Re-Orient is a new column by Ruby Hamad. The Israeli assault on Gaza, now nearing its first-year anniversary, has thoroughly decimated the official Western narrative on the Israel-Palestine “conflict.” For decades, Western political and media discourse has framed Israel’s occupation of Palestine as a David and Goliath battle, with Israel as a valiant underdog bravely taking on a monstrous, barbaric enemy, and the US as an “honest broker” desperately trying to secure a lasting peace. It’s not Israel’s sadistic violence itself that has caused this seismic shift in how we use and relate to visual culture. Rather, it’s how directly these images disprove Israeli and US government talking points about precision strikes and self-defence. The torture and assault of Palestinians in Gaza and Israeli prisons is reminiscent of Abu Ghraib, for example. Yet here, there are no leaks or whistle-blowers: the ones responsible for these war crimes are the same…

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