The Underreported Horrors of the Apartheid State
The Crime Doesn't Matter if it's the Wrong Criminal
The imagery was sickening. A mentally decrepit, morally empty US President fist bumped a bloody autocrat- with a smile- and then bizarrely tried to claim that it was some kind of subtle reprimand, a substitute for a handshake. The humiliation then continued, as ‘Diamond Joe’ reportedly attempted to deliver some sort of tough message to (former media darling) Saudi de-facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman at the start of their talks, to only have an undoubtedly smirking MBS slap him down with references to Abu Gharib torture and the casual murder of Palestinian-AMERICAN journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Although the western MSM, even the usually blindly pro-Biden outlets, showed some distress and disgust at Biden’s grinning, familiar shared gesture with MBS, none had a peep of protest to offer about his unqualified tongue bath days before of what numerous organizations, both admirable and questionable, recognize as an apartheid state.
Of course, western journalistic, as well as governmental, blind spots regarding Israel are not the exception, they are the rule. All kinds of actions which prompt squeals of outrage and rending of garments when committed by imperial enemies: illegal occupations, repeated violations of national sovereignty, extralegal abuse of disenfranchised populations, and wholesale slaughter of civilians, including children, are routinely mischaracterized, ignored, or explained away by mass media mockingbirds.
This continual, shameless spin is likely the major reason that the amount of public pressure on Israel, and more importantly, the governments which prop them up with massive amounts of money and weapons, never rises to a level to force even moderation of their brutal, deeply immoral, often blatantly racist policies.
As a result, there was considerable outrage over a familiar gesture with a foul autocrat, likely responsible for the murder and hacking up of a US aligned Saudi journalist (as well as continuing the brutal policies of the house of Saud), but not a peep of journalistic protest about slobbering praise and dangerous promises to a reckless outlaw state.
When viewed through the lens of the difference between the journalistic reaction of the Empire’s stenographers to these actions, versus their likely coverage of similar actions by imperial enemies, the shocking level of bias becomes glaringly obvious:
A 78 year old American grandpa is returning home from a night of playing cards with friends.
He is accosted by an illegal occupying military force at a checkpoint. Despite the obvious lack of a threat he represents, they drag him away, bind his hands tightly with zip ties, gag and blindfold him. After being detained for hours in this state on a near freezing night, he dies of a heart attack. The soldiers, who for some reason set a late night roadblock in a peaceful village, simply cut one of the zip ties and leave him laying there, either already dead or dying. Later when questioned, the soldiers admit they noticed he had lost consciousness, but claim they thought he was sleeping, and left him alone. A 78 year old man. On a cold night. In the dirt of a construction site.
None of the soldiers are charged with a crime. If this were a Ukrainian American grandpa in Crimea, would the Washington Post and New York Times post a story or two, followed by radio silence?
A sixteen year old girl, standing on the front step of her home observing a protest, complies with demands from an occupier police force, and steps back inside.
As she does, she is shot in the back of the head, shattering her spine. As she collapses into the house, the police throw in a stun grenade for good measure. The girl is badly injured, suffering breathing difficulties and serious, permanent neurological damage, requiring physical therapy.
A year after a police investigation was launched, no charges have been filed. If this had been a Syrian or Iranian teenager observing a protest from the front step of her home, would this story have elicited almost no attention from CNN, MSNBC, and Fox?
A developmentally disabled young man, with the mind of a small child, is going to his school accompanied by one of his teachers.
Patrolling an illegally occupied open city, police for some reason think he is carrying a pistol, and attempt to arrest him. This despite the fact that he has passed the same police post for six years, and that his teacher had taken time to talk to the officers there to explain that her ward was mentally disabled.
Terrified and confused, the man runs, prompting three shots from the police, one of which wounds his leg. He flees into a trash room and cowers in the corner. As this occurs, his teacher pleas with the police, trying to explain his disability and that he is no threat, both in Arabic and Hebrew, while the man, already shot in the leg, plaintively pleas again and again “I am with her”. After five minutes of this, one officer shoots him three times at close range with an assault rifle, killing him.
In the aftermath, the man’s teacher has a gun pointed at her head as she is searched. She is then taken to a police station and practically strip searched to find the non-existent pistol, followed by three hours of interrogation. His parents learn of his death when a gang of police officers arrive to search their house.
The officer who killed him is charged with reckless manslaughter, not murder. Over two years after the killing, if there was a final judicial outcome, it cannot be found after extensive searches of the internet. (UPDATE- They were acquitted, of course.) If this disabled man had been a Uyghur in China, would this story have gotten some traction across Western MSM for several days, before quickly fading from view?
And these stories are just a few among a massive pile of others, many much bloodier and egregious. The sick cycle of the slaughter every few years of dozens if not hundreds of Gaza’s children, already living deeply traumatized lives in an open air prison, their only crime their nationality and where they live. The many other instances of apartheid state cops and soldiers killing and terrorizing children and the mentally handicapped. The suspiciously high number of journalists beaten, wounded, or killed when the excuse of a nearby firefight or protest can be used as justification.
Yet this constant drum beat of brutality and horror never quite breaks through to Western publics, muffled by a compliant press to the point it becomes an easily ignored, meaningless, white noise. Clear oppression, racism, and a blatant ‘might is right’ amorality get dismissed as reasonable self-defense, justice for a historically wronged people, and fairly dispensed violence to control a hateful, unworthy ‘other’.
So there are no mass demonstrations, demands on elected officials to use the tools readily at hand to force change, or broad civil movements to directly target the aggressor nation. Certainly, elements of all three of these exist, and fueled by independent media filling in the gaps, have an impact. But nothing like the level needed to force an increasingly authoritarian, militarist, far right state fanatical in its self-righteousness to reverse course, or even mitigate its brutality.
And so the abuse, degradation, and killing continues and accelerates, further shattering fundamental relations, eroding any basis for a real, fair, peace between longtime neighboring, and once friendly, peoples. As resistance naturally increases in response, a state that believes the best solution to problems is an iron fist just beats ‘the enemy’ harder, feeding an escalating cycle as the off ramps from it are increasingly blocked.
And the tragic irony is that all this cruelty and arrogance clearly increases the existential threat to the state itself, as a significant portion of its population realizes that the larger portion sees them as dangerous interlopers, not worthy of real engagement or equal rights. That the majority sees them more and more as inconvenient, dangerous obstacles that they would prefer went away- one way or another.
The road ahead for this state is increasingly rough and dark. The Western mass media should be ashamed of how they have failed to expose its rot to cleansing light, and in turn illuminate the way to better paths.