When the Story Becomes the Weapon Today, we open with the reality the world keeps trying to rename. On Saturday, Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed at least thirty two Palestinians—lives added to the more than five hundred already lost during what officials insisted on calling a “ceasefire.” A ceasefire in name only. One that never reached the families sheltering in shattered buildings, never reached the children sleeping under tarps, never reached the wounded waiting for medical care that no longer exists. And then, on Monday, the Rafah crossing to Egypt was partially opened, framed as a gesture of humanitarian relief. But Israel announced it would allow only one hundred and fifty Palestinians to leave each day. As one emergency medic put it, “At this rate, it would take over a year for the twenty thousand awaiting evacuation to leave.” A year for people who do not have a year. A year for people who may not have a week. This is the landscape as Israel’s assault—what many scholars, jurists, and human rights organizations have described as genocide—enters its twenty eighth month. Twenty eight months of siege, bombardment, starvation, displacement, and the systematic destruction of a society. Twenty eight months of a world watching, calculating, debating, and too often doing nothing. But this violence is not sustained by military force alone. It is upheld by political alliances, diplomatic cover, and—perhaps most powerfully—by the stories told about it. Stories that shape public opinion. Stories that justify policy. Stories that turn victims into threats and atrocities into “self defense.” And nowhere has that complicity been clearer than in the Western media ecosystem. One of the most glaring examples is the now debunked New York Times story “Screams Without Words.” Published with dramatic flair and presented as investigative journalism, it claimed to uncover evidence of systematic sexual violence committed by Palestinians on October 7th. The story was immediately amplified by U.S. officials and used to justify the continued flow of weapons, funding, and diplomatic protection for Israel’s actions. It became a talking point, a rallying cry, a moral shield for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children. But the story wasn’t true. Not partially true. Not misinterpreted. It collapsed under scrutiny—built on unverifiable testimonies, politically motivated sources, and evidence that contradicted the narrative. Internal fact checkers were sidelined. Doubts were ignored. And once the story was out, it spread unchecked: repeated on cable news, cited by politicians, weaponized by commentators, and absorbed by the public as fact. This is how propaganda works today—not through state run newspapers, but through respected institutions that carry the veneer of credibility. And when those institutions fail, the consequences are not abstract. They are measured in lives. While false claims circulated, Gaza was being bombed. Families were being buried under rubble. Hospitals were being destroyed. Children were starving. Entire neighborhoods were being erased. This is not just a media critique. This is about the cost of a lie. Today, we examine how narratives are constructed, how they travel, and how they are used to justify the unjustifiable. We look at the machinery behind the headlines, the politics behind the storytelling, and the human beings erased in the process. Stay with us, as we pull apart the narratives that shield power, as we center the voices long pushed aside, and as we insist on truth in a moment built on distortion. This is This Week in Palestine.
Bob Funke, Stan Robinson, Stephen R. Low, Sofia Rose Wolman, Juliet Salameh Olivier, Dr. Bethany Marks, Dr. Rana Awwad, Professor Yara Rashid, Tahani Abu Mosa, Reynad Alghool, and editor Mohammed Alghool
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