By Umberine Abdullah
Sep/Oct 2024
“Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” Senator Joe Biden, 1986.
On-the-ground Palestinian journalists are being martyred, and foreign-based media outlets and social media sources are being cyberattacked, expelled, slandered, and censored.
The Zionist regime routinely asserts that these martyred journalists are related to Hamas or other Muslim organizations. It alleges that “approximately 30% worked for media outlets affiliated with or closely tied to Hamas” (The Guardian, June 25).
According to Niqnaq, “The Guardian published an investigation showing some in the Israeli army view journalists as legitimate targets in war, though doing so is a violation of international law” … The Guardian added that Israeli officials have repeatedly characterized journalists killed in the war as ‘terrorists.’ … A senior Israeli military source told The Guardian:’ I’m sure that if you count the number of dead teachers, the number of dead janitors, the number of dead taxi drivers, you will end up with higher numbers as well’” (https://niqnaq.wordpress.com, July 6).
Working with the Jordan-based nonprofit Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ, https://en.arij.net), the Guardian identified at least 23 individuals killed since October 7 who worked for the largest Hamas-run outlet in Gaza, the al-Aqsa media network. Considered to be the movement’s official channel, it employed hundreds of people and operated a widely watched TV channel and numerous radio stations until the war curtailed its output.
In 2018, the IDF bombed al-Aqsa’s offices, claiming that its building was used for military purposes. The following year, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is also defense minister, used broad legal powers to designate Al-Aqsa a “terrorist organization.”
“Asked about the al-Aqsa network casualties, a senior IDF spokesperson told reporters in the Gaza project consortium that there was ‘no difference’ between working for the media outlet and belonging to Hamas’s armed wing, a sweeping statement legal experts described as alarming” (https://dailystormer.in).
However, a legal expert told The Guardian (June 25) that such designations, which were made in domestic law, is not a license to kill its employees. Under the laws of war, journalists can lose their civilian status if they plan, prepare, or carry out combat operations. In other words, simply working for an organization such as al-Aqsa doesn’t make its employees a legitimate target.
“Reporting the news is not direct participation in hostilities,” says Janina Dill (co-Director, the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict). “Even if they reported the news in a biased way, even if they did propaganda for Hamas, even if Israel fundamentally disagrees with how they report the news. That is not enough” (Elvis Dunderhoff, https://dailystormer.in, June 26).
Israeli Censorship
Alain Gresh (director, online journal Orient XXI), wrote in his “Palestine: Un peuple qui ne veut pas mourir” [Palestine: A People Who Refuse to Die] (Les Liens qui Libèrent, 2024)) says “Lastly, unlike in other Western countries, there is strict censorship in Israel — though the general support for the army’s objectives means it’s far from vital. Israeli academic Sebastian Ben Daniel (who also writes under his pseudonym John Brown) has described ‘a parody of journalism’ in which the army is exalted and the IDF spokesperson’s pronouncements [are designed to] convince the public that all is swell [sic].’” (How Israeli journalists carry out PR for the army, Feb.19, www.972mag.com/).
Akiva Novick, a prominent news anchor and correspondent for Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, believes that the role of journalists is to raise the national morale (Haaretz, Jan. 14, 2024). No one wants to hear bad news.
Gresh says that “With an added advantage that other states lack: Western officials and media start from the assumption that Israel tells the truth.”
Daniel Boguslaw (investigative reporter, The Intercept) revealed that the “CNN runs Gaza coverage past the Jerusalem team operating under shadow of IDF censor” (The Intercept, Jan. 4, 2024).
Israel also has the advantage of being a “Western” country, which means it’s always given the benefit of the doubt. A CNN journalist explained where this bias leads, ‘“War crime’ and ‘genocide’ are taboo words. Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as ‘blasts’ attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinized and slowly processed” (Alain Gresh, “Hasbara: the dark art of spinning a war,” Le Monde Diplomatique, May 2024).
Congress also continues to abet Israel’s suppression of the truth. The House of Representatives passed Rep. Jared Moskowitz’s (D-Fla.) amendment to H.R. 8771 H. Amdt.1052, which prohibits the State Department from citing statistics obtained from Gaza’s health officials.
Are Journalists Legitimate Targets?
The ARIJ investigation, part of the Gaza Project, involves 50 journalists from 13 organizations and is coordinated by Forbidden Stories (https://forbiddenstories.org), said, “Attacked in the field, in the office, and at home, 1 in 10 reporters in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military campaign” (“Israel’s War on Gaza is the Deadliest Conflict on Record for Journalists,” The Intercept, June 25).
After stating that 100+ journalists were killed in the first nine months, the deadliest conflict on record for reporters, they added: “The exact number … is difficult to determine, with several organizations collecting the information differently, but they all agree that the number is record-breaking.” Aljazeera’s report “How deadly is the Israel-Gaza war for journalists?” (Nov. 9, 2023) states, “The Israel-Hamas war has seen more journalists killed in the first month of conflict than any other conflict since the CPJ first started collating statistics for journalists covering conflict in 1992” (“Israel’s War on Gaza is the Deadliest Conflict on Record for Journalists,” June 25, https://theintercept.com).
Hoda Osman (executive director, ARIJ) stated that “Gaza is the deadliest place on Earth for journalists by far. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, over 100 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since October. The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate puts the figure even higher at 140 journalists and media workers killed since the start of the war. According to the group, the deaths represent 10% of all journalists in Gaza” (www.democracynow.org, June 27).
An ARIJ survey said that almost all of the 200+ journalists in Gaza said they had been displaced; half said they were living in tents. In addition, 86% said their homes had been either partially or entirely destroyed (“‘The Grey Zone’: How IDF Views Some Journalists In Gaza As Legitimate Targets,” June 25, The Guardian).
In her June 27 podcast, Osman told Amy Goodman, “And by any standard, it’s unprecedented. … Nothing like this had ever happened to journalists before. It’s a crisis not just for Palestinian journalists or Arab journalists, but it should be a crisis for journalists worldwide, the journalists’ community. And to be honest, we weren’t seeing the outcry, the sort of the reaction that this crisis deserves” (www.democracynow.org, June 27).
“It’s psychologically very difficult,” said Mohammed Abed, a Gaza-based Agence France-Presse photojournalist. “So many journalists have died while sleeping along with their families. When we interviewed the survivors, they told us they were at home. ‘We had dinner and talked to the neighbors. And when we went to sleep they bombed us.’”
Officially, the Israeli military maintains that journalists aren’t being deliberately targeted. On June 25, The Guardian echoed this assertion. Many in the military attribute the record number to the IDF’s intensive bombardment of a densely populated territory. The Guardian also cited the scale and intensity of the bombardment.
“However, an investigation by the Guardian suggests that amid a loosening of the Israel Defense Force’s interpretation of the laws of war after the deadly Hamas-led attacks on 7 October, some within the IDF appear to have viewed journalists working in Gaza for outlets controlled by or affiliated with Hamas to be legitimate military targets” (https://dailystormer.in).
Carlos Martinez de la Serna (program director, CPJ) said, “Without protection, equipment, international presence, communications, or food and water, they [the journalists] are still doing their crucial jobs to tell the world the truth. Every time a journalist is killed, injured, arrested, or forced to go to exile, we lose fragments of the truth” (June 25, https://cpj.org/).
In 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that Israel was the sixth-worst jailer of journalists globally.
“The scale is really astounding,” Odeh told VOA from Ramallah, adding that she thinks the goal behind the crackdown is “showing who’s boss.… You don’t really have to do anything to get arrested. There is no protection,” Odeh said. “There’s nothing that will shield you” (Liam Scott, www.voanews.com, Jan. 18).
The official hostility toward those journalists in Gaza and elsewhere who are doing their best to keep us informed, not to mention the many others who have been bought off or become no more than mouthpieces for government propaganda, reveal a depressing truth: We need more journalists who are committed to telling us the truth of what is happening in our increasingly violent and fractured world.
Umberine Abdullah is a freelance writer.
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