The media’s oneside-ing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Source: Mahmud Hams | AFP | Getty Images
The Biden administration is officially refusing to call Israel purposely bombing civilians a war crime. They’re refusing to say that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves when their civilians are attacked.
The media for the most part is continuing to pretend that they’re twosides-ing what’s going on in Israel and the Palestinian territory. The Israeli government targeted civilians, but it’s justified somehow…because Hamas.
Twosides-ing it would be bad enough. But they’re oneside-ing it. They’re only presenting the Israeli government’s view. The US mainstream media are for the most part serving as a PR arm of the Israeli establishment. Any brief mention of the Palestinian point of view is instantly negated by presenting Israel’s side.
The media won’t talk about the human rights abuses by the Israeli government that have been going on against Palestinians for decades, and continue to get worse. Things seem to have gone to an even more egregious and sickening level. The Israeli government purposely attacked a mosque. During Ramadan.
But the media are acting like Israel’s attacks are justified, or at worst just a bad idea or bad timing. Even though targeting civilians is very clearly against international law, and if we use the Israeli government’s justifications at face value (they’re doing it as a riposte to Palestinian attacks), it’s a war crime. Israel is justified in what they’re doing, or at the very least it makes sense because they’re just defending themselves, right?
A perfect example of the US media’s coverage is this headline and first paragraph by CNBC.
The lede (start of the article):
There’s no mention that Israel is a nuclear power that gets tens of billions of dollars in military “aid” from the US every year. Under Democrat presidents. Under Republican presidents. The Israeli government repeatedly violated agreements and built illegal settlements in Palestinian land they agreed not to settle. They sometimes cut off food and water, which is already severely restricted. And yet, when hostilities occur, it’s presented as an equal fight.
This time, as pointed out on the Young Turks, the media is doing at least lip service to the toll on the Palestinian side. But almost always, at least the articles I’ve seen, any count of injured and killed Palestinians is immediately justified by saying Israel is attacking Hamas. It doesn’t explain why they had to attack a mosque or bomb a high-rise apartment complex, but I guess we’re not supposed to think of that.
It is very important that they report the numbers of injured and dead Israelis. That’s responsible and ethical reporting. But it’s generally accompanied by a quote by Netanyahu or Israeli officials, with no quotes from the Palestinian side — Hamas or otherwise. Example again from CNBC:
The captions of the pictures are also telling and extremely biased. The first photo, which is at the top of this blog post, shows an apartment complex falling to the ground in a plume of smoke after an Israeli strike. What’s the caption?
Smoke billows from an Israeli air strike on the Hanadi compound in Gaza City, controlled by the Palestinian Hamas movement, on May 11, 2021.
Every. Single. Time in this article that they show Israeli violence towards Palestinians, there’s the mention of Hamas. When it’s Palestinians attacking Israelis, there’s no official word or even a quote from a random man/woman-on-the-street there. Not to mention the UN, which among other things has said Israel’s actions could be considered war crimes.
It doesn’t mention that this follows war crimes committed by the far-right Israeli government during the Palestinians’ holy month of Ramadan. The article appears to have one purpose: convince readers that Israeli is good, the Palestinians are bad, and if Palestinians would just stop whatever it is they’re doing wrong, everything would be okay. That’s not responsible reporting: it’s propaganda.
Two important notes about this post:
I’m a pacifist. It’s important to say that Palestinians should not be launching rockets into Israeli civilian areas — which kills innocent Israelis — no matter what Israel does.
I’m focusing on what Israel is doing because 1) they are supported by the biggest superpower in the world, the United States, and these acts by the Israeli government are part of an ongoing regime of terrorism, which is not being reported. 2) the media are pretending to twosides this, but they aren’t even doing that: they’re mostly onesiding it, to the benefit of the far-right Israeli government. Israelis attacked Palestinians, but it was justified because X, Y, or Z, without presenting the other side. It’s not fair or balanced.This is not an anti-Jewish post. I shouldn’t have to say this. Anyone in the US who doesn’t give full-throated support of Israel’s actions are often called anti-Semitic. I’ve made it clear that I’m criticizing Israel’s government, their politics, their actions. It’s cliché for me to say I have Jewish family members, but it’s true. I hate the Israeli government’s actions, I don’t hate Jewish people in the US, in Israel, or anywhere else.
The Israeli government are engaging in apartheid by sectioning off a part of what they claim is Israeli’s territory and basically turning it into an open-air prison based on race and religion. They’re committing human rights abuses. These recent attacks are terrorism. They’re war crimes.
Progressives must come together on this, to call out the media’s extremely biased reporting and to demand Biden do something to stop this war being led with US financial and military support. How many of these guns, bullets, bombs were paid for by the US government? The media need to do their job. Americans inside and outside of government must act. It must stop now.
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