We like to talk how freedom of mass media is one of the bedrocks of civilisation but it seems that few understand its importance quite as much as terrorists who are routinely hijacking the broadcast, taking advantage of incompetence of modern day journalists.
As a result global reactions to the terror assault of Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023 are nothing compared to the hysteria about Israel's perfectly valid response.
This is despite the fact that the butchery perpetrated by Islamic extremists supported by Iran was the worst terror attack in history of the civilised world, in proportion to the population it affected.
When Al-Qaeda flew passenger airliners into World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, killing 3000 people on 9/11, the images of collapsing skyscrapers were relatable enough to spook the West into action and unquestioningly side with America.
What followed was a declaration of war by NATO and invasion of Afghanistan, which lasted over 20 years, as joint American and European forces were deployed to hunt down and kill all terrorists, while unseating the Taliban that enabled their existence and training.
Sure, some voices of resistance began growing with time, but vast majority of people accepted the necessary action, as the vision of dying on your holiday flight was too palpable.
The same cannot be said of Israeli kibbutzim, dotting the outskirts of Israeli Negev desert, which came under indiscriminate assault by Palestinian terrorists attacking from Gaza, which Israel withdrew from 18 years earlier.
Far fewer people can relate to Israelis losing their lives in a conflict which has been going on for over 70 years now.
Even fewer want to accept the necessary military response that followed, which is far more limited in scope than any hunt for Al Qaeda or ISIS terrorists has been, and which the same populations largely approved of.
This is how terrorists take advantage of the gullibility and ignorance of the global public and the incompetent, irresponsible media, thoughtlessly parroting their talking points and invented figures of allegedly dead women and children, portrayed as innocent victims of Israeli occupation.
Before our eyes Israel is being accused of genocide of Palestinian Arabs, even though two million of them are Israeli citizens, enjoying full and equal rights to Jews, and more civil liberties than they would otherwise receive in any actually Arab country.
Students in campuses in America, and less so in Europe, have staged antisemitic protests, often calling for a de facto erasure of Israel off the map (since this what the chant "from the river to the sea" actually means).
Meanwhile, chief prosecutor of ICC, a British-born Pakistani Muslim, is seeking to arrest Israel's democratically elected leaders for alleged crimes against humanity, equating them to Hamas terrorists.
Watering down genocide
With genocide being called the "crime of crimes" it's quite perplexing why the word is so irresponsibly thrown around.
Surely death of thousands or even tens of thousands of people amid a military conflict is a different category than planned, organised mass murder of millions in e.g. concentration camps. And yet an equals sign is being placed between them today.
The only logical explanation is not that Israelis are actually perpetrating genocide, because even Hamas' fake statistics don't bear that out, but that the messaging in the media is once again being hijacked for the purpose of framing Israel as a bloodthirsty mass-murdering regime that doesn't deserve to exist.
However, this strategy seems to be banking on the conviction that Israel is actually not going to ever do this.
You see, it only works when you consider it's a fundamentally civilised country, which you can pound with lies and it won't respond because a "real" genocide is an impossibility.
But what if it isn't?
We all know that Palestinians are quite fond of martyrdom but even it is based on the idea that more of them are born that die in battle.
If the broadcasters of the message ever succeed in isolating, alienating Israel on the global stage, with its leaders chased by international prosecutors, they would succeed in something that Sun Tzu warned about – pushing your enemy into a corner.
If you're already accused of genocide or even pursued for it by foreign lawyers, limiting your travel options to countries outside of jurisdiction of international courts, what difference does it make if you actually perpetrate it?
If you're labelling Netanyahu a genocidal maniac, why wouldn't he really become one? He's 75 years old, how much more does he have left anyway?
It's an open secret that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which it has developed as deterrence against neighbours who have for decades tried to wipe the country off the map.
But the most burning, pressing problem for the country is the persistence of Iran-funded terrorism at its borders, taking root in a national group clearly incapable of self-governance and overwhelmingly supporting terror and mass murder of Jews.
Given the Palestinian sentiments against Israel and Jewish right to existence, Israelis have still exhibited considerable restraint all these years.
But now its limits are being tested. And they are precisely because the authors of the antisemitic propaganda believe there's no way they could be breached.
However, not all in the Israeli society are convinced they should not.
In November of 2023, one of the far-right ministers intimated that using nuclear weapons in Gaza cannot be ruled out. And while he was suspended for a while, he didn't lose his job, while many in the Israeli society are already sharing his views, following decades of ceaseless attacks on their right to exist.
Palestinians have been offered a path to statehood several times, beginning in 1947, when instead of sitting down to negotiate they started a war, hoping that together with their neighbours they would quickly overwhelm the Jewish minority, driving it out or outright exterminating it right then and there.
They lost and for subsequent seven decades have been playing victims, despite the fact that they received far more international attention and money than any other stateless nation.
Given that they are incapable of self-governance even within the autonomy they already enjoy – Palestinian Legislative Council (i.e. the parliament) hasn't convened in almost 20 years now – and their armed operations are serving Iran more than they do achieving statehood, why shouldn't Israel treat them all as a terror threat that needs to be eradicated?
Yes, it's unrealistic today. Nobody in their right mind thinks Netanyahu could press the nuclear button and just wipe Gaza off the map. We wouldn't even know if he could do that individually.
But if Israel is ever successfully cornered and all else fails, why wouldn't it do what it is already so frequently accused of?
What difference would it really make if it clearly doesn't make any to the people accusing it of genocide already?
