Norman Finkelstein eviscerates the New York Times in his tweet thread "The Whores of War" about Al-Shifa.
Norman Finkelstein eviscerates the New York Times in his tweet thread "The Whores of War" about Al-Shifa.
THREAD:
The Whores of War
A hospital houses society's most vulnerable and defenseless.
If an army can get away with targeting a hospital for annihilation, then it can target the entire population with impunity.
Al-Shifa is Gaza's flagship hospital.
It currently houses 60,000 Gazans: infants, elderly, the physically and mentally disabled, as well terrified refugees seeking haven.
In Israel's bloodlust eyes, al-Shifa carries a huge symbolism: the last obstacle and threshold to its War of Annihilation.
The institutions of depraved Western "civilization" are currently waging a propaganda campaign on behalf of Israel's Final Solution to the Gaza Question.
The European Council has just issued a statement that the "EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields by Hamas."
This writer has exhaustively scrutinized the human rights record. No credible evidence exists that Hamas has engaged in "human shielding."
Whereas, there's voluminous evidence that Israel has used Palestinians as human shields.
Today, the New York Times ran a story overflowing with Israeli "proof" that the basement of al-Shifa hospital contains Hamas' "vast command complex."
The Israeli story comes straight out of the iconic 1960s television series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement). A trap door in the dressing room of Del Floria's Tailor Shop opened into the sprawling U.N.C.L.E headquarters.
The Times states that "Senior Israeli intelligence officials allowed the Times to review photographs that purported to show secret entrances to the compound from inside the hospital. Signs identifying the location as Al Shifa were clearly visible in the photographs, though their authenticity could not be independently verified."
What prevents the Times from publishing these damning photographs? A snapshot of these Hamas entranceways would hardly endanger Israeli state security.
Or better still, the Times takes pride in its investigative sleuthing that has garnered it numerous Pulitzers.
What prevents a Times reporter from tracking down the "secret entrances" inside the hospital that are "clearly" marked in the photographs by "signs" right outside them and then taking a peek inside?
I find it exceptionally difficult to trust the instincts and assurances of the publication that unquestioningly stenographed the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had WMDs.
They also took the side of slave-owners during the confederacy and wrote fluff pieces on Hitler during his rise to power. They have literally been on the wrong side of history for centuries, I don't think you can find any other publication on earth with that kind of track record.
New York Times was also invited by Gaddafi to take a look at Libya's democracy and they made it sound like a terrifying police state, despite Gaddafi apparently having proposals that Libyan (Congress?) rejected, including a proposal of his to get rid of the death penalty.
The New York Times and most major US media outlets still do the same with China, hell they do it with Russia. They claim both nations have brutal "strongman" dictators then do this weird Xi or Putin pop psychology voodoo to come up with fanciful stories about personal motives separate from that of the national population to explain all actions those countries take.
What's headache inducing is all this "analysis" western media pundits do doesn't line up with reality because what is actually driving both China and Russia is a democracy, maybe not a western liberal democracy but democracy none the less. For Russia in particular everything becomes a lot easier to understand from a western perspective when you start following both Russian congressional politics at the federal level and then local politics in the various states. Rather than Putin seeming to be some dictator with a schizoid personality, you suddenly can see all the different political forces pulling against each other united by a strong sense of federal national identity and the deep psychological scars from the tragedies played out in the decade following the dissolution of the USSR. Putin literally is the "safe candidate" for all the major Russian political factions and someone who will not repeat selling the nation out like happened at the end of the USSR.
I guess the TLDR is western media does this with all of the wests designated enemies, that it always involves a lot of cartoonish fantasy and hand waving rather than looking at the reality.
One thing that continues to prove to me that Israel is completely lying about everything they have been claiming to have been happening since Oct 7th is their lack of providing any proof of any of it. Of course they have been lying about basically everything since they took the land, but this is specific to this current round of bullshit. It is constantly them just passing along "information" to their media and to outside media and governments all about all the "crimes" from Hamas. The beheading babies shit is the easiest example for being a perfect charge that would be spread far and fast knowing outlets wouldn't walk it back with any of the same effort as they did spreading the profit driving sensationalism. They at the same time refuse to acknowledge literally every bit of video and photographic proof that both the Palestinians as a whole and Hamas as a group have been making damn sure to get out to the world showing what is happening. One major bit of fucked up irony with the Zionists that claim the Holocaust victim card to justify everything. The main reason so so many videos/photos/documents/etc that were taken and shown to media/govs/people about the utter next level fucked up shit that happened, was because it was so unbelievable that proof was absolutely needed. After a certain point it just seems like exaggerations if just simply told about it without actually seeing it in as many formats as possible. If those babies were actually beheaded like the IDF/Zionists/Israeli media have claimed. Then they would have absolutely provided videos and pictures to anyone and everyone to see how "savage" the Palestinians and Hamas literally are. But they haven't and therefore it didn't happen and they know it.