(This article was reviewed and edited post-publication for clarity.)
The recent attacks against civilians in southern Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 were shocking and barbarous. The response of the Israeli military is too. Yet, only one side’s actions are being labelled as terrorism.
Most Canadians are probably not well-versed in the complicated histories of Israel and Palestine, which makes our population an easy target for the management and manipulation of public opinion via unbalanced coverage. This involves several factors—Israeli lobbyists, Western governments, and news media.
As war drums bang attempts to capture the narrative by Israeli apologists have intensified. Leveraging unbalanced and biased coverage, the impression is given that some lives are more valuable than others and the consent to an Israeli assault on Palestinians is manufactured.
How is the media manufacturing consent?
Immediate responses to Hamas’s recent attacks claimed that the attack was “unprovoked,” as if to separate the offensive from part of a greater, unresolved conflict with a grossly disproportionate casualty rate.
United Nations Ambassador for Palestine Riyad Mansour responded to much of the world’s reaction succinctly, saying, “History for some media and politicians starts when Israelis are killed. Our people endure one deadly year after another.”
As Israel commenced its counter offensive against Hamas, innocent civilians caught in the bombing raids were dismissed as “collateral damage” by politicians like former Prime Minister Yair Lapid and apologists like Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz.
When reporting on the death toll, some news outlets, including CTV News, referred to Israelis as “killed” and Palestinians as “dead.” These Palestinians died, but from what cause?
Were they not killed by militants as well?
Some outlets have gone as far as to flat-out deny that Israel’s reprisal attacks on Gaza could be considered a war crime.
Media bias is backed up by hard evidence
A 2019 study analyzed 100,000 headlines in the American press and found that the Israeli point of view was featured significantly more than the Palestinian one, highlighting a persistent bias in coverage.
Since 1967, the year that Israel took over the West Bank, there has been an 85 per cent overall decrease in the term “occupation” in news headlines, despite Israel’s occupation intensifying during this time.
Israeli politicians frequently employ potentially genocidal rhetoric that goes unquestioned by Western states and underemphasized by the media. For example, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted videos of the destruction of apartment blocks on Twitter, many of them occupied by civilians. Israeli President Isaac Herzog has assigned blame to all Palestinians in Gaza saying, “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. The rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true.”
These aren’t the only instances of anti-Palestinian media coverage.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said there is “no such thing” as Palestinian people. Ariel Kallner, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, tweeted, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ‘48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!”.
The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the forced exodus of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
In 2020, Jewish Currents journalist Noah Kulwin appeared on an episode of the TrueAnon podcast.
“The American media has a really substantial blind spot when it comes to Palestine, a lot of it is rooted in pretty basic anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bigotry,” Kulwin said. “MSNBC will show footage from the aftermath of a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv but will not show the footage of a far more routine occurrence which is an IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] soldier shooting a Palestinian dead.”
A communications strategy employing anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry is nothing new and has been pushed by lobbyists effectively since the 9/11 era.
A 2015 study published by John Hopkins University Press found that the pro-Israel lobby employed a communication strategy of negative stereotyping and misrepresentation of Arabs and Muslims. The communication strategy manifested via racist ads and documentaries that went as far as to successfully use Islamophobia to demonize Palestine.
A 2009 study published by the Council of Foreign Relations outlined the strategy employed by the prominent lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The lobby has spent considerable resources deflecting criticism of Israel and defending a hard line on the Palestinians.
The workings of AIPAC became even more known after the release of an Al-Jazeera documentary investigation titled, “The Lobby.”
“The Lobby” showed the inner workings of pro-Israel lobbyists. In it, an undercover reporter infiltrates the Washington-based group, The Israel Project, and documents how lobbyists spoke in open detail about how they used the money to influence politicians in the United States.
The scope of the lobby’s influence is evident considering that the documentary was never aired on Al-Jazeera after being suppressed by pressure from AIPAC. It was only in August 2018 that the documentary was leaked online.
Other groups such as the Canary Mission and Campus Watch have defamed Palestinian rights advocates with the intent of labelling them antisemites and a danger to Jewish people.
Most recently, Billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman, alongside other CEOs, has been calling for Harvard to publicly name students involved in a joint statement released by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee and signed by a coalition of Harvard student groups.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” read the statement.
It also noted that Palestinians in Gaza have been “forced to live in an open-air prison” and called on Harvard to “take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”
These students are now being doxed.
Why hasn’t Israel’s state-led terror gained the same media attention?
The details of Israel’s state-led terror are horrific.
Gaza, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, has been under blockade by Israel for 16 years. Human Rights Watch has also referred to the city as an “open air prison.” Every night the sound of Israeli military drones perform an act of psychological terror, as their constant buzzing can be heard in the Gaza sky.
The infrastructure in Gaza leaves a lot to be desired. Currently, 97 per cent of water in Gaza is undrinkable after Israel bombed water and sewage systems in 2014. This is a throwback to the Israeli campaign of poisoning Palestinian town water wells during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
There is also a shortage of cement as Israel has banned construction materials from entering the strip and has asked Egypt to do the same.
Along with these restrictions, there is widespread despair amongst young people in Gaza. The area struggles with 73.9 per cent youth unemployment. This coincides with a mental health crisis wherein four out of five children claim to live with “depression, grief and fear.” More than half have contemplated suicide.
Yet, when Palestinians in Gaza have tried to peacefully protest against such conditions they are met with force.
During the weekly “Great March of Return” protests in 2018, an Israeli sniper bragged of shooting “42 knees in one day.” 200 Palestinians were killed and 8,000 were injured during the demonstrations. What is this if not state-sanctioned terror?
This violence is not limited to Gaza, it also occurs in the West Bank. The West Bank is governed by the Palestinian National Authority, not militant Hamas. In the West Bank, Israeli settlements have no legal validity under international law. Still, the Israeli expansion continues to go unchecked as settlers violently seize Palestinian territory and homes with the protection of the state.
In 2022, 150 Palestinians, 33 of them children, were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
The United Nations has recorded unprecedented levels of settler violence against Palestinians this year, reporting 1,100 displaced Palestinians since 2022. Israeli forces even carry out violent raids on Al Aqsa mosque, a holy site for Muslims that is second only to Mecca.
The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories laments, “The pogroms are working – the transfer [of Palestinians] is already happening.”
Again, is this not state-sponsored terror?
Why is it that Israeli flags can adorn public buildings across the Western world, including the Canadian parliament, yet there are no such displays after the Palestinians face such horror? Instead, displays of Palestinian solidarity are met with scorn by the media, and in some cases repressed.
How is the government manufacturing consent?
Western governments unequivocally support Israeli actions by favouring one side over the other. These actions appear to grow increasingly genocidal and already involve ethnic cleansing. Israel has even admitted civilian casualties will be “inevitable.” This is unsurprising as Gaza is one of the most densely populated parcels of land in the world and there are few places to hide. Many of these casualties are likely to be children, as nearly half of Gaza’s population is under 18.
So far, no Western governments have called for a ceasefire. The United States Press Secretary referred to statements by fellow lawmakers advocating for a ceasefire as “repugnant” and “disgraceful.”
Shortly after the Hamas attack, the US Department of State released the names of its citizens who were killed. Now, as the pendulum has shifted with Israel’s assault on Gaza, the US Department of State is no longer commenting on American deaths in the conflict going forward. Currently, there are an estimated 5-600 Americans currently in the Gaza Strip.
Across the pond, the United Kingdom Labour Leader Keir Starmer has said that “Israel has the right” to withhold power and water from Palestinian civilians. Endorsing a war crime as collective punishment is illegal under international law.
Ukraine, like Palestine, is fighting for its freedom against a larger, expansionist neighbour with territorial ambitions. Through billions in military aid, Western governments continue to show steadfast support for Ukraine’s war of defense and self-determination against Russia. Yet between Israel and Palestine, these same governments side with the expansionist aggressor. Not only have Western governments shown that this irony is lost on them, but Zelensky himself has expressed commitment to Israel.
More irony can be seen in our own country. The current Canadian government, which claims to want to reconcile with its colonialist past, is saying it fully backs a country that is, in real time, doing what Canada expresses regrets in having done.
Here we must ask those supporting Israel in their retribution, is terrorism wrong or is it only wrong when one side commits it?
Can terror only be committed by non-uniformed irregular forces?
If the Israeli state assigns blame to all Palestinians in Gaza to justify collective punishment, does that mean it expects its rival to uphold a higher morality than their own?
A clear double standard exists and is used to overlook the killing of many innocent Palestinians.
Amongst the likes of many Western leaders and many media outlets, it seems like Hamas’s terror is to be emphasized and Israel’s is not.
Instead, it appears as if post 9/11 jingoism is back with the collective punishment of the other, whose culture and appearance do not resemble ours. We have gotten used to the associated violence against people in the “third world” and therefore, don’t view it the same way as violence done to people from countries more closely resembling our own.
Recent Comments