Media Find Ways to Minimize Israel’s Murder of Paramedics
Original article by Belén Fernández republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Israeli soldiers on March 23 massacred 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers near the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israel’s ongoing US-backed genocide has officially killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The slaughter took place before dawn, as a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck from the Palestinian Civil Defense service endeavored to respond to a lethal Israeli attack on another ambulance, which had itself been attempting to rescue victims of an Israeli airstrike.
Eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, six Civil Defense workers and one UN staff member were murdered by Israeli gunfire. Their mutilated bodies were bulldozed into a mass grave, their vehicles crushed and buried as well.
The initial Israeli narrative was that nine of the emergency responders were militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously…without headlights or emergency signals.”
As it turns out, however, all headlights and emergency signals were very much on—not that it’s fine to massacre people for driving with no lights, of course. When, after a week of negotiations with Israeli occupying forces, another convoy was finally permitted to access the mass grave and unearth the bodies, the mobile phone of massacre victim Rifat Radwan was found to contain footage of the lead-up to the assault, which shows the clearly marked rescue vehicles advancing with emergency lights on. A barrage of Israeli gunfire then persists for more than five minutes, as Radwan’s screen goes black and he bids farewell to his mother.
Following the release of the video footage, Israel conceded that perhaps its version of events had been partially “mistaken”—but only the claim about the headlights being off. The number of alleged “terrorists” on board was furthermore downgraded from nine to six, the other fatalities naturally being labeled human shields and therefore fundamentally the fault of Hamas.
Anyway, no one committing a genocide really cares about the precise identities of 15 people; mass indiscriminate killing is, after all, the whole point of the undertaking. Since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, the United Nations calculates that more than 100 children per day have been killed or injured in Gaza.
Ludicrous headlines
Notwithstanding reality, the Western corporate media somehow could not bring itself to report this particular massacre of medics without beating around the bush. The New York Times (4/4/25), for example, ran the following ludicrous headline: “Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On.” There was no room, apparently, to mention the role of Israel in said gunfire barrage, although the syntax implies that the ambulance lights may have perpetrated the killing.
The article’s subheadline specifies that “the UN has said Israel killed the workers”—and yet the singular attribution of this opinion to the United Nations is entirely confounding, given that the very first paragraph of the article itself states that the video “shows that the ambulances and fire truck… were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.”
For its part, NPR (4/5/25) went with its own similarly diplomatic headline: “Palestinian Medics Say a Video of Gaza Rescue Crews Under Fire Refutes Israeli Claims.” CNN (4/6/25) opted for: “Video Showing Final Moments of Gaza Emergency Workers Casts Doubt on Israeli Account of Killings.”
NBC News (4/7/25) reported that the Israeli military had “walked back its account of its killing of 15 paramedics and emergency workers in southern Gaza last month after video emerged that called into question its version of events”; the Washington Post (4/6/25) concurred that that Israel had “backtracked on its account…after phone video appeared to contradict its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on.”
The Guardian (4/5/25), meanwhile, went as far as to assert that the cell phone footage, which “appears to contradict the version of events put forward” by the Israeli military, “appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle” and features “a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.” Imagine if all news reports were written in such roundabout fashion, e.g., “State officials say that what appears to be a bridge collapsed on Thursday into what appears to be a river.”
The New York Times on April 7 produced its own follow-up headline, “Video Shows Search for Missing Gaza Paramedics Before Israelis Shoot Rescuers”—thanks to which readers were presumably too busy trying to parse the grammar to think about anything else.
‘Not seen as fully human’
In the case of Israel, corporate media have institutionalized the practice of dancing around the straightforward statement of fact, which is why we never see headlines like “Israel Massacres 15 Palestinian Medics in Rafah,” or, obviously, any acknowledgement that Israel is currently perpetrating a genocide in Gaza (FAIR.org, 12/12/24). Thanks in large part to Israel’s oh-so-special relationship with the US, which happily bankrolls its crimes against humanity, the media have long grotesquely skewed reporting in Israel’s favor in order to validate the whole arrangement.
As Palestinian political analyst and playwright Ahmed Najar writes in a recent op-ed for Al Jazeera (4/6/25), the slaughter of the 15 medics and rescuers in Gaza matters because “their story is not just about one atrocity.” It’s about an entire system
in which Palestinians are presumed guilty. A system in which hospitals must prove they are hospitals, schools must prove they are schools and children must prove they are not human shields.
A system in which, “when Palestinians die, their families have to prove they weren’t terrorists first.” Najar concludes: “When Palestinians are not seen as fully human, then their killers are not seen as fully responsible.”
Western media insistence on giving ample space to Israel’s patently absurd arguments naturally doesn’t help matters—as when the Associated Press (4/6/25) allows an anonymous Israeli military official to contend that there was “no mistreatment” in the killing of the 15 medics. How could there ever be “mistreatment” in a genocide?
In its dispatch on how Israel “walked back” its account of the killing, NBC (4/7/25) quoted the Israeli military as saying that soldiers weren’t trying to “hide anything” by burying the 15 corpses, which is kind of like allowing someone caught holding up a bank with an AK-47 the opportunity to state that they weren’t trying to “steal anything.” From a journalistic standpoint, it makes no sense to grant credibility to a clearly disingenuous narrative. From a propaganda perspective, unfortunately, it does.
‘Good reason to be anxious’
In the end, the slaughter of these 15 men should come as no surprise; as of January, Israel had already killed more than 1,000 health workers in Gaza in a little over a year, while engaging in repeated attacks on hospitals and an obscene decimation of medical infrastructure. On April 1, the UN reported that 408 aid workers had also been killed since October 2023, including 280 UN staff.
Killing medical personnel and emergency responders has long been Israel’s modus operandi. Recall Razan al-Najjar, the 21-year-old Palestinian nurse fatally shot by an Israeli sniper in Gaza in 2018, when Israel claimed that unarmed Palestinian protesters were conducting “kite and balloon terrorism.”
Or recall Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which kicked off in Gaza in December 2008 and killed 1,400 Palestinians over a span of 22 days, among them 300 children. The brief assault left 16 medics dead and damaged more than half of Gaza’s hospitals. The Guardian (3/24/09) quoted the Israeli army as reasoning that “medics who operate in the area take the risk upon themselves”—to hell with the Geneva Conventions.
To be sure, war crimes are all in a day’s work for Israel—and covering them up is, it seems, all in a day’s work for the corporate media. In a dispatch about how Israel “acknowledged flaws” in its “mistaken” account of its killing of the rescue workers, the New York Times‘ Isabel Kershner (4/6/25) cited Israeli military affairs analyst Amos Harel on how the Israeli soldiers who did the killing “had ‘good reason to be anxious,’ and that it would be wrong to assume immediately that the case was one of ‘murder in cold blood.’”
Naturally, it would be inhumane to assume that any aspect of genocide might transpire in cold blood. And as Israel continues its quest to normalize total depravity, Western journalism is becoming ever more cold-blooded, too.
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Original article by Belén Fernández republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Trump at CPAC 2025: Attack Climate Policy and Double Down on Denial
Original article by Zach D. Roberts republished from DeSmog.
Conservative conference featured global right-wing speakers from Liz Truss to JD Vance calling for an end to climate protections.
Just a month into President Donald Trump’s chaotic administration, American and international conservatives swooped into the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., in mid-February, and took a knee to the president, non-elected billionaire Elon Musk, and their fossil fuel deregulation agenda.
After numerous speeches heralding the MAGA movement by major figures on the right, including Vice President JD Vance, DOGE chief Elon Musk, ex-Trump aide Steve Bannon, and Speaker of the House Republican Mike Johnson, on the last day of the four-day event, Trump himself spoke to the faithful. Basking in chants of “USA, USA,” Trump boasted about withdrawing from the “one-sided” Paris Agreement, saying, “It was a disaster, it was a disaster.”
“I terminated the Green New Scam,” he went on, referring to the Green New Deal, which was never enacted or proposed as an actual bill. “One of the greatest hoaxes ever played on this country is the Green New Scam. We spent trillions of dollars on this nonsense … It really set back our country.”
In a rambling speech bereft of solid policy or facts, Trump also said he “canceled Joe Biden’s insane electric vehicle mandate, where everybody has to have an electric,” again referring to non-existent legislation. Biden did not mandate people to switch to electric cars; he had progressively stricter pollution standards.
Trump’s final reference to the environment in his speech was that “people can buy any type of car they want, except for hydrogen. The only thing you can’t do is buy a hydrogen-powered car. You know why? They said it really works great, but when it doesn’t work, you never find a body. It’s a bet that’s a bad sign.” As of this publication date, no one has been disintegrated by a hydrogen car explosion. He then ended with his signature dance as the Village People’s “YMCA” blared over the loudspeakers.
Trump’s references to fake climate policy was emblematic of this year’s CPAC discussions on the environment. In past years, the conference’s environmental speakers were more “scientific,” with conservative climate denialists showing graphs and data to prove their theories that climate change seemingly does not exist. But with no breakout sessions this year, the gathering was all anti-climate talk and pro-MAGA with zero attempts at science.
Take former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s talk on Thursday, Feb. 20, the second day of CPAC. Truss, who had previously served as the UK’s environment secretary, expressed her anger that her move to end the ban on fracking in Great Britain was brought back in 2022 by her predecessor, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Truss was famously only in office for 45 days. “Sadly, I wasn’t in office long enough to actually make [the fracking ban] happen,” she told the conference crowd.
“We have net-zero policies that have decimated our oil and gas industry,” she said. “The net result is we have the highest energy prices in the developed world. And in Britain, we’ve just seen the last steel plant close down last year. We cannot produce our own steel anymore.”
The former Prime Minister, who spent much of her adult life in government, then repeated Trump’s disdain for the “deep state,” saying, “We want to dismantle the British deep state, which is older and more entrenched than the American one.”
“We need a great restoration bill to repeal all of the terrible laws, from the Equality Act to the Climate Change Act, the Human Rights Act to the Constitutional Reform Act,” she said. “We need to eradicate judicial activism in Britain and restore parliamentary sovereignty.”
CPAC has expanded its international influence and speakers over the last few years with annual South Korea and Hungary meetings. Leader of the Reform UK party Nigel Farage, who also attended, has spoken at the conference for many years, and is considered a bit of a celebrity here.
Wright Vows to Axe Regulations
On the first day of the conference, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s speech pushed Trump’s “drill baby drill and build baby build” philosophy. The former fracking CEO of Liberty Energy promised that his and Trump’s other cabinet departments would be “working feverishly” to remove regulations to pave the way for higher energy production. He also emphasized removing restrictions the Biden Administration put on fossil fuel appliances like gas stoves.
Last year, gas stoves were the new “plastic straws” in the world of right-wing media as conservative news outlets claimed the Democratic administration was looking to ban them fully, which it was not.
Economic competition with China has been a running theme through many of the speeches at CPAC for years. But now, with the massively successful launch of DeepSeek, finding energy for artificial intelligence operations is a priority. Wright’s speech emphasized the energy use that AI technology will demand and claimed that it will lead to “enormous benefits” in drug discovery and national security. “We want China to lead the way in AI? I would feel naked if their AI was better than ours,” he said.
AI and tech companies donated huge amounts to the Trump campaign, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. That investment has paid off as the closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Trump’s changes at the FTC and FCC to reign in their powers will benefit the tech world immensely. Trump has even rescinded Biden’s executive order warning people about AI.
Dunleavy’s Political Ambitions
One of Trump’s first executive orders demanded the nation “unleash Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential.” Environmental rights organization, EarthJustice replied, “While the Trump administration’s plans were made clear in the orders, it’s important to note that the vast bulk of the actions cannot be made unilaterally by the President without cooperation from government agencies, Congress, or other authorities.”
Running throughout CPAC on the big screens in the main ballroom amounted to campaign ads for Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who wants to leave his job in the 49th state. Called the “worst-kept-secret,” Dunleavy had been auditioning for a gig in the Trump administration, but now that that doesn’t seem to be happening, he’s likely looking at running for Senator against one of his fellow Republicans, Dan Sullivan, who is up for reelection in 2026, or Lisa Murkowski, who is up in 2028. The ad, which features Trump prominently, has the President speaking about how he will work with Dunleavy to provide “energy to Alaska and allies around the world.”
From the CPAC stage, Gov. Dunleavy told the audience that Trump “sees us [Alaska] as a solution to many of America’s problems.” A $44 billion liquified natural gas pipeline project that both Trump and Dunleavy are pushing is oddly not planned to send energy to the lower 48, but to Asian customers. Japan has been trying to curry favor with Trump for access since that could help the nation diversify supplies away from riskier sources like Russia.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum
President Trump has commanded the new Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, to find new ways to exploit public lands. The goal, Burgum explained in his CPAC speech, is to “sell to our friends and allies.” He claims that doing so will “end our trade deficits” and “the wars abroad.” Ultimately, Burgum claims this work will set up President Trump to “win the Nobel Prize.”
Burgam, a billionaire former two-term governor of North Dakota and a software developer, has extensive ties to the oil and gas industry, including hundreds of thousands in investments. After a brief run for President in 2024, Burgam endorsed Trump.
Burgam will also chair the newly founded National Energy Dominance Council with Energy Secretary Chris Wright as vice chair. The council “will advise President Trump on strategies to achieve energy dominance by improving the processes for permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation across all forms of American energy.” It will also cut “red tape” through axing regulations.
CFACT Was the Lone Climate Group in Hall
Down in the exhibit hall, the tables that many years ago mainly saw small government groups were filled with culture warriors – groups opposed to abortion, trans rights, and other historically underrepresented communities. This year, the lone group in the hall focusing on climate was CFACT, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a “conservative libertarian think tank.”
Nate Meyers, CFACT’s national field coordinator was clear on the group’s approach to the “science” of climate change –“It’s not settled at all,” he said. Meyers verbally added, “™”[trade mark]] as he said the words “climate change” when speaking to DeSmog.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/QKjLqdrm3N0?feature=oembedCFACT’s Nate Myers speaks with DeSmog. Credit: Zach D. Roberts
Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow is CFACT’s college campus organization, which, according to Myers, has 32 campus groups. Like Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, CFACT aims to capture the minds of young people, according to Myers., “College campuses are so totally captured by the left. Statistically, you’re more likely to be instructed by a Marxist than you are a Republican,” he said.
“That demonstrates a huge need for alternative viewpoints on college campuses,” he added. “And it’s kind of a cliche thing to say, but the children and young people are our future.”
When asked who funds CFACT, Myers mentioned small donations and occasional larger direct donations, emphasizing the grassroots nature of the organization. When DeSmogasked if they received backing from Koch Inc., like many similar climate-denying groups, Myers demurred, saying he wasn’t a fan of Koch.) In the past, CFACT has received large sums from Koch’s Donors Trust, along with all the other usual suspects of right-wing climate denying donors.
Original article by Zach D. Roberts republished from DeSmog.
DONALD TRUMP breaks into YMCA DANCE at CPAC
