{"id":286536,"date":"2024-04-28T07:45:22","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T07:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=286536"},"modified":"2024-04-30T06:08:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T06:08:00","slug":"how-an-antisemitism-hoax-drowned-out-the-discovery-of-mass-graves-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=286536","title":{"rendered":"How an ‘Antisemitism Hoax’ Drowned Out the Discovery of Mass Graves in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Cook \u2013 jonathan-cook.net Apr 26, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

In confecting a media row about the policing of London marches against genocide, the Israel lobby knew it would score a victory, whatever happened<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A gruesome discovery was made in Gaza last weekend. Some 300 Palestinian bodies \u2013 of men, women and children \u2013 were unearthed from an unmarked mass grave<\/a> in the courtyard of the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.<\/p>\n

Even given Israel\u2019s record of committing relentless atrocities in Gaza over the past six months<\/a> \u2013 killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children \u2013 this one stood out.<\/p>\n

Some bodies were reported to have been found with their hands and feet bound, and stripped of clothing, strongly suggesting they had been executed during a three-month invasion of the city by Israeli soldiers. Others were said to be decapitated, or their skin and organs removed.<\/p>\n

Some 10,000 people had been sheltering at Gaza\u2019s second-largest hospital when it was attacked back in February. At the time there were reports of patients and staff being picked off by sniper fire. The medical facility was left in ruins.<\/p>\n

Another 400 people are still reported missing in Khan Younis. More mass graves are already being uncovered.<\/p>\n

Referring to some of the bodies, Yamen Abu Suleiman, a civil defence leader in Khan Younis, told CNN<\/a>: \u201cWe do not know if they were buried alive or executed. Most of the bodies are decomposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The revelations from Khan Younis fit a pattern that has been gradually emerging as Israeli troops have pulled back.<\/p>\n

Last week, the latest of several mass graves were found at Gaza\u2019s largest hospital, al-Shifa. Israel left the area earlier this month after destroying the hospital. Together, the graves are reported to have contained hundreds of bodies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Further unmarked graves have been discovered in Beit Lahiya.<\/p>\n

The United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, said he was \u201chorrified<\/a>\u201d by the reports.<\/p>\n

Groundswell of anger<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Back in the 1990s, the identification of mass graves of thousands of Muslim men from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica led to the setting up of a special war crimes tribunal of the International Criminal Court. It ruled in 2001 that a genocide had occurred in Srebrenica committed by Bosnian Serbs \u2013 a judgment later confirmed<\/a> by the International Court of Justice, sometimes referred to as the World Court.<\/p>\n

In the circumstances, one might have expected the discovery of mass graves of hundreds of Palestinians to be front-page news \u2013 especially since the same World Court ruled three months ago that a \u201cplausible<\/a>\u201d case had been made that Israel was committing genocidal acts in Gaza.<\/p>\n

And yet, like so many other Israeli atrocities, this one barely caused a ripple in the news cycle.<\/p>\n

Months ago, the establishment British media largely lost interest in reporting on the continuing slaughter in Gaza. The contrast with the media\u2019s early coverage of Ukraine has been stark. The discovery of a mass grave containing some 100 bodies in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha \u2013 blamed on Russian troops \u2013 caused international outrage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bucha quickly became a byword for Russian savagery<\/a>, and the discovery sustained months of calls for Russian leaders to be tried for genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The general indifference of British media outlets to the mass graves found in Gaza is hugely convenient for Britain\u2019s two main political parties.<\/p>\n

The UK has avoided pushing for a ceasefire to end Israel\u2019s bloodletting in Gaza. It refuses to stop selling Israel weapons<\/a> and components that have helped in the killing of Palestinians \u2013 and potentially aid workers too<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Israel\u2019s say-so, Britain has cut funding to Unrwa<\/a>, the UN aid agency best placed to stop a famine Israel is wilfully inducing in the enclave by blocking aid. And a British abstention<\/a> helped foil a vote in the United Nations Security Council this month to recognise Palestine as a state, something 140 other nations<\/a> have already done<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Labour party has offered only muted opposition.<\/p>\n

Bipartisan support in the UK for Israel\u2019s plausible genocide has provoked a groundswell of public anger, including regular protests in London that attract hundreds of thousands of marchers.<\/p>\n

Pro-Israel hoax<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Once again, however, the British media has seemed far less interested in reporting Israeli atrocities than in imputing malign motivations<\/a> to large sections of the British public incensed by what is happening in Gaza.<\/p>\n

It was quite extraordinary that the discovery of mass graves in the enclave was almost completely drowned out by an all-too-obvious hoax pulled by an Israel lobbyist.<\/p>\n

Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, has been trying to shut down the peaceful London marches calling for an end to the butchering of men, women and children in Gaza since Israel began its military assault more than six months ago.<\/p>\n

In Falter\u2019s words, the hundreds of thousands of people who turn out regularly to call for a ceasefire \u2013 including a large bloc of Jews \u2013 are \u201clawless mobs<\/a>\u201d posing a direct threat to Jews like himself.<\/p>\n

He has found powerful allies in the government. Home Secretary James Cleverly has said the march organisers have \u201creal evil intent<\/a>\u201d, while his predecessor Suella Braverman labelled the protests calling for a ceasefire as \u201chate marches<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both have put pressure on the police to ban the protests for being supposedly antisemitic<\/p>\n

There is precisely no evidence for any of these claims. In fact, according to police figures, Glastonbury music festivalgoers<\/a> were nearly four times more likely to be arrested than those attending the London marches.<\/p>\n

Which has left the continuing mass marches a major embarrassment to both the UK government and the opposition Labour party by highlighting their continuing complicity in what has become \u2013 with revelations like the discovery of mass graves \u2013 ever more clearly a genocide.<\/p>\n

\u2018Crossing the street\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That is the proper context for understanding Falter\u2019s latest intervention.<\/p>\n

As the Metropolitan police are only too aware, Falter\u2019s group, along with other pro-Israel activists, have every incentive to engineer a provocation to add to the already considerable pressure on the police to ban the London marches and further curtail a fundamental civil liberty: the right to protest.<\/p>\n

A video on social media shows Falter being confronted by police in a previous incident in which he tried to drive a large van with pro-Israel messages down the march route<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But his breakthrough came this month when, accompanied by an Israeli-trained security detail<\/a> and a film crew, he tried repeatedly to break through a police line along the route and walk against the flow of the march. Responsible for maintaining public order at large protests, Met officers stopped him.<\/p>\n

There are well-known rules imposed by the police surrounding large protests on highly charged ideological issues like this one.<\/p>\n

The marchers are not allowed to stray from the route determined by the police, and opponents \u2013 whether Israel apologists like Falter or Islamophobic white nationalists \u2013 are not allowed to approach and antagonise the marchers. The job of the police is to keep the sides apart.<\/p>\n

Blocked by officers, Falter had his script ready. He simply insisted on his right to \u201ccross the street\u201d as a Jew going about his business.<\/p>\n

Given the way the public discourse about Israel and antisemitism has been malevolently manipulated by the British establishment over the past eight years \u2013 after the long-time Palestinian solidarity activist Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader \u2013 Falter could not lose in this encounter.<\/p>\n

If the police arrested him, he would have filmed evidence that he was being victimised as a Jew by an antisemitic police force.<\/p>\n

If they refused to let him \u201ccross the street\u201d, he would have filmed proof that the march was indeed filled with Jew haters posing a threat to his safety.<\/p>\n

And if the police failed in their duties and let him and his retinue walk against the flow of the packed protest, he \u2013 like anyone attempting to do this \u2013 would at the very least be jostled. Based on the established credulity of the establishment media in covering antisemitism, Falter was presumably confident that this could be spun as a hate crime against him.<\/p>\n

Ugly politics<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The police clearly seemed to understand Falter\u2019s game plan. They appeared extremely reluctant to arrest him, even though a former chief superintendent, Dal Babu, observed that<\/a>, in trying to push past them, Falter could have been charged with \u201cassault on a police officer and breach of the peace\u201d.<\/p>\n