The Devil's Narrative
Alongside the deadly attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist groups and their associates launched a publicity and disinformation campaign that reaches the media and social networks, aiming to create a false narrative that distorts reality.
The Quran speaks of Taqiyah, it says that it is permitted to lie in order to fight against an enemy; terrorist organizations have followed that precept to the letter.
Propaganda is the method radical Islamic terrorism uses to flood Europe and the world with falsehoods. Jihadism counts on the support of allied news outlets and ample funds, provided by countries that support them, purported charities and international institutions. These groups also employ staff to make their falsehoods go viral on social media and to silence any attempt to discredit them or tell the truth, through threats and cancellation, direct or indirect, as well as technical means.
This macabre disinformation plan is accompanied by displays meant to win empathy, such as the ridiculous claim, for example, that Jesus was a Palestinian. They bolster their false narrative with “Pallywood,” the name given to prefabricated videos in which dead Palestinians come back to life and dead children sneeze, covered in dust and red ink.
These organizations have concentrated their publicity strategy on the following points:
“Palestine is occupied land.” They push the slogan “Free Palestine.” FALSE: The claim is untrue. Jews have lived in Israel for more than 4,000 years, with a long history in their land. “Palestine” is merely a name used by the Roman Empire when it occupied the Mediterranean coast, and recovered by the British after World War I.
“Genocide.” Terrorist groups print and spread this word in every medium and on every social network, creating the idea that Israel is carrying it out in Gaza.
FALSE: Gaza’s Arab population was about 400,000 (source: U.N.) when it was ruled by Egypt until 1967; today it exceeds 2.2 million and continues to grow, even during the war.
“Israel commits massacres in hospitals and schools.” Photographs of these alleged events have circulated on social media, on TV, and in Western newspapers.
FALSE: Hamas and Hezbollah have specialized in attacking from areas protected for civilians, including hospitals, schools, mosques, and U.N. offices, where they also place their arsenals and planning headquarters. Israel gives warning before striking them and enters on the ground to evacuate patients before attacking sensitive hostile facilities.
“Gaza’s population is dying of starvation.”
FALSE: Israel supplies sufficient food, medicine, water, gas, electricity and communications to Gaza’s population. This must be the only case in which such aid is given to an enemy in wartime.
“Israel is an apartheid state.”
FALSE: Different ethnic groups and religions coexist in Israel with equal rights and opportunities. Twenty-one percent of Israel’s population is Arab. There are no Jews left in Arab countries; they were forced to flee long ago.
“Israel attacks human rights organizations.”
FALSE: UNRWA, Doctors Without Borders, and others were infiltrated by terrorists; several took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. When some of them were killed in clashes, jihadists presented them as humanitarian workers or murdered journalists.
Death toll. Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, puts the number of civilians killed in Gaza at more than 70,000.
FALSE: 72% of deaths were terrorists counted as civilians, 5,000 natural deaths are counted as casualties, and hundreds of adults are reported as children. The lists of war dead include hundreds of people who died before the war. (Source: U.N.)
“Israel deliberately attacks civilians.”
FALSE: Terrorists use the civilian population as human shields. The Israel Defense Forces do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, sending bombing warnings and sending soldiers into urban combat that could be avoided.
The ceasefire. On Oct. 7 itself, as the terrorists, and quite a few Palestinian civilians who accompanied them, were returning to Gaza after reaching Israeli towns to murder, rape, burn alive, and kidnap civilians, they began calling for a cessation of hostilities. The “CEASEFIRE” slogan spread on social media and in newspapers. But the terrorists kept launching missiles before Israel had begun any retaliation. And what did they expect? They knew the Jewish state would go after the more than 250 hostages; they knew it would try to force them into submission so they would not attack again, and so the rain of missiles on Israeli cities would stop.
Every death is painful and tragic, all the more so when it is collateral damage of war. There would be no dead on either side if the jihadists had not launched their attacks to exterminate a country and its people, a task in which they are failing.
A deeply regrettable part of this campaign of lies and libel is that a large sector of the Western press spreads this false narrative, ignoring the truth, perhaps motivated by money, servility, fear and old antisemitic hatred.
The West is the target of radical Islam, as seen in attacks and marches in European cities and on American university campuses overrun by jihadism. Israel is only the beginning of its would-be conquest, to build its Great Islamic Caliphate. Image credits: Image created with Microsoft Copilot for BeNews Media
