Israel Reigning by Terror in the name of Self Defence – Part III- International Narrative Control
Narrative building is a skill in itself often ignored by audience and at times writers themselves, while editor and opinion builder may get preoccupied with the same. In the absence of logic audience build identities based on these opinions, and forgetting opinions are often grey areas and never permanently static. We the audience, often forget to look out for logic within the opinion, the context within which opinion evolved and the conceived purpose for expression of the opinion.
While all nations do spend some time in looking at the opinion formation and try to build it in a specific direction, it can be difficult when there are numerous, cultural, religion, linguistic and lifestyle differences as in the case of India. Earlier diversity was far more expected and within each state the language offered a veil and national government avoided tampering with the veil and put all the expressed opinion under a microscope, for without diversity in opinion knowledge cannot evolve and micromanagement can be difficult. But this has shifted with digital platforms becoming more centralised and given the scope of immediate language translation, this process of centralization is set to increase.
It is this centralization, that makes it extremely necessary that truth be told and not the convenient one. Unlike other nations, Israel has a preoccupation with others perception and to ensure specific opinion only find space in the world of communication, any criticism of Israel or its plans for greater Israel is to be silenced. At present, Israel along with United States, Germany and United Kingdom have chosen the path of control over narrative regarding Israel and other countries in Middle East, especially with regard to Palestine which it occupies, illegally.
How the narrative is controlled is very interesting:
1. Use of adjective, when Hamas action is to be described all possible negative adjectives are used, terrorist being one among the many. Reading an article from western media or listening to the news, audience would get the impression a democratic, freedom loving nation that adheres to rule of law is being attacked by some violent, uncouth, fiendish group. Strangely, this far from the truth, for all conflicts would end if Israel stopped its occupation and disown all the illegally build structures.
2. Stating the crime and the perpetrator is a basic fact that is expected, when Hamas is to be held accountable the main focus of media would be Hamas committed this crime, or if crime is sufficiently disturbing then it is likely crime is mentioned first and onus put on Hamas, even if verification is yet to be done. But in the case of war crimes of Israel, the title of news piece will never mention who is responsible, it would take a lot for western media to state IDF or Israel. Even the recent coverage of Turkish American citizen Aysenur Ezgi Eygi shot and killed by Israel forces. She is an activist who was protesting against the expansion of illegal Israeli settlement, at the time of being shot, she was standing with another person out in the open. Western media refused to mention IDF or Israel in the title, though there were witnesses for the incident and could provide details about the same. A witness, stated, that he was there and saw everything, first shot hit a metal piece and then hit a person standing close by and second shot was direct and hit the activist’s head. She did not survive though doctor at the hospital tried to revive her heart.
3. The spokespersons for western countries will be very diplomatic and will evade placing any blame on Israel, at the maximum, they will state it is a mistake. Strangely, United States identifies with Israel to such an extent, that their citizen’s rights can be ignored, unless they are Jewish by ethnicity. A clear example of the later is when an underground tunnel was build by youth from Jewish community in New York, no media or political group went on a witch hunt as would have been the case if youth Muslim community did the same act. Here everything was hushed up and soon out of news focus.
4. This subtle but not so subtle narrative control means truth will rarely find a space, for when an individual decides to speak the truth, the Israel and its supporters will ensure that either the narrative is discredited without facts, or author’s motive, capacity or skill are considered doubtful. As going against a trend can be difficult, time consuming and challenging, many would either ignore the difficult truth or avoid the topic all together. This happening on a daily basis on social networking sites, personally have been told by Israeli (cyber security personnel) that Israeli’s own the net, so either I should behave or get out of the networking site (LinkedIn). The point is that Israel takes on a Hitlerian approach and considers any critical thoughts about its onslaught on Gaza has to be silenced.
Beyond media, further into control on Academic narratives?
The impact of attack by Hamas has been researched upon for its impact on college students, “War Related Stress among Israeli college students from the October 2023 terror attack in Israel” and another research looked at “War-Time Stress and Sexual Well-being in Israel”. These studies have been referred only to indicate how narratives can be build at the international level thereby being a reference point for now and future, to shape opinions, research focus, policy relevance and funding for intervention. These are standard realities, but there is something else that happens with publications by Israeli on issues of Israel, they try to redefine the truth about the conflict between Israel and Palestine or Hamas. While publication by Israel being biased is not surprising but when international journals like International Journal of Sexual Health (published online by Taylor and Francis group) or publication by MDPI Switzerland, then reach of these publications being global the published articles are expected to adhere to certain standards. I would like to cite to reproduce some of the portions of these articles, and you can decide whether my concern are valid or not.
Issues of concern
None of the articles that come out of Israel will mention the fact that Israel is occupying almost all of Palestine in one form or other, but this bias is expected. What is surprising is that these articles are published in the current year, and none mention the real dimension and impact of Israeli onslaught on Gaza and West Bank and that Israel is the aggressor and not the victim as these articles point out to be. Even if these authors did not mention, it would have been part of academic rigour by the publishers to ask the authors to mention the same.
a) Text reflected reality, from “War-Time stress and Sexual Well-being in Israel”, as given in the section “Introduction”: “In addition to the boarder context of rocket barrages and border breaches it is important to highlight the more personal and invasive aspect of the conflict. This include the invasion of civilians’ homes, the murder of civilians within these intimate spaces, emerging evidence suggesting that sexual violence was not only a consequence but a deliberate part of the attack”.
Under section “Limitation and Future Research”, the text includes “...events of October 7th involved Systematic Rape and sexual assaults...”
“This underlines a critical dimension of warfare-induced trauma, when the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war has profound implication for psychological and sexual health”.
In the articles there is no mention about the onslaught on Gaza from 7th October by Israeli forces, on every nook and corner of Gaza and on all people in Gaza. The asserted systematic rape or use as a tool mentioned here have been questioned and disproved or stated there is no clear evidence, these realities have been glossed over.
b) Text from “War Related Stress among Israeli College students...”, under the Section Introduction and subsection Background, “Since the establishment of the State of Israel, it has been involved in a series of war, conflict and persistent invasion attempts by both Arab nation militaries and terrorist organisation”.
“ On 7th October 2023, Hamas and Several other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza strip into Gaza envelope of Southern Israel.. From 7th October onwards, thousands of missiles have been fired at Israel from different directions : Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq... the most lethal assault on Jews since the Holocaust, inflicting individual and collective trauma and stress upon the citizens of the State of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide.”
Here no mention of what was done to Gaza and West Bank by Israeli forces, no mention of the war crimes, total destruction of University, Libraries, Colleges and School. This article is published from Europe and widely distributed.
This process of Knowledge creation is not only biased and unjust it is also a blatant lie.
Links for articles mentioned above
Case Study 3, Scarred Innocence
Gaza will not have one single who has not seen, experienced and been impacted on by Israel’s onslaught on Gaza unlike the studies mentioned above for unlike Israel where attack was for half a day on specific localities, Israel has been having a field day across the Gaza strip from 7th October and now seems to want to replicate the same in West Bank. Here it is not stress that Palestinians experience but horror and constant fear that any second may be time for the fatal call.
Here giving a case of nine-year-old child, who has been scarred by two missile strike at her place of stay, she is not the only one for whom their face is a constant reminder that danger is around the corner. For children it's their lost limbs that never let them forget the past.
The child, Yara al Ghandour says: “I was beautiful. Now, whenever I see myself in the mirror I start Screaming”. “Why did Israelis do this to us?”.
“I hope war stops, we become beautiful again.”
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