Israel's Propaganda Machine Is Glitching

People aren’t buying this bullshit anymore.

Screenshot: CNN via @JordanUhl

Words are completely inadequate when it comes to articulating the atrocities taking place in Gaza right now. We’ve spent a lot of time doing our best here, but letters on the page absolutely pale in comparison to the actual horrors of the situation. 

But it turns out words aren’t failing just us. Yesterday, in an interview with CNN’s Boris Sanchez, Tal Heinrich—a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—said, “I can tell you that we are not targeting anyone in Gaza but civilians.” 

Yes, she said that. Let’s check the receipts: 

As you can see, Heinrich swiftly corrects herself with “Rather, terrorists of course,” but you can see in her eyes that even she seems a little unconvinced. I honestly wonder if the Israeli government has considered calling Amy Schumer in the last 24 hours to replace her. 

Normally I would call this a Freudian slip, but that too feels lacking, and frankly wrong. Heinrich didn’t make an unforced error that revealed her true, subconscious feelings—she simply said the truth when she didn’t mean to. One might argue that maybe, just maybe, her last shred of moral fiber was fighting for its damn life by forcibly jumping right out of her mouth, but I think that’s extending far too much credit to someone serving as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece in the midst of a genocide. 

There’s a bigger point to be made here, though, beyond this devastatingly accurate fuck up: even Israel’s own comms people are failing to deliver the lies they’re telling about how and why they’re waging war against Palestinians.

We said it here a few days ago but it bears repeating: At least 9,000 people in Gaza have been killed since October 7, and nearly 40 percent of those deaths were children. That number, amassed in just the last few weeks, is more than the number of children killed annually in conflict zones across the world since 2019. And nearly half of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are under 18, which means that number isn’t an anomaly—it’s only going to rise as this continues. 

Israel’s attack has been aided literally and figuratively by the United States, where even our supposedly most progressive politicians are failing to offer the most basic appeals for a ceasefire. In the last few weeks, they and many media outlets have demonstrated what can only be described as a pathological loyalty to the passive voice and pretzeling of the English language to avoid saying what Israel’s own mouthpiece said quite plainly on national television: Israel is killing civilians in Gaza, and they’re doing so with devastating, irrevocable speed.

Part of the devastation of watching this unfold is the total lack of meaningful intervention from anyone with the power to stop it, and the knowledge that, historically, atrocities like this occur without any consequences. This particular atrocity has in fact been occurring in slow motion for years without any consequences. But the cracks in Israel’s propaganda machine are quietly but surely starting to show, and the most unlikely people on the planet are prying them open. 

Unfortunately I can’t type and hold my nose at the same time, so I guess I’ll brave the stench as I point to Piers fucking Morgan, whose offenses I won’t bother recounting because they might make me regret boosting this good?? and unimpeachable?? take.