The Israeli Air Force has been dropping food and milk packets, water bottles, tents, mattresses, blankets, etc. for the war-ravaged people of Syria since early December. Was it natural for the mainstream global media outlets—including Al-Jazeera—not to report whether anyone has lost life or sustained injuries in the ‘philanthropic’ operation carried out by Israel?
How can there be no casualty when almost the entire war machine of Syria was destroyed? The impact of the December 15 bombing on the ammunition and missile depots and naval bases in the port city of Tartus was so devastating that it caused an earthquake of 3.1 on the Richter scale in this part of Syria.
For argument’s sake, one may accept the absurd plea that no Syrian forces personnel loyal to Bashar al-Assad could be killed because all of them had fled from the scene abandoning everything—tanks, howitzers, fighter planes, war-ships, frigates, missile sites, military cantonments, air and naval bases, etc. But it is also a fact that different rebel groups had occupied these deserted posts. If this was so, why has no casualty of rebels or civilians in massive Israeli air raids been reported by
these ‘prestigious’ media-houses?
Settler colonialism
The Israelis have claimed to have bombed the chemical plant in Syria. If it is so, what was its impact on the population in the neighbourhood? Strangely, no leak of toxic gas, no radiation, nothing of the sort had happened.
At the same time, nobody is talking about the displacement of Syrian people after the virtual invasion of the country from Golan Heights. The Israeli army is in the vicinity of the capital, Damascus. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has even claimed that Jews living elsewhere in Israel would be settled in this part of Syria as they are being planted in the West Bank where Palestinians living for generations are being uprooted.
While the new regime in Damascus is yet to come out with any statement denouncing the Israeli action, some local people are resisting the intrusion of Israeli Defence Forces into their villages or townships.
After all, the creation of this Zionist state on May 14, 1948, was one of the latest designs of the Christianized Western imperialist powers (no, not by the global Christian community of the world as such).
No, the Palestinians had no problem with the arrival of Jews from Europe more than a century back. Is it not a fact that Jews were welcomed in Morocco and other North African countries when they, along with Muslims, were expelled during the Spanish Inquisition of 1492?
In the case of Palestine the Arab population, including local Christians too, got alarmed and started opposing the Western plan to throw them out and create a Jewish homeland, which ironically
many Jews, in particular the Ultra-Orthodox ones, too were not ready –rather they initially opposed its creation on the ground that it was a sinful act of Christian imperialist powers.
Indirect Israeli help
If the death toll in Gaza and Lebanon are still being duly reported every day what is preventing the international media from highlighting how many people have lost their lives in the reckless Israeli bombing of Syria from the moment the rebels headed towards Damascus? Now
information gathered from some independent sources suggests that the Israelis started striking the military complexes in Syria apparently on the plea that it wanted weapons and ammunition to be destroyed before falling into the hands of rebels. But the other side of the story tells something else. Ever since the civil war started in Syria in 2011 the Israeli Air Force has been targeting military bases to facilitate the rebels in their fight against the army loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime. The Israeli air raids increased after November 27, which paved the way for the rebels to advance. In the international chess game, help to the enemy’s enemy is provided in such a way.
If these reputed electronic and print media outlets can dig out information about what had happened in the entire 54 years of the rule of father and son, why is it not just telling the number of casualties caused by on-going Israeli barbarism?
Instead the television viewers are made to watch the celebrations and rallies in the Western capitals over the advent of democracy and freedom in Syria. No problem with this side of the story, but the other ugly and painful reality should also be highlighted.
Israeli U-turn
When Israel accepted the 60 days long temporary cease-fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon on November 26 its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his government was doing so because the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) needed a breather and that there was a delay in the supply of weapons and ammunition. Never in the four wars fought with the combined armies of Arab countries in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, Israel had to make this acknowledgment and that too before two non-state actors. Yes, in the initial phase of 17 days long October 1973 war then Prime Minister Golda Meir sought help from the United States and other European friends when on the first day of the war the Egyptian army recaptured the Suez Canal and a large part of Sinai and the Syrians overran Golan Heights.
If Israel was so short of arms on November 26 then why and how the same IDF swung into action in Syria the moment the rebels launched their offensive a day later on November 27? From where had the Zionist state suddenly got weapons and ammunition? And how did the Israeli forces all of sudden become so active and overcome the fatigue gripping them? Or is it that the United States, as usual, rushed to its help with weapons, ammunition, and even soldiers?
The other reason was that it was very easy to decimate the defenseless war machine of Syria, but very difficult to overcome the resistance posed by Hezbollah and earlier by Hamas. Notwithstanding the IDF’s success in getting rid of Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah and causing widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure most Western experts were of the view that this Shia group of Lebanon still has 60 to 70 percent firepower left to fight Israel. The total death toll in Lebanon, including civilians, was under 4,000. In contrast Hezbollah, according to estimates, has over one lakh fighters.
So, Netanyahu, facing strong criticism from within, wanted to at least buy peace with Hezbollah, which a day before the cease-fire had come into being, fired 200 projectiles at Israel.
News black-out
Blacking out the news in this era of information explosion is an art one must learn from the Western masters. When Iran launched 181 missiles on Israel in October the Israeli media reported that only one Palestinian was injured. This was even though unlike in the April attack, most of the Iranian ballistic missiles could not be intercepted. One of them even fell near the Mossad headquarters. Can one believe the propaganda of no casualty in Israel?
Earthquake factor
Incidentally, one factor being overlooked by the media in the sudden collapse of the Bashar regime (though there has hardly been any fighting since 2020) was the devastating earthquake of February 6, 2023, which caused widespread destruction in south Turkey and north Syria. It came just two years after the Corona pandemic of 2020-21. The economy of the war-ravaged country was further ruined.
Yet the natural tragedy did not bring the warring groups together. While Syria was still grappling with a terrible earthquake in the northern part of the country officially 53 people, (46 civilians and seven soldiers) were killed and many others injured in an attack on a check-post by the suspect Islamic States of Iraq and Syria in the government-controlled Homs province in the central part of the country on February 17, 2023. The mistimed attack took place just 11 days after the massive earthquake which killed about 45,000-50,000 people in Turkey and 8,000-10,000 in Syria.
It needs to be remembered that it is in this quake-ravaged region where the pro-Turkey Syrian National Army and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces—and not the Syrian army of Bashar al-Assad–are still locked in the bloodbath. The two groups fought even when the rescue and relief operations were going on last year.
One needs to objectively analyze why the Western media is so selective in playing up one development and ignoring the other.
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