by Shabana Syed
Once again the media in London have exposed its racism and bias, continuing the same narrative and commentary over picture after picture, footage after footage of defenseless bullet-ridden Palestinians massacred as Israel continued its onslaught claiming its right to defend itself.
As Israel's attack began on Gaza, headline after headline in London's newspapers and on the BBC news stations started the narrative with Israel in every opening statement: "Israel rejects cease-fire...", "Israel mulls temporary halt to Gaza bombing campaign", "Israel sends in reserves" making it clear that it is Israel that has attacked Gaza and it is Israel that is conducting the war.
The fact that these headlines indicated Israel as the aggressor and the fact that these headlines did not offend many in the West was a result of the 8-month media campaign Israel had instigated to manipulate world opinion.
The ground had already been laid and the seeds of why the conflict began had already been sown through Israel's PR strategy. The National Information Directorate was set up eight months ago following recommendations from an Israeli inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon war. Its role is to give out information based on spin and propaganda.
One of the main problems of Israel's media offensive has been to counter the disturbing images of the disproportionate force it was going to use in Gaza. According to Aviv Shir-On, deputy director-general for public affairs in the Foreign Ministry, "In the war of the pictures we lose, so you need to correct, explain or balance it in other ways." Support doesn't mean, he said, the world is standing behind us, but it does mean people understand what we are doing and why.
Israeli officials turned up in every discussion paraphrasing the same message: That Israel is the victim, hitting out in self-defense, protecting its southern citizens who have sat terrorized in bomb shelters, fearing the random rockets of Hamas since 2005; that Hamas broke the cease-fire agreements; that Israel's objective is the defense of its population; and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians.
In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. The fact that the figures speak out for themselves was not an issue highlighted by the TV channels though there was some discussion in the broadsheets.
Even Al Jazeera English which had a good coverage of the conflict had one theme running through, which most of the BBC trained presenters continued to use: "Israel had no choice but go into Gaza and stop Hamas' rockets".
It was mainly the Middle East experts brought alongside Israeli officials on Al Jazeera who pointed out the food and medicine blockade carried out by Israel against the people of Gaza and the continual attacks and kidnappings Israel carried out during the
So-called truce that led to Hamas sending rockets into southern Israel.
These facts were rarely brought out in the daily news reports on the BBC that always had Israeli officials continually repeating the same mantra against Hamas being a terrorist organization that broke the cease-fire and was continuing rocket attacks against Israel with weapons smuggled through the tunnels.
Next we had the tunnel issue, which was then highlighted as the real cause of why "Israel had to bomb Gaza so it could stop Hamas smuggling arms through the tunnels". As BBC presenters questioned Israeli officials about the problems caused by the tunnels, very few highlighted the fact that the tunnels came about after Israel imposed a food and medicine blockade and its refusal to allow aid trucks into Gaza which led the Gazans to dig up tunnels, so food could be smuggled in.
As the conflict continued, the Israeli Foreign Ministry believed their campaign had been successful. At one point they attributed their success to the fact that Israeli representatives had got 58 minutes of airtime while the Palestinians got only 19 minutes.
The following incident explains clearly, yet not so clearly, the Western media's bias in favor of Israel.
More than 40 Palestinians, mainly women and children were killed by Israeli shelling as they took refugee in a U.N. school in Jabaliya on Jan. 6. The next day the Israeli military had privately admitted that the shelling of the UN school which killed defenseless women and children was in response to militant fire from outside, not inside, the UN compound. The official lie cited everywhere was that mortar shells were fired at IDF forces from within the Jabaliya School. The fact that the BBC and the other TV channels or any of the newspapers did not report the lie that the IDF had admitted to is baffling if not confusing.
By not challenging the Israeli narrative in any meaningful way, the uncritical media have become a tool in the hands of Israel's war strategists and increasingly seen as biased and complicit in the propaganda.
As Muhammad Idrees, a member of spinwatch.org points out: "It is through these subtle - and not so subtle - manipulations of language that the BBC has shielded its audience from the ugly realities of occupied Palestine. In the BBC's reportage Palestinians "die", Israelis are "killed" Palestinians
"provoke", Israelis "retaliate" Palestinians make "claims", Israelis declare.
Schools, mosques, universities and police stations become "Hamas infrastructure" militants "clash" with F-16s and Apaches. "Terrorism" is something Palestinians do; Israelis merely "defend" themselves. All debates, irrespective of fact or circumstance, are framed around Israel's "security".
Even the London protests against Israeli actions in Gaza on Jan. 10 were misrepresented. Coverage was limited to how heavily policed the event had been and there was no accurate figures on the numbers attended. The main news channels reported the police estimates between 15,000 and 20,000 and some just claimed there were tens of thousands, with violence being caused by a small minority. Stop the War estimated there had been 100,000 people present from all backgrounds and nationalities shouting.
However the newspapers were quite clear about the "thousands who attended the pro-Israeli demonstrations, but as one observer watching a pro- Israel protest in Dublin wrote: "About 50-70 people attended the pro-Israel protest in Dublin today. It was hard to see exactly how many were there because so many media people went over to interview them. Someone said they counted twenty different journalists at one stage."
The broadsheets like The Guardian and The Independent continued to carry Israel's narratives, especially in the editorials. For example The Independent said in an editorial headed "Gaza will not find peace until Hamas ceases to be a threat" stressed that "there is no reason at this stage to doubt Israel's ground assault as defensive" and that is the explanation that has been running throughout most of the broadsheets.
However there were refreshing breaks, when respected journalists like Robert Fisk, known for his objective and investigative work, wrote some interesting pieces in "The Independent'. In one of his articles he pointed out the lies that Israel has been feeding the media and the atrocities committed by Israel in the past like the Qana massacre in 1996 and again in 2006 when more than 1000 died; he basically argues that if the West's support of Israel actions continues, and the resentment in the Middle East grows further, then once again the same old question will be asked "why do they hate the West so much."
At present the discussions are focusing on the humanitarian disaster, and a lot of airtime is being given to that, as it is a safe subject, away from sensitive issues like "should Israel be charged with war crimes". However one can rest assure that no one will be pointing fingers as to who caused this humanitarian disaster - and if the discussions go as far as to why - we will all be given the same answer: Israel's security.
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