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Western MSM downplay bloodthirsty Israel’s latest attack on Iran

Israel have attacked Iran with several air strikes overnight. Zionist butcher Benjamin Netanyahu has explained that the attacks are an attempt to damage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure:

This operation will take as long as is needed to complete the task of fending off the threat of annihilation against us.

Over the past week, Israel have bombed Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and now Iran. The Israeli army said that they had used 200 fighter jets to strike 100 locations. As is commonplace with Israel, there are several reports coming in of children and other civilians being killed. Amongst the dead civilians are a number of high level Iranian officials and scientists. Al Jazeera reported:

Iranian state media has reported several casualties, with civilians and senior Iranian officials among the dead. Confirmed killed are Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, and nuclear scientists Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoun Abbasi. It also said six scientists were killed in the overnight attack.

Israel have targeted several nuclear facilities in Iran. Whilst no spikes in radiation levels have been reported yet, the situation remains dangerous. As Al-Jazeera explained:

Attacking nuclear facilities can cause several consequences of unpredictable scope, including radioactive leaks, explosions and long-term contamination

In response, Iran has launched around 100 drones towards Israel, and promised further retaliation.

Israel kills kids – not just in Gaza

Many of the targeted officials were struck in their homes. That means residential areas were bombed, and children and other civilians have been killed. Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said:

I express my condolences to the Iranian people over the martyrdom of several military commanders and nuclear scientists, as well as civilians, including children. We strongly condemn this cowardly and inhumane crime. There is no doubt that the guilty will be severely punished.

Middle East Eye also verified that they have seen footage of destroyed residential buildings.

However, inevitably, the killing of civilians has not made headlines in mainstream Western media. Journalist Assal Rad shared horrific footage of a dead child ignored by corporate media:

In the quoted tweet from Rad, The New York Times headline presents Israel’s attack as a surgical one targeting nuclear capabilities. Imagine the uproar the same paper would have were there civilians killed in a Western country by an Arab state. All of a sudden, there would be lovingly assembled profiles on the dead, along with analysis pieces decrying the viciousness of such brutal killings. But, because it’s Israel killing Arab Muslim children, mainstream media isn’t even bothering to mention the deaths.

Associated Press followed a similar pattern:

Israel often brags about how precise its strikes are. After all, they’ve killed enough Palestinian women and children to prove it. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) clarified:

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐃𝐅 𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞, 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐈𝐫𝐚𝐧’𝐬 𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦.

The footage posted by Rad clearly shows a residential area devastated by the “precise” strikes. Despite decades of Israeli lies and prevarication, the fact that the Associated Press still saw fit to parrot the IDF version of events in their headline demonstrates their craven allegiance to genocidaires.

Propaganda over Israel and Iran

Nevertheless, other corporate outlets did the same thing. One commenter called out CBS for their despicable parroting of Israeli propaganda:

CNN also appeared to be pretending that Iran deployed 100 drones out of nowhere:

Journalist Richard Medhurst took the meda’s passive language to task:

The growing use of ‘pre-emptive strikes’ is similar to the use of ‘pre-crime’ when it comes to crimes Muslims might commit. Israel’s attack was out of the blue, carried out while people slept in their beds, and evidently had a civilian impact. Had Iran attacked Israel first, there’s no doubt that these same media outlets would suddenly have found themselves capable of writing in the active voice.

Writer Ayesha Siddiqi decried the subtle, but impactful, attempts to make violence acceptable when carried out against certain people:

And, writer Farah-Silvana Kanaan pointed out just how dangerous such rhetoric is:

Lawyer Noura Erakat shared a screenshot of headlines from several legacy media outlets:

Manufacturing consent

Had Iran been the first to attack, we’d be seeing an entirely different set of headlines from the corporate media. All of a sudden, they’d be able to find compassion and sympathy for the terror wrought when civilians are attacked while in their beds. For Israel, they’d employ the active voice that didn’t downplay one iota of the brutality and violence unleashed on unsuspecting residents. But, instead they have a different gift for Israel: the gift of manufacturing consent for the ZIonist state’s barbarism.

Zionism is no more than a death cult constantly jostling for war and death.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maryam Jameela

This post was originally published on Canary.