The BBC Is Weaponising Its Lebanon Reporting to Help Disguise Israel’s Crimes
Jonathan Cook | Western publics are being subjected to an unprecedented campaign of media propaganda to conceal Israel’s true goals as it expands the slaughter [...] 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”. ■ Lebanese civilians are paying the heaviest price: some 550 of them were killed in the first day of Israel’s bombing campaign alone. Many tens of thousands have been driven – ethnically cleansed – from the territory of south Lebanon.