The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Telegraph have all recently run pieces attempting to paint Russia and China as anti semitic and/or anti Israel. The propaganda comes as the US tries to discredit any attempts by Moscow and Beijing to lead more international involvement in the Palestine-Israel peace process.
Let’s start with The New York Times, which has run at least two articles in recent days in which the argument basically boils down to the following: some people in Russia and China say bad things about Jews on the Internet; therefore the governments are anti-Israel.
Here’s the New York Times in an Oct. 28 piece, “As China Looks to Broker Gaza Peace, Antisemitism Surges Online”:
But even as China seeks to turn down the temperature diplomatically, a surge of antisemitism and anti-Israeli sentiment is proliferating across the Chinese internet and state media, undermining Beijing’s efforts to convey impartiality. China has already come under pressure from the United States and Israel for its refusal to condemn Hamas for its Oct. 7 attack that started the war.
On China’s heavily censored internet, inflammatory speech critical of Israel is rampant, with commenters seemingly emboldened by that refusal. And China’s state-run media is seizing on the conflict to accuse the United States of turning a blind eye to Israeli aggression, while perpetuating tropes of Jewish control of American politics.
China Daily, a state-run newspaper, ran an editorial on Monday declaring that the United States was on the “wrong side of history in Gaza.” It said Washington was exacerbating the conflict by “blindly backing Israel.”
The piece goes on to mention other cases of private citizens making statements the Times deems questionable, such as an influencer with millions of followers who decided to call Hamas a “resistance organization” rather than a “terrorist organization.” The Times concludes:
It is hard to say whether the anti-Israeli positions in state media and antisemitism on the Chinese internet are part of a coordinated campaign. But China’s state media rarely veers from the official position of the country’s Communist Party, and its hair-trigger internet censors are keenly attuned to the wishes of its leaders, quick to remove any content that sways public sentiment in an unwanted direction, especially on matters of such geopolitical importance.
First off, I remember when news media outlets in the First Amendment-loving US used to criticize China for its lack of press freedom; but the New York Times is now accusing Beijing of not cracking down enough on its news media and online discourse in order to silence criticism of Israel and the US. Good luck with that.
Inherent in this complaint from the Times is a belief that China should not try to take a balanced approach to the conflict, it must “condemn Hamas” and it cannot criticize the US approach to the conflict, nor the US’ decades-long failure to broker a peace agreement.
What’s more is that the Times is in effect concluding that the comments of random private citizens (and the government’s inability or unwillingness to censor them) in a country of 1.4 billion people is therefore the official position of the Chinese government. If we apply that same standard to the US, how easy is it to go on Twitter, Facebook, etc. and find crazy comments by Americans? Is it fair to conclude that those rantings represent US policy? In many cases, they’re not far removed from Washington’s increasingly unhinged actions throughout the world, but that still doesn’t make them the official position of the state.
A Nov. 3 piece, “In a Worldwide War of Words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas” goes a step further and lumps China, Russia and Iran together as backers of Hamas. The headline itself is false, and it only gets worse from there. The nut:
Iran, Russia and, to a lesser degree, China have used state media and the world’s major social networking platforms to support Hamas and undercut Israel, while denigrating Israel’s principal ally, the United States….
The campaigns do not appear to be coordinated, American and other government officials and experts said, though they did not rule out cooperation.
What does the Times cite as evidence for these claims?
The Spanish arm of RT, the global Russian television network, for example, recently reposted a statement by the Iranian president calling the explosion at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on Oct. 17 an Israeli war crime, even though Western intelligence agencies and independent analysts have since said a missile misfired from Gaza was a more likely cause of the blast.
Well, non-Western analysts do not agree with the West’s version of events. And it would appear that the Times is arguing that RT (and other media outlets) should censor any statements by world leaders that do not have the stamp of approval from Western intelligence agencies.
Here’s another:
A profile on X that bore the characteristics of an inauthentic account — @RebelTaha — posted 616 times in the first two days of the conflict, though it had previously featured content mostly about cricket, they said. One post featured a cartoon claiming a double standard in how Palestinian resistance toward Israel was cast as terrorism while Ukraine’s fight against Russia was self-defense.
The Times does not mention that @RebelTaha has a whopping total of 18 followers (as of Nov. 5).
The Times goes on to list “false or unverified content” across a range of social media platforms. Who exactly is supposed to “verify” all this content? The Times doesn’t say, although one would be forgiven for thinking they want Western intelligence agencies to play a role given their criticism of RT en Espanol for running information that didn’t agree with “Western intelligence agencies and independent analysts.” Who is the Times’ source for all this unverified, anti-Israel, anti-US content?
It is Rafi Mendelsohn, vice president at Cyabra, a social media intelligence company based in Tel Aviv, and the Times says that the company has tracked down at least 40,000 bots or “inauthentic accounts” in the past month. The Times does not mention that two of Cyabra’s founders served in information warfare units in the Israel Defense Forces.
The Times concludes with this gem:
The war has heightened concerns in Washington and other Western capitals that an alliance of authoritarian governments has succeeded in fomenting illiberal, antidemocratic sentiment, especially in Africa, South America and other parts of the world where accusations of American or Western colonialism or dominance find fertile soil.
Russia and China, which have grown increasingly close in recent years, appear intent to exploit the conflict to undermine the United States as much as Israel. The State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which combats state propaganda and disinformation, has in recent weeks detailed extensive campaigns by Russia and China to shape the global information environment to their advantage.
This is getting closer to what’s at the heart of the matter. Aside from the Times’ yearning for mass censorship run out of Langley, its allegations that China and Russia harbor anti semitic and anti-Israel positions are part of an effort to discredit any of their efforts to become more involved in the peace process.
China and Russia have been entirely consistent in their positions and statements on the issue. They support a two-state solution, and they believe the decades-long US peace process has obviously failed. Even if you accept that the US has been operating in good faith in its efforts to find a solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict, the very fact that the current conflict is where the situation stands after 60 years would seem to support Russia and China’s claims.
The US, however, does not want other powers muscling in on its monopoly over the never ending Palestine-Israel peace process.
Currently, China and Russia are onboard with the vast majority of the rest of the world calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza and the US is increasingly isolated at the UN. Longer term, Moscow and Beijing are also trying to internationalize the Palestine-Israel peace process. Here’s what the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Oct. 8 – a position it has maintained throughout the current fighting:
The recurrence of the conflict shows once again that the protracted standstill of the peace process cannot go on. The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine. The international community needs to act with greater urgency, step up input into the Palestinian question, facilitate the early resumption of peace talks between Palestine and Israel, and find a way to bring about enduring peace. China will continue to work relentlessly with the international community towards that end.
On the long-term answer, Beijing shares ssentially the same position of the US: a two-state solution, (which the US at least says it supports although in practice it helps Israel make that reality increasingly difficult). The US wants to maintain a monopoly on this process that only ever grows more elusive under US guidance. China wants more involvement from the international community at the UN. The US, in turn, is stonewalling those efforts at the UN.
The New York-based China Project tries to paint Beijing’s efforts in the same light as The Times, but I think inadvertently shows how rational China’s position is:
China wants to portray itself as “a great power on the one hand but a different kind of great power from the U.S. that has this kind of kinship with the Global South,” said John Calabrese, an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service and a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “They’re trying to maneuver and shape their conduct in a way that can capitalize on that dual identity.”
This response is consistent with China’s decades-long diplomatic support for Palestine and calls for a two-state solution, even as China and Israel have developed a close economic relationship since establishing diplomatic ties in 1992. Beijing’s posture also aligns China with its partners in the Middle East and will serve its regional interests there.
Of course, the US insists neutrality is not an option for China – just like the conflict in Ukraine – as Washington prefers to paint political disagreements in terms of good and evil with the US naturally on the side of the angels. Western governments and media are apparently no longer capable of enough critical thought to realize geopolitics are more complicated than this and that viewing international relations in this light guarantees endless conflict.
But that is where we are. And the US, rather than voluntarily cede its almost complete control over the Palestine-Israel peace process, is attempting to discredit China and Russia with the charges of being anti-Israel and/or anti semitic. For example, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized China for not showing enough sympathy or support for Israel.
“I urge you and the Chinese people to stand with the Israeli people and condemn these cowardly and vicious attacks,” said Schumer.
Of course, even Schumer must realize that if China were to “condemn” Hamas and “stand with” Israel, its neutral position in any future peace negotiations would evaporate and it would harm China’s position elsewhere in the Middle East.
***
Elsewhere in the propaganda war to discredit China we have the Wall Street Journal running an Oct. 31piece about Baidu and Alibaba maps of the Middle East:
Internet users in China are expressing bewilderment that the name Israel doesn’t appear on leading online digital maps from Baidu and Alibaba, an ambiguity that matches Beijing’s vague diplomacy in the region and contrasts with its attentiveness to maps generally.
Baidu’s Chinese language online maps demarcate the internationally recognized borders of Israel, as well as the Palestinian territories, plus key cities, but don’t clearly identify the country by name. The same is true with online maps produced by Alibaba’s Amap, where even small nations like Luxembourg are clearly marked. Neither company responded to questions on Monday. It is unclear whether the development is new, though it has been discussed by Chinese internet users since war broke out.
China’s government has over the years cried foul and levied fines over maps published elsewhere online, such as on hotel websites, for failing to strictly adhere to Beijing’s territorial claims, like leaving off a nine-dotted line stretching around the South China Sea that isn’t internationally recognized.
The UK’s Telegraph ran a similar story, declaring it a “major provocation from China,” and more and more outlets picked up the story. Soon, it was “Chinese companies remove ‘Israel’ from digital maps as Xi backs Palestine.” Pekingnology, which is a project of former Xinhua reporter Zichen Wang, pointed out a problem with the Journal’s claims and another with its conclusion, writing that:
- It’s not a recent development with some questioning the labels as far back as 2021.
- China’s official map service shows both the names of Israel and Palenstine.
***
The Financial Times ran sloppy propaganda about an anti-Semitic riot at Makhachkala airport in Dagestan, Russia. Gilbert Doctorow has been all over that and you can read his insightful observations here and here.
Essentially a US and Ukrainian PsyOp helped instigate the chaos that was quickly brought under control by Russian police. It was, however, embarrassing for Moscow and not just the Financial Times, but also the US State Department pounced to make claims about pogroms in Russia. From RT:
Speaking during a press briefing in Washington DC on Monday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “I saw the video, as I’m sure all of you did. It looked like a pogrom to me.”
His assessment was echoed the same day by John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council in the White House.
“Some people have compared it to the pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th century, and I think that’s probably an apt description,” he stated.Kirby went on to allege, falsely, that the Kremlin had failed to condemn the Makhachkala riot.
Other news outlets like RFE/RL are now running pieces about Jews living in fear in Russia. Why? Much like with China, it was apparently Moscow’s failure to condemn Hamas and show enough support for Israel.
Of course, Russia, while maintaining a position on Palestine-Israel similar to China, has been much more outspoken in its criticism of the US, blaming Washington for not only failing to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israel but also claiming that its entire peace process has been a charade. While acknowledging that the Hamas terror attack started this current phase of violence, Russian President Vladimir Putin added the following at an Oct. 30 meeting with the Russian security council:
I will repeat again: the ruling elites of the United States and its satellites are behind the tragedy of the Palestinians, the massacre in the Middle East in general, the conflict in Ukraine, and many other conflicts in the world – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and so on. This has become obvious to everyone. It is they who install their military bases everywhere, who use military force on every pretext and without any pretext, who send weapons to conflict areas. They are also channelling financial resources, including to Ukraine and the Middle East, and fuelling hatred in Ukraine and the Middle East.
They are not achieving results on the battlefield, so they want to split us from within, as far as Russia is concerned, to weaken us and sow confusion. They do not want Russia to participate in solving any international or regional problems, including in the Middle East settlement. They are not satisfied at all when someone does not act or speak exactly as they are instructed. They believe only in their own exclusivity, in being allowed to do anything.
They do not need durable peace in the Holy Land; they need constant chaos in the Middle East. Consequently, they are trying hard to discredit countries that are insisting on an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, on ending the bloodshed, and that are ready to make a real contribution to resolving the crisis, rather than parasitising on it. They are even attacking, ostracising and trying to discredit the UN and the clear position of the global community.
I would like to note that, unlike the West, our approaches towards the situation in the Middle East have always lacked mercenary interests, intrigues and double standards. We have stated and continue to openly state our position, which does not change every year. The key to resolving the conflict lies in establishing a sovereign and independent Palestinian state, a full-fledged Palestinian state. We have repeatedly said this openly and honestly during our contacts with the Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
***
So what to make of the recent reporting from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Telegraph?
I think it can be argued that the quality and effectiveness of Western propaganda are slipping, for one. But it also makes sense, from a US perspective, to paint Moscow and Beijing in this light as Washington does not want China and Russia to play a role in any Palestine-Israel peace process – one that the US has monopolized for decades. The global majority is ready for a new, more even handed approach – as evidenced by the increasingly lopsided UN votes that sees the US evermore isolated.
So the US can try to weaponize charges of antisemitism against Russia, China and the majority of the world that opposes apartheid and ethnic cleansing, but it will only be forestalling the inevitable. As the relative power of the US declines, Israel will eventually have to take into account the position of the world majority.
Now there has been speculation that the neocons in Washington feel their time running out with the pliable Biden and so want to go big before going home by attacking Iran and others in the Middle East. Likewise, Israel might be trying to maximize all its territorial gains before Biden exits.
The sad irony in all this for the neocons and the Zionists is that their efforts to preserve their systems only result in more self harm, worsening their longterm position. And reasonably so because the systems they have constructed – whether apartheid or a global empire – were never sustainable.
Both are overextended, facing internal crises, believe all political problems can be solved with force, and both are in a perpetual panic about all their enemies – real or imagined. The good news is their actions are hastening their demise; the bad is there is no real limit to the amount of destruction they can cause.
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Blessed will be the day when US empire ends. But until then, it does seem like they’re still capable of a genocide or two. May the resistance give a bloody enough nose to Israel so as to discourage them from any further génocidaire business. If only there were anti-aircraft missiles in Gaza…
Both Israel and US seek to destroy any seemingly opposition, as threats. Their ‘security’ protected by the demise of potential adversaries, somewhat like the Thucydides trap.
With respect to Gaza the Sioux uprising of 1876 comes to mind. Has Israel selected their Custer from 7 Oct?
Defending crimes against humanity demand ad hominem!
Indeed, little limit:
https://www.indianpunchline.com/us-israel-to-open-second-front-in-lebanon/
A major effect of the processes described in the article is that the countries of the Middle East and other Moslem majority countries will become alienated from the US, and will be drawn to seek support from Russia and China. Even if the elites are not particularly inclined to do this (possibly for [personal?] financial reasons), pressure from their populations will drive them that way. This decline in US influence will become a self-supporting reaction, less influence leads to impotency which leads to even lesser influence. And vice versa for Russia and China. This can only be a good thing for the world.
It is also pointless for the elites to apply internal repression and censorship for causes they do not care about. The only novelty is that the West is applying those tools more openly than before.
Why is the MSM acting as a proxy for Israel? I have considered Israel an enemy of the US since the USS Liberty was attacked. It was an “achievement” that Hamas and its allies will never get in the future.
Iraq did get a free pass on its 1987 missile strike on USS Stark back when Saddam was our bloodthirsty tyrant.
…our bloodthirsty tyrant fighting against Iran. Another “unprovoked full-scale invasion” that was just fine with the U.S.
The MSM has long transitioned from news to narrative. And, look at the two papers quoted at length. I’m old enough to remember (and have voted for) Jesse Jackson. Remember “Hymie-Town”? (LA Times) There’s a kernel of truth to a stereotype. Comedians weaponize this for laughs, narrative tellers for outrage. It has just occurred to me the possibility that, although he stepped in it all by himself, Jackson got the Corbyn treatment before Corbyn.
Here’s a new two state solution, I think it was first suggested by Henny Youngman. Israel is a great idea, but they put it in the wrong place; it should be in upstate New York, the Catskills. Leave the Palestinians behind.
ha! and in another twist, the promised land of the Catskills, the Borsht Belt of yore,
is now settled by ultra-Orthodox communities — who are no fans of Zionism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell
It is tempting to speculate…
Look at the names of the owners, editors, reporters and advertisers?
Sounds like a major Overton Window emergency being declared by the solons at the NYT. I’m seeing the same thing from rightwing sources (or do I repeat myself?) where antisemitism charges are becoming ever more shrill. Turns out that people seeing attempted genocide on their TVs is bad for the PR business. Go figure.
Israel is a country, not a person or even the embodiment of Judaism despite declaring itself such. But it is necessary for American Jews to stand up and say “not in our name” and many are doing that to their very great credit. Undoubtedly this is what really has the NYT in a panic. The rigidly enforced groupthink is necessary to keep up the illusion that Israel represents not just itself but all those millions of people who don’t live there.
This is from some years back at DemocracyNow, which has always, imo, been quite good on Palestine:
DemocracyNow: Israeli Minister: “We always use the anti-Semitism trick or bring up the Holocaust!”
Because Israel’s policies are illegal and so egregious, the only real rhetorical defense they have is to conflate Israel/Zionism with Judaism and accuse everyone of being anti-semitic holocaust deniers. This is an ad hominem attack and should be viewed as a childish and pathetic attempt at debate.
However: Most Jews don’t live in Israel
Israel does not speak for all Jews
One way to look at it: The Zionists are the actual anti-semites because they claim mass murder, occupation, abuse of power, ethnic cleansing are what all Jewish people support. The desperation is so great, they call anti-Zionist Jews “Self-hating Jews”. All Jews must support the Israeli dictators I guess. Medea Benjamin, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Max Blumenthal, Dennis J. Bernstein and many other anti-Zionist Jews have spoken and written about this for years.
Of course, in a formal debate, ad hom smears will get you disqualified.
Mearsheimer and Walt as well
I have watched Democracy Now! for years and stopped right after Oct. 7th. That’s because for years that show has repeatedly been a pro-Palestinian propagandist mouthpiece. For example, if a Palestinian dies in the conflict, we are shown their photo, their name, their funeral. If an Israeli dies, we are shown nothing and the dead person is called a “settler.” There–and here–I see no discussion of the millennia-long Jewish connection to the land because that would demand Jews be recognized as indigenous. Nazis killed my family in Poland and eyewitness descriptions of that massacre pale in comparison to what Hamas did. If Israel does not root out and kill every member of Hamas, then there will be more massacres of Israelis in the future. But apparently many posters here wouldn’t mind that.
As I said, I am getting tired of your hasbara and now obvious Making Shit Up. I warned you you were on the verge of being blacklisted. Of course you will try to rationalize this as due to our views of the wor, as opposed to your repeated violations of our written site Policies. However, it regularly happens that commentators who oppose commonly held views here resort to violations of house rules in trying to defend your belief.
Rest assured you are being banned SOLELY for persistent bad faith argumentation.
Your claims are false. Far too many Palestinians have died in Gaze for Democracy Now, with its show time limits, to even approach showing every or even a large percentage of Palestinian deaths, which greatly outnumber Israeli deaths. That’s before getting to the fact that many are buried in the rubble and their bodies are yet to be found (and may never be found).
Second, it has now been revealed that many who died at the rave and the settlements were due to IDF fire. You can say Hamas was ultimately responsible, but IDF over-reaction and panic played a role.
Third, as Scott Ritter and others have pointed out, with references. the founding fathers of Israel recognized that pursuing their claims would require the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Fourth, it has been airbrushed out of the official narrative that Hamas put out peace feelers after they unexpectedly came to power in 2006. See Norman Finkelstein for details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R49v3K29mM
Fifth, you also omit over that Israel has had a policy of systematic murder of Palestinians with its “mow the grass” approach.
Sixth, Israel as an occupier does NOT have a right to self defense under international law.
I trust you will find you happiness on the Internet…elsewhere.
The TV and MSM newspapers are doing the best they can to elide that cold reality. The fact is the truth is seeping out first and foremost on the internet, on social media generally, on the recently de-GEC-ed X in particular, and I suspect increasingly more alternative media as the MSM continues to abysmally fail the public on this story. To be fair even the American pundits are starting to get clod feet/professional jitters, but this is a certainly delayed reaction.
I think it’s fair to say the internet has prevented a genocide. We’re not in a Yugoslavia style situation now because enough people were able to research and call out themselves their own governments complicities in these events.
The closest equivalent internet related shake-up I can think of is either the coverage of the 1991 Russian coup.
Mad about cricket, but also Palestinians when the blood starts to flow — the best bet is a Pakistani or Bangladeshi. In other words, a very probable combination. Times is dredging the bottom.
So much of government control these days is what I call narrative control and people like Obama were masters of this. Even Trump can do it when it suits him. They spin the stories and let people know how to act. An example is the media saying that they pandemic is over now because that is what the government wants and is demanded by big business. In such an environment, papers like The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Telegraph took the lead and even set the standards that all other publications and media were expected to control as they were the ‘elite’ media. It was a cozy set up and most journalists took an active part in it to further their career. But the past few years the wheels are getting wobbly and now these publications are in a panic as more and more people are ignoring them. Why? Because we are seeing massacres and war crimes in real time and at least 3,000 children in Gaza have been killed. Can you picture a cemetery with 3,000 children’s graves? The media tried to normalize it and kept on saying that Israel ‘had a right to defend themselves’ but fewer and fewer people are buying it anymore. The war crimes are on such an epic scale that it long surpassed the standard set for genocide. But still the media tried to spin it away and a journalist said recently in the space of a few seconds how some Israelis had been killed and some Palestinians had died. All the good-thinkers put out Ukrainian flags two years ago but I doubt that they will do so now for Israeli flags. The modern media is not fit for purpose.
Serbia was accused of genocide and attacked and bombed for 80 days in 1999 because of a mass grave of 30 unidentified men…
Do you think it unfair that Serbia was held partly responsible for war crimes committed by Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian civil war? From what I recall from German media at the time, the West viewed the Bosnian Serbs as a proxy of Serbia, since their longer-range aim seemed to be that, sooner or later, the exclusively Serb “republic” Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic’s forces were carving out of Bosnian territory would be folded into Serbia proper.
In my recollection, public opinion in Germany and the Netherlands was massively swayed by eyewitness testimony of the Dutch peacekeepers about a massacre in Srebrenica — not just the discovery of a mass grave after the fact?
So, the Guardian US takes a stab at explaining Palestine and it is far from the worst of M$M efforts. I’ve only found it today, 11/7 though it was from 10/18/23. Maybe I missed it previously or perhaps it had been shelved.
Whichever, it still doesn’t have the emphasis that I would have placed on the vast injustices put upon the Palestinians.
What are the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict?
Per the Guardian at 8:05 EST, 11/7/23
Death toll in Gaza rises to 10,328 Palestinians, including 4,237 children – health ministry.
And as far as the Guardian and similar western propaganda sheets go, tis a mystery how they died, they just did.
I’m waiting for the COVID-like explanations: “Oh, those people would’ve died anyway. Poor sanitation. Bad lifestyle choices. Too old[young]. Fake news!” This could attract the same people who believe in the triad of “COVID a hoax”/”massive 2020 voting fraud”/”climate change a fake non-issue” that some websites still promote fervently.
The US, as a nation whose culture glorifies bullying and kicking the weak even harder when they’re down, has many points of affinity with Likud-run Israel. As Biden said, we’d have to invent them [what he didn’t say: as the outward manifestation of our collective id] if they didn’t exist.
Has Russia or China said attacking Iran is crossing the red line for them?
That hasn’t been made clear and ultimately is what would make a difference.
Suspect they are themselves not fully decided on that.
One one hand they clearly don’t want war with the US, which will catastrophically hurt them even when they ultimately win, and almost certainly not for Iran’s sake either, but on the other hand they know they cannot allow their perhaps strongest and most reliable ally be destroyed by the Empire.
And not only for because of Iran itself but also because how it would look like to the other BRICS countries and candidates.
If China and Russia do nothing to prevent the destruction of Iran, no BRICS or adjacent country will ever be or feel secure from american aggression and the Empire will get a huge boost, born of pure terror, and strengthen it’s grip once more, despite the fact that global hatred of it will also grow beyond the extremely high level it already is at.
Not that the neocons care, they relish being feared and prefer their power being based on intimidation and the stick.
Doctorow recently made it sound like at least elements of the russian pundit class are disappointed about Arab countries’ or rather Arab leaders’ cowardice and apparent unwillingness to do anything more than give speeches and symbolic gestures.
I suspect that in Russia in particular some of the hardliners that have accepted that the Empire will ultimately have to be defeated in the battlefield probably think that this burden should not be placed on Russia alone (as it seems the rest of “the Resistance” would ideally like it to be).
But I also don’t think that is the position of the Kremlin, far from it, at least for now.
Direct intervention is almost certainly out of the question, but support for Iran in a way similar to that of NATO for Ukraine probably should be the minimum and quite doable.
Some say Russia should have started visibly pumping advanced airdefense and such into Iran already, but of course the neocons would take that as more reason to attack and as long as Moscow and Beijing still both want to prevent war and have hope that it might be preventable they seem to be hesitant to do that.
But if the Biden Regime wants war with Iran no matter what, Russia and China are probably wasting valuable time.
For me, I am waiting for us pop to say enough, though that’s a fantasy. It took many years for the Vietnam protests to matter, and 500k kids didn’t stop anything in Iraq.
Russia and China have a different calc, why stop the enemy when it’s making a major mistake? Russia has been very patient as ukr throws its men against canons. In this case the us is driving the global south into the BRICS as fast as they drove Russia, China, Iran and n Korea together. Plus, s Korea looks a little shaky.
The west is gonna be lonely trading with each other.
My humble personal view is that nothing short of a nuclear attack would ever be effective to push Iran and Iranians to submission to the desires of the US and this particularly psychotic Israeli government. And I also fear that might be what happens. The MSM headline will be “Millions of Iranians feared dead in blast” or some such. 😔
In Britain, the government and Jewish groups are desperate to block further massive protest marches in many parts of the country, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. This Saturday, another big march is planned in London, several hours after the 11/11 wreath laying ceremony in Whitehall, and not even going through Whitehall. The police are trying to stop it, the government has labelled it a hate march, the right wing media are claiming it is being organised by Hamas (!), and several prominent Jewish figures are likening it to anti-semitic pogroms where Jewish people are suddenly terrified of stepping outside their homes. The propaganda is relentless and there is literally not even a cigarette paper width difference between the policies of the two main parties. Both Sunak and Starmer are all in for Israel and its ‘self-defence’.
Though Starmer is facing some internal problems.
Oh, the good old yellow journalism has permeated in the entire British media and reached the highest levels of government… Reeks of desperation.
The pattern of citing social media statements out of context of source or influence is taken from the Russiagate/Hamiltion 68 Hoax. It makes me wonder if a Times reporter just happened across this obscure social media account, or whether they get tips from some QGO, feeding them stories without the beard of an official “Russia Bot Tracker”.
Losing control of the “Official Narrative” was a seminal event in the turning away from Washington’s Indochina Adventure back in the early 1970s. When Walter Cronkite came on the Evening News to voice doubts about the ‘wisdom’ of sending more of everything into the cauldron of Vietnam, the jig was up.
Today, the Information Field is broader and more diffuse. The amount of effort needed to ‘control the Narrative’ is correspondingly greater. Even with automated assistance, such an endeavour takes more time and resources to accomplish than it took before. Today’s “Thought Leaders,” as is par for this course, are underestimating the amount of resources needed to accomplish this “control of the Narrative.” Expect to see their efforts at control become more and more desperate and less and less in touch with reality. A reality more and more defined by the “rest of the World” rather than the Old Guard Information Gatekeepers of days gone by.
To overuse a metaphor, today’s Western Thought Leaders are not trying to get in front of a mass demonstration and trying to call it a “Parade,” they are trying to characterize it as a “Riot” and thus legitimate calling in the Organs of State Security to suppress it.
The New York Times had best rewrite it’s masthead motto. It is no longer, “All the News that’s fit to print,” but now, “All the Propaganda that’s fit for purpose.”
Add to all this the remarkable video essay by Gabor Mate on YouTube, who as a former Zionist, brings unassailable credibility into his knowledge of history and assertion of Israel’s violent culpability…
My, the already flexible definition of anti-semitism just keeps expanding.
the biggest difference is that everybody and their dog has a film studio in their pocket.
2 viral vids…now from weeks ago…did it for me:
1. a reporter guy in Gaza, geared up, riding in a car with 2 bloody babies in his lap…
and 2. various vids from inside Gazan hospitals(when they still had hospitals) of children shaking uncontrollably….just sitting there, glassy eyed, shaking.
those 2 have become brainworms, for me.
hasbara aint got nothin to compare.
it also doesnt likely help that so many israelis have taken it upon themselves to post videos of them and their kids cosplaying bloodied palestinians, turning on and off lights, drinking from faucets…let alone all the vids of israelis on hillsides with lawnchairs watching the genocide and cheering…like its a frelling cricket match.
It’s only been 22 years since 9/11 but for the US empire it’s been the great unraveling. The American empire is now in essentially unstoppable decline. Certainly there are things that could be done to stop it, but they will not be done.
Francis Fukuyama’s book should have been called the End Of Empire, rather than the End of History, and the whole Project for the New American Century should have been titled: the Project for the Steep Decline of the American Empire.
A large part of why this is so is because the people running the US are insane, but there’s also the elephant in the room that’s in the news lately with its focused genocidal project.
There is considerable evidence to suggest that the forever wars in the Middle East were instigated by the neocons at the behest of Israel. The plan was, and is, to fragment the Middle East, to protect American and Israeli oil and strategic interests there, and to subdue any resistance to the liberal order.
As Professor John Mearsheimer put it in his interview last Friday with Judge Napolitano (starting at 1:34): “The fact is the United States and Israel are joined at the hip. There are no two countries in recorded history that have a closer history that have a closer relationship than the United States and Israel. And when this crisis broke out on October 7, President Biden made it very clear we would give Israel whatever aid it needed, and that meant both weapons and money, that we would support Israel to the hilt. And we have done that.”
If the US managed to crush Iran (and if China and Russia were seen doing nothing to prevent that) it would be an enormous blow to all forms of resistance to the Empire.
The US wasn’t able to crush goat herders in sandals with kalachnikovs… What does it lead you to think it can crush a country like Iran?
I don’t necessarily think they’ll manage to do it at all.
But the other side is, people who already are largely goat herders have less to lose and present less Juicy targets.
A pretty damn sophisticated country like Iran with proper, pretty damn sophisticated armed forces is of course on one hand a vastly more powerful opponent.
And I totally think they may well brutally bloody american and israeli noses enough to drive them away (hopefully without making them freak so much that they press any big, red buttons).
But it’s not a sure thing either if the US really goes all out and and even if they retreat they can wreak a huge amount of havoc on the industries and overall economy that Iran worked so hard to successfully build up despite decades of relentless sabotage and naked terrorism from the US, Israel and their proxies.
And the moment this devastation were make any rifts in iranian society to open up wider, even if only temporarily, the US would immediately try to pour oil into that fire, as they always try to do.
“the people running the US are insane”…
You could certainly say so. With aircraft carriers, and now a nuclear sub in the Eastern Med, it is without exaggeration that we could soon be involved in a death spiral of nuclear war. These maniac neo-Cons, wrong over and over, can’t seem to get enough of the abjectly stupid decisions they make; their response is to double down with more of the same, and for some inexplicable reason, they always find their way into the bowels of the latest administration. Perhaps these conspiracy theorists, who believe the Deep State is in control in this country, may have a point. It is all so very discouraging.
The West cares nothing about majorities, except when convenient to their interests.
The West cares solely about power, and for now at least, power lies in their hands.
The old West was willing to pay for that power, with their own blood and treasure so that the “power” they got was real. The new West has neither treasure nor blood. Whatever “power” it thinks it’s conjuring up are turnip ghosts, minus the turnip. There is enough institutional inertia, left over from the old days, that the Rest don’t want to openly fight the West, but the West is busy subverting these institutions by itself while imagining that’s making them stronger. This is not a tenable situation because the West simply cannot get what it wants, the way it wants to.
Thanks for being an oasis of reality-based compassion in a sea of bloodthirsty warmongering.
The warmongers and their acolytes have been busy but they are losing badly, hence the desperation. One of the things that is notable about this installment of the horrible ongoing conflict is the increased numbers of Jewish people and groups taking to social media to scream passionately “Not in our name!”. This has left team Zion scrambling more than before. They can’t control the narrative when Jewish people are the ones protesting, getting arrested and going viral on TikTok (thanks so much for that tweet the other day in Links – defo gonna find and follow that woman).
I’ve been saddened recently to see some people in my social circles engaging in straight up emotional manipulation and IDF talking points parroting. Holding my tongue but countering their lack of understanding and compassion elsewhere online.
Both Israel and the US are copying the Animal Farm system: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Conor. Thank you. An amazing summary. I’m speechless.
The Israelis and the US ruling elite ultimately have nobody to blame but themselves. After winning in 1967, the Israeli government and people should have treated the Palestinians with much more humanity.
Instead, we are seeing them determined to steal the little land that the Palestinians still have, commit crimes that they once condemned Germany for doing during WW2, and essentially burn bridges with the world outside of the West. It is a tragedy that Israel, a nation born because of the events of WW2 would do something similar to the Palestinians.
As far as near the article, there was a point on the quality and effectiveness of Western propaganda slipping, I would argue that this is due to the lies being so blatant that they can’t be covered up.
An example, around March of 2022, we started hearing endless stories about the possibility of Russia running out of ammunition and anyone who said otherwise was subject to ad hominem attacks on a scale that resembled the McCarthyist era. It’s now nearing the end of 2023, with the Russians having an industrial base that has substantially increased the amount of military ordinance produced, while ironically, it is the NATO nations along with their Ukrainian puppet regime that are struggling with ammunition. No amount of smooth talking can conceal that military reality.
Another example may be after 2003 when the US invaded Iraq. No amount of propaganda could conceal that the US had lied about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction.
The same could be said about the US and Western propaganda around Israel. The lies are so blatant and so bold that they are impossible to conceal. Images of attacks on civilians, and a siege of Gaza that is clearly intended to slaughter large numbers of people cannot be concealed. No amount of propaganda and censorship can conceal this. Not in the digital age where its easier to find information.
The point I want to emphasize is that they did this to themselves. The US ruling class could have adopted a very different foreign policy in the aftermath of WW2 and the Israeli government should have done so as well. Now the blowback is happening and they have managed to unify the non Western world against them.
I have been saying for a while now to the Western corporate media organs, “better lies, please.”
Oops minor typo above – meant “Near the end of the article”.
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In regards to better lies – the problem is that the reality of the situation has deteriorated to such a degree where “better lies” can’t be told.
There’s no concealing Ukraine’s desperate and declining military situation anymore. There’s no way to hide that the Israeli government has no justification for its response and is a completely inappropriate overreaction that could be considered a crime against humanity.
Try as they might, they Western world has hit the limits of propaganda.
Humankind didn’t need a sequel to this book, least of all one where the malefactors are Israel and the United States. Yet here we are.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from
RwandaGazahttps://duckduckgo.com/?q=philip+gourevitch+genocide+rwanda+tomorrow+killed+with+families
Iraq apologized for the missile strike, saying it was a mistaken identity situation, and established a 400 million dollar reparation for the killed and injured soldiers.
I grew up in apartheid South Africa. The right wing Afrikaner government did evil things. But nothing approaching what is happening now in Gaza. This is evil on a terrible scale.
And props to South Africa for pulling all their diplomats from Israel (via BBC).
Yes. I’ve heard they might be about to expel the Israeli ambassador. The South African government hasn’t been doing much right lately, but here they’ve done it.
Back in the day the apartheid government cooperated with Israel on weapons development. Both countries were international pariahs at the time. Which was terribly ironic, given that the governing white National Party had a history of actual anti-semitism. Not the current fake kind. And they had wanted to side with Nazi Germany.
One of the areas of cooperation was nuclear. Perhaps a way for the good old USA to keep its hands clean in the theatre of public opinion? Thankfully, to my knowledge, the nuking of black townships was never openly discussed.
However what did start happening around that time was the arrival of American fundamentalist Christianity.
Rumour has it that the NZ prime minister elect, ex CEO of Air New Zealand, is one of them. But the local media is strangely silent in what is a very non religious country.