There’s no doubt a key driver behind opposition to the Gaza massacre, especially among normie types, has been the footage from smartphones showing the mass destruction and casualties.
Hypothetically, if the War in Iraq occurred with 2023 smartphone technology, how would this have impacted public opinion?
Would Bush have been re-elected in 2004?
Also, for historians of the war, is there a particular atrocity during the war that has been documented by activists or watchdogs but has limited photographic evidence, that had it been recorded by smartphone, could have single-handedly turned the tide of public opinion?
I think definitely. I know a few people who in the first days of the genocide were very “well it’s complicated and the history and it’s just too much for me to understand” that now are 100% pro Palestine, and when I ask them why, every single one of them says “I am tired of seeing dead Palestinian children on TikTok it’s such a shame what’s happening to them.” We never saw dead Iraqi children on TikTok because we didn’t have TikTok. The propaganda machine can’t really excuse the live footage that folks are taking out of Gaza, there’s only so much talking past the conflict that you can do when there is easily available video evidence every single day of the genocide.
Yes, Israel and the US is trying to keep a lid on information, but it is extremely hard. In the Iraq war days, the only information came from US-vetted sources, there were basically no journalists with any kind of media access on the Iraqi side and even if they were, they had no means to get the videos out to the general population. That is also why the US can claim very low direct casualties of the early invasion, there is just no way to tell.