White House Fears Pause in Fighting Will Let Journalists See What’s Been Happening in Gaza

By Caitlin Johnstone – Nov 22, 2023

Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a four-day ceasefire which will entail the release of 50 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 150 hostages held by Israeli forces.

In an article titled “Biden admin officials see proof their strategy is working in hostage deal,” Politico describes the deal as “the administration’s biggest diplomatic victory of the conflict” and reports that White House officials are calling it a “vindication” of Biden’s decision making. Which is an entirely inappropriate level of verbal fellatio for an achievement as minimal as not murdering children for a few days.

Tucked away many paragraphs into this report is a sentence which is getting a lot of attention on social media today saying that according to Politico’s sources there has been some resistance to the pause in fighting within the administration due to fears that it will allow journalists into Gaza to report on the devastation Israel has inflicted upon the enclave.

“And there was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause: that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel,” Politico reports.

The Biden administration worries that the pause in Gaza will allow journalists to show us the extent of destruction from Israel’s genocide. These people are vile. https://t.co/AsOBfVcJ3I pic.twitter.com/D3NxUsEPXY
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) November 22, 2023

In other words, the White House is worried that a brief pause in the Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza will allow journalists to report the truth about the Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza, because it will hurt the information interests of the US and Israel. They are worried that the public will become more aware of facts and truth.

Needless to say, if you’re standing on the right side of history you’re not typically worried about journalists reporting true facts about current events and thereby damaging public support for your agendas. But that is the side that the US and Israel have always stood on, which is why the US empire is currently imprisoning Julian Assange for doing good journalism on US war crimes and why Israel has a decades-long history of threatening and targeting journalists.

Truce Reached in Gaza: Temporary Ceasefire and Prisoner Exchange Confirmed

During Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza in 2021 the IDF reportedly targeted more than 20 Palestinian press institutions in the enclave, as well as the tower hosting the international outlets AP and Al Jazeera. During this current onslaught Israel has been killing dozens of Palestinian journalists, sometimes by actively bombing their homes where they live with their families. The IDF’s campaign to wipe out inconvenient news reporters has resulted in the Committee to Protect Journalists calling this the deadliest conflict on record for journalists anywhere, ever.

“The spiralling death toll over a six-week period compares with the 42 journalists killed worldwide in the whole of 2022, including 15 who died covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, widely considered a highly dangerous conflict for news media.”https://t.co/u7JIA6VChZ pic.twitter.com/wg7DwLiFpj
— wsbgnl (@wsbgnl) November 21, 2023

Both the US and Israel have been attacking the press in this way because their governments understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world. They understand that while power is controlling what happens, ultimate power is controlling what people think about what happens. Human consciousness is dominated by mental narratives, so if you can control society’s dominant narratives, you can control the humans.

This is why the powerful have been able to remain in power in our civilization — because they understand this, while we the public generally do not. That’s why they bombard us with nonstop mass media propaganda, that’s why they work to censor the internet, that’s why Julian Assange languishes in prison, that’s why Israel routinely murders journalists, and that’s why the White House is afraid of what will happen if worldwide news reporters are able to get their cameras into Gaza.

(Caitlin’s Newsletter)