Our ancestors fought huge battles against Fascism in the 20the century e.g the Spanish Civil War and World War 2. I am considering whether we should be properly be calling the current situation of Israel’s Gaza genocide and anti-Muslim racist attacks Fascism.
The media’s role in the face of Israel’s aggression in Gaza – and plausible genocide – should be to responsibly report the news, validate facts, hold all powers to equal account and paint an accurate picture of events.
But whether this is actually so is the focus of a new, exhaustive report by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring. It reveals Britain’s worst kept secret: the systematic bias of the mainstream media in favour of Israel when it comes to reporting on its onslaught in Gaza.
The report analyses 176,627 television clips from over 13 broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4.
It also scrutinises 25,515 news articles from over 28 UK online media websites including the Guardian, Times, Express and Telegraph, between 7 October 2023 and 7 November 2023.
The data was analysed for the framing of events, use of language and representation of Palestinian voices.
It finds that 76% of online articles frame Israel’s aggression as the “Israel-Hamas war” – rather than a war on Gaza – and that over 70% of the terms atrocities, slaughter and massacre in broadcast media were used exclusively in reference to attacks against Israelis.
A notable absence of Palestinian voices is also detected: In TV reporting, Israeli perspectives have been referenced almost three times more (4,311) than Palestinian ones (1,598).
Also identified is the willingness of many broadcasters to emphasise Israel’s supposed right to defend itself in Gaza.
But as Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has said, Israel cannot claim the right of “self-defence” under international law because Gaza is a territory that it occupies.
Yet across TV, the insistence on this Israeli “right” is mentioned on 1,482 occasions. By contrast, mentions of the right of Palestinians to resist Israel’s onslaught in Gaza amount to just 278.
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Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
An Israeli invasion of Rafah would have “catastrophic” consequences for the 1.5 million civilians sheltering in the southern Gazan city, a U.S. diplomatic cable has warned.
The cable, written by members of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), was sent from Jerusalem to the State Department in Washington, D.C. on Monday and reported by The Intercept on Tuesday.
“A potential escalation of military operations in within Southern Gaza’s Rafah Governorate could result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response, multiple relief actors have warned USAID’s Levant Disaster Assistance Response Team,” the cable reads.
“A ‘military incursion’ into a tent city of unarmed civilians is a horrifying, psychopathic action.”
It comes amid increased protests against a potential Rafah invasion and international calls for a cease-fire in an attack that the International Court of Justice has deemed a plausible genocide. Israel’s assault on Gaza has already killed more than 30,000 people, displaced at least 85% of the population, and induced a famine that is killing children through starvation and dehydration.
The Biden administration faces mounting domestic pressure to push for an end to the onslaught. However, the cable was publicized the same day that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Israeli War Cabinet Member Benny Gantz and did not categorically reject a Rafah invasion. Instead, Blinken reportedly “underscored the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to any major military operation in Rafah, given the risks to civilians.”
Yet the stark language of the cable belies the possibility of such a plan.
“At present, there appear to be no viable evacuation options for the 1.5 million in Rafah,” the cable said.
The Rafah Governorate, which it said was comparable in size to Syracuse, New York, has seen its population increase by more than sevenfold since Israel began its assault on Gaza following Hamas’ deadly incursion into Southern Israel on October 7. The Israeli military ordered civilians to flee southward for safety, and now those who heeded those calls have nowhere else to go.
“A large portion of those residing in Rafah, including elderly populations, exhausted IDPs [internally displaced persons], and those with reduced mobility, would likely remain in the governorate during the potential military operation due to lack of viable alternatives, heightening the risk of mass casualties,” the cable said.
It described the situation in Rafah as already dire. Many people entering Rafah from the north had their belongings seized by the Israel Defense Forces and then had to spend months trying to find basic items like blankets. The services that do exist are overwhelmed.
“The impact of hostilities has stretched the capacity of Gaza’s health system beyond its limit,” the cable said.
In addition, Israel been ramping up a bombing campaign against Rafah, leading to “escalating panic and increased breakdown of social order,” the cable said.
Reacting to the cable, journalist Heidi Moore said on social media that its assessment of a potential Rafah invasion as “catastrophic” was “the only conclusion.”
“A ‘military incursion’ into a tent city of unarmed civilians is a horrifying, psychopathic action,” Moore added.
It is unclear how much influence the cable will have with the administration. In addition to the State Department, copies of it were also sent to the National Security Council, secretary of defense, and the CIA.
USAID declined The Intercept‘s request for comment, but pointed to previous remarks of Administrator Samantha Power, who said in late February that the U.S. could not support a Rafah campaign without a “credible plan to protect civilians” and that it had “seen no credible plan.”
Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Shortly before winning nearly every GOP primary on Super Tuesday and all but locking up the 2024 Republican nomination, former President Donald Trump said in a Fox News interview that he wants Israel to “finish the problem” in Gaza—a clear endorsement of a military campaign that has killed more than 30,000 people in less than five months and sparked one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in recent history.
Fox host Brian Kilmeade told Trump that voters who have marked “uncommitted” on their primary ballots to register their opposition to President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s war are “not gonna like you either because you are firmly in Israel’s camp.”
“Yeah,” Trump responded.
Asked whether he is “on board with the way the [Israel Defense Forces] is taking the fight to Gaza,” Trump said, “You’ve gotta finish the problem.”
“You had a horrible invasion. It took place. It would have never happened if I was president, by the way,” said Trump, who went on to claim that Hamas militants attacked Israel because they “have no respect for Biden” and because Israel “got soft.”
Trump dodged when asked whether he would support a cease-fire in Gaza.
Watch:
Until Tuesday, Trump had largely been quiet about Israel’s large-scale attack on the Gaza Strip, but as president he was a staunch supporter of the Israeli government.
Trump’s administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, and reversed longstanding U.S. policy that deemed Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory “inconsistent with international law”—a shift that the Biden administration rolled back last month.
Following Trump’s Fox interview Tuesday morning, the former president’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt toldNBC News that Trump “did more for Israel than any American president in history.”
“When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, Israel will once again be protected, Iran will go back to being broke, terrorists will be hunted down, and the bloodshed will end,” Leavitt added.
With former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley officially dropping out of the GOP presidential primary race on Wednesday, a rematch between Biden and Trump is now essentially set for November.
As Democratic voters have used state party primaries in recent weeks to voice their objections to Biden’s unconditional support for Israel, The New York Times reported Friday how the Trump campaign and its allies “plan to exploit that division to their advantage” during the general election.
“One idea under discussion among Trump allies as a way to drive the Palestinian wedge deeper into the Democratic Party,” the Times reports, “is to run advertisements in heavily Muslim areas of Michigan that would thank Mr. Biden for ‘standing with Israel.'”
In a column on Monday, The Intercept‘s James Risen argued that Trump and “his MAGA Republicans” would “be even worse” on Israel than the Biden administration, which has supported Israel’s Gaza assault militarily and diplomatically while also issuing mild calls for the protection of civilians, delivery of humanitarian aid, and a temporary cease-fire.
“Trump is a big fan of war crimes, especially against Muslims,” wrote Risen, The Intercept‘s senior national security correspondent. “During his first term, he intervened on behalf of Special Operations Chief Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL platoon leader convicted of posing for a photo with the body of a dead Iraqi; another SEAL team member told investigators that Gallagher was ‘freaking evil,’ but Trump said at a political rally that he was one of ‘our great fighters.’ Trump also pardoned Blackwater contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians in a wild shooting spree in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. There is no chance that he would try to stop Israel from indiscriminately killing Palestinians.”
“Although the Biden administration has bent over backward to support Israel, the president has said repeatedly in recent weeks that an independent Palestinian state is still possible. What’s more, political unrest within the Democratic Party is starting to have an impact on Biden, forcing changes in the White House’s approach to Israel,” Risen continued. “Trump would never face such pro-Palestinian pressure from within the Republican Party. He and his MAGA cult of Christian nationalists would never force Israel to accept a cease-fire—or a Palestinian state.”
A previous version of this story misidentified Nikki Haley as the former governor of North Carolina.
Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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