The appeal to boycott the April 27 event says the White House’s support for Israel’s genocidal policies implicates it directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza.
The White House, Washington, D.C., on Nov. 4, 2023. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams
Palestinian journalists are urging their U.S. counterparts to boycott the April 27 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner over the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“In the past six months alone, the Israeli military has executed over 125 Palestinian journalists in Gaza — 10 percent of Gaza’s community of journalists,” notes the appeal, which is being organized with the help of Adalah Justice Project and the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
“The year 2023 marked the bloodiest year for journalists worldwide in over a decade, with over 75% of killed journalists targeted by Israel’s attacks on Gaza.”
“As Palestinian journalists, we urgently appeal to you, our colleagues globally, with a demand for immediate and unwavering action against the Biden administration’s ongoing complicity in the systematic slaughter and persecution of journalists in Gaza,” the authors wrote in the appeal issued .
“We bear the enormous burden of exposing the realities of Israel’s genocidal campaign to the world while living through it in real-time. Israel has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians as we watch on,” the journalists said.
The death toll in Gaza now exceeds 33,000 — mostly women and children — with at least 75,550 other Palestinians wounded since Oct. 7.
Palestinian journalists in Gaza are urging journos in the U.S. to boycott the White House correspondents dinner this month. petition says Biden support of Israel implicates him “directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza” https://t.co/SNgJEd8hrB
— suhauna hussain (@suhaunah) April 4, 2024
The appeal continues:
“In Gaza, journalism is synonymous with putting our lives on the line as Israel methodically targets us in its desperate bid to silence our voices and obscure the grim reality of its genocidal actions and its project of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. For Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the blue press vest does not offer us protection, but rather functions as a red target.
The Biden administration’s ongoing support for Israel’s genocidal policies implicates it directly in the relentless targeting and massacring of journalists in Gaza, including hundreds of our colleagues and their families.”
“Western media has played an integral role in manufacturing consent for Israel’s ongoing violence against the Palestinian people, while obfuscating U.S. complicity,” the journalists continued. “Over the past six months, the mainstream press has become the mouthpiece of the homicidal Israeli regime, promoting dehumanizing anti-Palestinian propaganda and platforming genocide apologists and perpetrators, while simultaneously ignoring, downplaying, and underreporting Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians.”
Journalists should boycott the White House Correspondents Dinner every year but especially this year. Especially if you are in a union. https://t.co/1Gp1xdoftv
— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) April 5, 2024
“The White House Correspondents’ dinner is an embodiment of media manipulation, trading journalistic ethics for access,” the appeal argues.
“For journalists to fraternize at an event with President [Joe] Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris would be to normalize, sanitize, and whitewash the administration’s role in genocide.”
“As journalists reporting from the belly of the beast, you have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and uphold journalistic integrity,” the Palestinians implored U.S. journalists. “It is unacceptable to stay silent out of fear or professional concern while journalists in Gaza continue to be detained, tortured, and killed for doing our jobs.”
The appeal’s authors noted that American media professionals have demanded justice for journalists like Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh — who numerous probes found was intentionally killed by Israeli forces in 2022 — and Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Washington Post columnist gruesomely murdered in 2018 by Saudi Arabian operatives in Turkey.
“It is past time journalists take action for journalists in Gaza,” the Palestinians asserted. “We call on all journalists of conscience to stand with us and uplift our call to boycott the White House Correspondents’ dinner.”
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Has no one in America been paying attention? I mean, there was the George Bush the 2nd and his 8 year debacle. And how many have died, and for no purpose since then either. While tragically many of the elected ones commit to posturing and pretending to stand for “We the People…” But you seem, government, to be standing for, ” them the Israelis ,” above the people of your own nation. This cannot go on—-or the America we thought we had will soon be gone!
At the ripe old age of 75 I have been paying attention since I received my “Your friends and neighbors have selected you . . . !” Draft notice letter.
I really hate to break the news to you CaseyG.
For all legitimate intents and purposes this country, as I knew it, is gone.
The first step the hijacking of CIA by the notorious Dulles Brothers, the second was JJ Angleton heading up the Israel desk at CIA and the third was the murder of JFK.
Once JFK had been terminated the Military Industrial Complex had a green light to finish buying up congress and setting the agenda for endless wars.
George H. W. Bush set the table for the “Village Idiot from Crawford Texas, Shrub, who jerked the table cloth from under the place sittings and abruptly “cleaned the table”!
Question: How many fighter pilots does it take to ruin a country such as the U.S. of A.?
Answer: Apparently only two, 41 & 43.
I suggest everyone find and watch a video of the late Don Imus at Bill Clinton 1996 Correspondents. For those of you too young to remember it. The late Mr. Imus, whose character was, in my opinion, somewhat suspect unleashed a spectacular performance alluding Slick Willy’s cavorting with a blue dress clad intern in the Oval office in no uncertain terms.
20 years later Trump shows up but doesn’t show up Slick Willy, however does manage, IMHO, to drive a few nails into the counties coffin.
Thanks for the memories CN
Absolutely. Should not be attending in support of Julian Assange for years now.
At least for those with character and guts.
“Detained, tortured and killed for doing our jobs.”
And not to forget that Julian Assange is the symbol
and reality for this destruction of authentic journalism.
Truth being told is that terrorism resides primarily
in American/Israeli/West hegemonic power, whatever
the costs to humanity.
Perhaps Bush 43 will be invited back to look for Hamas under the furniture.
Those who attend such gatherings are imperial.propagandists. if they werent they have used them to get Assange freed. They wont give a damn about Palestine.
The WH Correspondents’ dinner should always be boycotted to highlight the persecution of Julian Assange, and the threat to a free press that his case represents. The press is not supposed to be chummy with power brokers, any more than a watchdog is meant to cuddle up to intruders.