March 19, 2024 (EIRNS)—Investigative journalist Caitlin Johnstone points her finger at the 800-pound gorilla in the room, writing on March 17 in her Caitlin’s Newsletter: She effectively says, yes, Benjamin Netanyahu is carrying out genocide in Gaza, but is it convenient to blame him as if he were acting all by himself, and not attack the network that makes his actions possible? In her article “They’re Really Going To Try To Lay All he Blame for Gaza on Netanyahu,” Johnstone writes: “They’re really going to try to pin all the blame for the incineration of Gaza on Benjamin Netanyahu so that nothing has to change when this is over. The Western empire has chosen a single scapegoat to carry away its sins so the status quo can march on unhindered by guilt or consequence.
“They want everyone to pin all the blame for the Gaza genocide on Netanyahu, but this is not all the fault of Netanyahu. It’s the fault of the entire Israeli state. It’s the fault of Joe Biden. It’s the fault of the Democrats. It’s the fault of all the Israel supporters on Capitol Hill. It’s the fault of the Western press. It’s the fault of the Israel lobby. It’s the fault of the unelected empire managers in US government agencies. It’s the fault of the entire US empire and all its imperial member states like Australia, the U.K., the EU, and Canada.
“By trying to make this mass atrocity solely the fault of Netanyahu and not the giant, sprawling network of immensely powerful institutions which made it possible, they’re working to ensure that no changes will need to be made to any of those institutions.”
Johnstone compares this to making a “scapegoat” of New York Times reporter “Judith Miller for the entire mass media’s war propaganda in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion,” when other forces were not blamed. “No meaningful changes were ever made to ensure that the U.S. power alliance never repeats its horrible crimes after Iraq, which is why it keeps repeating horrible crimes.”
Johnstone ridicules the Israeli myth that it is carrying out its actions, because “Israel has a right to defend itself.” She concludes by bringing up the fact that “forgotten in all this is the news that Israel literally tortured UN staff to extract false statements about UNRWA having Hamas connections.” She re-emphasizes the torture. “If we had anything remotely like objective news reporting in the Western press, this would have been the top story everywhere for days.”
