Caitlin Johnstone

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

I’m sorry if this makes me an evil terrorist-loving baby-raping sieg-heiling Nazi, but in my humble opinion genocidal massacres are bad.

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Israel and its allies get away with a lot by marketing this as a “war”. It’s not a war. Israel launches high-tech military explosives at civilian buildings in a huge concentration camp while Hamas fires back with glorified fireworks which do light property damage. That’s not a war, it’s a massacre.

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I was upset when I saw that Israel has killed seven thousand people in its Gaza bombing campaign but then a really smart Israel apologist told me Hamas might be exaggerating those numbers and maybe it’s more like four thousand, so now I think it’s fine.

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What kind of drooling, knuckle-dragging, tapioca-brained moron can look at the satellite images of the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes and believe Gaza is lying about its death toll?

CNN has just published completely shocking before and after satellite images showing the extent of the obliteration of Gaza neighborhoods. Israel was not lying when it claimed to be focused on damage rather than accuracy: https://t.co/grJx0HyKpi pic.twitter.com/mPF5TTVOIv

— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) October 26, 2023

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Look it’s very simple: if your words say “we’re not targeting civilians we’re targeting Hamas” but your actions say you’re inflicting siege warfare on the civilian population and carpet bombing entire city blocks into rubble, then you’re not really targeting Hamas.

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Israel-Palestine is a very complicated, confusing, highly nuanced debate between those who think murdering thousands of children is fine and those who do not.

This is a very complicated genocidal massacre. Most complicated genocidal massacre in the history of genocidal massacres. There’s two sides to this genocidal massacre. This genocidal massacre requires nuance.

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Normal person: Israel is killing children by the thousands as we speak

Crazy person: WHY AREN’T YOU CONDEMNING HAMAS??

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When you realize your government and all its allies bet all their middle east foreign policy chips on a psychotic cult leader. https://t.co/9wHSIqlYJS

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 26, 2023

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Israel apologists are the worst. The absolute worst. I’ve sparred with countless political factions over the years, and I’ve never encountered a group so profoundly morally bankrupt and psychologically malformed. They’re so awful that their apologia actually hurts Israel’s image. Nothing will reassure you of the moral correctness of your opposition to Israel faster than interacting with Israel apologists online.

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It keeps surprising me that Israel apologists still expect to be taken seriously. Israel is massacring children by the thousands and turning Gaza into rubble and they still expect you to listen to them receptively when they defend its actions. It’s actually starting to get morbidly fascinating.

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In the old days murderous thugs just grabbed whatever land they wanted and killed anyone who tried to stop them. That still happens today too, but now the thugs have to make up liberal-sounding, sympathy-pulling justifications for it, like “spreading freedom and democracy” or “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

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Israel has lost the argument. Permanently. There’s no coming back from this.

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I cannot adequately express the immensity of my respect for the many, many, many Jewish voices I’ve seen taking a firm and forceful stand against the Gaza massacre. I’m just over here getting yelled at by strangers online and I find it pretty intense; you’re having much harder arguments with family, with friends, with people you’ve known your whole lives, about something that probably feels a lot more personal for you. You’re out there protesting, taking action and moving the needle, typically with far more skill and incisiveness than anyone else in the world. 

Big, big, big-hearted love to all of you. You amaze me.

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