Welcome back. In Tbilisi, which I visited this month, the political mood is ominously tense and polarised. Georgia’s October 26 parliamentary elections are set to be the most consequential for the mountainous south Caucasus country since it emerged in 1991 as an independent state out of the ashes of the Soviet Union.

At first sight, it seems that Georgia faces two possible futures: creeping authoritarianism and alignment with Russia if the ruling Georgian Dream party stays in power, or democracy and a pro-European path if the opposition wins and takes office. However, this black-and-white picture oversimplifies what is an altogether more complicated story. I’m at tony.barber@ft.com.

What is at stake

Since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Georgia has turned into a battleground with two fronts: between Georgian Dream and its opponents, and between each side’s respective Russian and western backers.

The levels of political polarisation in Tbilisi are so extreme that, in this election campaign, there hasn’t been a single case of government and opposition representatives debating each other on television, radio or other media. Mutual trust is non-existent.

The opposition has painful memories of the fate of the first independent Georgian state of modern times. This led a precarious existence from 1918 to 1921 before being absorbed into the Soviet Union.

Now the opposition fears that, if Georgian Dream retains power, the nation could fall completely under Russian influence and lose its precious but fragile democracy and civic freedoms.

For the west, such an outcome would be a blow to its interests and credibility. The US and its European allies support Georgia’s independence. The EU has even made the country a candidate for membership, though the process is on hold because of the Georgian Dream government’s democratic backsliding and increasingly pro-Russian sympathies.

Russia’s role in Georgia

For its part, Moscow continues to think of Georgia as part of a rightful sphere of influence in the post-Soviet borderlands that separate Russia from the west. “The Russians have never left Georgia, even mentally,” says one western observer in Tbilisi.

In a short war in 2008, Russia took de facto control of two Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where it keeps around 10,000 troops and FSB security service personnel. South Ossetia is scarcely an hour’s drive from Tbilisi.

There are no signs of imminent Russian military intervention in Georgia. Still, it is unimaginable that the Kremlin would passively accept an election result that brought a pro-western government to power in Tbilisi.

In this article for the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, Nicholas Lokker and Andrea Kendall-Taylor write:

Georgia now arguably has its most pro-Russian government since its independence in 1991 and, in many cases, [Georgian Dream] is following the Putin playbook in its attempt to weaken Georgia’s democracy. Moscow’s primary goal is to ensure the stability of these pro-Russian forces — in particular, GD founder and de facto leader Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Breakdowns in democracy

However, to portray the election as a straightforward contest between tyranny and freedom, or Russia and the west, is to overlook key features of Georgia’s political trajectory over the past three decades.

In this commentary for the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, Markus Greisz hits the nail on the head. He identifies three long-term issues that have plagued Georgia since independence:

One issue is the deep political and societal polarisation; another is the tendency of all Georgian governments to turn authoritarian.

A third issue is the seemingly paradoxical simultaneous popular support for both the EU and Georgian Dream, which frustrates western leaders and calls into question whether Georgians actually understand what EU membership would entail.

Since 1991, all governments that started out as protectors of national independence and political freedom have lurched into deeply flawed forms of strongman rule, tainted by corruption and abuse of the rule of law.

This was true of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia’s first postcommunist president; Eduard Shevardnadze, once admired in the west as Mikhail Gorbachev’s far-sighted Soviet foreign minister; Mikheil Saakashvili, a reformer turned autocrat; and now Ivanishvili.

Weaknesses of the opposition

The legacy of the Saakashvili era is a serious problem for Georgia’s four main opposition parties, as set out in this thread on X by Bidzina Lebanidze, a political scientist.

Both Georgian Dream and the opposition are “detached from the majority of the population, who feel alienated from [the] political process”, Lebanidze writes.

“During their rule, Saakashvili and [his party] alienated a critical mass of the electorate who refuse to vote for them ever again.”

A similar argument appears in this commentary by Beka Chedia for the Center for European Policy Analysis:

The opposition, in addition to fragmentation, has a problem of identification and identity. Voters find it difficult to be clear which small party is part of which alliance and what their promises to voters are.

In Tbilisi, one non-partisan election-watcher told me: “It’s not sufficient to frame the election as a contest between pro-western and pro-Russian forces. In the regions, outside the capital, voters seem to think it’s a kind of Saakashvili vs Ivanishvili contest.

“In other words, the image of Georgian politics as an arena for strongmen persists.”

Slim chance of a free election

Public opinion polls for Georgia’s election need to be treated with caution. However, according to one independent expert, Georgian Dream’s private polling indicates it would struggle to win more than 40 per cent of the vote.

The point is, though, that under the system of proportional representation used for this election, Georgian Dream could win just over half the seats in parliament even with 37 to 38 per cent of the vote.

It would help the ruling party if one or more of the opposition parties failed to surpass the 5 per cent threshold required to win seats in the legislature.

Given Georgian Dream’s influence over the nation’s election commissions, control of the judiciary, vote-buying and intimidation of opposition activists, it is all too easy to see how the party could manipulate the election to secure victory.

Shota Gvineria, a former Georgian ambassador and national security specialist, says:

The regime has systematically used state resources to influence voters by offering benefits such as pardons, early release from prison and amnesty [for fines] in exchange for electoral support …

By placing loyalists in the Central Election Commission and district commissions, manipulating voter lists and tampering with ballots, these tactics have severely undermined the integrity of Georgia’s democratic processes and elections.

Possible outcomes

The list of possible election outcomes ranges from good to nightmarishly bad.

Least likely is a Polish scenario. A year ago, an illiberal, conservative nationalist government in Warsaw lost elections to an opposition led by former premier Donald Tusk. Despite some difficulties, Tusk and his allies were able to take office peacefully.

Such an outcome strikes me as improbable in Georgia. The ruling party shows no inclination to give up power, controls almost all levers of state authority and has the means to fix the election.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is a Belarusian scenario. In 2020, mass protests broke out after Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator in Minsk, claimed victory in what were blatantly fraudulent presidential elections.

Lukashenko’s regime cracked down on the demonstrators, and Belarus today is as deprived of freedom as Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

A third possibility is a Serbian scenario. Elections in Serbia routinely produce victories for President Aleksandar Vučić and his ruling party. They aren’t completely free and fair, but Vučić receives little more than a rap on the knuckles from the west, which perceives some value in maintaining a working relationship with Serbia.

Risk of instability or violence

If Georgian Dream wins the election fraudulently, or loses but refuses to concede defeat, anti-government street protests are likely. The history of postcommunist Georgia offers some clues to what then might or might not transpire.

In 2003, public anger at corruption and a fixed election triggered demonstrations that toppled Shevardnadze, Georgia’s then president.

By stepping down, Shevardnadze ensured the Rose Revolution, as these events came to be known, was mostly peaceful. Could the same thing happen after October 26? I am doubtful. By temperament and motivation (he is a reclusive billionaire who made his fortune in Russia), Ivanishvili is quite different to Shevardnadze. The Kremlin openly supports him.

Ideally, the US and European governments would step in and play a mediating role in the event of a contested election result and power struggle. They did this during Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution.

But Ukraine’s new government and its western friends paid a heavy price for that change of power — Russia’s annexation of Crimea and fomentation of separatist rebellions in Donbas, followed by the 2022 invasion.

The future of Georgia is very much in the balance.

More on this topic

Georgia’s Anaklia deep seaport project may open new routes, but at what cost? An analysis by Tymon Pastucha and Wojciech Wojtasiewicz for the Polish Institute of International Affairs

Tony’s picks of the week

• Israel’s war in Lebanon may be longer and more grinding than the limited operation that was initially announced, the FT’s James Shotter, Neri Zilber and Andrew England report

• In his newly published memoirs, Robert Bourgi, a French-Lebanese wheeler-dealer, has spilled the beans about how he helped leaders of former French colonies in Africa to subsidise presidential election candidates in France, the BBC’s Hugh Schofield reports

THREE major energy suppliers are giving out tens of thousands of energy-saving devices to households this winter.

Energy bills have risen for millions of households and winter fuel payments restricted to those on benefits.

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But there is a host of help at hand if you’re struggling to cover bills.

Octopus Energy, OVO Energy and EDF have all launched multi-million pound schemes offering free energy-saving gadgets to households in need.

From air fryers, to electric blankets and mattress toppers, here is everything you might be eligible for.

Octopus Energy

Octopus Energy is offering 20,000 electric blankets in total to customers in need this winter.

One of the UK’s largest energy firms has already distributed over 60,000 since January 2022 through its £30million Octo Assist Fund.

Octopus said customers with an electric blanket have saved an average £150 on their combined gas and electricity bills in previous winters.

The electric blankets are open to all customers, however Octopus said it is prioritising those in “particular circumstances”.

This includes those that are medically vulnerable, the elderly of people living alone.

The blankets provided to customers are made by Dreamland and usually cost £69.99 new.

To apply for an electric blanket, visit: http://octopusenergy/blog/octo-assist.

OVO Energy

OVO Energy has launched a £50million package of support for struggling customers.

Applications for the fund opened on October 1 with households eligible for payment holidays and direct debit reductions.

But some may be eligible for free energy-saving gadgets including electric throws and mattress toppers.

What you are entitled to depends on your personal circumstances although you do have to be an OVO Energy customer.

Find out if you’re eligible for help via https://www.ovoenergy.com/extra-support

EDF

EDF is pumping £29million into a range of support for hard-up households this winter.

Customers can get debt arrears wiped and free energy-saving gadgets such as air fryers, kettles and slow cookers.

EDF said it will replace any broken or in poor working order appliances with energy-efficient ones.

But not everyone qualifies for help. EDF said its team will identify eligible customers and refer them on for extra support.

You can find out more and apply via https://www.edfenergy.com/energywise/how-edf-are-supporting-their-customers-through-uks-cost-living-crisis

What other help is on offer

If you’re not eligible for free energy-saving gadgets through Octopus, EDF or OVO Energy’s funds, there is other support at hand.

You may be able to get free devices through the Household Support Fund between now and next March.

The fund is worth £421million and has been distributed among councils in England.

Each council gets to decide how to distribute its share of the fund but some are giving households free appliances and devices which could save you money on your energy bills.

Meanwhile, you might be able to get help paying for insulation or a new more energy-efficient boiler through the Energy Company Obligation.

You might even be able to get them for free depending on your circumstances.

It’s worth noting though that you are only eligible for help through the Energy Company Obligation if you are on benefits, classed as vulnerable or have a home with a low Energy Performance Certificate.

An Energy Performance Certificate is a document that shows how energy efficient your property is.

If neither of these two options are available, you might be able to save money on your bills by installing a heat pump, which you can get subsidised through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

I first tried Apple’s Vision Pro goggles in May. It was a surreal experience at the company’s headquarters in Battersea, where I found myself swiping at 3D dinosaurs and dismantling Ferraris using tiny gestures to look at motor parts. The whole thing was designed to demonstrate the unlimited possibilities of augmented reality – an immersive world of giant cinematic screens where I could click and swipe through texts, apps and emails, looking all the while like a traffic controller with a giant screen strapped to my face.

If this was the future, it made me queasy. The Vision Pro has been designed to optimise our visual experiences, but its launch has coincided with a period of circumspection about our screen dependencies and how best to live with phones. Many establishments are now banning smartphones during school hours, and there is compelling evidence to suggest that our screen use is contributing to mental illness, sleep deprivation and general ill health.

Rhodri Marsden, a techno first-adopter, has looked at the future of the screen in this week’s design issue, and how its all-pervading influence might change in years from now. I still can’t imagine a day where we routinely wear screens on our faces, but then again who would have known that we’d all be carrying palm-sized computers in our pockets when smartphones first launched 20 years ago?

Design has always looked to the future, but it’s a strange irony that its most innovative efforts can look quaint in retrospect. Perhaps the trick is not to think about what’s coming, but to focus on what seems relevant right now. Jumbo in New York has built a practice based on taking objects and reducing them to their essence until they make “emoji” sense. Their work – fortune-cookie furniture, pasta pool floats and barricade-fence chairs – is inspired by quotidian stuff that has been reimagined as “memes”. It’s contemporary, clever and a conversation starter, despite their insistence that what they do is “dumb”. It also contributes to a design narrative that I think will make sense for many years to come. 

The trick is not to think about what’s coming, but what seems relevant right now

Venerated by the design world, the late architect Carlo Scarpa’s work synthesised ancient craft techniques with the exigencies of industrial design. His buildings are a striking expression of something unflinchingly modern yet rooted in a familiar history. When business owner and art collector Josef Dalle Nogare purchased Casa Tabarelli, Scarpa’s mountain masterpiece near Bolzano, Italy, he did so on the understanding he was merely its custodian. In the years since, however, he has made his own addition to the property: a two-storey structure with concrete stairs designed by Walter Angonese that yields a partly subterranean 5,000sq ft gallery to house his art next door. The result is a stunning confluence of aesthetics and artistic choices. It takes a brave soul to build something so close to the Scarpa home: we’re very excited to take the first look inside.

Will you be going to space any time soon? As Jeff Bezos and his cohort get ever closer to their orbital ambitions, we look at the direction of space travel and the possibilities ahead. According to Clive Cookson, the FT’s senior science writer, Virgin Galactic is set to offer 125 flights a year, taking some 750 passengers into sub-orbital space. As with wearing the face screen, I’ve never harboured much desire to be an astronaut. But I’ll happily sit through your phone snaps of the “overview effect” when you get back down to Earth.

We also welcome here another FT writer, the Weekend Magazine editor Matt Vella, who is making his debut with a new motoring column. Matt has been car-mad since childhood, and so we’ve asked him to do a regular piece about all things four-wheeled. “Squat and snub-nosed, with a vertical front window and four-wheel drive,” he writes of his first subject, the Willys-Overland Jeep, which was conceived as a flat-packed, all-terrain vehicle in 1940. Its subsequent success has been built on the fact it has retained its distinctive looks, its “two-box silhouette” and most importantly its compact size. The form has emerged as the leader in a global market that’s expected to grow to $590bn by 2034. Small is beautiful, goes the argument. Especially when it comes to SUVs.

Finally: do you own a Casio watch? Beatrice Hodgkin, the FT’s House and Home editor, has been wearing her hot-pink Casio F-91W for years now and is passionate about its charms. The brand has become a cult classic, as spotted on Marty McFly, Barack Obama and Sigourney Weaver in Alien. On its 50th anniversary, she writes a tribute to the “future classic” – surely the very hallmark of cool design. 

@jellison22

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A MUM who won £333,000 on the People’s Postcode lottery was ecstatic – until a call from her boss ruined everything seconds later.

Angela Plant split the Millionaire Street Prize with a neighbour in the Hertfordshire village of Abbots Langley.

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She wanted to go on a shopping spree after presenter Danyl Johnson knocked on her door with the huge cheque.

But just seconds later Angela’s boss rang her up asking if she could do a shift the next day at the old people’s home where she works.

Angela said: “I’m going to work tomorrow. I do their shopping, take them out for a coffee.”

She added: “I just chat to them. It keeps my mind buzzing and I love it.”

Angela said she would stick a “little bit” away – but plans to splash out on a string of exotic holidays.

The wish list of getaways includes a Greek wedding for her eldest son and a trip to Florida for her first grandchild, who is due in December.

She said: “I’m speechless. Oh my God! I was expecting about £10,000 or £15,000.

“I’m in shock. I just kept seeing threes and thought, ‘When are the threes going to end?’

“I would have been happy with £333, that could still get a bit these days.

“This year has been up and down. I’m just going to make sure all my close pals and family are looked after.

“I had a couple of knee replacements two or three years ago. Before that, I couldn’t walk down the garden path.”

She added: “You don’t want profit in the bank, you want to go out and spend it.

“We’ve got our first grandchild on the way, and she is going to be spoiled rotten.

“I’ve always, always wanted to be a grandmother. She is due on December 19. We’ll have a really good Christmas.”

Angela said: “It’s important to do things as a family. Good memories last forever.

“I’ve got good memories from the past of going with the children to Florida, so I would like to take my granddaughter there.”

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By Robin Andersen

On October 6, 2023, Hamas broke out of Gaza, lobbed rockets, and sent fighters into Israeli territory. The attacks killed hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians. Images of violence and brutality were recorded and distributed widely over broadcast news over and over again, repeatedly showing abused, bloodied, and crying women and children. The violence was presented with voices of US and Israeli officials asserting that the attack was “unprecedented.” Israel retaliated immediately and bombed the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on the globe. Photographs of death and destruction ran side by side, each with only brief captions about location. Many news outlets reported that the violence came out of nowhere, offering no historical context. The attacks therefore were without motivation, attributed only to the pure evil of Hamas and Palestinian terrorists.

German media scholar Hektor Haarkötter, who partners with Project Censored for his work with the News Enlightenment Initiative, was recently in the US speaking on an international roundtable at a critical communication conference and said he was stunned by the coverage: “When I saw the images of such violence repeated many times, on rotation, I was shocked. This would not be considered news in Germany. It would have been seen as little more than sensationalism.”

On October 7, the AP reported that US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop.” On October 9, The Times of Israel quoted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying, “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian directed his threat at all Gazans on October 10, declaring, “Kidnapping, abusing and murdering children, women and elderly people is not human.” He then announced, “There will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell; you will get hell.”

In a piece published on October 8 titled “Media Calls The Attack On Israel Unprovoked: Experts Say That’s Historically Inaccurate,” the Huffington Post pointed to the Israeli government’s “apartheid against Palestinians” as a provocation. It quoted IfNotNow, an American Jewish group that opposes Israeli apartheid, expressing their dread for the loss of life and loved ones, Israelis and Palestinians alike. It continued, “Every day under Israel’s system of apartheid is a provocation. The strangling siege on Gaza is a provocation. Settlers terrorizing entire Palestinian villages, soldiers raiding and demolishing Palestinian homes, murdering Palestinians in the streets, Israeli ministers calling for genocide and expulsion” are all provocations.

Indeed, multiple international human rights groups have defined the long-term Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands as a system of apartheid. The death toll on each side exposes the false assertion that Israeli violence is always retaliatory and that of Palestinians is “unprecedented.” The UNOCHA documents 6,407 Palestinian deaths since 2008, compared to 308 Israeli fatalities. Gregory Shupak reported that since 2001, more than ten thousand Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, with “nearly 9 out of 10 deaths this century have been on the Palestinian side.” In addition, the Israelis have made daily life in Gaza miserable. As UK journalist Jonathan Cook wrote, “[Gaza’s] inhabitants—one million of them children—are denied the most basic freedoms, such as the right to movement; access to proper health care, drinkable water, and the use of electricity because Israel keeps bombing Gaza’s power station.” But voices such as Shupak and Cook are virtually absent from US establishment news coverage of the violence.

The Hamas attacks were taken out of the context of ongoing violence, presented without cause, and in narratives that see only Hamas violence but have rarely featured or condemned equivalent Israeli violence against Palestinians. Establishment media’s one-sided pro-Israel coverage, established over many years, fed into the growing consensus that a major retaliation by Israelis would be forthcoming. Early corporate news reporting seemed to confirm its inevitability, with almost no voices of reason or caution allowed to enter the militarized revenge frame coalescing around a major attack.

The verbiage used by the New York Times on the Tribe of Nova music festival also illustrates Big Journalism’s sensationalized, inaccurate reporting. The Times wrote that the “massacre of its youth” and Israel’s “75-year-old quest for some carefree normalcy” met the “murderous fury of those long-oppressed Palestinians who deny the state’s right to exist.” The language of the Times’ report—using “murderous” and denial of Israel’s “right to exist,” with “long-oppressed Palestinians”—makes a mockery of what Gazans have experienced. Additionally, it is not true that Palestinians deny Israel’s right to exist. A quick look at the US State Department’s summation of the 1993 Oslo Accords states that the Palestinian Authority “renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace” and “Israel accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians,” concessions that undergirded the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. But Rashid Khalidi has called out the “empty words about a two-state solution while providing money, weapons and diplomatic support for systematic, calculated Israeli actions that have made that solution inconceivable.”

Most important among the systemic violence against Palestinians is the growing weaponization of Israeli settlers. As Israel was dropping bombs on Gaza, Common Dreams reported that the California-based Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) accused Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, of enabling settler attacks by handing out thousands of military assault rifles to settlement residents. “The extremist settlers Israel is arming have spent years attacking Palestinian cities in lynch mobs, with full backing from the Israeli government.” IMEU continued, “This year alone, they have killed Palestinian civilians and set fire to cars and homes with families inside.” Such stories are virtually absent from establishment media.

Gregory Shupak examined the editorial pages of major US newspapers from October 7 to 9, concluding that none of them provided readers with “information necessary to comprehend what is happening and why, and they consistently mislead readers about key facts.” Some papers were openly ravenous in their demonization of Palestinians. For example, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed titled “The Moral Duty to Destroy Hamas,” telling its readers that “Israel is entitled to do whatever it takes to uproot this evil, depraved culture that resides next to it.” Calling for the destruction of Hamas and extending the call to exterminate the “culture” is a call for genocide. It mirrored and promoted Israeli announcements that they would turn Gaza into “hell,” “rubble,” and a “city of tents.”

Ironically, on October 8, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz offered more explanation and context than most US papers when it criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to “annex the West Bank” and “to carry out ethnic cleansing in…the Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.” It pointed to the massive expansion of settlements and increasing Jewish presence on Temple Mount, near Al Aqsa Mosque. In April 2022, Mondoweiss reported that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians on their way to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque seven times in eight days, injuring dozens of worshipers and arresting hundreds of Palestinians. Israeli forces used remote-controlled drones to drop teargas inside the mosque. Meanwhile, Israel facilitated the entrance of thousands of Jewish settlers for the Passover holiday.

War Propaganda: Babies were Decapitated and Women were Raped

Sensationalized repetition and media saturation of decontextualized Hamas violence quickly evolved into full-blown atrocity propaganda with horror stories claiming that Hamas had slit the throats of forty Israeli babies, decapitating many of them. Visceral baby slaughter is classic war propaganda, first used in World War I with false claims that German soldiers joyfully bayonetted babies. Similar stories convinced skeptical Americans to support the First Persian Gulf War, with the fake news story about Iraqi soldiers tossing over three hundred Kuwaiti babies out of their incubators. Roundly debunked after the war, journalists published the story uncritically, just as they eagerly circulated the unverified decapitation story.

Alan MacLeod investigated the story that Hamas had slaughtered Israeli babies, finding that it came from an anonymous Israeli military source and was originally reported by Israeli i24 News. Without verification, Fox News, CNN, MSN, Insider, and the New York Post picked up and repeated the incendiary propaganda in the US. The UK’s largest newspapers screamed outrage as the salacious story was flung across the front pages of the Times of London, the Independent, the Financial Times, and the Scotsman (as documented by Mint Press News).

The key source for the false claim was an Israeli soldier, David Ben Zion, a fanatical settler who has incited riots against Palestinians, describing them as “animals” who need to be “wiped out.”

Another propaganda trope circulated to justify war is the rape of women, made more devious by its actual use as a military strategy. The Intercept noted that unverified claims that Hamas was raping women had gone viral online, and President Biden claimed that women were “raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.” Caitlin Johnstone noted, “We’re seeing claims about mass rapes being uncritically pushed by the mass media, only to see them retracted as unverified after the narrative has taken hold.” Any legitimate journalist should recognize such war tropes, and if not, should at least track the stories’ origins and refrain from publication until those sources are verified. President Biden was forced to walk back his lie about seeing “confirmed pictures of terrorist beheading children,” while talking to leaders of US Jewish organizations at the White House.

What was the purpose of perpetrating such lurid fake news, the stuff of visceral propaganda? The Hamas attacks that killed civilians were met with outrage and widely condemned, even by those who advocate for Palestinian rights, express criticism of the “unprovoked” news frame, or have criticized Israel’s growing violence and worked to create humanitarian spaces amidst the cruelty. Certainly, the attacks alone could be considered justifications for Israeli retaliation. But as Caitlin Johnstone argued, that was not enough. Israel’s response was about to dwarf the initial Hamas offensive. Israel and its allies needed to frame the attack in “the most shocking and rage-inducing discourse in order to make Israel’s ongoing murder of civilians in Gaza look appropriate.”

War Crimes and Wiping Out Gaza

Writing for Declassified UK, Jonathan Cook detailed how Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza violated numerous international laws and the Geneva Convention, pointing out that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were committing war crimes. “One of the fundamentals of international law—at the heart of the Geneva Conventions—is a prohibition on collective punishment: that is, retaliating against the enemy’s civilian population, making them pay the price for the acts of their leaders and armies.” He continued, “What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment.”

Two days earlier on October 11, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spread what can only be called “fake news” on Sky News when he claimed, “What separates Israel, the US and other democracies…is our respect for international law and the laws of war.” By October 14, Al Jazeera reported that in the first seven days of the conflict, an estimated one million Gazans had been displaced, according to the UN, and aid groups said the situation in the besieged enclave was “catastrophic,” as fourteen Palestinians were being killed every hour. Israel had dropped the equivalent of “a quarter of a nuclear bomb on Gaza,” according to the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. And by October 16, Euro-Med posted, “The Stench of Death Looms Everywhere in #Gaza, Immediate Halt to the Killing of Civilians Required.”

The saturation bombing of Gaza, where entire apartment buildings filled with residents are destroyed, taking out entire families, amounts to horrific collective killings. Israelis are committing numerous violations of international law, as hospitals are on the verge of collapse, and food, water, and electricity are blocked along with humanitarian aid to Gaza. An Israeli air strike targeted a convoy, killing seventy-three Palestinians and injuring 130 others as they attempted to move south. Euro-Med Monitor condemned the deliberate targeting of civilians being forcibly displaced after Israel’s orders to leave. It was an open practice of forced transfer (transference) outside international law and a “blatant violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” NBC News reported the airstrike on the convoy but failed to report it as a war crime. A PBS news brief softened the blow with a baseless speculation that it was not clear “whether militants were among the passengers.”

Just as President Biden left for Israel, a bomb hit the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, killing five hundred people, including patients and doctors: a war crime. Israel claimed that Hamas or Islamic Jihad was responsible for the precision strike and huge explosion. From the AP to the New York Times, establishment media framed the story as a dispute between Hamas and the IDF or as an exchange of air strikes between them. Jonathan Cook called it Western propaganda, saying, “If Hamas or Islamic Jihad could cause the kind of damage that happened last night, you would hear about it happening in Tel Aviv or Ashkelon too. You don’t, because they can’t.” Caitlin Johnstone included the text of a phone conversation presented by Israel and also argued the unlikely veracity of the evidence. Using altered or invented audio and video, Israel has succeeded in the past in delaying and planting doubt about their role in such violence, at least long enough to allow the story to do its damage. For example, an altered video was used to “prove” that an Israeli sniper did not assassinate Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh or the unprovoked Israeli violence perpetrated at her funeral. It took time for the dozens of investigations to counter the gaslighting, and the delay facilitated President Biden’s failure to hold the Israeli military accountable. For the time being, once again, the denial allowed Biden to re-confirm US support for Israel, this time allowing Israel to carry on with the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

Choosing Humanity Over Killing and Destruction

While condemning the Hamas attacks as a crime against humanity, the Center for Constitutional Rights also stated, “It is our commitment to human dignity and the preciousness of life that has long led our organization to stand with Palestinians as they resist Israeli colonization, occupation, and apartheid.” The Center’s statement expressed grief for “the many Israeli civilians killed in the assault on their communities on October 7,” while also decrying “Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, which is in danger of becoming a genocide.”

Common Dreams reported on protests calling for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza, organized by IfNotNow and Jewish Voices for Peace. IfNotNow has stated, “We absolutely condemn the killing of innocent civilians and mourn the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life, with numbers rising by the minute. Their blood is on the hands of the Israeli government, the US government which funds and excuses their recklessness, and every international leader who continues to turn a blind eye to decades of Palestinian oppression, endangering both Palestinians and Israelis.”

US establishment media should consider these humanitarian narratives, in contrast to their standard militarized revenge frames, which only fan the flames of genocide that imperil the Palestinian people.

Robin Andersen is a Project Censored judge and contributor to Project Censored’s forthcoming State of the Free Press 2024. She is an award-winning author, professor emerita of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, and editor of the Routledge Focus Book Series on Media and Humanitarian Action. Her latest books include Investigating Death in Paradise: Finding New Meaning in the BBC Mystery Series, and the forthcoming Censorship, Digital Media, and the Global Crackdown on Freedom of Expression. In addition, she writes regularly for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

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Long hours, low pay, not much job security and rude customers — why would anyone work in retail? Spare me the gloom. I was never happier than when I worked in London’s department stores between the ages of 17 and 20.

Warm memories washed over me when I read this week that Ted Decker, CEO of Home Depot, plans to make senior managers work an eight-hour shift in their stores each quarter of the year. The idea is that white-collar employees should “truly understand the challenges and opportunities our store associates face every day”.

To which I say, well done, Ted. All the same, I’m disturbed by the implication that shop floor work is more drudgery than fun. That was not my experience.

Take Peter Jones, the Chelsea store where I was a temporary worker in Towels, Furnishing Fabrics, and Lightings and Fittings before finding my true home at Boyswear on the third floor. Ah, joy! Friendships made on the shop floor lasted for years outside the store.

True, training for temps was minimal. You were taught how to use the electronic till. That was about it. As a result, when mothers arrived to spend a fortune on school uniforms for their sons, I had, at first, no idea what size shirt, cap, trousers, gym kit and so on they needed.

What’s more, I was squeamish about measuring the neck or inside leg of an 11-year-old. After one of my worst guesses, a mother complained I’d brought a pair of trousers a couple of sizes too big. “They shrink in the wash,” I said hopefully — before fleeing her irascible stare to get a better fit from the stockroom.

Meanwhile, I would hear a mischievous staffer answer the phone in front of customers: “Good morning, Empire Pool Wembley — I beg your pardon, Peter Jones Boyswear . . . ” That’s right, he never became an executive.

The point was, you learned fast. After a few weeks, I could glance at any boy emerging from the lift with his mother and correctly estimate all his sizes. To this day, I look at politicians or businessmen I’m talking with and my mind calculates: “16 neck, 36 waist . . . ”

This was the 1970s, the decade of soaring oil prices, so there were plenty of high-spending customers from Opec countries. Tips fluttered from their pockets like confetti. A £20 note could keep you in beer for a week at the Royal Court pub across Sloane Square.

And because this was the 1970s, the store closed at lunchtime on Saturdays. Time to put on the safety pins, leather tie and white T-shirt with the crimson word “scurvy” emblazoned on it (not an item sold in Boyswear), and join the punks parading down the King’s Road.

Sometimes we would head over to the Chelsea Drugstore, but not, as Mick Jagger sang, to get our prescriptions filled.

At Boyswear, we all had punk names. Mine was Mark Acid. Nicky Vamp, recruited from Girls’ Shoes, quit to run a gift shop in the spa city of Bath. Vince Vomit emigrated to Australia and made it big time, becoming a board member of the airline Qantas.

For sure, London retailing had its downside five decades ago. Selfridges was soulless. Worse still was Harrods, recently in the news because of claims of sexual assault against Mohamed Al Fayed, the store’s owner from 1985 to 2010.

I worked at Harrods before Al Fayed’s tenure, but it was a grim place even then. Management barked like prison wardens at me and other temps.

The only light relief took the form of a lift attendant who used to say to a new employee: “Do you want me to keep an eye on this package for you?” If the employee said yes, the attendant removed his glass eye and put it on the package.

We temps were unanimous that, among London’s grand department stores, Peter Jones was the place to be. I liked it so much I had dreams of running Boyswear one day. Eight hours a quarter on the shop floor? Worth every second.

tony.barber@ft.com