SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: This isn't journalism. It's deceit, a drip-drip of propaganda to erode our critical faculties and normalise genocide

https://x.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/status/1912884539174629454

Jonathan Cook

One simply can't make sense of media coverage of Gaza using traditional journalistic standards. The abuse of journalistic rules by every western media outlet is off the charts. The Guardian is still equivocating over whether a clear massacre by Israel of 15 Palestinian paramedics – caught on video – should be counted as a war crime. It thinks that the "subsequent events that led to the bodies of 15 workers being buried in a mass grave are still unclear". The precise details of the war crime may be, but the war crime itself is not. Israel knowingly murdered paramedics on a rescue mission and then buried them in a mass grave. Nothing "unclear" about that. Lower in the story, the Guardian reports genocidal comments by defence Israel Katz admitting that Israel is using starvation as collective punishment – an undoubted crime against humanity, for which the International Criminal Court is already seeking Benjamin Netanyahu's arrest. Amnesty International states the obvious: that Israel's starvation policy is a crime against humanity. But the Guardian throws mud in our eyes by uncritically reporting Israel's denial that it is violating international law in starving the people of Gaza. If only there were a way to arbitrate between claim and counter-claim. Except, of course, there is. We can look at what international law actually says. And we find there is no dispute that Israel's starvation of Gaza's civilian population – as conceded by every Israeli major government minister, including Katz – is a crime against humanity, whatever the stated purpose. There is no get-out clause for Israel. So why does every western media organisation pretend that there is some kind of debate to be had? If Russia admitted starving the Ukrainian population to get Zelenskiy removed, no media organisation would dare include a Russian denial, as if the illegality of its starvation policies still needed to be determined. This isn't journalism. It's deceit, a drip-drip of propaganda to erode our critical faculties and normalise genocide. All these media outlets are complicit – as are the journalists who continue to work for them and breathe credibility into their work.