The Western media’s deafening silence and refusal to acknowledge Israel’s brutal aggression against the Palestinians is a living example of hypocrisy, writes Muslim activist Amar Alam.
On the 12th June, three Israeli teenagers were abducted and found murdered in the West Bank. The Western media including the BBC, FOX, Sky News and CNN gave this news story unprecedented coverage and described the victims and the nature of their deaths in meticulous detail.
While the world went into mourning, world leaders sent their condolences to Israel and declared that the Israeli people had their full support. Every news outlet in the Western world condemned the attack and many went so far as to blame their deaths on the innocent people of Palestine.
Disproportionate media coverage
A revenge attack by the Israeli people followed a few days later. Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, an innocent Palestinian school kid living in the West Bank was abducted, taken to a forest, forced to drink gasoline and then burnt alive. Unsurprisingly, the news of this brutal murder received minimal coverage in the Western media and was only highlighted after well-known political activists and Muslim figures spoke out against his death on social media.
The question many are asking is why has the Western media shown such double standards in their portrayal of the conflict between Israel and Palestine? Why do they continue to report biased stories in favour of Israel? This level of hypocrisy from the Western media is nothing new and has existed for decades. Despite Israel’s clear acts of aggression and terror towards the innocent people of Palestine, the Western media has made a habit of portraying Israelis as “victims”.
Whenever Israel commits atrocities against the people of Palestine, the news is either downplayed or conveniently unreported in the Western world. Compare this with the reporting of an under resourced Palestinian resistance who have lived under decades of systematic persecution, oppression and murder by the Israeli forces. Their crimes are magnified thousand fold and are perpetually made out to be the aggressors.
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Social media war and media silence
While the world’s media remains silent towards the terrorist attacks that Israel commits daily against the people of Palestine, it is imperative that these crimes are exposed to the unassuming people living in the West. It is also crucial the world understands that the Israeli people not only support acts of aggression on innocent women and children, but they also encourage their leaders to inflict as much damage upon them as possible.
Shortly after Mohammed Abu Khdeir’s charred remains were found, Israeli citizens were quick to express their opinions about what happened on Facebook. While the world was condemning the despicable crime committed against Mohammed, the people of Israel were not as sympathetic and hoped all Palestinians suffered the same fate.
A cursory look at the official twitter timeline of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows the unapologetic line Israel takes against the Palestinian people. Since 2000, Israel has killed a Palestinian child every three days, which is shocking, but unsurprising for a state that the journalist Gideon Levy describes as being responsible for breeding a culture that allows racist attacks by Jewish youth against Palestinians in the streets of Jerusalem. He goes further to blame Israel for nurturing a legal and political culture that privileges Israeli Jews over other races and religions living in or around Israel and Palestine.
In light of this information, the question we would all like to ask is why has the Western media ignored these facts and continued to portray Israel in an extremely positive light? If a Muslim in Britain had wrongly expressed those views towards Jews, it would have made headline news. They would have been ostracised and even imprisoned for expressing anti-Semitic rhetoric. While the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Mirror, and The Independent, are quick to highlight stories of children attacking Israeli soldiers with rocks, why have they remained silent about the despicable views of the Israeli people, which clearly incite hatred and acts of terror against innocent women and children?
To further highlight the hypocrisy of the Western media, they have also remained silent while Israel once again flexes its military prowess by laying siege on the innocent people of Gaza. Last night Israel dropped 300 tons of bombs on Gaza and so far hundreds of innocent children and women have been murdered, while countless thousands have lost many of their limbs in these inhumane attacks.
Such indiscriminate killing of innocent women and children would have left even the most hardhearted individual feeling sympathy and remorse towards the victims. However, the Israeli people have failed to show those sentiments and instead are joyous at the death and destruction their leaders inflict on the innocent Palestinian population. As the picture in this article quite clearly shows, far from being horrified at their countries attack on innocent civilians, they are shown enjoying the “cinematic” flashing lights that are produced every time Israel’s Defense Force shells a new target in the Gaza strip.
So the question remains, will the Western media end their act of cowardice and expose the Israeli people for who they are, by publishing these images for the world to see? We can pray, but I won’t hold my breath.
You can follow Amar on Twitter @amar_alam
