Facts, alternative facts and Edward Said: Narrating a genocide
By Angela Smith
Jan 14, 2025
Palestinians rescue Mahmoud al-Ghol from under the rubble of a house with asbestos ceilings that was struck by Israel F-16s during Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza. In Rafah [File: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]. (Photo inserted)
As Donald Trump is inaugurated as a second-term president, readers may recall the infamous _expression_ “alternative facts” used by Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counsellor, to defend the false statements of Sean Spicer, the White House Press Secretary. At the time, the media mocked Conway for describing Spicer’s falsehoods about attendance numbers at Trump’s 2017 inauguration as “alternative facts”.
In his 1984 essay “Permission to Narrate”, Edward Said observed that, “Facts do not at all speak for themselves, but require a socially acceptable narrative to absorb, sustain and circulate them. … In the case of Zionism’s war against the Palestinians, the facts have never done so, especially in America, where Israeli propaganda seems to lead a life of its own.”
Despite the perspicacity of Said’s observation, you would think that a live-streamed genocide would speak for itself. But this has not been the case, despite the overwhelming evidence of Israel’s 15-month genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Instead of widespread condemnation of Israel, the legacy media — many of whom mocked Conway in 2017 — and political leaders in the Global North, except Ireland and Spain, continue to dutifully parrot Israel’s “alternative facts”. Readers will be familiar with the myths, lies and propaganda which Israel has long spun into a hegemonic narrative, and which are endlessly regurgitated: that Israel is acting in self-defence against terrorists who threaten its right to exist; that it is complying with international law; and that critics of Israel are antisemitic.
Privileging an Orientalist Western master narrative, Israel’s apologists propagate alleged threats to its existence even as the unrestrained militarism of the murderous extremist state obliterates Gaza and continues its mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians including newborn babies, hospital patients, health and aid workers, and journalists.
And so we witness the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, travelling to Israel this month on a mission to “repair relations” with a genocidal state headed by a man wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. A visit described by Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, as an opportunity for Israel to demonstrate that it “is indeed fully complying with the laws of war in its battle with the savage terrorists of Hamas and the whole Iranian axis …”. True to form, the supine mainstream media faithfully transcribed Rubenstein’s “alternative facts”.
The hypocrisy of those hawking the hegemonic narrative is breathtaking, even although we know that Israel’s myths and fictions — that it is a civilised, moral, democratic state at risk of being wiped out by barbaric antisemitic Arabs — have been absorbed, sustained and circulated in the Global North since Israel’s foundation. That the Jewish state was born of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from land they had long owned and occupied has never been reckoned with by Israeli society or diasporic Zionists.
The success of Israel’s propaganda machine has been catastrophic for Palestinians. Increasingly however, many people outside Israel, particularly the young, and including Jews in Australia, the US and UK, see through the dominant narratives. Many of them are students who recognise colonial forms of power and knowledge from their studies and reading. They understand Israel as a settler-colonial, apartheid state which must decolonise if there is ever to be justice, freedom and equality for Palestinians.
These younger Australians, many of whom attend the weekly pro-Palestinian rallies, perceive the parallels between the settler-colonial foundations of Australia and Israel, and the latter’s ongoing colonial practices including killing, dispossession, discrimination, incarceration and humiliation. They are aware of the historical context in which the brutal attacks by Hamas’s military wing on 7 October occurred. Unlike their parents, they don’t get their news from the legacy media.
Said perceived that facts do not stand alone, but are embedded in history and then recovered and reconstituted by human agents into an historical narrative. This work is carried out within frameworks of concrete historical and geographical circumstances in a context of competing perceptions and ideological and intellectual values. In some cases, new narratives help to restore justice to the dispossessed; other narratives, like that of Israel and its Zionist supporters and apologists, work to conceal and falsify facts into “alternative facts”.
As we have seen, for example, in response to the work of Ilan Pappé and Henry Reynolds who have documented new historical narratives about Israel/Palestine and Australia respectively, those whose loyalties and ideological leanings align with white European colonisers rather than the colonised, fiercely contest these new narratives, understandings and perceptions.
Viewing the story of Palestinians from the beginning until today as one of colonialism, dispossession and a struggle for self-determination, justice and human rights, makes clear why we should stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
With a federal election on the horizon, politicians will be crafting new narratives and refreshing old ones in their effort to attract votes. While the cost of living and housing will be high on the agenda of most voters, Israel’s genocide will be an important issue for many, and not only for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim voters. It is to be hoped that those who are liberal on issues such as inequality and justice for First Nations peoples will rouse themselves from their silence and lack of engagement with the catastrophic suffering inflicted by Israel on the indigenous people of Palestine.
Politicians must be held accountable for their immoral failure to condemn Israel (excepting the Greens who have consistently condemned Israel and spoken up for Palestinians), and their callous indifference to the killing, maiming and wilful starvation of Palestinians. Voters must demand that their political representatives demonstrate their commitment to international law and human rights. They must pressure them to ensure that Australia abides by its obligations flowing from the ICJ’s rulings regarding Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid in the Palestinian territories, and Australia’s obligation as a party to the Genocide Convention to prevent the crime of genocide.
A new narrative is needed, one that centres on justice for Palestinians who have been dispossessed, dehumanised and immiserated for decades and are now being erased. The pernicious equation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism must be refuted in the strongest terms. It is Israel’s murderous campaign of slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing that is primarily responsible for inflaming antisemitism, not solidarity with Palestinians.
Every person who values human life equally should agree with Said that supporting the Palestinian quest for dignity, equality and human rights is a just cause.
We must hold our politicians to account at the forthcoming federal election.
Angela Smith is a former lawyer with broad legal experience including in refugee law and the university sector. Her writing has been published widely and can be found in such places as The Guardian (online), Griffith Review, Meanjin, New Philosopher and Overland.
https://johnmenadue.com/facts-alternative-facts-and-edward-said-narrating-a-genocide/