26-11-2023, 03:25 PM
Rami G Khouri
Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East
22 Nov 2023
On November 8, the Israeli media monitoring group “Honest Reporting” published a report suggesting six Gaza-based freelance photographers who have been covering Israel’s war on Gaza for four leading international media organisations may have had advance notice of Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israel’s reaction to the suggestion was swift and brutal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused the journalists named in the report of being “accomplices in crimes against humanity”. Danny Danon, a senior member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, wrote on X that the photojournalists should be “eliminated”. “We will hunt them down together with the terrorists,” he wrote.
......
the controversy soon came to an abrupt end when all four media companies in question – CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press and The New York Times – firmly rejected insinuations that they or the photographers they work with had any advance knowledge of the attack. They called Honest Reporting’s story “irresponsible” and said, “It jeopardised the safety of all media working in Israel or the Palestinian territories.”
......
Why is this debacle worth remembering today? Because the incident had all the hallmarks of standard Israeli propaganda: using the real trauma and tragedy of a horrific attack to portray a conspiracy of collusion between Western media organisations and Israel’s enemies.
Propaganda campaigns or single salvos already dominate Palestinian-Israeli confrontations. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has developed effective propaganda and information manipulation techniques that give it an edge in getting the Western media to reflect its side of the story.
......
This tale about whether Gaza photojournalists had advance knowledge of Hamas’s attack was the latest addition to a rapidly expanding list of recent Israeli propaganda efforts that have failed – mainly because Palestinians, Arabs, and most international observers of the conflict and the region now routinely investigate any serious Israeli accusation, and often expose it as a lie.
Consequently, American media, including organisations that traditionally presented Israeli views and allegations as fact without due diligence, now assess Israel’s media statements and narratives more carefully, especially when they are about military actions that kill Palestinian civilians.
One national newspaper reporter privately told me that journalists in the United States are increasingly sceptical of narratives pushed by security forces whether in the US, Israel or any other country because of how the Black Lives Matter movement has raised awareness of social justice issues and exposed police hypocrisy and lies.
......
In recent years, there have been many occasions when Israel was caught bending the truth or outright lying to hide from the world its crimes against Palestinians and violations of international law.
After Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed during an Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in May 2022, for example, Israel claimed she was “hit by indiscriminate Palestinian gunfire” in an exchange of fire with Palestinian gunmen. Yet, in a matter of days, several independent investigations confirmed that she was killed in a targeted attack by an Israeli sniper.
......
Last week, the Israeli military released a video of a room in Gaza’s al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital that it claimed included a duty roster in Arabic of Hamas militants guarding Israeli captives there – which in fact was just a handwritten calendar with the days of the week.
......
These repeated and easily exposed lies have sharply raised American journalists’ scepticism of official Israeli statements. These days, even the most Israel-friendly media organisations are reluctant to publish Israeli claims as fact without seeing hard evidence.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/...nipulation
Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East
22 Nov 2023
On November 8, the Israeli media monitoring group “Honest Reporting” published a report suggesting six Gaza-based freelance photographers who have been covering Israel’s war on Gaza for four leading international media organisations may have had advance notice of Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israel’s reaction to the suggestion was swift and brutal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused the journalists named in the report of being “accomplices in crimes against humanity”. Danny Danon, a senior member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, wrote on X that the photojournalists should be “eliminated”. “We will hunt them down together with the terrorists,” he wrote.
......
the controversy soon came to an abrupt end when all four media companies in question – CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press and The New York Times – firmly rejected insinuations that they or the photographers they work with had any advance knowledge of the attack. They called Honest Reporting’s story “irresponsible” and said, “It jeopardised the safety of all media working in Israel or the Palestinian territories.”
......
Why is this debacle worth remembering today? Because the incident had all the hallmarks of standard Israeli propaganda: using the real trauma and tragedy of a horrific attack to portray a conspiracy of collusion between Western media organisations and Israel’s enemies.
Propaganda campaigns or single salvos already dominate Palestinian-Israeli confrontations. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has developed effective propaganda and information manipulation techniques that give it an edge in getting the Western media to reflect its side of the story.
......
This tale about whether Gaza photojournalists had advance knowledge of Hamas’s attack was the latest addition to a rapidly expanding list of recent Israeli propaganda efforts that have failed – mainly because Palestinians, Arabs, and most international observers of the conflict and the region now routinely investigate any serious Israeli accusation, and often expose it as a lie.
Consequently, American media, including organisations that traditionally presented Israeli views and allegations as fact without due diligence, now assess Israel’s media statements and narratives more carefully, especially when they are about military actions that kill Palestinian civilians.
One national newspaper reporter privately told me that journalists in the United States are increasingly sceptical of narratives pushed by security forces whether in the US, Israel or any other country because of how the Black Lives Matter movement has raised awareness of social justice issues and exposed police hypocrisy and lies.
......
In recent years, there have been many occasions when Israel was caught bending the truth or outright lying to hide from the world its crimes against Palestinians and violations of international law.
After Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed during an Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in May 2022, for example, Israel claimed she was “hit by indiscriminate Palestinian gunfire” in an exchange of fire with Palestinian gunmen. Yet, in a matter of days, several independent investigations confirmed that she was killed in a targeted attack by an Israeli sniper.
......
Last week, the Israeli military released a video of a room in Gaza’s al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital that it claimed included a duty roster in Arabic of Hamas militants guarding Israeli captives there – which in fact was just a handwritten calendar with the days of the week.
......
These repeated and easily exposed lies have sharply raised American journalists’ scepticism of official Israeli statements. These days, even the most Israel-friendly media organisations are reluctant to publish Israeli claims as fact without seeing hard evidence.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/...nipulation