Netanyahu: Now that a temporary truce is on, brief me about developments at the media front.
War Cabinet Member (WCM): Sir, our hit rate is 100% successful. Till 23.11.2023 we managed to kill 53 journalists and media workers (46 Palestinians, 3 Lebanese and 4 Israelis); 11 injured; 3 missing and 18 Palestinian journalists arrested by us. As a policy we are not letting journalists near the war zone. The US experience even with embedded journalists in the war against Iraq taught us not to trust even an embedded journalist. Legend has it that at the height of the Iraq war a prominent journalist embedded with the US army switched sides to join another channel (non-embedded) which offered to pay him three times the salary he was otherwise getting. As a precaution we pay ‘consideration money’ in crypto-currency apart from the usual salary they receive. We hand over press-statements to members of the corporate press covering on the spot war from the safe confines of the five-star hotel about fifty miles from the war front. Journalists insist that they be outside the range of rockets fired by Hamas. The hotel staff has assured journalists that no questions would be asked of any comfort-girl accompanying them to the hotel during daytime as also the night hours. Next morning papers in US and EU countries dutifully carry exclusive interviews with high-ups based on the same press-release. Editorials in the corporate press follow our line of projecting Hamas as a terror group though the UN has still not done it. Thorough gentlemen as they are, the American and European editors never mention about damage to IDF warfare viz tanks etc. They know it is a taboo subject. In the lavishly hosted press-conferences we encourage journalists to ask no questions about the utter failure of the Israeli government and its defence/security apparatus for the 7th October fiasco. Cover-up of potentially damaging stories is provided by our mentors at the speed of light. For example when we bombed a hospital in Gaza killing about 600 to 700 patients the US intelligence chipped in the lie about their satellite images suggesting that a malfunctioning Hamas rocket fired from Gaza side was the culprit. The truth is – so it be told – that it was the US satellite which was malfunctioning! Major media houses worldwide directly or indirectly under control of the Jewish lobby are able to ‘manage’ any errant papers or idealist journalists.
N: Any obstacle?
WCM: Just a sec.
(Signals an assistant to ask the intern to bring the file codenamed CC. The intern breezes in the meeting room smiling at N and puts the hard copy on the table and walks back. From the corner of his eyes Netanyahu stared hard at her lower back. But for the moment Netanyahu turned his attention to the issue at hand.)
WCM: The PRO department has complained that half its energies get consumed by analyzing the vitriolic pieces appearing in a web based news portal going by the name of Countercurrents.org. We would have missed it Sir, but for a tip-off provided by the Guinness Book of Record which is planning to acknowledge CC for carrying the largest number of pro-Palestine articles on its site on a daily basis – at times all articles within a 12 hour period would be on the same issue. For the record the editor of CC is one Binu Mathew.
N: A Christian name. A church goer?
WCM: Nopes. Last seen walking disinterestedly towards a non-decrepit church somewhere in Kerala, South India along with his son during the second decade of this century. No satellite images/local intelligence inputs available about any subsequent visit of his to any church. Except when his mother had died in 2023. But in all fairness he lets his son and wife fulfill their religious obligations as per dictates of their conscience.
N: Since most funders to NGOs etc. are western countries our allies could be signaled to get CC to feel the economic crunch.
WCM: No way, Sir. The journal is non-funded. What is worse, it does not accept any advertisements.
N: Try getting the writers/authors working for this journal to agitate for better emoluments.
WCM: you are off the track. Everyone writes here for free and voluntarily. The core group members running the news-portal are convinced that revolution has to be non-funded. Mostly they follow the principles of journalism as enunciated by George Orwell – that journalism is writing what is not palatable to the rulers; all else is PROship. This principle is followed to the hilt.
N: How about trying to get CC blacklisted?
WCM: Was tried in December 2016. CC and others were put on the Odious list of 200 and the news was dutifully carried by a major national daily published from New York. When the Editor, CC shared this bit of what ought to have been seen as demoralizing development you know the reaction Sir, there was all around jubilation amongst the authors-forum. A cynic amongst the authors-forum even went to the ludicrous length of sending a thank you note to the then incumbent in the Oval office! That is the stuff of which these characters are made up of.
N: O.K. I get it, but at least we could put in a word to our ally in the US to keep their lawmakers at a safe distance from the out-pourings of this proletarian journal.
WCM: Your sagacious advice is a bit too late. As early as the year 2006 the US Library of Congress had decided to archive the articles appearing in CC. About a generation of US lawmakers have had their minds poisoned with pro-people, anti-establishment pieces. We are late Sir. All is lost by now.
N: Just an academic question. How did CC get access to the US Library of Congress?
WCM: The usual trick Sir. A mole – a solitary wolf if you please, waited like a sleeper cell; this mole was an offspring of an erstwhile comrade who had managed to survive the McCarthy era policy of filtering out communists from Federal service. The father had indoctrinated the son. Rest is history.
N: A cowardly editor, this Binu?
WCM: Quite the contrary. During the height of a fascist campaign in India, wherein those seen to be consuming cattle flesh were being lynched openly and in public this Editor published in CC his very own photograph along with his son’s eating flesh of an animal I dare not name it but belonged broadly to the cattle family. You know Hindu Rashtra is in the offing.
N: (In sheer exasperation) Perhaps we could arrange to get him an award carrying huge amounts of money?
WCM: Sir, Editor CC is content with bringing out the journal on a daily basis. You know in India you have ascetics detached from worldly wealth. That’s what he is. Regarding awards the CC team is content with the ‘Solidarity Media Award’ conferred by the Solidarity Youth Movement in Kerala. The award carried Rs. 10,000/- ($ 125) and a plaque.
N: Let’s bump him off. Mossad is anyway running a parallel intelligence network in India.
WCM: We will have to get clearance from the boss, Joe Biden. Right now Biden has had a case filed against the agents of the Indian government for attempting to murder an American Sikh citizen. This has come close on the heels of an earlier murder of a Canadian Sikh citizen ostensibly again by agents of the Indian government. The heat is on your friend, Modi. Let’s not burden him further. Besides, even if Mossad were to do the job all alone there would be repercussions in Israel. You have by now bombed off all hospitals in Gaza Strip, West Bank etc. Bumping of BM would lead to nationwide strikes in hospitals in Israel – you know a big chunk of staff nurses in your hospitals are Christians and hail from Kerala. God forbid Sir, if you fall ill then you won’t have anyone to care for. The worst thing to befall you would be to die uncared. Hamas, then would have the last laugh.
[P.S. Sahni is a qualified orthopaedic surgeon. He has worked extensively with the victims of Sikh Genocide in 1984; amongst victims of 1992 anti-Muslim violence in Delhi; and at the India-Bangladesh border during the Bangladesh Liberation War resulting in 1971 Bangladesh Genocide of Bengali Hindus. He is a member of PIL Watch Group & ABVA.
