The media should play a neutral role, but instead behaves more like a military choir for the State of Israel, shaping and spreading anti-Palestinian racism and pro-Israeli propaganda.
Here are 20 obvious examples:
1. How much media spotlight has been shone on the disproportional range of weapons used by Israel, i.e., fighter jets, cobra helicopters, guided missile carriers, anti-tank missiles, battleships, armoured personnel tanks, carriers and vehicles, artillery bombs, rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades, stun grenades, armed drones carrying gas canisters and bombs, rash gas and tear gas mixed with pepper spray, rubber coated steel bullets, automatic weapons, rifles with silencers, high velocity live ammunition, chemical weapons, & iron dome, etc., VERSUS weapons used by Palestinians i.e., rockets, guns, Molotov cocktails, rocks, knives & cars?
2. How much airtime and column inches have been dedicated to Israeli cluster bombs that contain multiple explosive submunitions, or smart precision-guided weapons containing up to 1000 kg or more of explosives used by Israel on the civilian population of Gaza, causing far more deaths VERSUS Palestinian rockets attacks (albeit terrifying) against the civilian population in Israel?
3. Between 2006-2021 across 5 attacks by Israel on Gaza, 3165 Palestinian civilians and 31 Israeli civilians (click here for sources) were killed, according to local and global human rights groups and NGOs. That is a ratio of 1:102. Why is this verifiable fact missing from media reports?
Also, if this isn’t a genocide, what is?
4. Why is media coverage not based on size and magnitude of damage on civilian and public infrastructure, let alone the frequency and historical record of blatant violations of international norms and laws?
5. The International Humanitarian Law (IHL) states “wars of national liberation is a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere“. It also affirms the right of the occupied people to “seek and receive support in their struggles“. Click here to refer to Additional Protocol (dated 6 June 1977) to the Geneva Conventions, 12/08/1949.
Don’t the Palestinians, as an occupied indigenous persons, have the right to resist their occupier in every way possible including armed struggle?
6. Do rockets in Israel and air strikes in Gaza represent “a dangerous escalation” in a “cycle of violence“ between Israel and the Palestinians or the: (I) attack on peaceful worshippers praying at a mosque; (II) attack of unarmed civilian protestors and funeral-goers; (III) the 55-year old illegal occupation by Israel; (IV) nightly raids in West Bank & East Jerusalem (Occupied Territories); (V) near daily killings of Palestinians in their own homes, at checkpoints and elsewhere (VI) endless daily harassment of Palestinians at up to 700+ checkpoints, and (VII) 17-year old debilitating siege, embargo and blockade of Gaza, etc.?
7. Why is the Palestinian dispossession framed as a “conflict”, as if the warring parties were equal in political, economic and military strength – when Israel has so much more power than the Palestinians?
This is not a conflict or war between 2 equal groups of people. It is occupier Vs. the occupied. A military power Vs. a poorly armed resistance.
8. Why is the Israel-Palestinian issue often framed by the media as “complex” when the 75-year old injustices are anything but, as per volumes of reports published by 210+ human rights groups, legal defence organisations, independent NGOs, activists and charities? Either they are all collectively lying or Israel is. Click here for our take.
9. If any attack must be proportionate, and if direct and indiscriminate attacks against civilians were prohibited by international humanitarian law and all necessary precautions must be taken to avoid civilian casualties, and damage to public utilities and infrastructure (e.g., water, sewage, electricity, etc.,), what can be done at the international level to ensure these norms are enforced, sanctions are applied and violations swiftly taken to court, or at the very least, media spotlight put on these war crimes?
Click here for a list of public infrastructure damage (read “indictable war crimes”) Israel has caused in Gaza between 2006-2021 (notes 1-5)
10. When a Palestinian kills an Israeli soldier(s) or an illegal settler(s), why is it called a “terrorist attack” but when an Israeli settler(s) stabs or kills, commits arson against Palestinian properties, farms or cars in the presence and protection of the Israeli army, it is reported as “settler violence“?
11. When a citizen of Israel is killed, it is reported as “Israeli killed“. When Palestinians are killed, it is reported as Palestinian “deaths” to minimise the shock. Why?
12. When Palestinians are killed by settlers or Israeli Occupation Force on land considered under illegal occupation i.e., East Jerusalem & West Bank, it is reported as “clashes” during an Israeli “raid“. Why is the media afraid of using more accurate words such as “murder“, “massacre“, “killing“, or “attack” when Palestinians are killed?
13. When a Palestinian gunman kills half a dozen Israelis (including civilians), it is reported as “absolutely horrific” but when the same number of Palestinians or far more are killed by Israel, it is reported as “recent events” or “Palestinians killed in a raid”. Why?
14. Why is violence against armed/unarmed illegal settler(s) or IOF soldier(s) “extremism and militancy” but living in homes violently snatched from the Palestinians not extremism and militancy?
15. Why are Western governments not questioned for being perpetually “concerned” and “alarmed” enough to caution against “inflammatory rhetoric” but faithfully insist Israel (the occupier) has the “right to defend itself” and its support remains “iron-clad” but curiously, never insist on the same for Palestinians (the occupied)?
16. When Israelis are killed, the standard narrative is “we condemn attack on innocent civilians”. When Palestinians are killed, the default statement widely reported (but never questioned) is empty “calls for both sides to de-escalate tensions”. Why?
17. Why does the media not question PayPal, Western Union and others for its very limited and exorbitant services in Gaza Strip or West Bank, while it has no qualms operating and servicing illegal settlers in Occupied Palestinian Territories, which are illegal as per international law?
18. Why do we implicate certain countries for unlawful killings, labelling them massacres and genocide and walk on eggs shells with others?
19. Would it have been acceptable to do business with Apartheid South Africa, Nazi Germany or even present-day North Korea? Then why do we turn a blind eye to apartheid Israel?
20. Why has the fear of being falsely accused of anti-Semitism got the mainstream media in such a chokehold?