CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—In case you haven’t been following the story, back in December the Times published an article titled “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” which was riddled with glaring plot holes that were exposed by research from outlets like The Grayzone, Electronic Intifada, and Mondoweiss. Later it came out with the help of an anonymous Twitter account named zei_squirrel that one of the three authors of the New York Times piece — Anat Schwartz — is a genocide-supporting Israeli intelligence veteran who had never worked in journalism before, and that another author of the piece — a food writer named Adam Sella — is her partner’s nephew.
DISINFORMATION
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OLIVER BOYD-BARRETT—The effete leaders of the Western World stubbornly persist in repeating all their mistakes. So, knowing that their obsessive craving for a sanctions regime that might work the way they think it should work is actually a rather pathetic delusion which only makes Russia more independent and more prosperous than ever, and which diminishes Western trade and profitability and pushes up the cost of energy for Western industry and is right now pushing Europe into recession and deindustrialization, what do they do? Even the IMF has told Washington and Europe that its sanctions packages are counterproductive.
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George Galloway and Miko Peled discuss clear demands to save Palestinians from the approaching total genocide
6 minutes readEDITOR—George discusses the Gaza situation with Miko Peled, a distinguished veteran anti-zionist activist, and himself the son of a prominent Israeli general, and former member of an IDF special forces company. Peled is critical about the current resistance strategy. The people who wish to help Palestinians must make CLEAR demands. Asking for a ceasefire, he notes, is not a clear demand; asking to stop the genocide is NOT a clear demand. The Pro-Palestinian movement and international community must demand and impose specific objectives on Israel and its Western supporters, including an immediate embargo to the supply of weapons, fuel and munitions to Israel, without which Tel Aviv could not prosecute the war; perhaps impose a blockade on the country; kick Israel out of all international organisations, from the FIFA to the UNO—which Tel Avid clearly has never respected, anyhow; and it’s time to demand the unconditional release of all Palestinians held in Israeli jails, and perhaps the most obvious, a no-fly zone over Gaza.
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PAUL EDWARDS—The techniques of propaganda are refined, but their effect is entirely due to grotesque pandering to the worst susceptibilities of the human ego: the desire to assert one’s superlative worth as a member of a powerful, violent, conquering nation. The force of that tactic, endlessly repeated, rendered American citizenry, with rare exceptions, one solid, deluded, unthinking mass, devoted to whatever vicious, imperial ends the political elite intended.
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New War Drums Chill Europe with Renewed “Putin Invasion” Fears
26 minutes readSIMPLICIUS—You begin to understand how this works. The NATO war machine accuses Russia of something with which they themselves are already seeding the ground. They will continue pushing the escalations and provocations until Russia is forced to make even a small offhand warning—then they will pounce with a well-coordinated media blitz emblemizing Russia’s response as “proof” of hostility and major impending military action against the ‘Democratic’ Baltics.