Editor's note: Amidst the relentless turbulence in the Middle East, the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli crisis unfolds with heart-wrenching tragedy, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives and the displacement of countless others. This crisis is not only marked by the escalating violence and the immense human toll but also by the deeply troubling proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, amplified by a large section of the Western media and leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden. To understand this disinformation campaign, info war and the real agenda behind such campaigns, CGTN's Sr. International Editor Abhishek G Bhaya spoke with Palestinian writer and activist Tara Alami, who currently resides in Montreal, Canada. The views expressed in the video are her own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Edited excerpts:

CGTN: What's currently happening in this crisis in Gaza is extremely tragic and alarming. While the escalation of violence and loss of life is concerning in itself, what is equally worrying is the level of misinformation, even disinformation, on the ground situation that's coming out, that's being disseminated by a large section of the mainstream media. A case in point is the horrific claim that Hamas beheaded babies which went viral despite the Israel Defense Forces not confirming the veracity of such reports. Most Western media ran the report with much sensationalism. Even President Biden fell for it, forcing the White House to issue a disclaimer. Your comments?

Alami: Biden was just lying to everyone and the White House had to very embarrassingly issue a statement going back on Biden's word and retracting whatever lies he was spreading, but the damage is done.

This is a classic case of manufacturing consent. We saw this during the war on Iraq, that the U.S. launched on Iraq when they made claims about Saddam [Hussein] having weapons of mass destruction, leading to the deaths of over one million Iraqis. And so, this is just a playbook that U.S. imperialist media uses every time they would like to manufacture consent, every time they would like to appease and placate the public into just playing into spreading disinformation on behalf of the state.

And so what we saw was that a tweet was made (posted) about an unsubstantiated claim from a soldier of the Israeli occupation forces. This was picked up by mainstream media because it fits their narrative and it fits their editorial line, because it's much easier to see the victims of imperialist colonial violence either as savages, as non-humans to dehumanize them as much as possible, rather than to think about the implication of the violence that's going on that's being funded by U.S. tax dollars, being funded by Canadian tax dollars, by British tax dollars.

CGTN: Is this part of, what would be loosely described as, an info war?

Alami: This is an info war. This is an information war against Palestinians who are currently fighting for their livelihoods and for their land. We have an army that belongs to a state [Israel] that is bankrolled by the U.S. and its imperialist allies fighting against a population that is enclosed in an open-air prison, that has been under blockade for 17 years – air, land and sea blockade – and what is very much a guerilla army, not a state-funded army.

So it's an info war against a population that's being silenced. People in Gaza, they don't have internet all day. And so what's happening right now, the purpose of this information war is to commit massacres in a blackout, to prevent journalists on the ground from documenting the massacres, to prevent Palestinians in Gaza from reaching the world outside Gaza to document what's going on.

CGTN: Do you see a pattern or a trend in this information war and disinformation campaigns? Who are the powers behind these campaigns? What is their real agenda and who benefits from the resulting chaos in your opinion?

Alami: Absolutely, absolutely, there's a pattern. It's a playbook. It's an imperialist, colonial playbook that the U.S. has used with its Zionist proxy in the Middle East for decades.

As I mentioned, it was used against Iraq, it was used against Afghanistan, it was used against Libya, it was used against Syria. And it's being used against Palestine. Just to, like I mentioned before, manufacture consent in the public for them to allow these massacres to happen, and for them to perpetuate the lies and to also manufacture a state of hysteria within the imperial core. Right now, in the U.S. and in Canada and in Europe, there's a state of manufactured fear against and from Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians. The manufactured fear and hysteria that's going to be a repeat of post-9/11 America and Canada and of course, like the Western world.

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