The Hamas-NGO-Media nexus and the "Israel targets civilians" Narrative.

CNN's Michael Holmes interviews Christopher Sidoti about Israel targeting Gaza medical system.

An interview with Michael Holmes and Christopher Sidoti: how the lethal narrative becomes newsworthy, trustworthy for “the whole world.”

The two obvious players here are the the media (CNN’s Holmes) and the NGO nexus (Sidoti, a “human rights consultant” working with NGOs). Israel has attacked these hospitals systematically. The only explanation is that Israel pursues “a concerted policy of destroying Gaza's health care system, crime of against humanity, extermination.”

The missing participant: Hamas, whom, we are assured, Sidoti’s colleagues also denounce. But in their haste to move on, neither the journalist nor the activist pause to also mention a far more urgent and shocking war crime that goes far to explain thee pattern laid out in the study. For them, Hamas crimes was in the past. They don’t add to last year’s deed - hostage taking - the far more urgent and relevant war crime: deliberately hiding among civilians to bring down these strikes. The same data, correlated with Hamas activities, would produce an equally plausible explanation, in which Jihadi movements account for the destruction suffered by Gazans. The narrative here promoted by CNN, with Hamas missing, complies with one of Hamas highest media protocols, in which their movements and activities are to be erased from the record.

So, below we witness a classic case of how 21st century news media became a major avenue whereby Jihadi war propaganda got pumped into the Western public sphere as news.

Michael Holmes: Now, an Israeli airstrike on a hospital in central Gaza has killed three people and wounded dozens of others. Have a look at the scene inside the Al-Aqsa hospital courtyard. Several tents were in flames with people trying unsuccessfully to put out the fires and get out of the flames. People literally burned to death. You can see it in some of the videos.

Gaza officials say this was the seventh time that the camp inside the hospital grounds has been struck. The Israeli military says it conducted a precise strike on what it called a Hamas command and control center inside the compound. Clearly, civilians had to fight their way out of the flames. Some did not make it. Throughout Gaza, more than 40 people, at least 13 of them children, were killed in Israeli air strikes on Sunday, according to hospital officials.

And a warning. What follows is disturbing video. At least 22 of the dead were killed when the Al Mufti's school located in the Nusra refugee camp was hit. More than 5000 displaced people are sheltering there, according to Gaza's civil defense.

Note that there is a unit called “Gaza’s civil defense,” which has yet to build one bomb shelter for civilians.

A paramedic who spoke to CNN said the Israeli military classifies the area as a safe zone. One Palestinian wounded in a different incident voiced his despair over the conditions in Gaza. “There is no medicine, no treatment for the wounded and no doctors. No one cares for us.”

The boy may well express what it’s like living in a Jihadi society where the people’s suffering is a valuable good.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment.

but not awaited their response, contradicting the narrative of Palestinian suffering.

Now an independent UN Commission of inquiry has released a new report document documenting numerous alleged human rights abuses committed by Israeli security forces in Gaza, in part by specifically targeting hospitals and medical workers.

key word, the one in the al Durah lethal narrative, the core of the blood libel, “targeted.” Intent. Malevolent intent.

Just quoting from it here now: “The commission finds that Israel has implemented a concerted policy to destroy the health care system of Gaza. Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles constituting the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and the crime against humanity of extermination.” The commission also highlighted the tragic case of Hinde Rajab, who was killed by Israeli shells and bullets.

This year. Five year old Hend and six of her family members were fleeing the fighting in northern Gaza when their car came under Israeli fire. Her family was killed, but the little girl survived alone, trapped in the car with their bodies. For a time, she called the emergency services, pleading for them to rescue her. 12 days later, the bodies of little Hinde and her family were discovered in their bullet riddled, ridden car, and so were the two Palestinian paramedics who'd been dispatched to help them.

I don’t know of this case, but the narrative is highly suspect.

They were killed when their ambulance was destroyed by an Israeli tank shell. The UN report found that the Israeli Army's 162nd Division is responsible for their deaths. Israel responding, saying, quote, “The report shamelessly portrays Israel's operations in terror infested health facilities in Gaza as a matter of policy against Gaza's health system, which, while entirely dismissing overwhelming evidence that medical facilities in Gaza have been systematically used by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad for terrorist activities.”

The voice of Israel, the non jihadi-compliant narrative. Hamas is the author of this tragic, horrendous situation.

Christopher Sidoti is an international human rights consultant and serves as a commissioner on the UN Commission of Inquiry, which put out that report. He joins me now from Sydney, Australia. Good to see you, sir. The report very direct, accusing Israel, as we said, of a concerted policy of destroying Gaza's health care system, crime of against humanity, of extermination and so on. Israel denying that. How strong is the evidence for the report's conclusions?

Christopher Sidoti: The evidence is very strong, Michael. Very strong indeed. We do not produce anything in our reports. We make no findings unless the evidence is strong. We do not accept mere assertion by anybody. We don't accept the assertions of the Israeli authorities or of Hamas or other groups. We want evidence. And unless we have corroborated evidence, that is witnesses, videos and other forms of digital evidence, documentation,

much of which is as dubious as the claims. My guess is that their “critical method” has no filters for deliberate deception.

we don't come to a conclusion. So everything we say in our report is well documented in the report. And we should say this also accuses Hamas of war crimes in its treatment of hostages. The report writes in both cases about accountability.

The war crime to which to hold Hamas (in addition, obviously, to the hostages), is their systematic endangerment of their own people. This charge never appears in this friendly discussion.

Holmes: How do you think those accused in this report, both Israel and Hamas, should be held accountable? And do you think they ultimately will be held accountable?

Christopher Sidoti: They should be held accountable by being brought before the International Criminal Court charged and prosecuted. They should have the opportunity to defend themselves. An opportunity, I have to say, which neither the Israeli military nor the Palestinian armed groups have given to the innocent victims. But tens of thousands of innocent victims of this fighting over the last 12 months.

But those who are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity should be tried, should be given an opportunity to defend themselves. And if convicted, they should be punished. This is what accountability means. Likely. Is it?

Michael Holmes: Yeah. Carry on.

Christopher Sidoti: How likely? Your second question. I believe it will happen. I believe that this is so outrageous. What has happened in the last year that there will be at last accountability before an international court.

Michael Holmes: Yeah. Yeah. So much has happened and so much more will happen before it gets to that, sadly. The Commission's report will be presented to the General Assembly later this month in New York. What do you want to see happen there? Because the UN, let's face it, has often been seen as impotent, toothless. What do you want to see happen with this report when it gets there?

Christopher Sidoti: I'm as critical of the UN's effectiveness as anyone else, but I have seen some effectiveness in relation to our reports. To take an example, when we reported to the General Assembly two years ago, we recommended a referral to the International Court of Justice to look at the question of the occupation. That was done within six weeks and the Court gave its decision in July this year.

I expect our report to be taken seriously. We will be following up in the next week or two with specific advice to the General Assembly on action that should be taken arising from the Court's finding that the Israeli occupation is unlawful, and I expect the General Assembly to act on that. So I have high expectations in spite of the record of ineffectiveness in the past.

The horrific crimes that need persecution are clearly, here, references to Israeli deeds. Sidoti won’t even raise the case of the hostages here.

In other words, we’re making slow but steady progress in occupying international institutions dedicated to global peace and justice, and turning them into arms of the Jihadi cognitive war against Israel.

Michael Holmes: The evidence that you looked at, the overwhelming evidence,

Michael’s a true believer. Believe this Israeli malevolence with me.

it makes you wonder, you know, even when the war stops and whatever Gaza looks like after that in terms of its ability to even function as a society, even then, what sorts of resources are going to be need to rebuild some sort of functioning health care system because the needs, even after the war, are going to be enormous.

Christopher Sidoti: Absolutely enormous at this stage. Nobody could make an accurate estimate, in part because the destruction is continuing. You mentioned at the beginning of this of this interview, the destruction of a hospital again today. So it's continuing. It said that it will take decades and tens of billions of dollars to many times we have seen Western states, particularly Europeans, pouring money into the reconstruction of Gaza after another episode in this endless war.

Christopher Sidoti: Yeah, I don't know that they will be so keen to do it this time unless they have guarantees that the tens of billions that they pour into Gaza will not be destroyed by the Israelis in the next outbreak of violence. So the reconstruction of Gaza depends upon a peace settlement.

Michael Holmes: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just the the damage done is just mind boggling. The report, we're almost out of time. So real quick, if you will, the report also, because this is an important aspect. It talks not only of the direct military strikes on facilities and stop, but rights of health care workers being abused, tortured even in Israeli detention facilities. How disturbing are those allegations? These are people in custody.

Let’s not go without twisting the knife.

Christopher Sidoti: Yeah, extremely disturbing. We have received a very large number of accounts and we have talked to people who have been released from Israeli custody. We have even been able to to see video footage and documentation from some of the prison guards so we know what's going on. And for detainees generally, including medical workers, there has been torture, there has been rape and other forms of sexual violence. There is no doubt about it. So these matters, too, they're connected with the health care system, but broader than because of the way in which detainees are treated. And I should add, we also said that there had been torture, mistreatment and sexual violence against the Israeli hostages, and the hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Michael Holmes: Yeah, Chris Sidoti there in Sydney, appreciate you coming on and talking about this important report. Thank you.

Christopher Sidoti: Thanks very much, Michael.

This is not an interview, it’s a promotional video, designed to give as much credibility to accusations against Israel as possible. Four “tell-us-more” questions, not one challenge, nothing on Hamas’ contribution to this catastrophe. And so any attempt at a realistic understanding of the conflict is shielded from the viewer: the driving enemy, the driving enmity, does not make an appearance, precisely where it is most active, and, given the destruction Hamas brings down upon their own people, at its most malevolent.

Now, why would a sane western journalist or global benefactor want to promote in their (global, civil) public sphere, the propaganda of a mortal and savage enemy as news?

This certainly seems like a worthy case for inclusion in a dossier of own-goal journalistic malpractice.