Israel’s Marketing to keep the weapons coming

 

On 20 October 2023 Australian time US President Joe Biden appealed to Congress, where he was seeking $US105 billion (taxpayers' money) including more than $14bn which would go towards Israel, much of it for the country’s air defence system known as “the Iron Dome” and other weapons purchases.

It is notable that this sizeable amount is announced in addition to the fact that Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. assistance since World War II, giving $236 billion in aid to Israel (adjusted for inflation). Every year, Israel receives $3.3 billion in foreign military financing from the U.S. In addition to getting more U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons than all other countries combined, Israel also is singled out for special treatment that makes this allocation even more valuable–it receives its allocation in unique circumstances and is able to spend the allocation on its own weapons industry.

So, to ensure this massive money flow continues, Israel has to keep telling its most willing and lucrative benefactor good stories about how that money is spent. You’d think taxpayers (AKA voters) would want that: it’s their money after all.

Blowing up a Christian hospital full of innocent civilians – including women and children - and killing hundreds of them s is not a good story then.

So, change the narrative then (AKA “lie”).  They wouldn’t be caught out doing that, though, would they?

Oh, maybe there’s 16 ways that suggests that that’s what they actually did though.

Here they are:

1. Located in central Gaza, the hospital, which is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, was struck while it was overwhelmed with thousands of Palestinians seeking shelter amid a campaign of brutal Israeli air attacks across much of the besieged Gaza Strip. The Director of the Gaza Anglican managed (i.e., Christian) Hospital EXPOSES that prior to the bombing today, Israel told them: “We warned you yesterday with two bombs. Why have you not evacuated the hospital until this moment?”  Israel also bombed a nearby UN school also where many Palestinians were sheltering. A senior health official in Gaza has said that Israel had fired two artillery shells as a “warning” at Al-Ahli Hospital days before it bombed it. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health Yousef Abu al-Rish said the hospital was first attacked on Saturday evening. A day later, the Israeli army called the hospital’s director and told him: “We warned you yesterday with two shells” and asked for the evacuation of the facility, according to Abu al-Rish. An IDF spokesperson says they had warned regarding evacuating the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital as well as five other hospitals. The Evangelical church in Jerusalem has announced that it received 3 phone warnings from the Israeli Occupation Forces that they would strike the Baptist Hospital before they did it.

2. Israel has DELETED the video they posted as “evidence” that Hamas accidentally struck the Gaza hospital with an outgoing missile. They had earlier shared videos from 2022 as fake “evidence.” Apparently, they were time stamped an hour before the actual explosion.  US “Intelligence” used the same fake footage to convince President Biden to state publicly to Netanyahu that the blast was caused by the “other team” (i.e. NOT Israel).

3. Netanyahu's social media advisor tweeted this immediately after the Israeli strike on the Baptist Hospital in Gaza. Now deleted.

 

4. BBC journalist says the attack on the Gaza Baptist Hospital in Gaza HAD TO BE DONE by Israel. https://twitter.com/i/status/1714411407968551232  Basically reports that Hamas has never used nor possessed a weapon anywhere near capable of such damage. At no time has any Palestinian resistance organization used rockets powerful enough to cause the devastation and mass death unfolding at the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital.
   
   
5. A Twitter (“X”) account claiming to work for Al Jazeera was plastering social media stating that Al Jazeera was lying & that Hamas bombed the Gaza Baptist Hospital. Only problem? The account is fake, and no one named “Farida Khan” works at Al Jazeera.
   
   
6. Israel has a history of lying. This 2014 article describes many of those lies which have apparently been repeated in the last 10 days: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-israel-lies/  This really does fit perfectly into a pattern of Israeli war crimes in which they have bombed civilian infrastructure and residential areas and schools and hospitals. One campaign against Gaza after the other they’ve done the same: In 2014, they did the same in 2008 and 2009. So it would be nothing new here except the particular death toll. More recently Israel killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. At the initial stages of that report, the Israelis blamed fighters within Jenin camp for her death. It was only later that they admitted it was one of theirs. Some more in this video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1714423332680974627
   
   
7. Russia says Israel must prove it was not involved in the hospital attack by providing satellite images. Israel has not done this. The US claims to have satellite footage that supports their support for Israel but none has been released to the public.
   
   
8. Israel is distributing a supposed “Intelligence” recording of a mobile telephone conversation between two Hamas/Palestinian “operatives” allegedly admitting the "accident ". Problem is that Hamas do not use mobile phones for the very reason that Israel is known to monitor them. Language experts have also said the voices, while speaking Arabic, are detected to have an Israeli accent.  This is the same “Intelligence” that failed to detect that the 7 October attack was coming. They can intercept calls now, but couldn't intercept an entire invasion, and coincidently, it was THIS particular call they managed to intercept? If they had intercepted this call, why did It take them OVER 16 HOURS to release it? Also, it’s odd that the audio is coming from right and left channels separately. This only happens when audio is STEREO and all voice calls are ONLY MONO. And if you’re simply importing audio and adding captions; there would be no reason to manually change the audio to switch channels left and right. Also isn’t it funny that all the evidence is in 1 minute of the phone call? Lots more wrong with the supposed recording detailed in this video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1714685018511995148
   
   
9. Lots of US/Israel photos being distributed of the hospital the morning after allegedly showing minimal damage: just basically a pothole/small crater in a carpark and some burnt vehicles.  Problem is that no-one independent can actually visit the hospital, not even the Anglican managers in Israel who are desperately trying to contact their own staff. When staff spoke soon after the blast they talked of the roof caving in over surgeries.  The alleged US-made missile does not always cause craters: it can explode in the air: The US-made and Israeli-used JDAM (includes the MK.83 GBU-32 and GBU-39) missiles have an airburst mode, which does not produce a crater in “airdrop” mode. It kills using shrapnel, shockwave and fireball from the explosion. See https://twitter.com/i/status/1714694965228400890 . An extensive discussion about the likelihood of an Israeli fired missile in airburst mode is here: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/debunked:-how-an-israeli-strike-killed-100s-in-gaza-baptist    
   
   
10. Sound recordings of the seconds before the blast reveal a distinctive whistle. Staff at the hospital spoke of the whistle sound as well.   Acoustic experts have compared that sound with a well-known US manufactured missile supplied to Israel. The sounds are identical.  No Palestinian group has ever had access to such a weapon. Weapons expert and US Army veteran Dylan Griffith provided this analysis here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1714693389654929582  Another air strike, this time targeted at a residential building beside Al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip. Note the similar sound signature to the incident at the Al-Ahli hospital: https://twitter.com/i/status/1714725013994049919
    This video purports to show an Israeli jet “flaring” (possibly departing in an opposite direction to the Hamas rockets) before the blast seconds later: https://twitter.com/i/status/1714735570889691297  and https://twitter.com/i/status/1714742318530519193
    
    
11. Israel is denying any connection with the author of the subsequently deleted tweet (Naftali – see point 3. above) that initially celebrated the Israeli caused blast because "terrorists" were killed. Problem is that footage is available that shows Netanyahu at that person's wedding and animatedly interacting with that person and in fact makes a speech. He has been Netanyahu's social media person for a long time. https://twitter.com/i/status/1714619993332088955
    
    
12. Various reports from US and Israel “Intelligence” refer to shrapnel found at the scene which doesn’t show any Israel/US source.  Problem is, not one independent assessor has visited the site, nevertheless gathered or tested shrapnel remains.
    
    
13. The Israel/US story is becoming ridiculous if not beggars belief. It pre-supposes that:
• Palestinians suddenly have access to advance weaponry capable of causing such a large explosion and managed to sneak it past any Israeli/US detection;
• They used that weapon just once at that precise moment and the ONLY time it was used it mis-fired; 
• Israel’s attack on exactly the same hospital two days earlier followed by a warning to evacuate “or else” was entirely co-incidental.
• The idea that Israel bombed 14 hospitals but definitely didn't bomb the 15th (even though it bombed all of the hospitals in the surrounding area) is laughable. Just today (21 October 2023) another Israeli order has been received for the evacuation of Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City.  The Palestine Red Crescent Society says it received an order to evacuate immediately but that it is impossible to evacuate about 500 patients and 12,000 displaced people sheltering at the hospital. This has been reiterated by WHO.
  
  
14. On the basis of the fabricated stories (mentioned above) the United States has just vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution trying to establish a "humanitarian pause" in the onslaught to allow for lifesaving aid to be brought into Gaza.  It was the only country to vote against it.
    
    
15. Channel 4 (UK) has debunked just about all the Israeli claims about the hospital bombing in this video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1714775482283991172  Even Channel 12 in Israel said the IDF (Israel) was responsible: https://twitter.com/i/status/1714615544756752639
    
    
16. New analyses by the UK-based Forensic Architecture research group and the Earshot audio investigation group have again drawn into question the Israeli military’s account of the mass casualty bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Both groups’ analyses specifically “cast doubt” on the Israeli military claim that the explosion at the hospital was caused by a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket fired from the southwest of the hospital, rather than an Israeli air attack as Palestinians have said.
    
    Forensic Architecture analysed photos of the impact crater at the scene, saying that “patterns of radial fragmentation on the southwest side of the impact crater, as well as a shallow channel leading into the crater from the northeast” indicate the projectile likely came from the northeast – “the direction of the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza perimeter”.
    
    Chris Cobb-Smith, an investigator and explosives expert, also agreed the evidence indicated the projectile may have come from the opposite direction claimed by the Israeli military, according to Forensic Architecture.
    
    Meanwhile, a so-called “Doppler Effect analysis” by Earshot, which looks at sound waves related to distance, found the missile likely approached from the northeast, east, or southeast, but not from the west as Israel’s military has claimed.
    
    Earshot’s forensic analysis of an audio recording, purportedly of two Hamas fighters talking about a PIJ rocket released by the Israeli military, also showed that the audio was actually recorded on two separate channels and then edited together. More here: https://x.com/earshot_ngo/status/1715381907230232929?s=20