Early on after the October 7 terrorist attacks and their aftermath, there were some warnings against using Holocaust and Nazi references when discussing the conflict. But apparently, this only apples in one direction. Helsingin Sanomat (hereafter, HS) and YLE (the Finnish equivalent of BBC) have repeatedly published pieces comparing the Palestinians to the Jews in the Holocaust and Israel to Nazi Germany.

But the one that topped it all was a column, published by YLE and written by a "documentarist". The piece compared Israeli soldiers to SS officers, who perpetrated the industrial murder of Jews. The article's title was "when oppressors decide they are the oppressed" — directly embracing the antisemitic dogma that I spoke of in my previous post. Finally, the "documentarist" author did not actually offer any real original story or evidence. He embellished his piece with complete fabrications, by distorting the testimony of an Israeli soldier, describing his five months combat deployment in Gaza, as reported by CNN. A fabrication akin to 19th century blood libels about blood of christian children and "elders of Zion".

The BBC, for example, would never even consider publishing a piece, even a critical one, comparing Israeli soldiers to SS officers, fabricating atrocities, not reporting honestly and fully the original story, and putting all Israeli under the label "oppressors". A responsible public broadcasting service would not dare publish such trash. But then, welcome to Finland! Where antisemitic social media posts can get published as articles in public broadcasting, as long as the keyboard warrior is part of the gang! Not surprisingly, much of that article is concerned with "grievance science" ideology, coming from social media and activists' playbooks.

This article is only a single gem in the systematic dehumanization and demonization of Israelis by Finnish media, particularly by HS and YLE. Subscribing fully to the universal-oppressor-universal-victim dogma (see previous blog post), Finnish media has repeatedly avoided presenting stories or details that may portray Israelis as victims or in "favorable" light. The most common way, in which it was done, is inaccurate and dishonest reporting.

For example, when hostages were first released during November 2023, Finnish media barely reported on their release or experiences in captivity, in sharp contrast to all other media services in civilized Western countries (see also here, and here, and here). Now, during January and February 2025, there was not a single story in Finnish media about the released hostages' stories and experiences during 500 days of captivity! Again, in contrast to civilized countries.

Even now, when the great tragedy of the Bibas and Silberman family has been revealed, Finnish media chose to repeat the subterfuge of a murderous terrorist organization, but not to report on the conclusions of forensic scientists and intelligence experts that refuted the terrorists' deceit, because those experts are Israeli. Again, in sharp contrast to Western media (also here).

The nauseating hypocrites of YLE and HS, who see themselves as champions of human dignity and international law, have wrote nothing about how the human dignity of this young mother and her baby and toddler children were so horrifically abused — objectified as hostages, murdered for being Jews and for Hamas propaganda purposes, to sow discord and to rob Israel of a "victory image" containing their return alive; And even after death, the use of their remains in further attempts at propaganda and deceit by the Palestinian death cults, and of the confidential details of their murder by a criminally corrupt would-be despot.

But YLE and HS have gone beyond that. They have participated in the dehumanization — there was no full story of the Bibas family until January 2025! To date, there were no actual photos of them published in HS or YLE. They only appear as images on hostage protest placards — to make them less relatable as actual human beings. And again, only the terrorists' version of the circumstances of their death was presented. This contrasts so sharply with Western news services.

As for international law, we need to turn to Finnish Christian news services, ridiculously enough, to learn that "UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk addressed the issue by reminding that international law states that the transfer of the deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." The New York Times also reported on that. In contrast, HS, on their part, freely and wholeheartedly participated in the propaganda and deceit of this death cult spectacle. In YLE, one photograph of such hostage release "ceremony" was published with a caption "hostage reacts to cheering crowd", disregarding that both hostage and "cheering crowd" are surrounded by armed Hamas ISIS-like death cultists; though, very likely, many Finnish journalists glorify them as "the resistance".

The misreporting and lack of coverage of the Bibas family tragedy is forever a stain on Finnish media and Finnish literary milieu. The mindset is not of honest professionals, intellectuals or humanists, but that of sports fans (perhaps befitting a country where immature sports, pop culture and social media stories fill so much of the news) — dehumanizing Israelis, of all kinds and ages, and in all circumstances, through fabrications and through dishonest reporting. That is exactly the terrorist mindset.

Helsingin Sanomat occasionally quotes from Haaretz, when it suits its goals. But HS (and YLE) is nothing like Haaretz, The New York Times, or BBC. If it is comparable to any Israeli news outlet, it would be Ynet — a nauseating mix of yellow journalism, lowbrow patriotism, tedious preaching and propaganda. Most importantly, unlike Haaretz, NYT or BBC, there is absolutely no range of opinions in HS or YLE. That brings me to the matter of corruption.

Finnish media repeatedly published articles that made comparisons with Nazi Germany (see beginning of this blog entry), glorified crazy Islamist terrorist regimes, by portraying them as "freedom fighters" and by applying gross distortions of recent history, and, of course, about "genocide" — word-of-the-year 2024 among dumbass children on university campuses, as well as HS propagandists and cynical leftist politicians who stoked the flames for the 2024 EU elections. Another (far too) common genre of articles was the endless glorification of such ignorant loud youngsters and "activists", who follow the latest trend, and by next spring will forget all about it. A subgenre of that is what I like to call "Good Jew, Bad Jew", regarding, for example, pro-Palestine activists of Jewish descent. This sort of ridiculous articles is in the style of "Some of my best friends are black", and in itself, contains a racist flavor — as if it should somehow be surprising that also among those of Jewish descent there are all kinds of people.

Not only that Finnish media provides no diversity of opinions, and over-represents the narratives of "friends and family", they also dedicate entire stories to such friends and family (for example, here, here and here). There is truly no other words to describe that but corruption. Given the roots of Finnish media as a propaganda machine during the Cold War, it is perhaps not surprising.

When faced with criticism, HS published a non-apology that was truly embarrassing to read. First, treating the readers as a bunch of retards, explaining "how news is made". Then, continuing to a long rant about the sacrifice of journalists. And finally, ending with a claim that "both sides lie", but nonetheless, repeating only the cherry-picked case of Shireen Abu Akleh, which was eventually corrected, and is the single example that such charlatans go over and over and over again, to make their "general point". Needless to say, that rubbish piece did not actually address the criticism.

But, as that piece demonstrated, in the end, it is not the hostages or victims that are the true story for Finnish media. It is themselves — journalists, "activists", loud ignorant students, "writers", "artists", and "researchers". Spoiled city-dwelling kids, mostly concerned about themselves, their hypocritical self-righteousness and how they "feel" about it. Moreover, it demonstrates, how the Israel-Palestine issue in Finland is mostly a play thing in practicing political divisiveness. There is really no genuine desire in intelligent discourse, only in full commitment to "resistance" and to the dogmas dictated by belonging to one camp or the other.

So, overall, Martti Ahtisaari's land is now inhabited only by petty intellectual midgets, who can only peddle one-dimensional dogmas, half-truths, outright lies and blood libels, and practice dehumanization and demonization of perceived enemies. And that is why Finland is completely out of the game in having any impact whatsoever on the Israel-Palestine conflict. In particular, Finnish activists, (pseudo)academics and leftist politicians have now rendered themselves completely ineffective and useless. In fact, they have become part of the problem, and an element in perpetuating conflict and discord. Though, no doubt, they all see little Ahtisaaris in the mirror.

Everything said or written about Israel-Palestine by Finnish journalists and by Finnish so-called researchers, experts and institutes, from the humanities or social and political studies, should be considered inaccurate, at best, and grossly tainted — motivated by narrow, one-dimensional and half-blind pet dogmas, by extreme political factionalism, by dishonest reporting, by cult mentality, by bending and corrupting professionalism to political activism, by the propaganda-machine style of Finnish media, and by 50 years of soviet conditioning to antisemitism.