Op-Ed: Someone’s doing nicely out of fake news about Gaza

Gaza’s Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees on October 11, 2023, on the fifth day of battles between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel. — © AFP

Well, had to happen, didn’t it? People are dead and maimed, but some invaluable evolutionary assets have been able to publish utterly fake news and get paid for it. It’s not all altruism, though. There are reasons for publishing such garbage.

Among the fake attack videos and other non-existent atrocities was a doctored White House memo about $8 billion in aid to Israel. Standard format documents are pretty easy to fake.

Do you think this could be a controversial bit of news, fake or otherwise, so soon after the regular annual threatened US government shutdown over spending? Perhaps an excuse to trim US aid to Ukraine? Maybe. Could it be yet another hyper-polarizing issue for Happy Valley USA?

Could it be a great reason for the apparently insufficiently-medicated MAGA branch of Mensa to launch another crusade? Whether it exists or not? How odd.

X and other social media parasites are idiotically blazing away with thousands of posts of this fake news. Don’t be surprised to see prosecutions.

Well, nobody said you need a brain to run social media platforms, did they?

Beheadings are popular too. If you check Google News for stories about beheadings, you’ll see right-wing media like the Murdoch-owned New York Post and The Australian saying Biden saw pictures of kids being beheaded. The Times of Israel says Biden denies this.

…Which sort of makes you wonder where news.com.au got this story saying Biden said he’d seen the pictures. Frankly, I’d take the Times of Israel’s information any day. For some reason, I also think Israel would have officially mentioned the issue.

Everyone wants a piece of this news. The world’s favorite bit of living onomatopoeia, Trump, is also playing god on the subject when he’s not in court. The guy who called everything fake news for years is focused like a noisy beacon laser on the Middle East.

“Huzzah”, you squeak? Good for you.

The religious nuts are also using the Gaza horrors to be pro-Trump and hope that Gaza causes the return of Jesus, according to Newsweek. Couldn’t you just belch with excitement?

I’ve often wondered what the real meaning of the word “shameless” is. It’s an old word, obviously, from when people had enough brain cells to experience shame.

I think the word needs updating. Perhaps it should be something like “blatant use of human misery for profit by useless rich brats”?

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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.