Why do UK media insist Palestinians condemn Hamas but not that Israelis condemn Israel?
JVL Introduction
Palestinian writer Hamza Ali Shah looks at media bias in reporting of the current conflict.
Palestinians are invited on to shows not to be heard or interviewed, he says, but as writer and activist Muhammad El-Kurd has put it, to be interrogated.
No Palestinian can escape the inevitable question: do you condemn Hamas?
Yet how many Israelis interviewed are ever asked: to you condemn the slaughter in Gaza?
Why are Palestinians held collectively responsible for Hamas, when Israelis are not held similarly responsible for genocide in Gaza?
As for the slogan “from the river to the sea”, condemned as hate speech by the ever-obnoxious Suella Braverman and others, have you ever seen as Israeli asked about the founding charter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party which states explicitly: “between the sea and Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty”?
RK
This article was originally published by Declassified UK on Sat 4 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
Why do UK media insist Palestinians condemn Hamas but not that Israelis condemn Israel?
The British mainstream media operate a hierarchy of human life, where Palestinian lives are not worth as much as Israelis. They misinform the public and delegitimise the Palestinian struggle – and are complicit in Israel’s war crimes.
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Ironically the opinion of many Israelis is that Netanyahu is to blame for
the Hamas attack. Condemnation has included top Israeli politicians
with “Ahram Online ” citing former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert
and Ehud Barak.
“Haaretz” was also quoted in the Ahram Online article:
“Moreover, the editorial page of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz accused Netanyahu of a political and security failure after Hamas’ surprise attack, that left hundreds of Israelis dead and wounded.
Haaretz, one of the most widely circulated Israeli newspapers, noted that “embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians” pushed the Palestinians to strike back”
….”
(SEE
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/58/1262/510387/War-on-Gaza/War-on-Gaza/Israeli-politicians-blame-Netanyahu-over-Hamas-att.aspx)
Let me quote John Pilger:
“It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it.”
The large private media organisations and the public-funded State Broadcaster – the BBC – interests are intrinsically linked to Israel and its continuance in the Middle East. The main narrative is condemnation of Hamas and ignore the fact the siege of Gaza began before Octopber 7th 2023. The IDF is given free unfettered access to Western media without question.
We have to keep challenging the BBC particularly. We are at a watershed moment, where mass protests world-wide, continue to shown the “media” as liars and collaborators with supporters of genocide. Any remaining belief that the BBC is a neutral, unbiased, purveyor of truth has been condemned to the dustbin of history. Its part of the armoury of deception, lies and omissions, designed to enable Israel to justify its genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Our mass communication media is grotesquely biased. This is ever so wrong, it is unhealthy and it is ultimately very counter-productive. I contend that our country is in practice ruled by our ultra biased establishment media. Our now worse than useless Labour Party has become as if Conservative and is gearing itself to the establishment media news presentation just to crudely grab votes.
Organisations like the BBC piggy-back their propagandist service to power on the template of ‘only white lives matter’. This results in a near 19th C public ideology when it comes to the lives of ‘others’. Tony Blair’s victims are treated as not sufficiently part of the human race to be given prominent coverage – the BBC might not actually say victims are just ‘sub-human w*gs’ but the subordinate human value of victims is implicit (a straight comparison of Ukraine & middle-eastern coverage is instructive). Palestinian lives similarly don’t count.
We might also ask how is it possible to cover Israel without mentioning it is a historically recently invented colonial project? Palestine has had a dominant Arab identity since the 7th C – that’s 1,300 years before western settlers turned up. If Palestine was accorded the same right to exist and defend itself as Israel, there would be no Israel. Yet Palestinians are treated as if they started the violence.
BBC/media ideology also betrays our 17% population that are Black, Asian or mixed-race. LGBT groups are warned of the dangers of visiting North Carolina. No news organisation warns British people of colour what they might be risking in the non-tourists of apartheid Israel – even if they were Jewish. And the fact Israel is apartheid is even censored.