Bibi is Hamas…
A note at the top of the two-page memo pointed to an instruction “from Mark” to pay attention to a particular paragraph under “coverage guidance”. The paragraph said that, while CNN would report the human consequences of the Israeli assault and the historical context of the story, “we must continue always to remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of civilians”. (Italics in the original.)
CNN staff members said the memo solidified a framework for stories in which the Hamas massacre was used to implicitly justify Israeli actions, and that other context or history was often unwelcome or marginalized.
“How else are editors going to read that other than as an instruction that no matter what the Israelis do, Hamas is ultimately to blame? Every action by Israel – dropping massive bombs that wipe out entire streets, its obliteration of whole families – the coverage ends up massaged to create a ‘they had it coming’ narrative,” said one staffer.
- CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’, The Guardian
By Gregg Wall (3-2-2024)
The Western corporate mainstream media (MSM) has been on a tear lately, not just failing to hold elites and the powerful accountable, but in providing narratives that simply are not true, half-baked, and/or ignoring key events, context, and facts altogether. In regards October 7, we have a form of MSM commission and omission, all the way to journalistic malpractice. Commission is doing something wrong… by way of example, reporting out unsubstantiated Israeli military sourced stories, like the, alleged, Hamas perpetrated beheading of babies and rapes (which were never proven or purported documentation & evidence was nonexistent or specious). UNRWA was yet another example, where's the UNRWA complicity with Hamas evidence? Then there’s omission, failing to do the right thing, that is to say, report all the facts. And hold American and Israeli militaries & politicians accountable based on those facts.
In regards omission, one of the greatest problems with Western media is failing to bring home, frequently and often, how much the Israeli military knew about October 7 in advance, and as importantly, how connected Bibi Netanyahu was with Hamas. That’s not to say, papers, like the NY Times, didn’t report out on Netanyahu’s connection with Hamas… his funding, oversight, and support of Hamas… but given how Hamas has become the focal point and justification for the genocide in Gaza, and the slaughter of children and women, one would expect the press to hold Bibi and Biden accountable. That is, America’s MSM and State Department love to remind everyone of the Oct. 7 reason for the genocide, but conveniently omit that Oct. 7 and Hamas was a direct result of the Israeli gov’s funding, oversight, and support for Hamas.
Once that narrative was adopted by the Western MSM (to wit: Hamas is the mother of all that is evil) no reporter, that I am aware of, ever bothered to go back and ask Bibi or Biden key questions. Wait, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. President … we are doing battle with Hamas, Hamas is less than 1% of Gaza’s population: and yet, Israel with U.S. taxpayer funded arms and munitions has killed 30,000 Palestinians (thousands of women and children); and yet, Bibi funded Hamas, Bibi supported Hamas, Bibi was the patron saint of Hamas, because that support thwarted a two-state solution; and yet, Bibi and the Israeli military were warned about the pending Hamas Oct. 7 attack (but stood down & conducted a rave)? Please explain why the U.S. taxpayer is paying Israel to murder thousands and thousands of women and children, surely they are not Hamas? Please explain what the resulting genocide does for America’s and Israel’s standing in the world? The answers to these questions are huge because if Bibi knew and stood down, deliberately (something we may never know because it involves intent), in light of the pending Hamas attack, this would call into question the Israeli government leadership and its morality in conducting this war… and reveal to all possibly other motives, such as colonization and a land/resources grab. Moreover, the Israeli government has been reported to have killed Israeli hostages. The Israeli government, again, has murdered thousands of Palestinian children in indiscriminate bombing campaigns, funded & supported by the U.S. taxpayer.
And the reason for all this, the justification, is Hamas and the events of Oct. 7. Given the importance of Hamas and the events of Oct. 7, one would think that any responsible news organization would want to delve into all this and hammer Bibi’s relationship with Hamas, and the security lapse of October 7th. The Oct. 7 Hamas breakout of the prison camp, the Israeli Prime Minister was camp comandante of… how did that happen? (We’d also want to know why the Congress of the U.S. was betting on defense stocks in advance of Oct. 7, and what exactly those members of congress knew, as reported by Unusual Whales) Interestingly, Bibi appears to be placing as much distance between himself and the pending Oct. 7 investigation as possible and is forever in search of a new Middle East war, with which to suck the American taxpayer into. What would the American public’s reaction be to the knowledge that Bibi condoned, funded, & oversaw the Hamas organization that operated within his Gaza prison (and what if the MSM - and the State Department - reminded the American public of this information every time they cited Hamas and Oct. 7 as the reason for the genocide)? Given the importance of Hamas and the events of Oct. 7, frequently cited by genocide supporters, Biden’s unflinching and unconditional support, and out of respect for the U.S. taxpayer… one would think the MSM would want to know what Bibi, Biden, Congress, and the Pentagon knew leading up to Oct. 7. And final questions:
Why should America continue to support Bibi Netanyahu’s government with billions in tax dollars… essentially funding social programs Americans can only dream of, like free college and socialized medicine… given how corrupt and compromised Netanyahu’ government obviously is? Since, per the State Department, Hamas is the sum of all evil, why hasn’t the U.S. arrested Bibi Netanyahu for his complicity & support for Hamas? How did a foreign government, Israel, come to control and manipulate the U.S. Congress (using taxpayer wealth no less)? What information does Israel have and hold over American politicians? What of the irrevocable damage, under Biden’s & Bibi's leadership, to United States' and Israel's respective reputations?
Why are so many of the editors, management, and reporters that work for corporate media so awful? Or are they really not awful and lackeys, but corporate ownership won’t allow them to do their jobs? Isn't it time to drop the partisan reporting and report the facts and the context?
The Ukraine has been back in the news because it was the two-year anniversary and Biden is screaming for tens of billions more in support for another fraudulent war. And once again, we have the MSM engaged in the act of commission and omission. For while there’s isolated reporting on the EU funding the Russian war machine and Putin’s ability to wage war, nobody ever asks EU leaders, Biden, members of Congress, or even Zelensky…. Why in the hell is the West fighting & funding this war when essentially, NATO is buying Russian Oil & Gas? Doesn’t the EU’s purchase of Russian oil & gas run counter to our goal of defeating Russian aggression and pushing Russia out of the Ukraine?
Unless the point of the Ukraine war is to replace Afghanistan with another endless, for-profit war, because America’s & Europe’s neoliberal economies now require perpetual debt and war to keep up appearances and GDP?
Shouldn’t the MSM be asking: Given the slaughter of innocent Ukrainians, the severe displacement... whom Western leaders appear very cavalier about… how the West can fund both sides of the war? None of this, of course, gets into why the war is being fought to begin with or the pretext, which is NATO’s failure to live up to its promise to Russian leadership, at the time of German reunification, not to advance NATO east into the former Soviet Bloc.
What we see here on the part of corporate MSM, consistently, is a massive abdication of responsibility and loss of journalistic integrity. A MSM more interested in trafficking in political narratives and the party line ... in support of endless wars & mass murder … rather than in providing context, facts, and truth with which the public can reach its own conclusions. Is this yet another benefit for elites in the massive consolidation of media organizations presently underway? It’s almost as if we need greater regulation of the Western MSM, complete with a full accounting of lies, half-truths, commissions, and omissions?
How would the American people feel, facing endless austerity and endless excuses for not providing fundamental social services (taken for granted throughout the EU, like Medicare for All or universal health care) … if they knew their tax dollars were going to fight a war in support of the Ukraine, while EU and NATO partners were funding Russia? Seems like a complete waste of good taxpayer money, does it not?
All this… the litany of lies, the selling of narratives, the peddling of propaganda… seems to point out journalistic fraud and malpractice on the part of MSM reporters, editors, and management. If politicians aren’t going to hold themselves accountable… and editors & reporters aren’t going to hold the oligarchy and politicians accountable… no wonder America increasingly looks like a failed state with $38 trillion in national debt and rising. Nobody questions any of it, particularly the MSM, but instead, corporate news dutifully trots out the party line, the elementary binary narrative. We might as well be reading Pravda?
No wonder Americans and citizens in the West are increasingly turning to social media and start up news organizations (aka the independent & investigative news media) as a source of information. Thank you Bad Faith, Grayzone, and so many other independent news organizations and podcasts for all the good work that you do.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024
