XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.misc, alt.military   
   XPost: alt.politics   
   From: d@ray   
      
   The Gaza Strip, Palestine – Thousands of innocent people are dead, wounded,   
   and displaced from their homes in the wake of Operation Iron Swords, the   
   latest Israeli military campaign seeking to destroy Hamas, the legitimate   
   elected government in war-torn Gaza. But despite a near-constant stream of   
   video evidence purporting to show dead Palestinian women, children, and   
   other bloody casualties, it’s the cries of the Israelis—not the   
   Palestinians—who have captured the world’s attention.   
      
   Dubbed “atrocity propaganda” by some, the Israeli government has flooded   
   Western media with sensational stories of “40 beheaded babies” and violent   
   rape-fueled “massacres” alleged to have taken place at the onset of a   
   Palestinian strike on October 7th. As a result, multiple nations have   
   reaffirmed their unwavering support of Israel, with some even donating   
   funds and lethal munitions to a regime that has since obliterated large   
   swaths of Northern Gaza with indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets.   
      
      
      
   Israel’s claims, however, have drawn a wide array of skepticism and   
   controversy from across the political spectrum. Many of the supposed   
   “atrocities” linked to Palestinian resistance fighters not only lack   
   substantial evidence but have been swiftly discredited. This has led to   
   widespread doubts about the legitimacy of Israel’s forceful actions against   
   Hamas and has raised concerns about the role of Western media in what some   
   have termed the “genocide” of the Palestinian people.   
      
   Take the story of Shani Louk, for instance. A German-Jewish tattoo artist   
   who was allegedly kidnapped from an Israeli music festival and feared   
   executed, Louk made headlines for days after dubious footage emerged on   
   social media purporting to show her dead in the back of a pickup truck   
   driven by Hamas fighters. While her plight was quickly spread all over   
   mainstream news and social media, the story was debunked in short order   
   after her own mother reported that she was fine and recovering in a   
   hospital. Other attempts to paint the music festival as a ruthless massacre   
   were also disproven after video evidence surfaced of armed Israelis taking   
   cover inside crowds of civilian concertgoers during the attack.   
      
   Not to be deterred, the Israeli government and its supporters pushed other   
   narratives, such as mass rapes and “ISIS-style beheadings” of Israeli   
   settlers near Gaza. Television interviews with Jewish settlers handily   
   debunked those claims as well, as first-hand accounts from these   
   individuals painted Hamas as civilized. Some fighters even released women   
   and children shortly after taking them captive. Official footage later   
   released by Hamas revealed compassion for Jewish civilians and was   
   allegedly recorded on the first day of hostilities.   
      
   The most outrageous narrative to emerge amid the conflict was the   
   allegation that Hamas systematically beheaded 40 Jewish babies. The story   
   began when, on October 7th, Hamas fighters used a wide array of tactics to   
   break out from security cordons surrounding the Gaza Strip. Using   
   paragliders, motorcycles, and other methods to elude security, the fighters   
   staged a daring raid on Israeli military outposts and settlements. One such   
   target was the settlement of Kfar Aza, a town of about 400 residents only 3   
   kilometers from Gaza.   
      
   During the Palestinian raid, soldiers from the elite “Al-Qassam Brigades”   
   were believed to have eliminated Israeli settler militia and taken a number   
   of captives. According to reports, the settlement was not recaptured by   
   Israeli paratroopers until two and a half days later.   
      
   On October 10th, Nicole Zedek—a reporter working for the state-sponsored   
   i24 news network—conducted an interview with David Ben Zion, a Deputy   
   Commander of Unit 71 of the IDF who was allegedly tasked with the recapture   
   of Kfar Aza, among others.   
      
   “We walked door to door, we killed a lot of terrorists. They are very bad,”   
   he claimed. “They cut heads of children, they cut heads of women. But we   
   are stronger than them. We know that they (Palestinians) are animals, but   
   we found that they don’t have any heart.”   
      
   Ben Zion would prove to be a dubious source, however, as it was later   
   revealed by Grayzone that Ben Zion is actually a leader in the Shomron   
   Regional Council, a Jewish extremist movement that regularly calls for the   
   genocide of Palestinian peoples and the erection of the so-called   
   “3rd-temple” in Jerusalem. Earlier in the year, Ben Zion had called for   
   Palestinians to be “wiped out” from a nearby village, motivated by a stark   
   hatred of the Arab race and fueled by a set of beliefs wholly enshrined in   
   Jewish supremacy.   
      
   Zedek would use claims made by the extremist. Ben Zion, to report that   
   “about 40 babies” were alleged to have been “taken out on gurneys” and   
   that   
   cribs were “overturned” as Hamas carried out “ISIS-style beheadings.”   
   Zedek’s report would quickly be viewed by millions worldwide, and her   
   narrative was even promoted by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, according to   
   Grayzone.   
      
   Soon, the wholly unverified story quickly became mainstream news. It was   
   then uncritically parroted by pundits on both sides of the political   
   spectrum, ranging from left-leaning CNN to conservative Fox News. Even   
   global heads of state would affirm the narrative, like when a spokesman for   
   Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confidently stated that babies   
   and toddlers had indeed been found with their “heads decapitated.”   
      
   The unverified accounts were lent international credence when United States   
   Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Netanyahu during an official   
   press conference. Blinken—who is Jewish—alluded to the beheaded babies   
   story being true when he stated, “Prime Minister, I understand, on a   
   personal level, the harrowing echoes that Hamas’s massacres carry for   
   Israeli Jews…I also come before you as a husband and father of young   
   children. It’s impossible for me to look at the photos of families killed   
   and not think of my own children,” he continued. “This was just one of   
   Hamas’s countless acts of terror.”   
      
      
      
   Even US President Joe Biden himself referred to “stomach-churning reports   
   of babies being killed” during an address to the nation days after the war   
   began. “I never really thought that I would see confirmed pictures of   
   terrorists beheading children,” said Biden, who would describe the attack   
   as the “deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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