Can Social Media Platforms be Tried for War Crimes?

The many faces of the Palestine Israel Conflict

We are in the Middle East right now and things feel a bit funny. I think it is safe to say that my news and my social media feed on the Israel Palestine conflict does not match that of someone exclusively located in North America, or even that of my Arabic speaking friends. It is becoming very apparent over here that there are multiple versions of the news. Where it becomes quite literal is when we have the luxury of sitting down at a coffee shop with international friends and opening our phones to compare narratives. These moments are truly precious as they provide insights I may have never understood otherwise.

The history is everything in understanding this conflict. When it comes to recent history, it was just two years ago that the press and social media picked up on the “unfair” stories of the Sheikh Jarrah Jerusalem evictions at gunpoint. Israeli courts decided to evict Palestinian settlers from 80-year-old family homes in areas that US / Israeli developers wanted to develop. During this news cycle there was also the story of the Al Aqsa Mosque being stormed during Ramadan prayers by Israelis with stun grenades and tear gas. This action sent worshipers to the hospital, caught the 3^rd holiest mosque in Islam on fire and was the backdrop of chanting extremists yelling, “Burn their memories again.” At the time, various national monuments were lit up with the colors of the Palestinian flags and social media warriors around the globe were talking about how much Israel had been a terroristic bully towards Palestine over the last 72 years. Fast forward to today and the social media pendulum has swung to the other end, and apparently the prior history with it as well.

“I stand with Israel” seems to be the narrative across my US social media and “Palestine is a terrorist nation full of non-humans,” seems to be the underlying message. Before I write much more, I want to be clear on a couple of topics. Killing is horrible. Mass loss of life is not a statistic, it is a tragedy. There is no healthy family on the planet that wishes for the death of their family members. No mothers that want to attend the funerals of their children. And both sides are trudging into the worst sides of humanity. What this article is about is how disgusting the press and social media manipulation is becoming and how larger narratives are being outright ignored.

My Arabic speaking friends have made it a point to share the differences in what they are reading and seeing in their more local feeds versus what they are seeing in the Western news. One of the examples is of the bloody Israeli woman loaded into the jeep from the morning of the Palestinian attack. In the Western press this story is pushed as a hostage assumed to be headed for death. However, in the Arab press the coverage shows that even though she was an Israeli hostage she was brought to an Arab hospital because she had been unintentionally injured, treated and was released under her own power to return to her family. In another more specific Arabic case, footage that is muted in the western press is not muted in the Arab press and can clearly be heard to say, “We have no intention of harming you, you will be safe and you will be returned. Do you have any guns in the house?” Whereas in the Western press they show the clip of the soldier entering the house of terrified inhabitants on repeat. Beyond these types of examples, many of the news images and videos popping up on YouTube are starting to appear to be specifically designed for propaganda.

Within 24 hours of the launch of Palestine’s attack, friends reported that they had just seen a paid YouTube advertisement to justify Israel’s position for going to war. Four days later it came out that the pictures of burned babies are likely AI generated and that Israeli soldiers have come forward to say that they are not coming across any intentional cases of harm to children like what is being reported. The killing babies thing is extremely suspect as accusations of killing babies is a known fast track to dehumanizing “bad guys.” I am not defending the actions of the those that are harming others, but it has become obvious that the West is being sold a far more dehumanizing narrative towards an outright war against the Palestinians. The question is, why? Before we head towards the questions though, there are a couple of basic truths about the history of Palestine as a land that may help make sense of this.

1917-1920
Palestine was founded on the false promises of a global superpower and a banker which doomed it from the start. During WWI in 1917 the United Kingdom promised the Palestinian lands to the Arabs for help in defeating the Turks. The idea was that victory would liberate Ottoman territories and for the help of the Arabs they were to be granted some of these new territories. However, the new territories were also being eyed by a Rothschild Zionist banker for a new permanent home for his people. The result was that from the start the land was double promised to two groups of people. To make matters worse, two diplomats from the UK and France (Sykes & Picot) had already arbitrarily divided up the land with no consideration for the people or cultures currently inhabiting it. Admittedly this part of the world had been troubled with different power grabs, but these new conditions imposed by the global powers of the time guaranteed that the following century would be extremely bloody.

Trends:

• From the beginning outside powers have been part of the conflict

• From the beginning many outside powers have not taken the time to understand the region

1920-1948
In the beginning, in 1920, both sides did not like that they were forcibly under the heavy hand of British rule. The hatred that developed was nearly equal to the dislike that they had for each other, but at the time the British were executing hundreds of members of each side for accusations of inciting trouble. This heavy hand eventually incited uprisings, and after nearly 3 decades of bloodshed the British determined that they had had enough. During this same period, 1920-1948, a rise in antisemitic sentiments in Europe caused the Jewish population of Palestine to explode from 57,000 to 608,000. This also meant that many of the Jews in Palestine had recently been exposed to fearing for their life in Europe only to find themselves in a second hostile environment. With mortal fears running high combined with the local hostilities, the Jews were not going to be pushed out of Palestine. On May 13^th 1948 they forcibly cemented the nation of Israel by killing 15,000 Arabs and evicting 750,000 Arabs from the new state of Israel. From that point forward the two-state solution was in play and the neighbors had quite the history.

Trends:

• Both groups have been taking directions from outside forces from the very beginning

• Both groups also have their own agenda and

• The internal stakes from the beginning have been inherently high and primed for conflict (especially with outside encouragement)

1948-Present
Over the following 65 years the Israelis maintained the upper hand for most of the battles with the exception of the Yom Kippur War, where the US bailed them out and paid for it with the US Oil Crisis of 1973 (followed by the US / KSA alliance that built the Petro Dollar that we wrote about). Over these 65 years a recorded tragic 63,543 deaths from both sides took place in the Palestine Israel conflict, unfortunately, this number is likely multiples larger than the reported number. Over the last 16 years alone, the conflict has taken a recorded 6,715 lives in just the “Occupied Palestine” area according to the United Nations, with 1 of every 22.5 deaths being an Israeli death.

Trends:

• Since 1920, world powers, with the exception of Egypt, have been mostly content to let the Palestinians and the Israelis kill just each other, and for the West and the USSR to offer supplies but rarely people.

• Everything about the fatality ratio suggests that the Israeli’s have superior technology, funding and resources.

Note:

• Both he 1967 and 1973 Arab Israeli wars were found to be encouraged, if not incited, by the USSR for strategic gains against the US.  

1967 to 2005 - Occupied Palestine
From 1967 to 2005, Israel occupied some part of Palestine and maintained a level of control over it. It can be argued that the occupation has never stopped as Israel still maintains control of water, electricity and critical supplies up to this day for some parts of Palestine. This control has the potential to build a level of resentment that very few people understand, based on a looming and continuous pressure of the option to exercise force over others. Scientists have even studied and clearly documented the effects of this type of pressure and how humans can behave when given power over other humans. I bring this up as it is a component to the conflict that doesn’t get much coverage in the West but clearly influences decisions on both sides.

Trends:

• Since the occupation, Palestinians often behave the way that we expect humans to behave under continuous stress.

• Palestinian aggressions since occupation, typically involve short term planning for retaliations as the Palestinians are continuously monitored.

Questions that we all should be asking:

• Which world power(s) could benefit from a significant conflict in the Middle East?

• Why would someone in the Israeli government allow a border breech?

I can’t answer either of these questions, but it should be known that multiple border breeches at the same time should be considered extraordinary, since cats playing have been known to set off border alerts in Israel.

It should also be known that we seem to be entering into “war season” and the more money that can be drained from the US war chest, the less of a threat the US can pose in these conflicts. The three conflicts that spring to mind the quickest are:

• Power over Eastern Europe – Russia vs. Ukraine/UN/US

• Power over the Arabian Gulf – Iran vs. Saudi/US

• Power over the East China Sea – China vs. Taiwan/US

If this all sounds far-fetched, know that in 1967 in Palestine, during the cold war, the USSR cleverly baited Egypt into starting a war with Israel to drag the US into it and drain resources. Six years later the USSR again encouraged the 1973 war in Palestine that then caused the US Oil Crisis in 1973 and almost sank the US economy.

Over the next two weeks it is very likely that if you listen carefully, you will find a number of claims that have been made since the Palestinian attack on Israel that will be determined to be fake news. Unfortunately, they will have likely been considered the truth for long enough for the US congress to link funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan all at the same time. And just like that, we will be committed to multiple foreign crises in faraway lands.

Written By: Christopher LaBorde
The Keyboard Chimp

Christopher LaBorde, his wife and their two children, live part time in the Middle East and part time in Louisiana. As a curious engineer and novice researcher that studies a multitude of topics, Christopher always welcomes feedback at Chris@silvertrading.net and www.TheSophisticatedChimp.com. All of Christopher’s writing is made possible by The Silver Trading Company www.SilverTrading.net, please allow us to help you with any of your precious metals needs domestically or abroad.