How Western media helped turn genocide in Israel into “fake news”
- Jonathan Cook via The Unz Review 2 September 2025.uncutnews-ch/wie-westliche-medien-dasu-beitrugen-israels-voelkermord-zu-fake-news-zu-machen
The intention of Israel to destruct Gaza would have become clear much earlier if we had listened to Palestinian journalists, not the scams and scams of the BBC.
The justification for the massacre and famine of Gaza's population, which was officially confirmed as a famine caused by Israel, by the Israeli from the very beginning, was based on a series of easy overthrowable lies: [by Palestinians] cutting off the heads of infants, baking infants in ovens and mass rapes.
It should not be amazing that Israel continued to spread equally outrageous lies, while destroying, as is the case with all genocide regimes, the most basic infrastructure essential to last the people of Gaza.
The transportation of humanitarian aid to UNRWA, UN agency, was blocked, enclaves were destroyed and medical personnel were murdered, imprisoned and tortured.
Israel claimed that has papers proving that the UN was a cover for Hamas – papers he never presented. In the meantime, all 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip were attacked – those whose hidden justification was that they were built on Hamas' ‘command and control centres’, although these centres were never found.
To support this narrative, Israel arrested the leading doctors of the region who worked around the clock, taking care of the endless stream of mutilated men, women and children disguised as the alleged “Hamas members”.
What all genocide government must do – especially 1 who seeks to preserve the appearance of democracy, having the "most moral army" in the planet – Israel has constantly tried to hide its atrocities.
Western journalists were denied entry to Gaza, and then Palestinian journalists were eliminated from 1 enclave after another until more than 200 of them were murdered, including 11 in the last fewer weeks, including employees of mediate East Eye and Al Jazeery. The others were forced to flee abroad in search of security.
The Western press corps, which barely spoke of its marginalization for the past 22 months of genocide, collectively shruged their arms erstwhile his colleagues in Gaza were slow exterminated. There's nothing to see here.
This was until that month, erstwhile Israel celebrated an air strike in which six Palestinian journalists were killed, including a full five-man squad reporting events for Al-Jazira from the city of Gaza.
The minute of the attack was highly convenient. Israel calls on 60,000 soldiers to yet attack the remains of the city of Gaza, where about a million Palestinians – half of them children – hide and starve.
These civilians will be killed or driven to a concentration camp, which Israel calls the “humanitarian city”, located close the border with Egypt. There they will be waiting for the final deportation – most likely to South Sudan, the fallen state to which Israel provided the weapons that fueled the civilian war and violence.
Campaign of slander
Israel justified the killing of the Al-Jazira crew, claiming that 1 of them, Anas al-Sharif, A reporter awarded the Pulitzer Prize, he was a secret “Hamas terrorist”.
This claim was no little absurd than the excuses Israel utilized to justify the exclusion of humanitarian workers and the killing and imprisonment of hundreds of wellness workers in the Gaza Strip.
Doctors in Gaza – who for almost 2 years have had to face the number of fatalities daily, usually associated with major natural disasters, and who are denied basic drugs and equipment – allegedly had plenty of time to conspire with Hamas militants. At least that's how Israel wants to convince us.
As we have been told, Sharif besides found time between breaks in his tense 22-month reporting agenda – mainly in front of the cameras – to “direct rocket attacks on Israeli civilians” as Hamas' commander.
He most likely possessed superhuman powers that allowed him to last for 2 years without sleep and, like a quantum particle, to be in 2 different places at once.
Now we know precisely where this absurd communicative came from: from what Israel calls the "Lecimization Cell". The name of this intelligence department, which was surely never to be disclosed, speaks for itself. His mission was to legitimize Israeli atrocities by utilizing stories defaming the victims, thus making genocide more digestible to Israeli and Western audiences.
Israeli news portal +972 revealed the existence of this cell a fewer days after Sharif's assassination this month, stating that it was created after 7 October 2023 – the day Hamas and another groups got out of a prisoner of war camp in the Gaza Strip and unleashed a bloody bath after 17 years of brutal siege.
The main nonsubjective of the Legitimate Cell was to aid Israel spread information in the western media presenting hospitals in the Gaza Strip as a habitat for terrorism, and journalists there as "Hamas secret agents".
False Evidence
Referring to 3 Israeli intelligence sources, +972 stated that Israel's motive for establishing a legitimacy cell was not security, but purely propaganda—that is, what is called in Israel "hasbaraIt’s okay. ”
According to reports, the cell wanted to establish any link between a fistful of journalists in the Gaza Strip and Hamas in order to rise doubts in the minds of audiences in the West, justify killing representatives of the local press and prevent them from revealing the atrocities committed by Israel.
According to long-standing warnings by Israeli critics, these intelligence officials informed tv station +972 that cell activity is seen as “key to Israel's prolongation of the war”. The goal was to halt the increasing social opposition of the West against genocide before it became so large that it would force the Western capitals—the patrons of Israel—to halt the Israeli death machine.
Another origin added: "The aim was for the [Israeli military] to operate without pressure, so that countries like America would not halt supplying arms."
According to these sources, Israeli officials were so anxious to give recipients in the West the information about the prolonged genocide that they “took shortcuts” – a courteous euphemism that simply means fabricating evidence.
After a reporter, Al-Jazira Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman, was murdered in July 2024, Israel referred to a paper of 2021 allegedly found on the ‘Hamas computer’ to argue that he was a ‘member of the military wing’ and participated in the attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
However, the alleged paper states that Ghoul received a military degree in 2007, When he was 10.
In the case of Sharif, he was accused in advance. In October 2024 Israel claimed that he and 5 another Al-Jazira journalists were secretly members of Hamas' military wing, or muslim Jihad. In March, 1 of them, Hossam Shabbat, was murdered.
Fraud of “false messages”
Not only Al-Jazira journalists on site in Gaza have been defamed. Israel, addicted to its extravagant lies, claimed that the Dohy station itself received editorial instructions from Hamas.
A fewer months after the beginning of genocide in Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu created an unconfirmed communicative that Al-Jazira was a “terrorist broadcaster” who “was actively active in the massacre on October 7.”
This gave Israel the justification to ban the broadcast of Al-Jazir station last year and to cease its activities in illegally occupied East Jerusalem and since September besides in the West Bank.
There was a direct resemblance to Israel's strategy towards UNRWA, which utilized the most impudent lies as a weapon to expel the agency from Gaza and leave its residents at the mercy of Israeli soldiers; and supported by Israel and the United States by a mercenary group, misnamed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
GHF's plan was to expel the population from alleged "aid centres" with lethal shots. Paradoxically, this allowed the Israeli hunger policy to proceed – for which Netanjahu is prosecuted by the global Criminal Court – under the cover of an alleged humanitarian initiative.
Since July, the Committee on the Protection of Journalists has warned that Sharif's life is in immediate danger and that he is "the mark of the Israeli military's slander campaign", which he considered an introduction to his assassination.
Israel's actual intentions were made clear last period by the army spokesperson Avichay Adraee, who accused Sharif in his account with Gaza of damaging Israel's image by promoting a "false Hamas hunger campaign".
Adraee argued that Sharif is part of the "Hamas military machina" due to the fact that he reports the same increasing hunger that the UN, the planet wellness Organization and major human rights organizations have warned against for months – and which last week reached the highest level of hunger according to the Integrated Classification of Food Safety Faz (IPC).
Just as Israel caused famine in the Gaza Strip, slandering and marginalizing the UN aid organisations, it besides makes it impossible to adequately study on famine-related events, slandering and murdering Palestinian journalists.
On Monday Israel bombed Nasser infirmary in Chan Junis, killing 21 people, including 5 journalists working for mediate East Eye and the press agencies Reuters and AP.
In both cases, exaggerated claims of connections to Hamas service a akin purpose. If the Western public can be deceived and believe that Palestinian journalists are writing under Hamas' supervision, reports of Israeli atrocities can be regarded as “fake news” – and genocide can be extended even more even if the pictures of children are filled on our screens.
The question of proportionality
In his execution on Sharifa, Israel claimed to have evidence that he was a ‘active Hamas terrorist’ and ‘cell leader in the rocket brigade’. However, even published papers – no of which were made available for independent inspection – showed that it was recruited in 2013 and left the group in 2017.
Even if these claims were actual — which would be highly reckless, given the long and consistent past of Israel’s lies — they propose that Sharif had no connection to Hamas for 8 years before becoming the mark of Israel’s attacks.
In another words, even according to the imaginary "proofs" of the Israeli legality cell, Sharif enjoyed civilian position erstwhile Israel murdered him and 5 another journalists. The attack on the shelter of journalists was so a flagrant war crime.
But although Israel's lies are completely understandable – in the end, this is the authoritative hasbara manufacture – the most amazing thing is that Western media inactive silently spread Israel's lies.
The most popular German newspaper, Bild, she published on the front page a text that might as well have been written by the Israeli army: “Terrorist disguised as a writer killed in Gaza." No confirmation, no quotes. It's just a message of fact.
The British media did not do better; most of them in their headlines and reports widely exposed the baseless, "legitimate" slanders of Israel against Sharif.
Astonishingly, the BBC, in its flagship program News at Ten, accepted without hesitation the Israel's representation of Sharif as a legitimate goal and uncritically spread the presumption that Israel had chosen only him as its target.
An obscene, highly biased question was raised: “There is simply a question of proportionality. Is it justified to kill 5 journalists erstwhile the goal is only one?”
Translation ‘X’ : Even more obscene “journalism” from BBC News. “ There is simply a question of proportionality, ” reports Israel’s account of the execution of 5 journalists in the Gaza Strip. Is it justified to kill 5 journalists, since the goal was only one?”
The "proportional" version of events is based on the presumption that Israel had the right to respond by lethal force to a certain reason—the alleged link between Sharif and terrorism—and asks only whether this reason justified the scale of Israel's deadly reaction.
Israel could anticipate nothing more. According to the actions of the Legitimate Cell, it prevented the BBC News from reporting an Israeli war crime against journalists, triggering alternatively a debate on whether specified action was right and wise.
The tide has turned
Piers Morgan, whose highly popular net program "Uncensored" is 1 of the most crucial discussion platforms where Israeli supporters and critics meet, shows how easy Israel can influence media communications.
Morgan perfectly illustrates how Western journalists easy accept racist assumptions about non-Western journalists, even if they seem to question them.
Shortly after the assassination of Sharif, Morgan invited Jamal Elshayyal, manager of the “360” program in Al-Jazira. He had to talk to Jotam Confino, a writer who erstwhile worked for an Israeli tv station and 24 News, who played a key function in the spread of Israeli “swindling with the heads of children cut off”, and is presently writing for right-wing and fervent pro-Israeli newspapers specified as “The Telegraph” and “New York Sun”.
Confino's function in the debate was to strengthen Israeli arguments that Sharif was a Hamas terrorist. Elshayyal responded by listing Israeli practice for decades involving the killing of journalists who ridicule the country, especially Palestinians. He drew attention to the disgraceful execution of the Palestinian-American writer Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 and the subsequent disclosure of the many lies Israel utilized to conceal his engagement in her assassination.
He besides highlighted the general threats to the safety of journalists taking part in slander campaigns, specified as the 1 against Sharif, based on the belief that killing journalists whose political views dislike their supporters is justified.
As expected, this argument did not reflect Morgan's intentions at all.
As there was no evidence that Sharif was the Hamas cell commander, Confino directed his attack towards wider accusations that an Al-Jazira writer could sympathize with Hamas.
But that didn't satisfy him. He turned to Elshayyal, arguing that he was incapable to defend Sharif due to the fact that he expressed anti-Israeli views on social media.
Interestingly, Morgan joined Confino and questioned Elshayyal about his political views, urging him to condemn Hamas for the attack of 7 October 2023. Interestingly, Confino was not asked to condemn Israel for much more serious genocide.
This profoundly disturbing and racist exchange suggested that arabian journalists had to prove their ideological credibility to Western journalists before their views and lives began to matter.
Elshayyal was not only there to defend Sharif, but besides the right of journalists to freely study events without fear of death threats, regardless of their political affiliation. Instead, he felt obliged to defend his right to participate in the debate due to his own political views.
The program led by a prominent British writer whose clear aim was to condemn Israeli war crimes, specified as the systematic killing of journalists in the Gaza Strip, rapidly turned into a witch hunt targeting journalists criticizing Israel.
Life to Throw Away
Western reports deficiency the following context: Israel has killed more than 240 Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip over the last 2 years – more than all journalists have died during both planet wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the erstwhile Yugoslavia and the Afghanistan War together.
This is simply a strategy – bright – to which Western journalists seem completely blind, although Israel inactive forbids them to study events in the Gaza Strip, even though genocide has been going on for almost 2 years.
Irene Khan, UN peculiar Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Speech, late stated that Israel "is leading a very carefully planned, targeted attack programme to suppress all independent reports on the Gaza Strip".
The permissiveness of the Western media to Israel’s brazen lies is not only violating the principles of journalistic ethics. It besides makes all journalists who proceed to study on events in the Gaza Strip the mark of attacks.
She sends a message to Israel that her life is considered lost and that even the most trivial excuses for her execution will be taken seriously.
It is even more perverse that Western journalists themselves are normalising a precedent that poses a immense threat to both their own lives at the hands of the armed states and to the future of war reporting.
Models of Lies
The narratives that “legitimate” Israel work only thanks to the openness of Western journalists to disinformation campaigns – and the preparation of Western public opinion for their acceptance.
They act due to the fact that Western political and media elites from generation to generation instill deep-rooted racism.
Israel set up its legitimacy cell only due to the fact that it knows how easy it is to exploit Western concerns. It presents its arguments through Western speakers – fluent in the native languages of listeners – who exploit the long-standing colonial fears of “barbarics at the gates” and threats to “western civilization”.
However, as the slaughter in Israel lasts from period to month, Western society is increasingly hard to believe these narratives.
The longer Israel's carpet bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the mass famine of its people continue, the harder it is to hide Israel's lies, and an increasingly clear image of the situation indicates not war as part of "self-defense", but as a consequence of genocide.
Shocking pictures of the mediocre children, presented after months of openly admitting Israel to starving the people of Gaza, talk for themselves – they are so apparent that they did not require authoritative confirmation by the global Criminal Court.
Last week +972 revealed that contrary to Israel's many months of claims that most of the deaths in the Gaza Strip were Hamas militants, data provided by the Israeli military show that more than 4 out of 5 deaths were actually civilians.
This relation is clearly deliberate. In an audio recording that late leaked to Israeli Channel 12, Maj-Gen Aharon Haliva, who led Israeli military intelligence for the first six months after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, says that killing tens of thousands of Palestinians is “need for future generations”.
He added: “For all individual killed on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die. Now it doesn’t substance if they’re children.”
In another words, from the very beginning, the Israeli army's goal was to commit mass murders to force Palestinians to pacify them permanently and to make them accept eternal captivity.
The more the public sees images of Gaza’s full demolition and learns of Israel’s demolition of hospitals and famine, the more they wonder why the number of deaths in the past year has barely increased.
Israel's claim that 62,000 victims were exaggerated by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of wellness sounds absurd. Israel destroyed government buildings in the Gaza Strip, which virtually prevents them from counting the victims.
Most readers, Europeans, like experts, begin to fishy that the actual death toll is hundreds of thousands.
All of this would have been clear much earlier if we had been more inclined to perceive to Palestinian journalists alternatively of the scams and lies of the BBC and Piers Morgan.
They and the remainder of Western journalists played a key function in the “legitization” of Israel's genocide. Western journalists have proved that they are completely unbelievable arbitrators of fact in Gaza.
However, genocide gives us a more general lesson on what we consider news in the country and abroad, who can form news and why.
The cover-up of genocide in the Gaza Strip — and the engagement of the West in it — provides an highly detailed image of racist and colonial motives that dominate what we call news.
Are we ready to learn this lesson?
