يوليو: وسائل الإعلام تحمي إسرائيل من المساءلة
التاريخ: 
16/12/2024

Editor's Note: This article is part of the Press on Palestine series, an initiative by Palestine Square. It includes selections from July 2024. Press on Palestine highlights bias in mainstream American reporting on Palestinian and Arab-Israeli affairs.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, U.S. media outlets have relentlessly positioned Israel as the victim. No matter its scale or effect, Israeli aggression is always framed as retaliatory. The genocide Israel is committing in Gaza, with all the death and destruction it has entailed, is continuously framed as a response to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. On the other hand, the crucial context of Israeli Occupation and the blockade in Gaza before the operation is nearly always obscured. This contextless invocation of the Oct. 7 attack is a tactic used to absolve Israel from being held accountable for its own violence, and in some cases, to paint the violence as necessary. 

In their coverage of developments surrounding the genocide in July of 2024, The New York Times and Washington Post employ similar tactics. Context critical to the reported news showcasing the Israeli regime as responsible for the rising violence is often omitted. Information that points to Israel as the culprit behind an escalation or aggression is also obscured. The reader’s focus is repeatedly diverted away from Israel’s genocidal actions and towards pro-Palestine individuals and groups, whom it continuously villainizes. Through these tactics, NYT and WaPo maintain an invariable image of Israel as a responder, never the aggressor.

1. The New York Times, July 30, 2024
Israel Says It Killed Hezbollah Commander in Airstrike Near Beirut by Ronen Bergman, Adam Rasgon, Euan Ward, Farnaz Fassihi and Hwaida Saad

The first piece of information NYT reporters tell readers about the strike is that it “was in retaliation for a deadly rocket attack this weekend in the Golan Heights.” Responsibility for the attack, which took place in occupied Syrian territory, was however denied by both Israel and Hezbollah. Each side presented a set of arguments that absolved itself and accused the other. Hezbollah’s case, which includes differentiating the impact of their Falaq-1 rockets from those used in the attack as well as ample precedence of the group primarily striking military positions and not civilians, is entirely omitted from the report. Instead, NYT reports Israel’s position as factual without citing any follow-up reporting. This decision not only presents the Israeli regime as a responder to and not a perpetrator of violence, but it also justifies the deadly strike.

The reporters’ efforts to justify the strike persist as the report progresses. They state that the strike took place “in the neighborhood of Haret Hreik, which is the headquarters of Hezbollah.” This comes shortly after they refer to Hezbollah as “a powerful Iran-backed group,” conveniently neglecting to mention that it arose in resistance to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. This contextual omission, coupled with the association of the strike’s civilian victims with a group and country that the West villainizes and allies against with Israel, convey the impression that the strike, and the murders it caused, were well-deserved and not a crime that Israel should be held accountable for. This impression is further emphasized by how the civilian victims of the attack, including at least three killed and 74 wounded, are mentioned only once throughout the report, namelessly and in passing. NYT reporters, who routinely mention the names and stories of the Oct. 7 attack’s Israeli victims, have apparently deemed the Lebanese martyrs unworthy of the same treatment. 

Editor’s Note: Palestine Square has published a feature honoring the lives of the children killed in Majdal Shams in the Occupied Golan Heights, including community voices speaking against Israel’s attacks in Lebanon. Read here: The People of the Occupied Golan Say: No Killing In Our Children's Name!

2. The New York Times, July 31, 2024
Ismail Haniyeh, a Top Hamas Leader, Is Dead at 62 by Raja Abdulrahim and Ephrat Livini

NYT’s choice of the neutral term “dead,” in lieu of “assassinated,” in a headline that reports the targeted killing of a political leader is indeed unusual. It underplays not only the political nature of the attack, but also the Israeli regime’s probable role in it and the escalation that it is expected to fuel. The timidness of the headline, therefore, diverts readers’ attention from Israel’s likely culpability and limits their consideration of the assassination’s political motives.

However, recognizing that fingers would still expectedly point to Israel as the suspect, NYT reporters also obscure the level of damage likely to be caused by the assassination. Abdulrahim and Livini do so by omitting crucial context regarding the political moment in which the assassination occurred. The report briefly mentions that Ismail Haniyeh managed “the ongoing indirect cease-fire talks with Israel.” It does not, however, reference the state of the negotiations when Haniyeh was assassinated. Earlier in July, a source in the Israeli negotiating team revealed that Hamas, under Haniyeh’s leadership, submitted a ceasefire proposal that “includes a very significant breakthrough.” Haniyeh, Hamas’ negotiator, was killed days after he architected “a [ceasefire] deal with a real chance of implementation,” according to an Israeli source on the negotiating team as reported by Middle East Eye. Abdulrahim and Livini’s exclusion of this contextual detail, hence, protects Israel from being regarded as a provocateur of imminent escalation. 

To further shield Israel from blame, the reporters emphasize how “Gazans have…blamed leaders for being too slow to agree to a cease-fire deal.” This unsubstantiated statement shifts the responsibility of the ceasefire deal’s delay onto Hamas, while conveniently neglecting Israel’s lack of urgency around a hostage deal and persistent efforts to stretch their genocidal war on Gaza.

3. The Washington Post, July 24, 2024
U.S. Flag set ablaze, 23 arrested as thousands protest Netanyahu’s D.C. visit by Ellie Silverman, Jenny Gathright, Clarene Williams, Hau Chu, Emily Davies and Joe Hoeim

WaPo reporters provide intricate details of the incineration of a U.S. flag and vandalism of a fountain but fail to offer context or statistics regarding the ongoing genocide that Israel, under Netanyahu’s leadership, is committing against Palestinians. The only instance where the reporters mention the horrors unfolding in Gaza is when they state that the protesters “condemn how Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza.” They do not, however, offer elaboration on the exact Israeli actions and strategies condemned by the protesters. This sense of vagueness around Israel’s aggression positions the pro-Palestine protesters as the primary perpetrators of violence in the report and ensures that violence is exclusively associated with their cause.

Arrests were made from both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protests of Netanyahu’s visit, which implies that arrestable actions occurred in both camps. However, the report only describes the actions of the pro-Palestine protesters. U.S. mainstream media is intent on relieving Israel and its defenders from taking accountability for their violent actions.

TOPSHOT - A man stands next to barbed wire near a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, on February 28, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the militant Hamas group. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP) (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images)
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