The truth is out there, behind all the lies

There is nothing more noble than telling the truth, and yet for simply delivering nothing but the truth Palestinian journalists are being killed; they — and their families — are targeted by Israeli soldiers in Palestine and Lebanon. The death toll of journalists in Gaza alone has risen to 177, with not one newsroom left standing in the enclave.

Meanwhile, professional liars from the Zionist State’s diplomatic corps deny that its army targets journalists deliberately, even when presented with irrefutable evidence. According to Irish journalist Frank McDonald, “These shameless men and women lie on behalf of a country that is itself built on lies, mythology, terrorism, land theft and deep denial of historical truths, especially about Palestine and what successive Israeli governments have done to the Palestinians.”

Despite the rising death toll of journalists and other civilians across Gaza, the occupied West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Lebanon, Israel never tires of telling the world that it is “the only democracy” in the Middle East; we know that is simply not true on several levels, due to the fact that major human rights bodies have said that it has passed the legal threshold for classification as an apartheid state, including B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Moreover, one of the keystones of democracy is a free press, but since October last year, 21 local radio stations, 15 local and international news agencies, 15 TV stations, six local newspapers, three broadcasting towers, eight print media and 13 media institutions have been destroyed in Gaza.

The Israeli government’s policy of terrorising and killing journalists and its ban on foreign media makes it impossible for journalists like me to get into Gaza so that we can do our jobs and report the truth of what we witness. Not that we would do that any better than the courageous Palestinian journalists, but wherever journalists are banned we all know that it is because powerful people in powerful places do not want anyone shining the light of publicity on their activities.

Meanwhile, Israel pumps out lies on a daily basis using its militarised propaganda machine as well as paid-for stooges who earn a nice living out of promoting the Zionist State as a peace-loving nation and a victim of anti-Semitism.

They are given a free ride by organisations like the BBC.

Any journalist who calls out the egregious lies and victim blaming from the apartheid state’s representative of choice is likely to disappear from public view in what is a time of unprecedented censorship.

A few days ago, we got a close up view of the slick Zionist propaganda machine in action as the notorious Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans wreaked havoc in Amsterdam. Journalists and politicians lined up to condemn the violence in the city of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who documented her life in hiding from the Nazis during the German occupation of the Netherlands before she was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she died.

For two days, these football fans, who have a long and grubby history of violence and racism at home and abroad, took their vile, racist antics to the Arab community in the Dutch capital. The response was one of which any community under fire would be proud; they fought back and defended themselves. The global reaction to this, though, was perverse.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, aka “Frau Genocide”, expressed her outrage in the media without checking the facts. It was enough for her to know that Arabs had resisted Israeli abuse and violence in the home city of Anne Frank so it must be the fault of the immigrant community and not the foul-mouthed yobs from Tel Aviv.

The truth was just an inconvenient fact for von der Leyen and her deputy, as well as the reviled Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Free Press editor Barry Weiss. The latter two referred, somewhat hysterically, to the violence as a “pogrom” against Jews.

Even though elected members of Amsterdam’s city council confirmed to Al Jazeera that the Maccabi fans had ignited the violence, by that time British and European mainstream media were toeing the Tel Aviv line of “Jews under attack”. Words like “pogrom” were employed even though the Zionist narrative was far from the truth.

I am disgusted at the reaction of my colleagues from the mainstream media who fell for the Zionist propaganda.

While heroic Palestinian journalists are risking life and limb to bring cold hard facts to the table, their western counterparts are destroying their own integrity by putting out false information about what happened in Amsterdam last week (and what happens in Palestine under Israeli occupation).

Shameless politicians also sent out messages on social media, with bogus claims of anti-Semitism and helpless Jews under attack in Amsterdam. Investigative journalist and former Labour MP Chris Mullin saw through the lies, though, and asked: “How on earth did these people manage to present themselves as victims?”

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The other question we need to ask is whether the Israeli-led violence in Amsterdam was a spillover from the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Do the Israeli thugs in Maccabi Tel Aviv colours, around 80 per cent of whom are thought to be serving in the occupation army which stands accused of committing genocide and war crimes, now feel empowered and entitled to take their thuggery wherever they like? Many may well have mental health issues arising from their experiences in Gaza and the West Bank. Having thugs running amok in Europe boasting about killing Palestinian babies just adds to the evidence lawyers need to prosecute these lawless individuals.

This is something that Frau van der Leyen might want to consider because the more she excuses and justifies the violence of Israelis on Europe’s streets, the more we will be expected to accept such aggression from these psychopaths, and the more danger we will all face.

Predictably, political thugs like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has weaponised anti-Semitism, ignoring the racism and violence of the Israeli football fans which kicked it all off in Amsterdam. When Netanyahu said that he would send the army and aircraft to get the violent Maccabi Tel Aviv fans out of Amsterdam as quickly as possible, it was an exercise in damage limitation, not out of concern for their safety in this bogus “pogrom”.

While I am sure that the 7 October Hamas-led cross-border incursion and its aftermath have had significant emotional and behavioural impacts on the Israeli public, the need for a psychological intervention has increased. If the Western media and politicians were true friends of Israel they’d realise that this is a nation with severe psychological problems that are easily triggered by the very sight of a Palestinian flag. Why else did they attack homes in Amsterdam which had such flags on display?

READ: Israel advises citizens not to attend football match in Paris

While it’s increasingly difficult to show any empathy or sympathy for Israeli citizens without comparing and contrasting the cause and effects of 75 years of brutality against the Palestinians, the world needs to open its eyes to the psychotic nature of the settler-colonial state and those who run its brutal military occupation. In the immediate aftermath of 7 October, there was a reported 30 per cent rise in demand for psychiatric drugs. As many as 35 per cent of war-related casualties were also found to be related to psychological issues. It is now clear that the individual mental health needs of Israelis has increased, with talk of an impending mental health “pandemic”.

Israeli Health Minister Uriel Buso has admitted that the rogue state is in the midst of its worst-ever mental health crisis since its establishment. Buso made the comment at the Enosh Mental Health 2024 Conference in Tel Aviv in September.

The crisis can be seen in Israeli football stadiums where, according to this report, the most violent fans come from Beitar Jerusalem, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa. While many hoped that 7 October would lead to a change in the mentality that had taken root on the terraces, the reality is completely opposite. Racism, violence and social polarisation have become commonplace in many football stadiums in Israel, says news journalist Ben Goldfriend. His eight-page report on the phenomenon, written in Hebrew, is depressing and strengthens the argument that Israelis football clubs should be banned from UEFA competitions and the national team should be banned from UEFA and FIFA international tournaments.

So far, 112,000 people have signed this petition calling for Israel to be suspended from all international sporting competitions. “In recent years, we have witnessed how the violent and racist atmosphere on the pitches is becoming more and more serious,” said Matan Segal, the director of the Israeli programme to kick racism and violence out of football. “The attempts to address the problems with the same means that were tried in the past have proven to be ineffective.”

The Israeli football season so far has been blighted with numerous incidents of racist chants, including — and this is astonishing — derogatory chants about the Holocaust.

I wonder what Frau Genocide or British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have to say about that.

If our leaders really are concerned about the safety of their own citizens in Europe then a travel ban should be imposed immediately on all Israeli teams and football fans, especially those serving in the rogue Israel Defence Forces. Editors across the media should instruct their best feature writers and investigative reporters to expose the violence of the Zionist State’s sports fans in exactly the same way that they exposed the true nature of English football hooliganism during the 1970s.

Israel’s National Security Council claimed on Sunday that pro-Palestinian groups were calling for attacks on Israelis and Jews in multiple European cities. Including some in the UK, “under the pretence of demonstrations and protests”. As usual, Israel has provided not one jot of evidence for its blatant lie and yet the UK Government and Sir Keir Starmer duly went along with it. “There is no place for anti-Semitism on our streets and we will not allow cultural and sporting events to be hijacked by those who seek to promote hate,” intoned Starmer. “Those who push this poison — offline and online — will face the full force of the law. Police and the security services continue to work to ensure the safety of every community in this country.”

If Starmer was genuine about protecting “every community in this country” he would ban every sporting event involving any team and fans from Israel.

Just consider this: if the Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper could ban the grandson of Nelson Mandela from speaking on a UK-wide speaking tour promoting peace and justice, then I’m sure that every legal mechanism is in place to crack down on Israel sports fans who feel emboldened enough to act with impunity and wreak havoc and violence on our streets.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.