On July 15th, The New York Times published an unprecedented "guest essay" by prestigious Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, Omer Bartov. In it, he formally accused "Israel" of perpetrating genocide in Gaza, and "literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence." Bartov, a Zionist and Occupation Force veteran, previously emphatically denied this was the case in a November 2023 op-ed for the outlet. More generally, America’s newspaper of record has hitherto whitewashed, distorted, and obscured Tel Aviv’s horrific crimes on an industrial scale.

Its editors previously explicitly ordered reporters to avoid "inflammatory terms" such as "ethnic cleansing", "occupied territory", "genocide", and even "Palestine". Wholly fabricated stories about Hamas atrocities and mass rape fed to the outlet by Israeli government, military, and intelligence sources have been exposed as tissues of lies by the newspaper’s own staff, but not retracted. As such, for Bartov to acknowledge the Zionist entity is committing genocide, and The New York Times to provide him with a platform to say so, is no small thing.

It speaks volumes about the state of the Western media that admission of this inarguable fact by any source can be considered remotely noteworthy. Since the beginning of "Israel’s" unconscionable assault on Gaza in October 2023, it has been unambiguously evident that the ZOF’s indiscriminate rampage is concertedly genocidal in nature. In April too, the UN formally accused Tel Aviv of committing "genocidal acts" in Gaza, consciously and intentionally "calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group."

This finding, along with identical conclusions drawn by Western rights groups and legal scholars, mysteriously escaped the attention of major news outlets. The obvious question arises as to how the mainstream media remained silent so long - to the point of active complicity - not merely about the Zionist entity’s 21st century Holocaust in Gaza, but "Israel’s" historic abuse, persecution, and slaughter of the Palestinian people. An answer is provided in veteran Australian journalist John Lyons’ 2017 biography, Balcony Over Jerusalem.

Buried in the book is a comprehensive account of how Australia’s Israeli lobby systematically plunges its poisonous hooks into influential editors and reporters Down Under, ensuring they act as dependable propagandists for Tel Aviv. The details are of enormous wider relevance, for as this journalist has previously documented, foreign media outreach is a dedicated, devastatingly effective means by which occupation, land theft, and ethnic cleansing hardwired into Zionism has been systematically concealed from Western audiences for decades. Identical operations are undoubtedly in force across the globe.

‘Hardline Side’

Lyons’ disclosures about the Zionist lobby’s mephitic influence in Australia are all the more remarkable given the author evidently does not perceive Palestinians to be wholly innocent victims. His book’s blurb perversely frames them and Zionists as equal parties in a "devastating war", and boasts how he has "confronted Hamas officials about why they fire rockets" into Tel Aviv. There is no insinuation in its contents Lyons denies or even vaguely questions "Israel’s" ultimate right to exist in some form or other.

Moreover, Balcony Over Jerusalem is rife with sentimental passages recalling trips to "Israel" to interview senior entity officials, old and new, his long-running personal friendships with Australian Jews, and work on a major project investigating Jewish identity. This renders Lyons’ critical insights particularly valuable. The vicious backlash that erupted from the "Israel" lobby within and without Australia in response to his book, which has raged ever since, is also instructive. Those same elements initially sought to foster a warm bond with the veteran journalist.

Lyons explains how once appointed deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald in the early 1990s, his "phone began ringing with requests for meetings" with local Jewish groups. Only later did he learn, "once you have ‘deputy’ in your title or are perceived as being on the rise within your media organisation you become a target for cultivation" by Australia’s "fiercely efficient pro-Israel lobby." Public affairs apparatchiks at local Zionist organisations pestered him for a "year or so" to accept an all-expenses-paid tour of "Israel".

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Lyons eventually accepted, and in 1996, made his first visit to Tel Aviv, funded by the Melbourne-based Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. He recorded how "it has become almost a rite of passage for deputy editors of any major Australian news outlet to be offered a ‘study trip’ to Israel." A senior AIJAC official boasted to Lyons the organisation had "sent at least 600 Australian politicians, journalists, political advisers, senior public servants and student leaders on these trips over the last 15 years."

Lyons’ "assessment" was, "by ‘educating’ rising media executives, the Israeli lobby has in place editors" across Australia "who ‘understand’ the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" exclusively from the Zionist entity’s warped perspective, and report on local events accordingly. "I barely know an Australian newspaper executive who has not been on one of these trips," he noted. Lyons and other senior staffers at major local media outlets were flown to Tel Aviv "for five days of wining, dining and briefings (including a stay in a kibbutz)."

Once inside the Zionist entity, he "quickly realised how narrow a range of opinions we were receiving" on the reality on-the-ground there. The trip’s organisers "set us up for an hour or so…to hear the point of view of the Palestinian Authority, but apart from that we were getting only one side of the story - and a hardline side at that." It rapidly became clear to Lyons "that the whole point of the trip was to defend Israel’s settlements in the Palestinian territories."

‘Like Dresden’

In search of a "broader perspective", Lyons asked his hosts to visit Hebron [Al-Khalil], "Israel’s" illegally occupied portion of the West Bank. The trip was spurred by his understanding that "in Hebron you can see the raw conflict," as "it’s the only Palestinian city where there is an Israeli settlement in the middle of the Palestinian population; normally, the settlements are separated." At that time, "several hundred settlers" lived "in the middle of 200,000 Palestinians."

These settlers were and remain protected by the ZOF, and "the same rules of engagement for the army apply" as in other areas illegally annexed and occupied by Tel Aviv. Immediately upon arrival in Hebron, "the cruelty" of Zionist occupation was "there for all to see." Lyons saw "how the conflict between the settlers and Palestinians played out at the most basic level," making it "easier for visitors to see the reality of life for the Palestinians."

Hebron’s streets are typically empty, as "Palestinians are not able to drive on some roads or walk on others." Years later, he took his editor on a trip there - they remarked, "it’s like Dresden after the bombing." Arriving late at night, the pair encountered a "heavy Israeli Army presence" and a "certain eeriness" in the silent, deserted city. His stunned editor asked a ZOF soldier at a "closed checkpoint" into Jerusalem, "where are the Palestinians?" The militant smirkingly replied, "they’re all tucked up in bed!"

In Hebron, Lyons saw how Palestinians placed "wire over their market stalls to stop them being hit when Jewish settlers living above them throw bricks, chairs, dirty nappies and rotting chickens onto them." He also witnessed Israeli soldiers "decide, without notice, to lock the Palestinians into the old part of the city at night, behind big security gates that look like cages." The situation has only worsened subsequently, with illegal settlements expanding exponentially. Lyons’ appraisal of the West Bank under Zionist rule is stark:

"If the whole world could see the occupation up close, it would demand that it end tomorrow. Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians would not pass muster in the West if the full details were known. The only reason Israel is getting away with this is because it has one of the most formidable public-relations machines ever seen, and enormous support from its diaspora communities…Military occupations look ugly because they are ugly. Israel’s reputation will bleed as long as its control over another people continues." 

Such perspectives are vanishingly rare among the countless Australian opinion-formers who have been treated to Zionist lobby-financed tours of "Israel". As Lyons records, "wave after wave of journalists, editors, academics, student leaders and trade union officials" have been whisked to Tel Aviv "to hear the same spin from the same small group of people used to defend Israel’s policies in the West Bank" over the years. Few have followed Lyons’ example in actually visiting the area, to see the horror with their own eyes.

Nonetheless, Lyons’ outlook wasn’t fully fatalistic. He noted that while the Zionist entity’s Hasbara tactics "worked for the first few decades of the occupation, now virtually every incident between an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian is filmed by a mobile phone," exposing the ZOF’s routine savagery to overseas audiences. Fast forward to today, and the Gaza genocide has been televised globally in real-time not merely by fearless Palestinian journalists, who have often paid for their courage with their lives, but Israeli militants who sickly film their own hideous crimes.

The impact of these horrendous images on global public perceptions of the Zionist entity has been catastrophic, and irreversible. Polls consistently show across the West, even in the few countries that harboured sympathy for Tel Aviv following October 7th, the overwhelming majority of citizens hold deeply unfavourable views of "Israel". Support for the entity and its genocidal actions is becoming increasingly indefensible, as the monstrous truth becomes writ ever-larger. It can only be considered an unspeakable tragedy so many innocent Palestinians had to die for us to reach this point.