On Thursday, The New York Times ran a bazillion-word would-be expose on the ongoing United States-backed Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip titled Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians. It can also be listened to on the newspaper’s website – if you happen to have 28 minutes and 27 seconds to kill.
The word “genocide” appears exactly once in the article – and only as an allegation that Israel denies: “Israel, which has been accused of genocide in a case before the International Court of Justice, says it complies with international law by taking all feasible precautions to minimize civilian casualties.”
And yet as the article itself demonstrates, any such pretence of precaution was essentially thrown to the wind on October 7, 2023, when the Israeli military issued an order that gave mid-ranking officers unprecedented leeway in authorising attacks on Gaza. In previous conflicts with Hamas, according to the Times, “many Israeli strikes were approved only after officers concluded that no civilians would be hurt” – which would certainly be news to the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza slaughtered by Israel in the past 20 years alone. . . .
. . . the corporate media refuse to take even the Israeli leadership’s own word for it and the flaunting of genocidal intent day in and day out for nearly 15 months. Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi, for example, took to the platform X at the outset of the war to proclaim: “Now we all have one common goal – erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the Earth.” Shortly thereafter, Israeli President Isaac Herzog chimed in with the suggestion that civilians in Gaza were absolutely legitimate targets: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.