Media Lies
And disinformation, using Palestine as an example
I made a short off-the-cuff speech at a recent peace event. This is an expansion of the points I made.
I don’t like being lied to.
But that’s what mainstream media does. Either because it is state-controlled like the BBC, or because it is owned by billionaires who are in bed with the establishment.
Sometimes the lies might be outright, as with the Israeli thugs who attacked people in Amsterdam. But it is usually more subtle manipulation. Two examples.
Firstly, when the news uses the heading “Israel-Gaza war”, as the biased BBC do:
What the f^&*?
Firstly, the country is PALESTINE. Gaza is a small part of it. It’s like saying in the second World War, two of the participants were “Germany and Macclesfield,” rather than Germany and the UK.
The reason is clear. The BBC refuse to headline it as Palestine because that is admitting that Palestine is a country that is under illegal occupation by Israel, and now undergoing genocide from Israel, backed by the UK and US. That’s why the UK, US and Germany refuse to recognise Palestine’s sovereignty, even though most of the rest of the world do.
For background, here’s a map showing Palestine, before the Western colony of Israel was built on Palestinian land in 1948:
Since 1948, the West has supported Israel’s accelerating illegal land thefts:
The UK and US continue to arm Israel and facilitate its war crimes.
So it’s not the Israel-Gaza War. It is the Israel-Palestine War.
Except it is also not a war. That’s another attempt to mislead, since “war” brings up connotations of two equal sides fighting. This isn’t a war, it is a highly-armed nation attacking the world’s largest open-air concentration camp. Palestinian civilians, women, children: all are being slaughtered. That’s genocide.
Al Jazeera shows it is a far more reliable source of news than the BBC:
Because Al Jazeera won’t bow down to pressure from Western states to cover up Israel’s crimes, it has been banned by Israel.
So even the way of framing the situation reveals bias in many outlets like the BBC. Not surprising when they have senior staffer responsible for systematic Israeli propaganda.
The second example of how we are misled and lied to is when the press refers to Israeli “settlers”.
The term “settlers” is chosen because it sounds peaceful, like the word “settled”. It created images of people finding a home. Who could be against that?
Except the reality is different. It is armed Israeli extremists stealing more Palestinian land, bulldozing homes, forcing Palestinians out, then building new Israeli settlements on the stolen land. The IOF (Israeli Occupation Force, Israel’s army) protect the “settlers”, and if Palestinians resist they are beaten, killed, or sent to infamous torture/rape prisons. Even children are arrested by Israeli soldiers.
There’s nothing peaceful about those crimes.
“Who are Israeli settlers, and why do they live on Palestinian lands?”
“Israeli settlers are seizing Palestinian land under cover of war - they hope permanently”
Israel’s Illegal Settlements (2016)
I have also heard this occasionally: “It is a conflict that’s irrelevant to most of the world.”
No, it’s not irrelevant. Western Governments are funding and defending genocide, creating conflict that will lead to further violence for decades, destroying the environment with more explosives than were dropped on Hiroshima, and weakening international law. They’re also using taxpayer money to provide military aid and intelligence to Israel. That affects everyone.
At heart, Israel is a Western settler colony on Palestinian land. It was created in 1948 and given the name of an ancient civilisation for propaganda reasons. Israel is basically the US and UK recreating what they did in America when they took the land from the Native Americans, and in Australia and New Zealand when they did the same.
For more information, see my Palestine posts summary. Also see “the politics of English language” by George Orwell, in which he argues that the English language is declining, partially due to the political manipulation of words. Language needs to be clear, concise and transparent in order for proper, informed thought and debate.
Noticed that even the Guardian uses "Israel-Gaza war". "Israel-Hamas war" would be more accurate.
Due to the risks involved, I’ve always respected foreign correspondents and especially admired those covering active war zones. Nevertheless, too much of contemporary ‘journalism’ seems motivated more by a paycheck and publication (‘a buck and a byline’) than a genuine strive to expose thus challenge the corrupt powerful who abuse/exploit those with the least in this increasingly unjust global existence.
Also, while journalism’s traditional fundamental function is/was to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” to a noticeable degree there seems to have been a redefining, or even a reversal, as to what/who constitutes an “afflicted” and “the comfortable”.
As a good example, the new “afflicted” requiring news-media comforting may include an increasingly internationally criticized/unpopular Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces as they continue the slaughter of large numbers of Gazan non-combatants young and old, when in the past it would more likely and rightly have been Palestinian civilians, as the latter resist having their ancestral lands gradually annexed while being cleansed from it. It indeed is a modern-day David versus Goliath scenario.
Journalists with genuine integrity should and would tender their resignations and even publicly proclaim they can no longer help propagate their employer’s media product, whether it involves self-censored/missing coverage of a brutally-lopsided foreign war or that of domestic corporate corruption that will harm the populace.
Quite frankly, it’s their ethical/moral duty to publicly reveal the compromised news-media product and therefor its facilitator. By doing so, such brave journalists can at least then also proclaim they will no longer participate in its creation and/or dissemination.
Over decades, there's been too many cases of employees not standing up and doing what is necessary for the public and/or human(e) good, instead excusing themselves with something like: ‘I need this job — I have a family to support’. I’m afraid that — unless, of course, they were actually forced into coupling, copulating and procreating however many years before — such familial obligation status does not actually ethically or morally justify their willing involvement.
I’ve also heard journalists reply to an accusation of unprofessionalism with, ‘I’m just the messenger.’ Whatever the news media may be, they're not ‘just the messenger’; nor are they ‘just a reflection’ of the community or readership amongst whom they circulate.