Cartoon depicting media spoonfeeding a viewer. Photo: Don Addis.
By Al-Akhbar – Dec 22, 2023
In recent years, voices of anti-Resistance activists and influencers have emerged from Gaza, attracting the attention of Western media in a striking way. In turn, Western media has provided them with a platform to share their views and transmit those views to Western societies. These are the voices that talk about “peace” and lament the situation in Gaza under Hamas governance and, since 2019, they have also led demonstrations against the Resistance. Even during the current genocidal war that Israel is waging against the people of Gaza, these “influencers” do not hesitate to appear on Western screens to stab the resistance in the back. It is worth noting that they are marginalized within the Palestinian society.
“Israeli” occupation accounts speak gleefully of these so-called “Gaza activists.” For example, the occupation’s official Arabic account on X (formerly known as Twitter) Israel Arabic believes that “the civil society in Gaza is capable of proposing a positive alternative to Hamas-ISIS.” It talks about “Gazan activist” Moumen Al-Natour who “co-organized anti-Hamas street protests in 2019.” The account claimed that “Hamas jailed and tortured him 20 times.” The post declares, “He now stands at the head of the ‘Palestine Youth for Development’ to provide relief to Gazans and distribute humanitarian aid to them after ISIS-Hamas was stealing it from civilians and selling it on the black market.” It quotes Al-Natour, “I realized that the forces of youth are capable of revitalizing civil society. Imagine what Gaza will become when there are tens of thousands of this human and rational model ready to take on responsibility and establish a just system.”
Mosab Hassan Yousef, another activist and influencer, appears from time to time on US TV networks, including Fox News and CNN. He is the son of Hassan Yousef, a leader in the Al-Qassam Brigades. He has been a defector for years, and has taken refuge in Israel where he is nicknamed “The Green Prince.” He talks about “the corruption of Hamas and its use of civilians as human shields and the horrors of life and difficulties under Hamas rule.”
Ahmed Maher is another Gazan political activist who works in the media. He uses X as a platform to “expose” Hamas, as he claims, by publishing tweets that are hostile to the Resistance and urging people to rise up against it.
These activists and others like them are given considerable space within the Western media in order to further the same rhetorical manipulations that Palestinians have been exposing for years. Terms like “Gaza civil society,” “proposing a positive alternative” to the Resistance, and a “rational model.” Who would have thought that the NGO infection would enter Gaza?
By creating these figures, supporting them, and portraying them as having some kind of relevance, the occupation works to shape the narrative in a way that suits its agenda. By harnessing of the power of “popular” movements and demonstrations, the enemy aims to divert the attention of people in the West from the occupation and its brutality against the Palestinians.
Influencers and national political activists are important tools, but when “Israeli” accounts tweet the names of some of them and speak positively about them, and they appear on US television screens, it means that we are facing a psyop that was concocted in the corridors of “Israeli” intelligence centers.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/DZ/SC
