{"id":218762,"date":"2022-08-29T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=218762"},"modified":"2022-08-28T10:47:49","modified_gmt":"2022-08-28T09:47:49","slug":"deliberate-misrepresentation-western-media-bias-makes-possible-israeli-war-of-aggression-against-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/08\/deliberate-misrepresentation-western-media-bias-makes-possible-israeli-war-of-aggression-against-palestinians\/","title":{"rendered":"Deliberate Misrepresentation: Western Media Bias Makes Possible Israeli War of Aggression against Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Children and relatives of the five Palestinian children from the Najm family who were killed by Israel in its latest military assault on Gaza, hold placards during a rally in Jabalia, Gaza.
Nidal Alwaheidi | Sipa via AP Images<\/p><\/div>\n

26 Aug 2022 – <\/em>While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.<\/p>\n

Take the New York Times<\/em> coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article<\/a> on August 6, \u201cIsrael-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day\u201d is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.<\/p>\n

For the uninformed reader, the article succeeds in finding a balanced language between two equal sides. This misleading moral equivalence is one of the biggest intellectual blind spots for western journalists. If they do not outwardly champion Israel\u2019s discourse on \u2018security\u2019 and \u2018right to defend itself\u2019, they create false parallels between Palestinians and Israelis, as if a military occupier and an occupied nation have comparable rights and responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Obviously, this logic does not apply to the Russia-Ukraine war. For NYT and all mainstream western media, there is no question regarding who the good guys and the bad guys are in that bloody fight.<\/p>\n

\u2018Palestinian militants\u2019 and \u2018terrorists\u2019 have always been the West\u2019s bad guys.\u00a0 Per the logic of their media coverage, Israel does not launch unprovoked wars on Palestinians and is not an unrepentant military occupier or a racist apartheid regime. This language can only be used by marginal \u2018radical\u2019 and \u2018leftist\u2019 media, never the mainstream.<\/p>\n

The brief introduction of the NYT article<\/a> spoke about the rising death toll, but did not initially mention that the 20 killed Palestinians include children, emphasizing, instead, that Israeli attacks have killed a \u2018militant leader\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When the six children killed by Israel are revealed in the second paragraph, the article immediately, and without starting a new sentence, clarifies that \u201cIsrael said some civilian deaths were the result of militants stashing weapons in residential areas\u201d, and that others were killed by \u201cmisfired\u2019 Palestinian rockets.<\/p>\n

On August 16, the Israeli military finally admitted<\/a> that it was behind the strikes that killed the 5 young Palestinian boys of Jabaliya. Whether the NYT reported on that or not matters little. The damage has been done, and that was Israel\u2019s plan from the start.<\/p>\n

The title of the BBC story<\/a> of August 16, \u2018Gaza\u2019s children are used to the death and bombing\u2019, does not immediately name those responsible for the \u2018death and bombing\u2019. Even Israeli military spokesmen, as we will discover later, would agree to such a statement, though they will always lay the blame squarely on the \u2018Palestinian terrorists\u2019.<\/p>\n

When the story finally reveals that a little girl, Layan, was killed in an Israeli strike, the language was carefully crafted to lessen the blame on her Israeli murderers. The girl, we are told, was on her way to the beach with her family, when their tuk-tuk \u201cpassed by a military camp run by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad\u201d, which, \u201cat the exact moment, (\u2026) was targeted by Israeli fire\u201d. The author says nothing of how she reached the conclusion that the family was not the target.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One can easily glean from the story that Israel\u2019s intention was not to kill Layan \u2013 and logically, none of the 17 other children murdered during the three-day war on Gaza. Besides, Israel has, according to the BBC, tried to save the little girl; alas, \u201ca week of treatment in an Israeli hospital couldn\u2019t save her life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Though Israeli politicians have spoken blatantly about killing Palestinian children \u2013 and, in the case<\/a> of former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, \u201cthe Palestinian mothers who give birth to \u2018little snakes\u2019\u201d \u2013 the BBC report, and other reports on the latest war, have failed to mention this. Instead, it quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who reportedly said<\/a> that \u201cthe death of innocent civilians, especially children is heartbreaking.\u201d Incidentally, Lapid ordered the latest war on Gaza, which killed<\/a> a total of 49 Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Even a human-interest story about a murdered Palestinian child somehow avoided the language that could fault Israel for the gruesome killing of a little girl. Furthermore, the BBC also labored to present Israel in a positive light, resorting to quoting the occupation army\u2019s statement that it was \u201cdevastated by (Layan\u2019s) death and that of any civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NYT and BBC have been selected here not because they are the worst examples of western media bias, but because they are often cited as \u2018liberal\u2019, if not \u2018progressive\u2019, media. Their reporting, however, represents an ongoing crisis in western journalism, especially relating to Palestine.<\/p>\n

Books have been written<\/a> about this subject, civil society organizations<\/a> were formed to hold western media accountable and numerous editorial board meetings were organized to put some pressure on western editors, to no avail.<\/p>\n

Desperate by the unchanging pro-Israel narratives in western media, some pro-Palestine human rights advocates often argue that there are greater margins within Israel\u2019s own mainstream media than in the US, for example. This, too, is inaccurate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The misnomer<\/a> of the supposedly more balanced Israeli media is a direct outcome of the failure to influence western media coverage on Palestine and Israel. The erroneous notion is often buoyed by the fact that an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, gives marginal spaces to critical voices, like those of Israeli journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.<\/p>\n

Israeli propaganda, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, however, can hardly be balanced by occasional columns written by a few dissenting journalists.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Haaretz is often cited as an example of relatively fair journalism, simply because the alternatives \u2013 Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other rightwing Israeli media \u2013 are exemplary in their callousness<\/a>, biased language and misconstruing<\/a> of facts.<\/p>\n

The pro-Israel prejudices in western media often spill over to Palestine sympathetic media throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, especially those reporting on the news in English and French.<\/p>\n

Since many newspapers and online platforms utilize western news agencies, they, often inadvertently, adopt the same language used in western news sources, thus depicting<\/a> Palestinian resisters or fighters, as \u2018militants\u2019, the Israeli occupation army as \u201cIsraeli Defense Forces\u201d and Israeli war on Gaza as \u2018flare ups\u2019 of violence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In its totality, this language misinterprets the Palestinian struggle for freedom as random acts of violence within a protracted \u2018conflict\u2019 where innocent civilians, like Layan, are \u2018caught in the crossfire.\u2019<\/p>\n

The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation. Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of <\/em>The Palestine Chronicle. His last book is <\/em>The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is <\/em>These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is <\/em>www.ramzybaroud.net<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 mintpressnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS<\/strong> <\/span>campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON\u2019T BUY PRODUCTS WHOSE BARCODE STARTS WITH 729,<\/strong> which indicates that it is produced in Israel. DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 Aug 2022 – While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case. The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":217382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[928,532,101,100,2898,87,865,2414,2415,2416,767,771,427,85,2897,880,99,92,1025,886],"class_list":["post-218762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-bds-boycott-divestment-sanctions","tag-colonialism","tag-cultural-violence","tag-direct-violence","tag-ecocide","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israeli-apartheid","tag-israeli-army","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-middle-east","tag-nakba","tag-palestine","tag-palestine-israel","tag-sociocide","tag-state-terrorism","tag-structural-violence","tag-violent-conflict","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}