Damning, relevant, and likely to be relevant for years to come. How to Sell a Genocide has a very specific focus and it refuses to be distracted from it.

It's not about Israel's actions, it's not about conservatives gleefully supporting a genocide, it's about liberal media's complicity, cowardice, and hypocrisy. As the United States and Israel continue to commit genocide against people in West Asia and especially Palestine, and liberal pundits finally decide to admit that genocide is morally wrong, this book is going to be increasingly relevant as an incriminating historical archive of the post-October 7th media landscape in the US.

I especially loved this book's focus on language as a form of propaganda and how journalists are complicit in the way they tell stories. Passive vs. active language is something that interests me a lot, and there are a plethora of examples of that here as Johnson catalogs the ways that liberal media has used language to cover up the United States' and Israel's actions.

As much as it's imperative to talk about the physical violence used by the United States and Israel, the bombs and guns and military force, it's just as important to talk about the weaponization of language and propaganda. How to Sell a Genocide provides such an important companion to ongoing research into Israel's genocide, shining a spotlight on the way media has been captured and weaponized to manufacture consent for increasingly horrific atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The research in this book is immaculate and scathing. Every media outlet, every institution, every publication is complicit. The insight into the behind-the-scenes financial aspects of foundations like AIPAC and how they directly influenced the media landscape is eye-opening but not shocking, showcasing how those who should be the most dedicated to the objective truth have been the most swayed by capitalist interests.

Maybe one of the most important books about the genocide of Palestine to be released in our era.