"In truth if you look at all the death, destruction, suffering and pain that Israel has inflicted on Gaza since October 7, there is no question that Israel is vastly more vicious, brutal and murderous than Hamas has ever been, and so are its allies who are supporting its actions. The only way to believe otherwise would be to psychologically hide away from the reality of what’s actually happening, which is as truth-based and mature as the kid with her hands over her eyes saying “Now you can’t see me!” Caitlin Johnstone. Which about sums up the sickness infesting most of the supporters on this site for the Israeli genocide against the Gaza Palestinians." Is this your understanding & view point?
"The belief that these attacks should be considered less vicious and brutal because they are launched from a distance by people who won’t see their effects is as psychologically immature as a little girl who believes you can’t see her because she has covered her own eyes. An attack which kills and maims and tortures doesn’t cease to be brutal and vicious just because it looks like a blip on a screen to you. Human suffering isn’t made less acute or less significant by being far away." Caitlin Johnstone
Westerners Have An Absolutely Psychotic View Of Airstrikes
In reality, bombings are no less savage than attacks by guns, grenades, knives or machetes. In fact they actually allow for more savagery to take place.
Caitlin Johnstone
January 9, 2024
5 minutes
airstrikes, bombs, cbc, gaza, israel, media
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
[soundcloud.com]
Canadian online outlet The Breach has published a letter by CBC’s senior manager of journalistic standards Nancy Waugh which highlights perfectly the bizarre psychological relationship that westerners have with bombs and airstrikes in foreign countries.
In response to multiple complaints from a retired Humber College professor about the wildly biased language that Canada’s state broadcaster has been using to describe Israel’s war on Gaza, Waugh acknowledged that the CBC routinely uses words like “murderous,” “vicious,” “brutal,” “massacre,” and “slaughter” to refer to the October 7 Hamas attack while using far less emotionally charged words like “intensive,” “unrelenting,” and “punishing” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza over the last three months.
Waugh defended this extreme discrepancy by saying that Israel’s attacks in Gaza differ from the Hamas attack on Israelis in that Israel’s killings are done “remotely”.
“Different words are used because although both result in death and injury, the events they describe are very different,” Waugh wrote. “The raid saw Hamas gunmen stream through the border fence and attack Israelis directly with firearms, knives and explosives. Gunmen chased down festival goers, assaulted kibbutzniks then shot them, fought hand to hand, and threw grenades. The attack was brutal, often vicious, and certainly murderous.”
“Bombs dropped from thousands of feet and artillery shells lofted into Gaza from kilometers away result in death and destruction on a massive scale, but it is carried out remotely,” Waugh continued. “The deadly results are unseen by those who caused them and the source unseen by those [who] suffer and die.”
I’ve written a number of essays trying to point at the baseless and irrational way westerners view military explosives as a far more civilized and humane way of killing human beings than bullets or blades, but I’ve never written anything that sums it up as clearly as this frank admission by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s senior manager of journalistic standards.
Military explosives rip human bodies apart. They burn people alive. They trap them under rubble where they die excruciatingly slowly in one of the most horrifying ways imaginable. They leave people without limbs. They dismember and disfigure children for life. Many of the most agonizing deaths in human history have been caused by bombs.
There are thousands of Gazans who have yet to be counted among the dead because their bodies are still buried under the rubble of fallen buildings. Many of them would not have died instantly. Some are still alive, waiting for days in a state terror and searing pain for a rescue that will never come.
A UNICEF report released last month said that more than a thousand children had had one or both legs amputated since October 7 as a result of damage received by US-sponsored Israeli airstrikes, a number which would be significantly higher by now. We know that many such amputations have occurred without anaesthesia, because Israeli siege warfare has cut off Gaza’s healthcare system from the necessary supplies.
If this is not vicious, then nothing is vicious. If this is not brutal, then nothing is brutal. If this is not murderous, then nothing is murderous. But it doesn’t get labeled as such by the western press, because it is being done “remotely”.
The belief that these attacks should be considered less vicious and brutal because they are launched from a distance by people who won’t see their effects is as psychologically immature as a little girl who believes you can’t see her because she has covered her own eyes. An attack which kills and maims and tortures doesn’t cease to be brutal and vicious just because it looks like a blip on a screen to you. Human suffering isn’t made less acute or less significant by being far away.
But this is how most westerners see the use of military explosives these days. We’re so used to hearing about our government and its allies raining bombs upon the middle east and Africa that we’ve developed a kind of immunity to the psychological impact of exactly what that means in reality. The typical western mind has come to view bombings more like a weather event that simply occurs in those places, like how south Asian countries experience monsoons.
In reality, bombings are no less savage than attacks by guns, grenades, knives or machetes. In fact they actually allow for more savagery to take place, because they kill so much more efficiently, and because the troops who use them can keep killing and killing without losing morale and accumulating mental trauma from the horrors they have been inflicting upon their fellow human beings.
Dead is dead. Dismembered is dismembered. Pain is pain. Anguish is anguish. The unexamined assumption that the western empire’s prefered methods of killing are less brutal and murderous than those of an impoverished militant group is a psychological defense mechanism we have put in place to shelter ourselves from knowledge of our own brutality and murderousness.
In truth if you look at all the death, destruction, suffering and pain that Israel has inflicted on Gaza since October 7, there is no question that Israel is vastly more vicious, brutal and murderous than Hamas has ever been, and so are its allies who are supporting its actions. The only way to believe otherwise would be to psychologically hide away from the reality of what’s actually happening, which is as truth-based and mature as the kid with her hands over her eyes saying “Now you can’t see me!”
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7 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Caitlin Johnstone is such a fuckin' idiot that you can generally just adopt the polar opposite to her position and, with a high degree of certainty, end up on the right side of history.
Kinda like Trump. He's so wrong, so often, about so much, that when he opens that fat fucking mouth of his, you can just assume what comes out is pure horseshit and you'll be right WAY more than you'll be wrong.
Anyway, I'm not too terribly concerned with who started it. Generally, it all just depends on what date you use as your starting point. But if we're going to be nations and people that attack and kill each other, no one should be surprised when people are attacked and killed. @snytiger6 hit the nail on the head with "poke the bear" analogy. Is it fair that a bear can just walk into your campsite and steal your food? No. Are you justified to try to shoo it away by poking it with a stick? I guess. If you piss it off and it fuckin' eats you instead, is the food it was going to steal something you should have just let go? Probably. And after all those considerations, the bear is probably thinking, "Well, you shouldn't have come into my fuckin' forest in the first place."
If you walk up to a champion MMA fighter and slap his girl on the ass, the question isn't whether you're going to get your ass beat, it's was it worth it. They knew Isreal was going to retaliate, or at least they should have, that's not the question. Maybe next time they won't think it'll be worth it.
ChestRockfield
Level 8
Jan 9, 2024
2
This Genocide Is Being Live-Streamed. We Can’t Say We Didn’t Know. For as long as we live we’ll never be able to say we didn’t know.
Caitlin Johnstone
January 10, 2024
How is anyone still talking about October 7? What Israel has done since October 7 is many times worse than what happened on that day by any conceivable metric; the only way to feel otherwise is to believe Israeli lives are worth many times more than Palestinian lives. How is Israeli suffering still being centered over vastly less significant acts of violence three months ago while exponentially worse violence and suffering is being inflicted by Israelis right this very moment?
If your nation is attacked, and you respond to that attack by immediately murdering thousands of children with incredible savagery, then you forfeit any right to expect anyone to give a shit that your nation was attacked.
Israel responded to the Hamas attack by doing something much, much worse than anything Hamas has ever done, and in so doing completely delegitimizing itself as a state and completely validating everything the Palestinian resistance has been saying about the state of Israel since day one.
❖
This genocide is being live-streamed. We can’t say we didn’t know. For as long as we live we’ll never be able to say we didn’t know.
❖
Biden is everything people feared Trump would be. A genocidal monster facilitating racially motivated murder and ethnic cleansing while rapidly accelerating toward a nuclear-age world war. Nothing Trump did was as evil as what Biden has been doing. Biden is the real Trump.
❖
Israel is in a nonstop state of conflict largely because it is such an artificial creation. Most states emerge in a more organic way out of the geographical, political and cultural circumstances of the land and the people in their unique slice of spacetime. Israel emerged because some people who didn’t live anywhere near the land of Palestine got some narratives in their heads involving an ancient religion and its adherents, and dropped a newly created country on top of a civilization that already existed there which had emerged organically out of the circumstances of the region.
People came in from other nations all over the world, resurrected a dead language which had until then only remained used in religious rituals and called it their native tongue, and slapped together a 20th century nation and started LARPing that it was their native land. This caused massive shockwaves throughout the region because it didn’t happen in accordance with the organic geopolitical and cultural circumstances of the land and its people. It was an alien artificial construct from top to bottom, thrust upon a region for which it had no natural context or receptivity.
Because it was such an unnatural foreign imposition, the political circumstances of the middle east have ever since been rejecting it like a body rejecting an ill-matched organ transplant. This natural response is treated as unnatural unprovoked hostility from the people of the invading artificial construct, which invents more narratives to justify its violent actions against the inhabitants of the region.
❖
The west’s cultural obsession with WWII has made everyone dumber, because now everyone we want to fight is always Hitler and we’re always the Brave Good Guys who are fighting Hitler.
Nothing about Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza is comparable to the Allied offensive against Nazi Germany. They’re raining military explosives onto a trapped and besieged population in a giant concentration camp with the stated goal of eliminating a small militant group who poses exactly zero existential threat to the state of Israel, in response to an attack which was 100 percent provoked by the abuses of the apartheid Israeli regime.
Comparing the Gaza assault to the war against Hitler is like comparing a mass shooting to the war against Hitler, and saying the shooter is the Allied forces. It’s a completely foam-brained talking point that’s espoused solely by idiots and warmongers.
❖
It’s not too late to get involved in opposing Israel’s assault on Gaza.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t been talking about it until now. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t understood or paid attention to the Israel-Palestine issue before. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been supportive of Israel in the past, or if you’ve expressed opinions on this subject that you now know were misguided, or if you’ve never engaged in any kind of activism before.
If that’s the case for you, you need to understand that millions of people are on the exact same boat as you right now. Millions. The actions of the state of Israel over the last three months have caused huge numbers of people not previously aware of its depravity to open their eyes to what’s going on, do some research, and change their position.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with joining in with the opposition now. You can safely dismiss anything in you that feels self-conscious about not getting this until now, or feels like it would be inauthentic to join an activist cause after it has gained popularity. Changing your position and taking a stand now makes you more authentic, because it shows you are living a life guided by truth and compassion rather than sleepwalking through life guided by blind habit and partisan tribalism.
I guarantee you the people in Gaza would much rather have you than not have you, and losing your support over self-consciousness about joining in later than others did would be a very silly and unfortunate thing to happen. Moreover, you would definitely not be the last to join in this cause; millions more will be joining in after you as the Israeli regime loses support around the world and everyone starts waking up to what’s happening in Gaza.
Please disregard anything in you that has been holding back from helping to facilitate that awakening in whatever small way you can, whether that might be due to shame for not getting involved sooner or due to any kind of cringe around activism and political engagement you may have had before. This thing is so much more important than any of us, and it’s so much more important than any little feelings of self-consciousness we’d have about getting involved in ways we never would have imagined before. This matter is much too urgent for you to pay any attention to those misguided forces within you that are resistant to taking a stand here.
Take your stand. It will be welcomed, and you will be glad that you did for the rest of your life.
Ping @DenoPenno, @Alienbeing, @Flyingsaucesir, @Grinch1970, @snytiger6, @vocaloldfart, @Jolanta, @ChestRockfield, @LenHazell53
@FrayedBear Last time I checked, the guy running Israel was named Benjamin, not Joe.
@Flyingsaucesir where do I emulate Biden & call him Joe? Please screenshot it, draw a red circle round it & if I've made the mistake then I'll correct it.
@Grinch1970 I have not noticed any erudite constructive suggestions from you - just continue to gobble up the US - Israeli propaganda.
@FrayedBear Anyone that's says something as stupid as "Biden is worse than Trump" deserves to have the rest of what they say ignored. That's the dumbest fuckin' thing I've ever hear. Live stream whatever the fuck you want, it doesn't mean anyone has to feel any particular way. I imagine if it was someone I loved that got killed during the attack in Isreal, I would give exactly zero fucks you got killed in response. This was my point from the beginning. We are all fucking savage awful creatures that should be wiped from the face of the Earth.
Israel be have reacted viciously, but they were the ones who were attacked. As they say, it isn't wise to "poke at the bear".
Not that I blindly support Israel, just because they are our allies. I do think however, that they want to discourage any future attacks, and as they are surrounded by Muslim countries, most of whom hold strong religous prejudices against them, I can understand why they are being so "vicious", as they want to discourage others from attacking them.
I agree the response has been vicious, but I also understand why the response has been so vicious.
In any war there will be "collateral damages", and the innocent will suffer. However Israel is in a precarious location, and a massive show a strength when attacked is understandable. War is not pretty.
However, any fallout that results in the war should be laid at the feet of those who started it, not those who are defending their homeland.
snytiger6
Level 9
Jan 9, 2024
6
Look at the history of Hamas. Hamas is the IDF check it out for yourself.
They have been as you call it "vicious" for years. Just look up Nakba in 1948 or look at the bombing of the King David Hotel or how about Israel bombing of US Liberty in 1967.
@Jolanta If we can use shit from over a half century ago to justify an attack, pretty much any attack on anyone can be justified. Who started it all depends on what arbitrary point you use as your starting line.
@ChestRockfield I am not justifying anything. Just simply pointing out of what has been happening, just in case you were not aware.
@Jolanta Whether or not I'm aware is irrelevant because... If we can use shit from over a half century ago to justify an attack, pretty much any attack on anyone can be justified. If it's not a justification, it's a non sequitur, so what's the need to make sure people are aware?
@ChestRockfield the jews are justifying what they do based on thousands of years of undeserved persecution. I suggest that they are now proving that they are simply not "nice" people.
From one whose country, USA , slaughtered 100's of thousands in retaliation for unknown? persons causing a few thousand deaths on 9\11 your attitude is not surprising.
@Jolanta Thank you so much for reminding us all just how vicious Zionists and Israeli governments have been and can be still. It throws a needed light on the current actions of modern Israel.
However if one reads the Holy Babble, the whole of the old testament is indeed a testament to the unchanging nature of the warrior tendencies of Ancient Israel. The original Jewish state was built on conquest, enslavement of women, trafficking of children, the slaughter of male POW's (sometimes those they had convinced that conversion to Judaism would same them, who where then murdered while recovering from mass circumcision) and the utter destruction of their enemies property eg Jericho.
Many Jews are wonderful people, some of who I am descended from, but it has to be born in mind I suppose that they do see themselves as a chosen people en masse and do still hold to the idea that one day God or G_d as they insist on referring to their imaginary friend, has one day promised them the world.
@ChestRockfield Well, so you are not happy with me pointing out what has happened. I would imagine that no matter what people tell you, you would not pay any attention to anything but still go on and on about the attack.
@Jolanta you can take the camel to the water but cannot force it to drink unless you clap a pair of bricks on its bollocks. In rockfield's case you'll need big 6' + bricks - he's all bollocks!
@Jolanta wasting your writing prowess?
@FrayedBear You're 100% correct about the USA. They do retaliate in horrible ways and against people that don't deserve it. Such is life as the bear. Trust me, I held the EXTREMELY unpopular opinion that 9/11 was akin to a tiny guy at a bar whose girlfriend is being harassed by a giant dude. Is he going to tap the guy on the shoulder to inform him he's going to fight him, or is he going to break a chair over his head when the guy isn't looking. So I understand why they attacked us the way they did, and I also understand the retaliation. I don't think any of it is "right" though.
@ChestRockfield and now you can watch the case unfold against Israel in the ICJ in the Hague
@Jolanta No, don't much give a shit about either. We have enough of a problem with Americans attacking America and being on the verge of dictatorship. So my thoughts on the subject are most inconsequential.
@FrayedBear Don't hold your breath. I won't because I don't give a shit of it happens or not.
"And if you wrong us, shall
we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong
a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian
example? Why, revenge!
The villainy you teach me I will execute,
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
Shylock
The Merchant of Venice Act III, scene i
LenHazell53
Level 9
Jan 9, 2024
3
Aka. barbarity by barbarians.
[dictionary.com]
@FrayedBear
So much has happened,
but nothing has changed
Glenn Frey 1985
There are no "Goodies" and "Baddies" in this war there are just "Dies" they die and die and die, by the thousands on one side and the hundreds on the other.
I am reminded of the school yard when the kid who has been bullied and harassed all term finally loses it and and thumps his bully, so the enraged bully and his gang pile on to the kid who fought back and kick seven kinds of shit out of him for daring to stand up for himself. Then when confronted with the half dead bleeding wreck by a teacher, can only excuse themselves by saying "Well he started it!"
Only in this case the teacher sides with the bully and gives him a bigger pair of boots to kick the victim with again.
LenHazell53
Level 9
Jan 9, 2024
1
There are the gullible & the even more gullible. The most gullible are those accepting the crap that the IDF defends Israel a country stolen from Arabs.
@FrayedBear
That is the point of my schoolyard metaphor
This war is being fought by two sides with the mentality of eight year olds, albeit eight year olds with heavy artillery and more gun than you'd typically find in a Texas school cafeteria.
@LenHazell53 it's past my midnight & I'm fairly tired & partially distracted. I've edited my reply.
@FrayedBear "Born is the king of Israel".
@Mooolah no. That was 2024 years & 10 fays ago wasnt it?
In truth you once again proved you have no idea how to evaluate any situation.
Try living 100 yards away from a group who wants you eliminated ad see how you respond.
Alienbeing
Level 8
Jan 9, 2024
2
What a ridiculous statement.The israelis were not invited to live there. Why not go and live in the gator farm. FFS alien what school of bullshit did you get trained at?
Ok, I see. So if you don't like your next door neighbour, it is okay to burn their trees, imprison their children, kill their fathers and take their homes.
@FrayedBear Did the Native population of Australia invite you to live where you live? Your inability to reason is again on display.
@Jolanta Like or dislaike is not the issue. Defending or retaliating after being attacked is the issue.
@Alienbeing ffs alien the Australian FNP stole the land. As late as the mid 1800's there were a race of midgets living in the Daintree forest area of Queensland. Their genocide is due to both aborigines & whites.
@FrayedBear The simple truth is England stole what is now called Australia. Save your B.S.
@Alienbeing I suggest that you do your homework & ascertain how much of Australia is under Aboriginal control.
[quadrant.org.au]
@FrayedBear I don't suggest, I tell you that obfuscation is your only refuge. Your National government is not run by Aboriginals, and your poor attempt to avoid that fact is laughable.
@Alienbeing nor is Australian Commonwealth Government controlled by Australians whether FNP or not. That was clearly demonstrated when you organised the disappearance of Harold Holt & sacking of Gough Whitlam. Both political leaders wanted to withdraw troops from your lost war & genocides in Vietnam
@FrayedBear Your last reply has nothing to do with the subject. Thanks for proving (by avoiding) that Austrailia was "stolen" from original inhabitants.
Yeah, Israel started it all by attacking themselves on October 6th. Then Hamas, as usual, hid under hospitals and places that had children. Ever so often Hamas pretends to be protecting the people of Palestine and uses them as shields if they attack Israel. Admittedly this can all get confusing and have the rest of us on one side or the other.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Jan 9, 2024
3
Please do not expect me to argue against your proven bullshit
See my example of the schoolyard bully above
Maybe you are not aware how very small the place is. You too have very likely heard about when Israel said that Hamas had beheaded babies which proved to be completely fabricated, just like they cannot prove that any women were raped during the horrible attack at the music festival. Just more fabrication by Israel.
@FrayedBear You cannot defend your comments, so we do not expect you to do so.
What Israel has done to the Palestinians in Gaza of late is about as brutal and fucked up as what the Russian Czar did to the Jews in the Pale of settlement and what Stalin did to Ukrainians in the 30s, and what Putin is doing to Ukrainians now. However, there are differences. For instance, the Russian and Ukrainian Jews never carried out a massacre of kids at a concert, or farmers in their homes. Nor did today's Ukrainians.
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
Jan 9, 2024
1
Which Ukrainian Jews are the Russians committing genocide on? Sounds like you're frothing your propaganda again.
And as for concert goers on stolen land . . . They knew the stupidity of their frivolity on stolen land but like you Americans have become arrogant in your own corruption.
I can't wait for the North American FNP to emulate the behaviour, preferably at some of your political rallies.
Don't you think you should question why it is that the last of the Czars behaved the way they did?
The Third Reich the way it did?
What has been hidden from our history line that caused this behaviour? Could it be that the Gaza Palestinian genocide is not the first case of this barbarism by Jewish zealots?
This isn't even an eye for eye!
@FrayedBear Sounds like I touched a nerve
@Flyingsaucesir nah saddled his hobby horse.
@vocaloldfart LOL 
@FrayedBear Please let us know what land anywhere is not "stolen" using your definitions.
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