Let’s Make War Crime Accusations Now For The Next Gaza Conflict

By Arafat Masri, Palestinian Human Rights activist

Beit Hanoun, January 12 – No one knows what 2022 will bring. The uncertainty colors all of our decision-making, all the more so in the shadow of COVID-19 and continued high tensions in the region. I take all that into account when I recommend that rather than waiting for the fighting to occur, whenever that happens, and then rush to document everything in a way that highlights Palestinian virtue and Jewish bloodthirst, we devise the stories of the poor victims of Israeli strikes now, when we have time to give proper attention to the matter, and not later, when events overtake us and we must adapt to the harsh realities of the actual war, with results that fall short of our desired PR goal.

Hear me out: “human rights” NGOs, credulous Western journalists, and media that Hamas subjects to censorship all carry water for those who make the accusations, and often participate themselves in the pile-on, regardless of credible evidence. My suggestion involves a proactive approach instead of the reactive method that requires an actual violent conflict to take place before the war-crime accusations hit the public eye and ear. That way, when fighting does begin, we have the allegations in our pockets already, and need not rush around trying to use already-reported stories as the basis for our charges of brutality.

Consider the freedom this offers in shaping the narrative around the conflict the way we want, as the enemy traps itself in adherence to mere events that have occurred. In fact this approach represents only an incremental shift from our previous modus operandi; we seldom let facts get in the way of a good blood libel. My suggestion takes our information war to the next level by divorcing it entirely from specific news items and simply spraying the media ether with wrenching, enraging tales of innocent Palestinians cut down in fits of Zionist cruelty, without bothering to link those tales to any actual reporting.

We already do this to some extent; I propose a broader initiative that preempts any attempts by so-called “objective” journalists to stick to documented facts, which have always challenged us. Our allies – and often, relatives – in the human rights industry will give all the cover they can to our efforts, as demonstrated in cases even when our talking points and accusations have contradicted documented reality. It matters not at all that the accusations prove unsupported later – in the meantime, we have established the evil, child-killing nature of the enemy, and that dominates the narrative from then on.

Why bother, then, with waiting for developments in the real world to provide fodder for our rhetorical ambitions? We can manufacture it all even in the absence of such fodder, and the credulous media will parrot it.

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