The more Israel expands its war across the Middle East, the more the western media intensifies its war on our minds.
Establishment media outlets like the BBC are weaponising the language of their reporting against audiences no less effectively than Israel weaponised primitive pieces of technology against the people of Lebanon.
Thousands of Lebanese were maimed by exploding pagers and walkie-talkies last week. Likewise, the media coverage is mangling the ability of western publics to understand how and why Israel is dangerously stoking fires across the region.
Words like “audacious”, “escalation” and “targets” have become tools to conceal meaning, not to illuminate – and for good reason. Because Israel’s actions are so obviously criminal, so obviously horrifying, so obviously genocidal. Language becomes a weapon to hide the truth.
The media chorus goes like this: Israel is attacking Lebanon to stop Hezbollah rocket fire and allow the residents of Israel’s most northerly communities to return home. Or in the blunter, Orwellian language of Israeli officials framing this horror show: Israel must “escalate to de-escalate”. ….more