Pro-Israel Propaganda Continues To Justify Mass Murder, Here’s The Truth (Part 2)

As Israel carries out its horrifying aerial attacks against the besieged people of the Gaza Strip, killing over 3,000 innocent civilians, the majority of whom are women and children, Western media and leaderships continue to spread disinformation in order to win support for collective punishment and war crimes, labelling it “self-defense”. As a continuation of our last piece, here on The Last American Vagabond, which covered Israeli propaganda, this article will interrogate the various claims that are being made about Gaza.

In the space of 6 days in Gaza, Israel dropped almost as many bombs as the US airforce did in Afghanistan over the space of an entire year. Unlike Afghanistan, which is vast and possesses places to hide, the Gaza Strip is a territory that is smaller than the length of a marathon in length and roughly the size of New York’s central park in width. Israel has cut off the water, food, fuel, and electricity to Gaza, is preventing all humanitarian aid from coming in, while the people are unable to leave. Israel’s army told some 1.1 million Gazans living in the north and center of the strip to flee to the south, claiming it had opened safe routes before massacring hundreds of civilians who had followed their orders. Tel Aviv is currently comparing Hamas to Daesh (ISIS/IS), yet by comparison, at the very peak of the US-led coalitions bombing campaign against Daesh, they released 5,000 bombs across Iraq and Syria, within the period of a month. Israel on the other hand, dropped over 6,000 bombs in less than a week.

Gaza is more densely populated than Tokyo, it is home to just under 2.4 million people, and of that population over half are children under the age of 18. Israel has killed roughly as many Palestinian children in Gaza, since the beginning of the war on October 7, that Hamas has killed in total from the Israeli population; this includes the hundreds of Israeli soldiers, armed settlers, security personnel, intelligence operatives, and police. This, as the UN announced that its shelters are at full capacity, holding over 400,000 displaced people. In fact, the Palestinian death toll, surpassing 3,000 civilian deaths, cannot even be accurately recorded at this moment as the Palestinian rescue team in Gaza do not possess the ability to recover all of the bodies under the rubble. In conclusion, to call this a massacre is an understatement.

This above noted context is crucial, yet barely even scratches the surface of the tragedy currently unfolding. It is crucial to know because even if every alleged atrocity that is attributed to Hamas was true, none of it would even compare to what is happening in Gaza.

“Gaza Actually Does Have Water, But It Doesn’t Because Of Hamas”

Unverified videos are being spread on social media, showing water flowing out of hydrants and taps in the besieged Gaza Strip. These videos were published, alongside captions that claimed that Gazans “are laughing at Netanyahu” due to their alleged ability access water. This birthed a number of theories online about Gazans actually having clean drinking water, indicating that Israel, the international organizations, and Hamas are all lying about the water switch-off.

Well, to begin with, all the videos posted are unverified, there is no way to ascertain whether these are videos taken recently, since October 7, or not. What we do know is that the Israeli government ordered a water shut off, and that the White House announced on Sunday (after an entire week of Israel turning it off) that the Israelis would allow the water to be switched back on in the South, which appeared to be an attempt to aid in the mass displacement of Palestinians in the North, by temping them to move South, where bombing has continued. Yet, simply noting that the videos are unverified is simply not enough to address this unsubstantiated claim.

Let us assume for a moment that the videos being spread are from Gaza within the period of time alleged. This does not prove the theory being presented at all. Most of Gaza’s water supply comes from the sea and is 97% untreated water that is deemed unfit for human consumption, only the upper 10% of Gazans had access to clean drinking water before the eruption of the current war. Israel has polluted the Gaza Aquifer, making it untenable for the Palestinians living there to get their water this way, while 80% of sewage from Gaza is pumped directly into the sea, from which the water is drawn back into the taps for people to bathe in and even drink. A point that some Zionist apologists were making online, is that since they have a video of water flowing, this means there must be electricity to pump the water also. For anyone who knows the very basics of life in Gaza, the people in the besieged coastal enclave have to live off of the electricity they store in generators, so there is still some electricity left in Gaza, however, many people are unable to get any and the best generators are being used by facilities like hospitals.

Then we have the claims being made from Israeli propagandists and anti-Muslim preachers, which use videos of Hamas fighters digging up pipes in the ground to manufacture rockets in the Gaza Strip. An account on X, calling himself the “Imam of Peace” — despite being proven to have lied about his qualification to call himself as such — posted the following comment:

“For those crying “Gaza has no water”, watch how Hamas digs out water pipes and repurposes an entire sewage system in Gaza to manufacture rockets. They’re proud of keeping Palestinians thirsty.”

What is interesting about this, is that again, the claim is not only false, but in explaining why it is false, it makes a strong point against Israel’s illegal blockade.

The video that is being spread around, was actually published by Al-Jazeera in 2020 and indeed it does show Hamas fighters taking water pipes out of the ground. What’s interesting is that the piece was published by Al-Jazeera to show its Arabic speaking audience the genius of Hamas’ weapon manufacturing, while having access to so little materials, it essentially worked as pro-Hamas propaganda at the time and did not offend anyone in Gaza. Also, the video was showing Hamas digging up the water pipes that belonged to the abandoned Israeli settlements in Gaza. This is actually extremely damning, because it shows how the Israeli government had provided water systems to their illegal settlers, while simultaneously depriving Palestinians living right next to the settlements of equal access to water. Even in the West Bank, where Hamas does not have any power, only 17% of the water there is permitted to go to the much larger Palestinian population, while the Israeli settler minority has an unlimited supply of water; keep in mind that this supply is stolen from underneath the people of the West Bank, who aren’t allowed by Israel to dig their own wells.

Now, to go back to the claim about the pipes that were dug up in Gaza; even if Hamas was to try and use them in order to access more water, it would be meaningless, because Israel is not willing to help provide a larger supply, or, more crucially, permit the means for the Palestinians to process and clean the water.

If anything, these blatantly false claims are demonstrative of how extreme some pro-Zionist personalities online are, as they will make up claims that both try to show that Israel is not committing the war crime they announced, and also that it is being deceived or simply not going far enough in punishing Gaza.

“The Civilian Deaths Are The Fault Of Hamas”, “Why Didn’t They Build Bomb Shelters?”

The United Kingdom is directly supporting Israeli diplomatically and is providing them with the means to carry out their decimation of packed civilian neighbourhoods in Gaza, making it directly implicated in the current slaughter of civilians that is being carried out by the Israeli military. The collective West, unlike opposing Russia and China who call for a ceasefire, will not even entertain the idea of ending the bloodshed and give full support to Tel Aviv in whatever it chooses to do. This context is necessary when looking at what the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, posted on X about Hamas. He states:

“Hamas is the greatest threat to the Palestinian people. They hide in hospitals and schools, using woman and children as human shields. The death of any civilian is a tragedy. Palestinian or Israeli – Hamas is the cause of this loss.”

Now, in order to analyze this, we have to take apart every single fact-free claim he spreads here. Firstly, he attempts to portray Hamas as the greatest threat to the Palestinian people, which is not even worth addressing, especially as it is later explained through another claim, what he means by that. Then he says that Hamas hides in hospitals and schools, so where does he take this information from? Israel has launched at least 10 large-scale attacks on Gaza since they besieged the territory back in 2006, all of which have been analyzed by human rights organizations that have written extensive reports on the fighting. There is quite literally no example of Hamas fighters hiding inside hospitals and schools, in the entire history of every single battle ever fought between Gaza and Israel; none. The leading scholar on the Palestine-Israel conflict, Norman Finkelstein, goes through the record meticulously in his book, entitled ‘Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom‘, effectively debunking this allegation as a lie. The Israeli military has never produced any evidence to support the claim that they have routinely used.

Then we have the next element of this statement, the human shield argument, which US President Joe Biden has also used. Again, there has never been a single case of a Hamas fighter using a Palestinian civilian as a human shield while fighting Israel from Gaza. When interrogated on whether there has been a single piece of evidence to support the claim, Israeli propagandists will fall back on the claim that because Hamas does not tell the people of Gaza to leave their homes and choose to attack Israel, that they then are committing the act of using human shields, because they know Israeli airstrikes are going to kill civilians. They will point to Hamas public figures talking about Palestinians defending their homes with their bare chests, as some sort of evidence of this kind of human shield taking.

The problem for them is this, there has never been a documented case of Hamas using a human shield and what they are describing, is not of human shield taking; which is something very easy to understand. So when asked to present evidence, they pivot, point to a single Hamas speech that talks about how the people chose to defend their home by staying in it, after Israel threatens to bomb it, or they talk about how Hamas is at fault for fighting in the first place.

So, what about the idea that Palestinians are dying because Hamas somehow wants them to die, in order to use that to demonize Israel. Well, first of all, we have begun with accepting the premise that Israel will slaughter civilians in retaliation to any Hamas attack, which is in and of itself an indictment of Israel. Then, if we are to assume that Hamas wants to use the civilian deaths for its own propaganda, who are they trying to convince and for what purpose? Hamas, along with the dozen plus other armed groups inside of Gaza, all of which make up a massive number of armed fighters, are literally related directly or indirectly to the people that are being killed. This would mean that all of the fighters, which could amount to anywhere around 100,000 in total, are not only suicidal, but seek the deaths of their own families. From here, we would also have to assume — to make this theory work — that the Palestinian armed groups are trying to convince someone of Israel’s evil nature. So, who is it trying to convince exactly, the people of Gaza? Or are they trying to convince the international community? And to what end? Well, Israel never needs an excuse to attack Gaza and the Palestinians know well that the Israeli regime is against them, so they do not need convincing of this fact, their entire life there is hell because of the Israeli military blockade. As for the international community, since when has it ever worked to achieve anything in this regard by showing the world how barbaric the war crimes in Gaza are? The UN and collective West simply do not care to act, no matter how many people are massacred in Gaza, even if there are US citizens being killed.

So, the fact-free conspiracy theory depends upon the belief that Hamas has essentially encourage people not to leave their homes and this is supposedly because they want the civilians to die from the Israeli airstrikes that they know will kill civilians. In order for this to work, the Israelis are assumed to target civilians, but are not responsible for their own actions because Hamas could hypothetically want to kill their own people for the reason of having an argument that Israel kills civilians. Why do they need this argument according to the Hamas theory? Well, they need this argument, so that they can argue with those who argue that they are killing their own civilians, but knowing that their argument will get them nowhere. This is why Hamas officials and fighters have to have their own family members killed, for the sake of pointing to something that will be thrown back in their own faces.

Now, as a reasonably intelligent person, does the above explained theory make sense for anyone with a mere sprinkle of functional brain matter? Then, naturally, if you believe Hamas to be that stupid, how could they possibly have just tricked the Israeli military on October 7 and inflicted such a massive strategic defeat on them?

Beyond this, there are allegations being made against Hamas, that they are responsible for civilian deaths because they decided to build tunnels for their military infrastructure and not bomb shelters for their citizens. In order to explain this, we need nothing more than common sense. In the case of the Israelis, they all have bomb shelters and safe rooms in their homes, capable of protecting against the primitive rockets fired from Gaza. In the case of Gaza, most people live in apartment buildings, which when bombed will often fall into their own footprint, trapping anyone who takes to a shelter. Those shelters would also have to be massive and logistically hard to build in sand. Israel’s munitions are also such that ordinary bomb shelters would not be sufficient to house the people living inside the buildings in Gaza. On top of this, Israel routinely limits how much cement goes into the Gaza Strip, as it does with every single material sent through. Not only are Palestinians not wealthy enough in most cases to construct these shelters, but they also don’t have the materials necessary to make shelters that would be effective. The tunnel networks are estimated to be around 60 feet underground, some even lower than this, that’s why they are in many cases shielded from the impacts of Israeli missiles, but this is not always the case. Also, Palestinians have no alarm systems to warn them to take to shelter, nor do they have any early warning systems or laser-guided air defense weapons there. Another thing to keep in mind, is that Hamas does not decide the building plans for the homes built in Gaza, as it is often outsiders who fund and set up major building projects.

Complaints About The Lack Of Professionalism In Western Journalism

To finish off this piece — which we will likely follow up with a part three, given the sheer volume of lies that are being spread across mainstream media and social media about Gaza — I thought it would be well placed to make a note about Western media outlets that are reporting on what is going on. To begin with, it is very telling that MSNBC has suspended three Muslim journalists from its platform, so that there will be no dissenting voices from their pro-war narrative. Although, this is no surprise, as Moshe Arenstein, a former intelligence officer in the Israeli military, is a senior executive producer at MSNBC.

It is also interesting to see how all US media, from CNN to Fox News, bring on committed Zionist Jews who wear religious clothing, to talk “objectively” about the conflict. If they were to bring on an Arab, dressed in traditional religious garments, I think viewers would very clearly understand how biased that would appear, but unfortunately, when it is a white Jewish person, that’s somehow objective; case and point is Ben Shapiro, who has direct links to the Israeli government.

Although she did apologize for wrongly “confirming” the completely fabricated “40 beheaded Israeli babies” story, Sara Sinder of CNN is the best example of what is wrong with Western journalism. In a clip that went viral on social media, she is reporting live from Tel Aviv when rockets are fired from Gaza. She, being informed by her colleagues in the background, turns around to state that Hamas rockets can be seen behind her, before she is told that she is actually pointing at the Iron Dome air defense missiles attempting to intercept the rockets that were fired. Why this is the example I want to focus on, is because it demonstrates how under-informed Western journalists are when they are sent to cover conflicts in foreign countries. For anyone that has spent time in occupied Palestine, reported from there, or has simply reported on the conflict for any decent period of time, it is obvious, the difference between a Hamas rocket and the Iron Dome. Hamas rockets only leave a trail of fire and smoke when they are initially fired, by the time they reach an area as far as Tel Aviv, you will not see them in the night’s sky, they simply glide until they fall, or are shot down.

What happens with Western media outlets, is that their journalists who are sent to places like Palestine, are often shipped off to half a dozen different areas around the world to report on subjects they possess little actual knowledge on. They simply arrive in the assigned country, receive a fixer/s that will educate just about everything the journalist will report, then they also have translators and camera people, who will also do much of the work for them as well. These journalists do not speak Arabic or Hebrew, have very little knowledge of the cultures, conflicts and history that they are walking into, then simply appear on screen as a paid actor. This robs us all of the knowledge that we should be receiving. Personally, I do not blame these actors — most aren’t really journalists, but TV personalities — because they are just trying to pursue a successful career. I blame the entire culture that exists inside these media outlets themselves. It has gotten to the point where I only go to Arabic or Hebrew media most of the time, occasionally tuning into Western media when the odd piece of value is printed — this is because mainstream English speaking media does not help someone who actually knows the basics about Palestine-Israel.