The unjustifiable war in Gaza

Writer Ernest Hemingway said in 1946, “Never think a war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” A morally justified war, where the use of force is considered to be the last resort to restore peace, is known as a just war. However, this very notion of a just war monopolises ethical and legal thinking about waging the war. The influence of Zionist lobbies is overpowering in the Western media, suppressing Palestinian and pro-Palestine voices and presenting Israel’s cruel ideology, Zionism, as a just cause to carry out heinous acts in Gaza, the occupied West Bank (including Jerusalem) and latterly Lebanon.

By using the Western media as a propaganda tool to impose the Zionist narrative, and — above all — intimidate and slander opponents, as well as embellish lies, Western governments have legitimised prejudicial statements as facts. According to a PEW Research Centre report issued months into the Israeli war in Gaza, six out of ten Americans (58 per cent) think that Israel has solid reasons to target the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.

The mainstream media has a major role to play in the propaganda process.

The New Arab analysed headlines from four of the UK’s most popular newspapers, looking at 617 internet articles on Gaza and Israel from the Times (112), the Telegraph (106), the Sun (114) and the Daily Mail (285) from 7 October 2023 to 7 February 2024. The Sun alone attracts almost 30 million readers per month. The headlines were then tested for bias using three criteria: utilising a lot of emotive language to describe Israeli pain; exaggerating Israeli justifications for violence; and qualifying the killing of Palestinians.

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The ongoing claim of a link between Hamas and ISIS/Daesh is part of a concerted campaign to portray all Palestinians as “terrorists”, even though resistance against military occupation is legitimate under international law. This narrative makes it easy for people to empathise with Israel while desensitising them to Palestinians. As a result, people are generally more inclined to believe that Israel is the victim, while the mass slaughter of Palestinians is normalised. Disinformation is a major part of the pro-Israel propaganda used during the occupation state’s genocide in Palestine. The Times in London published images under the headline “Israel releases pictures of mutilated babies” and claimed that the babies were killed by Hamas on 7 October. French newspaper Le Monde revealed that no babies were beheaded during the cross-border incursion, a fact confirmed by the Israeli government press office.

The US government described the Hamas incursion as an “unprovoked terrorist attack”. The word “unprovoked” echoed across the media and was invoked frequently by politicians. Such language encourages the audience to consider Israel’s reaction to be “self-defence”, a claim also pushed out regularly by Western politicians and media commentators. No right to claim self-defence exists for an occupying power against the resistance of the people under occupation.

The second component of propaganda, establishing pre-attack legitimacy, is simply the justification of Israel’s indefensible and disproportionate response in such a distorted way that makes the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians and war crimes “acceptable” to the general public. For example, the BBC disseminated the Israeli claim that hospitals in Gaza were being used as cover by Hamas fighters the day before a hospital in Gaza was bombed by the occupation forces.

The third phase of Israeli propaganda is intended to dehumanise the victims of the so-called Israel Defence Forces.

Hence, we saw the Sun headline: “EVIL UNLEASHED Hamas ‘b******s’ roasted babies alive in ovens during massacre, medics reveal as scale of terrorist depravity laid bare.” No evidence was produced for this outrageous claim.

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The Western media has focused largely on Israeli victimhood, ignoring the Palestinian perspective. The Israeli government is “throttling” access to the Gaza Strip; foreign journalists are not allowed in (and at least 177 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli troops since October last year) and humanitarian aid is prevented from being delivered. The policy is to starve the Palestinians into submission, but this is denied by the occupation regime and its supporters in the West.

Israel has destroyed civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, universities, places of worship (churches as well as mosques) and homes, all while claiming “military necessity” to do so. No evidence for such necessity is ever provided. While entire neighbourhoods were being destroyed, killing and burying local residents alive in the process, senior Western officials, including the US president, propagated fake news, including tales of Israelis being burned and decapitated, as well as women being raped. The latter claim has been debunked.

The very real sexual abuse of Palestinian men and women by Israeli soldiers has been given nowhere near as much coverage by the mainstream media.

Moreover, despite the International Court of Justice stating in January 2024 that “plausible genocide” is being committed in Gaza, Western politicians refuse to use the g-word in their comments, and the media still puts it out as “genocide”, thus casting doubt in readers’ minds. For too many journalists, commentators and politicians, history began on 7 October 2023; the context of the Hamas incursion is absent from the narrative; 76 years of occupation, ethnic cleansing and slaughter are ignored.

The list of Israeli massacres of Palestinians is long and stretches back to 1948: Deir Yassin; Tantura, Kafr Qasem; Sabra and Shatila; Ibrahimi Mosque; Jenin; Gaza (in 2008/9, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021) to name but a few.

An unjust war of aggression can be fought by just means, and a just war of supposed self-defence can be fought unjustly. At the end of the day, though, war is still a crime.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.