Oct. 7 marked the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 hostages brought to Gaza, of which approximately 100 remain in captivity. Since the Hamas attack, Israel has unleashed a savage war on Gaza that has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including nearly 17,000 children. In recent months, Israel has assassinated leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and high-ranking Iranian military officials in Beirut, Tehran and Damascus – as well as weaponizing pagers and walkie talkies to attack thousands across Lebanon.
In retaliation for the assassinations and Israel’s current air and ground invasion of Lebanon that his killed more than 2,000 civilians, Iran launched a second wave of 180 missiles at Israel, causing little damage. In the midst of a widening regional Middle East war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against Iran in the coming days.
In his book, “War Made Invisible,” published last year, author Norman Solomon examined the ways in which the U.S. wages war around the world, while it works to conceal the death and destruction resulting from America’s bombs and missiles, often aided by the nation’s corporate media. In a just published revised edition of the book, Solomon has added a new chapter on the Gaza War. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Solomon, co-founder of the activist group RootsAction.org, who examines the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel in the current conflict, where billions of dollars-worth of U.S. weapons have aided Israel in killing tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, and now in Lebanon.
NORMAN SOLOMON: The state of affairs is really an extrapolation of what was launched after 2001, the so-called War on Terror. And a lot of what I think needs to be talked about is the underlying U.S. media and political attitude that if a crime is committed against the United States or against an ally — in this case Israel — that it’s perfectly okay to consider that crime to justify anything that is done in response.
So in the case of 9/11, the United States now for really 23 years has continued — although (with) very little media coverage — to engage in warfare in many countries. And, the Cost of War project at Brown University has documented that the direct deaths from that U.S.-led war in the past two decades plus have added up to about 950,000 people.
And then the indirect death added in, we’re talking 4.5 million people have died as a result of retribution, we were told, response to the killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. It was really notable to me that the day after Oct. 7, and yes, Oct. 7 was a terrible crime against humanity committed by Hamas. Both the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and the Israeli ambassador to the United States both used the identical phrase, “This is our 9/11.”
And again, it was an aggrieved country using a crime against humanity that they suffered as a kind of a blank check to kill, what I call in the book a license to kill with no expiration date. And now we’ve seen a year after Oct. 7, 2023, the continuing slaughter of civilians, most of them children and women. We know of 42,000 in Gaza, many thousands more buried under the rubble.
All of these numbers are inadequate to describe the human suffering or the magnitude of the suffering, and 100,000 injured and warfare in the form of forced starvation, which is another form of war crime. So we’re really seeing patterns that have replicated the U.S. government’s role in its so-called “war on terror” being waged now by the Israeli government.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Norman. One feature of the protest that has been held on hundreds of college campuses around the country and protests elsewhere all across the world against the mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza by Israel, is the conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Norman, I wondered if you would talk about some of the internal dissent and contradictions we see in U.S. media when it comes to covering Israel and following the government’s line that everything that’s befallen the Palestinians is their own fault, which is pretty much what Israeli officials almost say on a daily basis.
NORMAN SOLOMON: Well, part of the backdrop, as you note, and has intensified in the last year, is the reflexive response that when criticism of Israel happens, it’s anti-Semitic. And as a Jewish American, I find that particularly offensive. But it doesn’t matter what our background is. Whatever religion and race ethnicity, it should be morally and intellectually repugnant, to be having this thrown at us when the scam should be obvious.
The Israeli government and its allies wrapped its own atrocities in the Jewish religion. And so it’s a very straightforward propaganda maneuver. The news media coverage in this country has overall been disproportionate in its emphasis and coverage as to the human suffering of this conflict. And let’s cite some statistics. In the first six weeks after Oct. 7. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times used the word “slaughter” 60 different times to describe what Hamas did to Israelis on Oct. 7. Those same media outlets used the word “slaughter” only once to describe what Israel had done to people in Gaza.
Let’s look at the word “massacre.” The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, in those first six weeks used the word “massacre” 125 times to describe what was done to Israelis. Only twice to describe what was being done to Palestinians in Gaza.
This is very Orwellian. This is a measurement of how unbalanced U.S. media coverage is in terms of its political, social and emotional communications. And it’s a devaluation of some human beings and saying that “really, some lives matter and some lives don’t.” And we should reject that kind of messaging, which is often implicit and is very extreme.
For more information, visit Roots Action at rootsaction.org and Norman Solomon’s website at www.normansolomon.com.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Norman Solomon (27:18) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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