The Youth Blog

5th Generation Genocide: How Can We Collectively Defeat Israel?

• Maryam Azhar
• October 19, 2023October 19, 2023
• 6

Does the Israeli onslaught on Palestine – for decades, but especially the current attack on Gaza – seem like a normal war to you? It does not. Well, part of the reason is that a legitimate WAR requires both sides to have an army, which Palestine does not have. Beyond that though, Israel is doing something much more sinister than a normal war where you simply attack – it’s playing with the minds. To put it differently, Israel doesn’t just bomb Gaza non-stop, it builds a NARRATIVE that makes Israel seem like the victim, instead of the 2 million citizens of the Gaza Strip.

Read More: It’s Black and White: Not Every Story has “Two Sides”

Essentially, what Israel is doing is effectively employing tools of 5-G warfare in an overall Hybrid war. It’s okay if the terms currently have you going “what?”, I’ll break them down for you.

History of Warfare

Like every other domain of human life, wars have also undergone significant change throughout the course of human history. Political analysts and historians generally divide wars into five “generations”, which differ in terms of their technologies, their locations and their strategies. In very simple terms, we can describe them as follows:

First Generation: Hand-to-hand fighting using primitive tools like spears and swords

Second Generation: The employment of technologies like guns and canons, along with motorised vehicles

Third Generation: The increased mobility in wars through aircrafts and tanks

Fourth Generation: The blurring of lines between state and non-state actors with the rise of guerrilla groups and paramilitary forces

5G Warfare and Its Tools

All the other generations had one thing in common – they demanded physical presence of players and tools. Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW from this point onwards) changed that. Like everything else, internet took wars out of the physical domain into the realm of the digital world too. In essence, 5GW is conducted through non-kinetic actions through employment of internet and Artificial Intelligence.

At its core, 5GW has two tools – information and propaganda. Players use the digital landscape to spread misinformation that causes a psychological effect, playing with ideologies, beliefs and morals. 5GW no longer requires a war ground – phone screens are now warzones too. Moreover, they no longer have defined armies, anyone and everyone can be a part of the war, some without even realising!

Hybrid Warfare

You may be wondering that 5GW doesn’t define Israel’s current onslaught on Gaza, cause they’re physically dropping bombs too. And you’re right. Israel USES 5GW tools ALONGSIDE the traditional warfare elements.

This is what is referred to as a “Hybrid War”. A combination of traditional and novel tools of warfare, their strategic maneuvering, targeted towards one goal is what hybrid warfare is. NATO describes the technologies to be blended in a “synchronised manner to exploit the vulnerabilities of an antagonist and achieve synergistic effects” [1].

What Hybrid wars do is, they blur the lines between a warzone and its surrounding. Everywhere and anywhere can be a warzone, while the actual war is being fought in a particular location. Think of the US’ claims of WMDs present in Iraq to justify the war. Think of the live-streaming of Russia-Ukraine war.

Hybrid wars can take up elements from any of the above generations in a unique blend – guerrilla fighters, propaganda, airstrikes all at once. 5GW is employed alongside traditional methods to constitute Hybrid wars.

Israel’s Current Propaganda Warfare

Now that the basic terminology and the interrelation is sorted, I’m sure you’re better able to understand HOW Israel is employing 5GW in the genocide of Palestinians. Israel knows one thing, it can’t just go ahead and bomb Gaza out of the blue. There is no army to fight against. It won’t be a war.

But Israel WANTS to drop bombs on Gaza. So, Israel has to build a narrative.

“Hamas fired rockets”.

“Hamas beheaded 40 Israeli children”

“Hamas has its bases in civilian areas”

(Mind you, Hamas did not exist before 1987. Israel has been attacking Palestine since 1948. But that’s the topic for another article)

The point it, Israel has to ensure that it plays around with sensitivities of people to the extent that its bombing of civilians becomes acceptable. And it does, in the West. Israel has managed to dehumanize Palestinians to the extent that millions in the “civilised” world can no longer find themselves calling out the mass murder of 4000+ civilians as wrong.

Prominent Actors in Israel’s Propaganda Warfare

The question remains, how does Israel manage to do this? The answer is, it doesn’t do it alone. Israel, with the help of its allies and funders – USA, UK, Canada and EU – has managed to garner a large number of “soldiers” across all different platforms. So while the IDF wrecks havoc on the ground with the help of Western money and weapons, the digital soldiers keep the narrative alive.

Here’s a recent example along with the series of events to elaborate:

1. i24News reporter Nicole Zedeck reports – without any proof – that Hamas beheaded 40 Israeli children.
2. All major news channels – BBC, CNN, Fox, AP – take the report at face value and spread it like wildfire.
3. They report the murder of hundreds of Palestinian kids – with evidence – at the hands of Israel along with the “after Hamas beheaded 40 children” tagline, to make it seem like the Palestinian kids now DESERVE to be killed.
4. President Joe Biden claims he has seen the pictures of the beheaded children to add “authenticity”.
5. Celebrities with large fan-following start to spread the news on their social media accounts to bring sympathy towards Israel.
6. Social Media applications like X and YouTube start running pro-Israel advertisements.
7. The White House and the news outlets realise that they don’t have any proof of this (since it never happened) so they start back-tracking days later.
8. The first journalist who spread the news like wildfire “apologises”.
9. In the meantime, the death toll in Gaza crosses 3000, with over a third being children.

This is just one example of how this plays out. Another horrifying example of how this entire network comes together is the publishing of an article titled “Does Hamas build tunnels under hospitals and schools?” by BBC on the 16th of October. On the 17th, Israel bombed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, killing at least 800 civilians (the actual number of deaths is still not confirmed).

The plan is simple: build and sell a narrative that somehow justifies massacre of civilians and violation of every single international law. Later on you can just tweet a half-baked tweet of condemnation like Mr. Justin Trudeau to absolve yourself of any blame.

A false narrative is easy to make and sell when you have the following key players on your side: mainstream media, celebrities, politicians, corporations, social media giants. With the repetition of your narrative, you can successfully gather sympathies and act victim, while the actual victims have to continuously justify why they don’t deserve to be killed.

Countering 5GW

Can this type of warfare be countered? Yes.

Unlike traditional warfare, this one is being fought on multiple fronts. Anyone can join in an participate from any side. Yes, we unfortunately cannot go to the ground and fight the IDF, but we can fight on the digital realm.

To fight 5GW you have to counter the propaganda being spread, because at the end of the day, the side whose narrative becomes popular, is the victor. Now you may ask, how will that change the on-ground reality?

A majority of the people – especially those in the West – have access to only one side of the story. They are fed with the Israeli propaganda on their TVs, social medias and by their leaders. The reason why the Western public is crucial is because the Western countries are Israel’s main supporters and funders. What we need to do is expose the Western public to the actual reality.

A change in perspective will lead to the next step: protests and petitions. The one good thing about the Western political system is that public wishes still hold weightage, and protests are common. The more pressure that the public manages to build on their leaders, the higher the chance of their governments backing out in support.

In conclusion: you defeat them in one pillar of the Hybrid war and let things unfold. Unlike the Vietnam war, the Afghan invasion and the Iraq invasion where Americans found out decades later that the narrative was a lie, we can do that NOW!

How do we do this?

Sadly, the Palestinians don’t have an army, and the Muslim countries are essentially useless. But we can use the platforms available to us, social media being the strongest. As pictures and videos of injured and murdered civilians spread on the internet, the Israeli claims of “targeting Hamas” weaken. The key is to keep talking. No matter how small your reach is, even if its a 100, we have to keep talking.

The greater the reach, the greater the responsibility. What this means is that celebrities, influencers, sports personalities, politicians and verified accounts have the biggest responsibility. Their voices are loud, and they really can make a difference. We have to urge these influential people to use their platforms if they are not doing so already. Given how a majority of the Western celebrities are promoting Israel’s narrative, we NEED a large number of celebrities to reiterate the truth. Especially those with a global audience.

Moreover, media houses must be forced into airing more footages from Palestine. Journalists need to step up and uncover the truth. Activists must arrange protests in whatever city they are located in. It has to be a collective effort that we all make.

Will this really work?

Yes.

Israel’s very existence is based upon a narrative they’ve built, countering which gets you labelled “anti-Semitic” in an instance. Israel is perhaps the only country which has official social media handles to continuously strengthen this narrative, and bash anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

Palestinians know that the popularity of Israeli narrative is a major aspect of the ongoing genocide, which is why time and again the Palestinians keep requesting people to share the content and TALK about Palestine, while Israel wants to avoid just that.

INFORMATION MATTERS!

And the more the Palestinian side of the picture becomes popular, the more triggered Israel and its soldiers get. They counter by shadow-banning Instagram accounts, taking down Twitter accounts and deleting YouTube pages.

Moreover, you see it works because Israel then has to make a conscious effort to counter them. The Israeli official handles were busy attacking Gigi Hadid because of her support for Palestine, because Gigi’s 79.2 million followers must not lose support for their narrative. Leave Gigi, Muhammad Rizwan – a man few would even know outside the cricketing world – was directly countered by Israel because he spoke for Gaza.

Conclusion

The persecution of Palestinians at the hands of Israel has continued for almost eight decades. The worst form of genocide is happening right in front of us, with every bit of evidence available to us. We have no excuse of sitting back and letting Israel still portray itself as a victim. It is true that individually we can do little, however, together we can cause a revolution. The key is to keep talking and keep urging others to talk – especially those with influence.

This is war of narratives. The day Israel loses its “Hamas” narrative and the true intention of repeating the Holocaust become clear to all, we might as well be able to stop this genocide. We are living through history in making – will we be on the right side of it?