Devastating report that everyone in the news media must read. From @FranceskAlbs’s conclusions, this stands out: “90. The evidence examined in this report describes a single, integrated phenomenon that, in many respects, constitutes mediacide: the destruction of the media’s essential function in the information environment surrounding the occupied Palestinian territory. It operates through three mutually reinforcing processes: (a) the systematic elimination of Palestinian journalists and their means of documentation; (b) the dissemination and normalization of genocidal incitement and denial by Israeli authorities and segments of the Israeli media; and (c) the reproduction by influential Western media and digital platforms of narratives that obscure, justify or legitimize atrocity crimes while marginalizing Palestinian voices, evidence and international law. “91. Together, these phenomena are intrinsic to the ongoing genocide. Genocide depends not only on the destruction of human beings, but also on the destruction of the political, moral and evidentiary conditions that make that destruction visible, intelligible and contestable. When witnesses are silenced, when dehumanizing language becomes ordinary and when independent verification is displaced by the claims of the perpetrator, violence acquires the appearance of legitimacy and impunity becomes easier to sustain.”

“What the disenfranchisement of voters from the electoral rolls does to an actual election—it prevents people who are voters from voting—the peace bond does in actual, everyday political life. Through it, the state tells a citizen, whosoever it chooses to have sign the bond, that their free exercise of political rights is now subject to conditional approval from the state.” Stunning long read from Shuddhabhrata Sengupta on why @neha_aisa’s refusal to sign a ‘peace bond’ is central to the struggle for democracy. m.thewire.in/article/rights/… via @thewire_In