TV News LIES

For decades, two irreconciliable narratives about Israel and its motivations have existed in parallel. 

On the one side, an official western narrative portrays a plucky, besieged "Jewish" state of Israel, desperate to make peace with its hostile Arab neighbours. Even to this day, that story dominates the political, media and academic landscape. 

Time and again, or so we are told, Israel has held out an olive branch to "the Arabs", seeking acceptance, but is always rebuffed. 

A largely unspoken subtext suggests that supposedly irrational, bloodthirsty, Jew-hating regimes across the region would have completed the Nazis’ exterminationist agenda but for the West’s humane protection of a vulnerable minority.

It presents Israel as an ethnic supremacist, highly militaristic state - armed by the US and Europe - bent on expansion, mass expulsions and land theft.

On this view, the West implanted Israel as a colonial military outpost, there to subdue the native Palestinian population, and terrorise neighbouring states into submission through relentless and overwhelming displays of force. 

Palestinians cannot make peace, or reach any kind of accommodation, because Israel pursues only conquest, domination and erasure. No middle ground is possible.

The proof, note Palestinians, is Israel’s long-standing refusal to define its borders. As its military power has grown decade after decade, ever more extreme political agendas have surfaced, demanding not just Israel’s takeover of the last remnants of the Palestinian territories it illegally occupies but expansion into neighbouring states like Lebanon and Syria.

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The United States has criticised its allies for failing to stop a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that was raided and seized by Israeli naval forces earlier this week.

US Department of State spokesperson Tommy Pigott on Thursday described the flotilla as a “baseless, counterproductive stunt”.

He said Washington expects allies to "take decisive action", including denying port access, docking, departure and refuelling to vessels involved in the mission.

"This flotilla circumvents mechanisms designed to ensure humanitarian assistance is received by civilians," Pigott said in a statement.

"The United States will explore using available tools to impose consequences on those who provide support to this pro-Hamas flotilla and supports our allies’ legal actions against."

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Once you picture schoolgirls, university students, mothers, aunts and grandmothers lying on their stomachs in prison pyjamas - their hands tied behind their backs, and soldiers looming over them, beating them if they move even slightly - you cannot forget the image. 

When you hear a female prisoner say she has "nothing but her heart", you immediately grasp how prison can dismantle lives. 

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is marked every year on 17 April to spotlight ongoing human rights violations - and today, conditions are worse than ever. Since the launch of the Gaza genocide, starvation, isolation, humiliation, strip searches, torture and overwhelming fear have become constant realities for Palestinian women in Israeli prisons.

More than 700 Palestinian women have been arrested in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since the genocide began in late 2023, according to rights groups. Enduring night raids on their homes or detention at military checkpoints, most have been subjected to physical and psychological abuse both during and after their arrest.

“Everything is different from the prisons of the 1990s. All changed with the genocide,” Ramallah-based lawyer Sahar Francis, who is also the former director of the prisoners’ rights group Addameer, told a recent webinar entitled Women, Prison Sumoud.

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A 68-year-old Palestinian woman was beaten to death by Israeli soldiers during a raid on her home in the town of Jayyous, in the northern occupied West Bank.

Soldiers stormed the house of Sabriya Shamasneh in the early hours of Tuesday morning, conducting an aggressive search and interrogating the family.

Her husband, Walid Shamasneh, told local media that shortly before the raid, his daughter-in-law had approached him in fear, believing there were “thieves” outside. She reported hearing unusual noises and noticed that the front garden gate had been forced open.

Israeli forces then broke down the front door, terrifying the family.

“The Israeli officer began asking me for the names of people I did not know. Then they forced us all into a corner of the room while they searched the other bedrooms,” Walid said.

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The firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who received widespread criticism for her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, was celebrated Thursday by the sexual predator’s surviving victims, who have long felt Bondi could be more transparent about their cases.

Marina Lacerda, one of the survivors, shared a news article about Bondi’s firing on her Instagram stories, writing, “WE KNEW IT WOULD COME DOWN TO THIS.”

She also shared a satirical reel from the Instagram account @mermaidmamamaggie that poked fun at all the names Bondi had redacted from the Epstein files.

“What? You’re firing me,” the comedian said in the reel, posing as Bondi talking to President Donald Trump. “But I’ve done everything you’ve asked, sir. I’ve ignored the facts, buried the evidence, and I even learned how to say ‘no comment’ in five different tones of panic.”

Amanda and Sky Roberts — the family of Epstein survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died by suicide last year — said in a statement to independent journalist Aaron Parnas that they hope Bondi “has the courage” to “do right by survivors.”

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An Israeli court has drawn criticism after closing an investigation into the death of a Palestinian teenager in custody, despite finding indications he had been starved prior to his death.

Walid Ahmad, a 17-year-old from the occupied West Bank, died in Israeli custody in March 2025, six months after he was detained for allegedly throwing stones, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Judge Ehud Kaplan ruled the case should be closed, stating there was no proven link between Ahmad’s deteriorating physical condition, such as severe weight loss and infection, and the immediate cause of his death. Details of the ruling emerged on Tuesday after a gag order was lifted.

Nadia Dakka, a human rights lawyer who has followed the case, criticised the decision as reflecting a narrow legal approach that fails to address the broader conditions contributing to detainees’ deaths.

Dakka said the ruling highlights the difficulty of establishing criminal responsibility in cases involving systemic abuse.

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