By Yasmeen Al-Saqa
RAMALLAH, Tuesday, October 31, 2023 (WAFA) - No matter how Israeli platforms are trying hard to twist facts and change the reality regarding Palestinians, truth always finds its way to come out.
Two years ago, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a training program for Israeli content creators in order to improve Israel's image around the world, including teaching them specific terms and words to use while responding to comments attacking Israel.
On the 10th day of the bloody Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, Israel spent more than $7 million to fund videos promoting its propaganda via YouTube platform in only three countries: France, Germany, and Britain.
In order to promote its propaganda following the events that took place on the 7th of October, one of the Israeli soldiers claimed that he saw freedom fighters beheading children and raping women, which made almost all Western media on different platforms believe the Israeli's narrative.
US President Joe Biden, who shows full support for Israel in its aggression on Gaza, also said in a remark that he personally saw photos of beheaded children.
“I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children,” Biden said in broader remarks.
However, the White House later went back on Biden's remark, admitting that he had not seen such photos.
During a TV talk show, British host Piers Morgan said regarding the beheaded children debate in a different episode that he was traumatized to read the news of 40 decapitated babies, but when he was confronted in Egyptian comedian and TV personality Bassem Yousef's episode, he said: "I have never said that." This is another way of twisting facts and spreading lies.
Lots of Western media on different platforms took their statements back, such as Sara Sidner, a reporter at CNN, who issued an apology on her X account after claiming that freedom fighters beheaded 40 babies, saying that such allegations were not confirmed and she should be more careful with her words.
"The Israeli government now says today it CANNOT confirm babies were beheaded. I needed to be more careful with my words and I am sorry," she said.
A Romanian reporter was seen lying on the ground to make followers panic and believe that they were under attack from Gaza, but she was exposed by the regular movements around her of people walking and riding bikes.
In the main version of the article that was published on October 9th in the US newspaper Los Angeles Times, US writer Jonah Goldberg claimed that freedom fighters raped Israeli women and sexually assaulted them; however, in the evening, the newspaper deleted the reference to rape, publishing a side note that said, “an earlier version of this article indicated that rapes had occurred in the attacks, but such reports have not been confirmed."
On October 13, a number of Palestinians fled to the south following orders from the Israeli forces for their own safety as they claimed, later the Israeli airstrikes hit the convey full of fleeing Palestinians, killing over 70 and wounding 200. Israel denied such allegations, however, Amnesty International verified videos of the attack.
A report written by Alex MacDonald in the Middle East Eye website regarding to what happened at Al-Ahli Baptist Arab Hospital, which claimed the lives of over 500 Palestinians, mostly children and women, said that an assistant for digital affairs to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hanania Naftali, claimed that the Israeli warplanes shelled a base for freedom fighters inside the hospital. He later changed his story and described the bombardment as mysterious caused by “either a failed missile” or “something that was done deliberately to obtain international support."
Shireen Abu Akleh was also a victim of Israel's long history of lying and of making false allegations.
Shireen Abu Akleh, an American-Palestinian journalist, was shot and killed in May of last year by an Israeli sniper while covering Israeli forces' invasion of Jenin refugee camp and while wearing a vest marked "Press". The then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett blamed the death of Abu Akleh on Palestinians and in order to prove his narrative, Israel began publishing and distributing unrelated videos of Palestinians confronting the forces during the invasion, calming that they were responsible for her death.
Later, international investigations confirmed that what happened was a deliberate crime carried out by an Israeli army sniper.
Israel also used a different method to spread lies by paying social media influencers and content creators to join the disinformation campaign against the ongoing aggression on Gaza.
British TikTok influencer Cara Watson says a company offered her double payment to support Israel publicly and to defend Israel's narrative.
“That is not going to happen, you cannot buy my morals,” she said in a short video on her TikTok account.
American TikTok influencer Guy Ghristensen with over 2.9 million followers says he's been offered $5000 to go live and pledge his support for Israel in its ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Artificial Intelligence (Al) generated images were also part of Israel's campaign of twisting facts and spreading misleading information.
The "Live from Israel" page has published two images, both generated by Al, in order to show the world that Israel has many supporters but people have already woken up to such lies.
Another photo generated by Al that went viral on the Internet and was also published on several official Israeli accounts, showed the charred body of an Israeli child. However, experts later revealed the lie of this photo promoted by Netanyahu who claimed that freedom fighters burned and killed Israeli children but turned out to be of an alive dog.
The Israeli propaganda machine, backed by loyal Western governments, never seems to seize its lies, despite the fact that the whole world now sees it as it is: lies.
M.K.
