The double standard with Israel and Palestine leaves us in moral darkness
The Guardian
Biden and Zelenskiy support a war they say was ‘unprovoked’ but a defenseless population will pay for media misinformation. (...)
After Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel and Israel’s hellish bombardment of Gaza, I checked in on MSNBC. Before long, I heard one of their reporters talk about “the violent history between these two nations” – as if Palestine were a country – and had to turn off the TV to get a break. Palestine is not a country. That’s the whole point. Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel all live under various regimes of organized discrimination and oppression, much of which makes life nearly unlivable, and if the US media can’t even frame the issue correctly, what use is there in even covering it?
It’s not just laziness either. The reflexive identification with Israel, by both US media professionals and politicians, always obscures the fuller picture of what’s happening between Israel and the Palestinians. (...)
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Women hold candles during a rally to show support to Palestinians and against Israel's military operations in Gaza, in Santiago, Chile, on 10 October 2023. Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images.
[T]he US “unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians”. (...)
What exactly counts as a provocation? Not, apparently, the large number of settlers, more than 800 by one media account, who stormed al-Aqsa mosque on 5 October. Not the 248 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers between 1 January and 4 October of this year. Not the denial of Palestinian human rights and national aspirations for decades. One can, in fact must, see such actions as provocations without endorsing further murderous violence against civilians. But if you watched only US news, you would be likely to presume that Palestinians always act while Israel only reacts. You might even think that Palestinians are the ones colonizing the land of Israel, no less. And you probably believe that Israel, which holds ultimate control over the lives of 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and yet denies them the right to vote in Israeli elections, is a democracy. (...)
There’s the nagging hypocrisy of the war in Ukraine. So many around the world support Ukraine’s resistance to foreign occupation (as they should) but blithely deny Palestinians any way to resist their occupation. Even non-violent methods of resistance like the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign is vilified and even criminalized. Why the double standard? (...)
One fundamental way this double standard operates is through a false equivalence, a two-sides-ism that hides the massive asymmetry of power between the state of Israel and the scattered population groupings that make up the Palestinian people. They’re not equal. One dominates while the other is dominated. One colonizes. The other is colonized. (...)
Today, a negotiated peace seems farther away than ever. (...)
The future is full of unnecessary and horrific bloodshed all around. Desperate western attachment to morally bankrupt double standards bears a large portion of the blame.
> See also: The West’s hypocrisy towards Gaza’s breakout is stomach-turning
Tags: #palestine #palestinians #israel #gaza #west_bank #occupies_territories #human_rights #illegal_settlements #hamas #hezbollah #hypocrisy #double_standard #media #press #news #journalist #journalism #false_equivalence
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