Reporting on the “Middle East conflict” (never reported as it should be as “the Israeli military occupation of Palestine”) has a long history of anti-Palestinian racism.
New Zealand reporting on events in the last 10 days has reinforced all the long-standing anti-Palestinian tropes that dominate western reporting. These biases are so hard-baked into our media that news editors and reporters adopt them without thinking – just the way Israel and the US expect.
- Israelis are never the aggressors and never the terrorists – never!
- Palestinians are the always the aggressors
- Palestinians who resist military occupation are always “militants” or “terrorists”
- No matter how many civilians are killed it is always the Palestinians’ fault
- It’s OK to have sympathy for Palestinians, but only when their children are battered and mangled and in that case the Palestinian leadership is to blame anyway
- Israel never starts trouble – it is always Palestinians and Palestinians who provoke and attack Israel
- Israeli lives lost are always in “terrorist attacks” while Palestinians lives are lost in an Israeli military response to terrorism
- Israel always has the right to defend itself – Palestinians don’t have that right
- Israel offers peace deals, Palestinians always reject peace
- Israel is a democracy (a racist apartheid state can never be a democracy)
- Settlers attacks Palestinians – ignore it
- Settlers bulldoze olive groves – ignore it
- Settlers drive Palestinians off their land – ignore it
- Israel builds more illegal Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land – ignore it
- Israeli leaders make dehumanising comments about Palestinians – ignore it
- Any Palestinian making dehumanising comments about Jews – highlight and condemn
- When Israeli settlers chant “Kill the Arabs – may their villages burn” – ignore it. When a Palestinian says “Gas the Jews” – highlight and condemn
- Israel conducts raids in the west bank where Palestinians are killed – it’s an anti-terror operation.
- When Palestinians fight back it’s always terrorism
- Israelis steal Palestinians land – “contested land”
- When Palestinians try to reoccupy stolen land – “terrorism”
- Palestinians attacking settlers – militants or terrorists
- Israelis attack Palestinians – provocation caused it
- Israeli leaders make statements – fulsome coverage
- Palestinian leaders make statements – ignore or reframe as from a “terror” group
- Never explain the ethnic cleansing that created Gaza as it is today
- Above all – never report on the Nakba – never! – just on the Holocaust
When coverage is needed on local responses to Israel/Palestine
- Give regular coverage to pro-Israel lobby – quote extensively
- Give limited, if any, coverage to local Palestinian voices
- Palestinian solidarity protests in New Zealand – complete media blackout – don’t report it (RNZ says “small peaceful solidarity actions” have been held in NZ – in fact large, angry demonstrations up and down the country last weekend with more to come this weekend)
- Never ask the government to explain why they refuse to call for a ceasefire, an end to bloodshed, an end to violence in Gaza (this is because the US doesn’t want them to)
- Accept and extensively report on government condemnation of Israeli civilians killed (A war crime under Fourth Geneva Convention) but don’t ask the government why it refuses to condemn Israeli war crimes (bombing a densely populated civilian area while withholding food, water, electricity and fuel is a war crime – genocide in fact)
The past two weeks we have been super-saturated with the Eurocentric view of the “conflict in the middle east” (as I said earlier it is never reported as the “Israeli military occupation of Palestine”)
Our newspapers have been dominated with endless reports from the likes of the Washington Post, Telegraph group BBC, AP and Reuters stories. All of which follow the guidelines above.
I’ve written before about appalling framing of the Israeli military occupation.
Western Politicians and western media are the source of the problem. If this war had been reported accurately from the outset, Palestinians would have the state of Palestine where religion, ethnicity and human rights were respected – as they were before European colonisation of Palestine early last century.
“Western Politicians and western media are the source of the problem”
To whom do they serve, that’s the real problem here. We think that they serve us but they do not…they serve corporate-financial interests whom ultimately run this world. It looks like racism drives the media coverage here, and most likely it does play its part, but recently Russia has been suffering a similar fate, China is starting to attract similar coverage also. It seems that Western interests, aka corporate-financial interests is at the heart of this problem, if not, all problems.
What this tragedy shows, is just how long our politicians and our media have been captured by big money interests. Even more tragic, is that we believe our politicians and the media more often than not, too. Vicious cycle as the on-going horror in Palestine/Israel clearly shows.
Sad but true .
Those who were colonised are always to blame as we can see in Australia and Aotearoa.
odd then that statues of cook are pulled down yet stadiums named after genocidal manics like te rauparaha are mentioned
You forgot Palestinians “terrorist bombings” Israel slaughtering 500 in a hospital “ explosion “
This article by Chris Hedges complements John’s excellent contribution here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/israels-culture-of-deceit?r=d56cc&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thanks, some good citations etc to be found in Hedge’s report.
This is a very important article to read and people must be aware of the atrocities in Gaza. As a Born and raised Palestinian, who is constantly facing the anti-Palestinian articles on the Western Media, the lies must stop. Thank you John for spreading the word of Palestine and letting people know the truth.
Your absolutely right John Minto. Media in Aotearoa like many western media report from a colonizer narrative as the dominant narrative, one sided, uses racist othering language that is dehumanizing and rarely is the narrative given any context. Where are the Palestinian voices?
Kia kaha.
It appears to be rule in Western corporate media to NEVER NEVER NEVER report ‘Palestinians retaliate.’
NO NO NO Only Israeli forces retaliate.
How a story is reported depends on when the clock is set.
Anyway…
I don’t think any other people on the planet have been so lied to and so lied about. I’m thinking about the Sykes-Picot agreement so long ago. During WW1, the Arab peoples were promised autonomy if they rose up against their Ottoman rulers. But the British and the French had other plans.
As long as there is terrorism by the Islamist Iran backed death cult of Hamas there will be no peace.
As long as the USA provides cover for the apartheid state of Israel it will not be held accountable for its ethnic cleansing and genocide against the people of Palestine
Israel continues with its disgusting genocide.
Missile hits a Greek Orthodox church where over 300 Palestinians were sheltering. Dozens trapped in the rubble.
The trolls will be calling this another failed Palestinian rocket.
The rest of the world stays silent as they witness a genocide playing out in real time.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/hamas-says-several-killed-injured-at-gaza-church-compound-in-israeli-strike-4498309
While I agree with John’s article another concern that I have is the various church groups that fall in behind Israel, a basic part of Christianity is that they should not believe or tell lies yet they use all sorts of false claims to justify the wrongs that Israel commits. I guess this should not surprise us as we are warned of a church/state combination to come that will deceive most of the world.
Israel does not intentionally kill civilians in its war on Gaza. Of course not, because all Palestinians North of Wadi Gaza are not civilians but terrorists, or terrorist “sympathisers”
Israel tells Gazans to move south or risk being seen as ‘terrorist’ partner
Reuters
October 22, 20239:31 PM GMT+13Updated 8 hours ago
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-tells-gazans-move-south-or-risk-being-seen-terrorist-partner-2023-10-22/
Palestinians said they had received renewed warnings from Israel’s military to move from north Gaza to the south of the strip, with the added warning that they could be identified as sympathisers with a “terrorist organisation” if they stayed put.
The message was delivered in leaflets marked with the Israel Defense Forces name and logo…
This is a planned and executed forced expulsion and genocide. We need to call out our elected representatives for not condemning this genocide and for not calling for it to be stopped.
If we don’t we are all complicit.
The 300 thousand strong Israeli military force massed on the border will not be entering Gaza, at least not until the aerial and artillery destruction of Gaza City and the extermination and expulsion of all the inhabitants of North Gaza is completed.
What to look for:
The US advising their ally Israel not to invade Gaza. And Israel complying.
This move will be spun by the US and Israel as a humanitarian measure.
In fact it will be to allow the artillery and aerial bombardment of Gaza to reach a new crescendo of barbarity and mass murder.
This genocide will be not be reported by the media, or if it is, the true enormity will be glossed over. And our media hacks will close ranks to sing the praises of IDF as the most humane army in history.
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