The Official Death Toll in Gaza Is a Lie. The Casualty Numbers Are Far, Far Higher

The death toll in Gaza is way too low by every imaginable metric. We need to be stressing this – all the more so when Israel’s apologists are vigorously engaged in a disinformation campaign to suggest that the figures are inflated.

On 6 May, 7 months into Israel’s slaughter, there were reported to be 34,735 dead. That was an average of 4,960 Palestinians killed each month.

Today, nearly three months on, the reported death toll stands at 39,400 – or an increase of 4,665.

Continue reading “The Official Death Toll in Gaza Is a Lie. The Casualty Numbers Are Far, Far Higher”

I Once Admired George Monbiot. but His Grim Trajectory Shows Us Where Politics Is Heading

What‘s been the most significant threat to journalism – the lifeblood of a free society – over the past decade? Maybe we can turn to George Monbiot, the doyen of the British liberal-left, for an answer.

He has a weekly column at the Guardian newspaper in which he exposes the abuses of state and corporate power. This critically important topic is surely something he has addressed at length.

And indeed, he has. But strange to report, what I assumed to be the most dangerous development for journalism in my lifetime has not registered at all on his Guardian-supplied radar.

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The Guardian Admits Its Cowardice Over Paris

From the horse’s mouth: For fear of upsetting readers, the paper silenced any commentary in the first days after the Paris attacks that might have suggested there was a causal relationship between western foreign policy in the Middle East and those events.

Instead, writes the Guardian reader’s editor Chris Elliott, the paper waited several days before giving some limited space to that viewpoint:

On the Opinion pages, one factor taken into consideration was timing – judging when readers would be willing to engage with an idea that in the first 24 hours after the attacks may have jarred. The idea that these horrific attacks have causes and that one of those causes may be the west’s policies is something that in the immediate aftermath might inspire anger. Three days later, it’s a point of view that should be heard.

In other words, the liberal Guardian held off offering a counter-narrative about the attacks, and a deeply plausible one at that, until popular opinion had hardened into a consensus manipulated by the rightwing media: “the terrorists hate us for our freedoms”, “we need to bomb them even harder”, “Islam is a religion of hatred” etc.

Excluding legitimate analyses of profoundly important events like those in Paris when they are most needed is not responsible, careful journalism. It is dangerous cowardice. It is most definitely not a politically neutral position. It provides room for hatred and bigotry to take root, and allows political elites to exploit those debased emotions to justify and advance their own, invariably destructive foreign policy agendas.

In the paragraph above, Elliott happily concedes that this is the default position of mainstream liberal media like the Guardian.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001. This article is reprinted from his blog with permission.