The pro-Israel bias in Western reporting makes the media utterly complicit in Israel’s war crimes, writes Jonathan Cook, including when Israeli soldiers throw Palestinians off a roof.
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
The coverage of Israeli soldiers pushing three Palestinians off a roof in the West Bank town of Qabatiya — it’s unclear whether the men are dead or near-dead — is being barely reported by the Western media, even though it was videoed from at least three different angles and a reporter from the main U.S. news agency Associated Press witnessed it.
AP’s news feed is accessed by all Western establishment media, so they all know.
The Israeli soldiers killed, mutilated and humiliated the bodies of three Palestinians in Qabatia ( Jenin area) today and threw their bodies from a high building to the ground in a savage and inhuman manner. pic.twitter.com/0umG45ZhPH
— Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti (@MustafaBarghou1) September 19, 2024
[AP’s report includes a video of a fourth body thrown by three Israeli soldiers from an adjacent rooftop.]
Yet again, the media has chosen to ignore Israeli war crimes, [or refrain from describing them as “war crimes” even when there is definitive proof that they occurred. (Or perhaps more accurately — even more so when there is definitive proof they occurred.)
Remember, that same media never fails to highlight — or simply makes up — any crime Palestinians are accused of, such as those non-existent “beheaded babies.”
AP itself treats this latest atrocity in the West Bank as no big deal. It reports simply that it may be part of a “pattern of excessive force” by Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians.
That comment, without quote marks and ascribed to a human rights group, is almost certainly AP’s preferred characterisation of the group’s reference to a pattern not of “excessive force” but of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
AP makes sure to give Israel’s pretext for why it is committing war crimes: “Israel says the raids are necessary to stamp out militancy.”
But it forgets yet again to mention why that “militancy” exists: because Israel has been violently enforcing an illegal military occupation of the Palestinian territories for many decades, in which it — once again illegally — has drafted in an army of settler militias to drive out the native Palestinian population.
AP also forgets to mention that, under international law, the Palestinians have every right to resist Israel’s occupying soldiers, including “militantly.”
Western governments might characterise Palestinians shooting at Israeli soldiers as “terrorism,” but that’s not how it is seen in the international law codes that Western states drafted decades ago and that they claim to uphold.
It’s also worth noting that the local Palestinian reporter who witnessed this crime had his report rewritten by “Julia Frankel, an Associated Press reporter in Jerusalem.”
As is true with many other Western outlets, AP copy is editorially overseen from Jerusalem, where its office is staffed mostly with Israeli Jews.
AP headquarters in One World Financial Center in lower Manhattan. (Ken Lund, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 )
With little doubt, Western news outlets privately rationalise this to themselves as a wise precaution, making sure copy is “sensitive” to Israel’s perspective and less likely to incur the wrath of the Israeli government and Israel lobby.
Which is precisely the problem. The bias in Western reporting is baked in. It is designed not to upset Israel — in the midst of a “plausible genocide,” according to the World Court — which means it’s entirely skewed and completely untrustworthy.
It makes our media utterly complicit in Israel’s war crimes, including when Israeli soldiers throw Palestinians off a roof.
UPDATE:
Very belatedly, the BBC has reported this on one of its news channels. Note, it adds an entirely unnecessary disclaimer that the footage hasn’t been “independently verified” – whatever that means.
There are now at least three separate videos, all taken from different angles, showing the same war crime. Even the Israeli military has confirmed the incident happened.
The BBC runs a report on Israeli soldiers pushing Palestinian bodies off the roof of a building & the presenter then remarks that the footage is an example of the many fronts Israel is fighting on
No, its an example of the IDF committing war crimes. pic.twitter.com/9GHtbNNXXh
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) September 20, 2024
The BBC also assumes the three Palestinians are dead. There is absolutely no reason to make that assumption: it violates the most basic rules of reporting.
And the anchor, clearly nervous about how she should refer to the men being pushed off a roof, ends by observing that the footage is “another example of the tensions and the many fronts on which we see Israel fighting.”
No, it’s another example of Israeli soldiers committing war crimes, and the media trying to deflect attention from that fact.
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned to the U.K. in 2021.He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). If you appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial support.
This article is from the author’s blog, Jonathan Cook.net.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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BBC Addendum today, strictly for informational purposes; to add fuel to the fires of its selective double standards, in its reporting of facts, when it has to do with Palestine.
“Cameroonian separatist leader arrested in Norway
The 52-year-old is said to be playing a key role in Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis, where over 6000 people have been killed.”
Here’s the punch(in the gut)line of the joke that is the Wests mainstream media, in general.
Lets see what occurs, not if, but when Netanyahu sets foot on U.S. soil?
Thank You Jonathan
Since the media are in the hands of the perpetrators, no surprise.
To be clear, all MSM are in the hands of pro-zionist Jews, so no suprise about the misinformation, the lies and the zionist propaganda.
And since congress and the current admin. and the last and next one are also zionist and aipac controlled or bankrolled, I don’t see any other solution than boycotting the MSM.
Kudos to Johnathan Cook for calling out the sycophants of the corporate media, which have become nothing more than enablers of government sponsored crime and malfeasance.
As Usual,
EA
And yet, the U.S. Government is sending troops in the most recent flareup in Lebanon. The US promised the Israelis that if they went into Lebanon it would not support it. So, what are the troops for?
Horatio…
What is your interpretation of the word “troops”; as used in whatever sources you’re relying on herein?
It seems like a rather vague if not hyperbolic reference to increasing ‘troops on the ground’, or some other mindless sloganerring.
As Usual,
EA
IIRC, there was at least one member of the German media in the dock at Nuremberg.
So WHO??? are the animals, Mr. Netanyahu? Mal rayo parta a todos ustedes!!!
It’s the same playbook as has been used in Ukraine. Same lies, same coverup and same demonization of the other, in that case, the “Russian hordes,” in order to promote and protect the West’s hegemonic agenda. The current mainstream media fulfills all of Orwell’s warnings. It has truly become a demonic force in its own right.
Who would of thought a few months ago that genocide could be normalized. Bloody hell! It makes you realize that anything can be spun. Fortunately, it currently does not extend to the rest of the world. It’s the Western publics though who are the main losers. They are being taken to the cleaners on a daily basis and they ain’t getting clean, just the opposite.
It’s been normalized on this continent since the first Europeans arrived on Turtle Island’s shores. Europeans seem to think genocide is normal and carry it in their toolbox wherever they go.
‘The bodies of three men appeared to be thrown from a rooftop amidst Israel’s ongoing war efforts.’ Yes, the passive language always favours Israel. Western media’s dutiful PR function for empire is more glaringly obvious than even during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This explains authoritarian censorship measures in the U.K. and United States to herd people back into the unctuous embrace of corporate propaganda outlets. But it’s too late. Anyone who has seen the gristly reality of what their taxes support can’t regress to obliviousness. Israel is a near failed state, and were it not for American life support it would be. This is the only reason for a sliver of hope. The IDF is depleted, exhausted, and demoralized. The Pentagon has conveyed the message to Israel that the U.S. military will not fight a war in Lebanon or Iran for it; if the Zionist state is the clear instigator. Which it always is. U.S. troop deployments and air carriers in the region are one thing. But, as Scott Ritter has observed, the U.S. military is not what it once was and lacks personnel to even fully man it’s carriers. Israel, as a Zionist ethno-state, is most likely doomed. For the more this murderous abomination flails in a blood storm of it’s making, the more desperate Netanyahu’s ploy for staying out of jail, the deeper it digs it’s own grave.
More than complicit!
And the anchor, clearly nervous about how she should refer to the men being pushed off a roof, ends by observing that the footage is “another example of the tensions and the many fronts on which we see Israel fighting.”
That may be the stupidest euphemism for continuous war crimes committed by Israel (or anyone else) that I’ve ever heard. Do we really have any need for the BBC, or any other news organization that serves the powers committing these crimes? What would be lost if they suddenly went silent for the sake of speaking the truth instead of spreading lies? The destruction of Gaza is a template for us all. Democracy will soon be reduced to the slim hope of not being caught by those same forces now seeking to destroy it.
Imagine – the BBC want us to pay them, the “impartial” British Broadcasting Corporation, for good old British bollocks. Though far fewer choose to pay these days.
Well, what does anyone expect when they listen to Bill Gates Media?