the US supported and aided Israeli occupation. Mahmoud Abbas and his cohorts sitting in Ramallah are now thoroughly discredited because of their collaboration with Israel and the US. Hamas now not only represents all the Palestinians but also has become the voice and the symbol of resistance of the Arab people against the machinations of Western imperialist powers to subjugate the Arab people and plunder their resources.